Eyes of the Wolf

18
My dad, naturally, was quite concerned about the number of cuts and scabs that suddenly littered my face and hands, especially those that covered my palms and fingers. As the gold wolf had instructed, I told him the next morning that I had fallen down a hill and thrown my hands out in front of me to save myself. The cuts on my face were from tiny twigs. He didn’t know about the injury in my mouth, where I had, in all honesty, bitten a chunk out of my right cheek.

I could tell he wasn’t entirely convinced, and I couldn’t blame him. The only reason, I think, that he let it go was because he was determined to keep trusting me, even though the likelihood of removing all capability of leaving a fingerprint with just one fall was admittedly small.

Chris called Sunday morning, and was intent to know every detail of the date. It took a bit of effort to actually remember that Niko had, in fact, kissed me. My first kiss. I told her as much, and she squealed about it for a minute or so. It was depressing, really, that my best friend was more excited about my first kiss than I was. After she was done celebrating, she asked in a rush of run-together words whether or not he had called me yet that morning.

No. No he hadn’t.

Did I want him to?

I just laid around the house all afternoon, until my dad leaned in the door and reminded me that, day after date or not, I should study for my upcoming finals. For lack of anything better to do, I followed his advice for all of a half hour before, bored out of my mind, I got up and went to my birds in their cage outside the living room and stuck my finger in the door. My bright blue bird, Truth, stepped onto it and tried to savage my thumb, but only the scab broke. I took her to the chair in the living room with a blanket draped over the cushions and sat with her, moving her absently from finger to finger as Dare squalled and ruffled her scarlet feathers.

Did I want to talk to Niko? I really wasn’t sure. I mean, he had kissed me, and I liked him, so I should want to talk to him, right? But what about all the stuff that had happened afterward? We had been attacked by a wolf, he had told me to run, I got lost, and then, after being carried out of the forest by a big bronze wolf, a silver wolf shows up wearing his collar? What was I supposed to think about that? People didn’t turn into wolves. They just didn’t.

Maybe it was his dog. And they…and they shared the same collar. Was that right? It was possible…But then, why would Niko wear a chain that was so obviously too big for his neck? Maybe it was because it was just easier to slip over his head. That sounded right. But then again, it kinda didn’t…

But if it was Niko, the silver wolf, why would I have been so afraid? He—the wolf—had approached me, and I had been petrified, too scared to move, for a long time until I had gotten enough brains together to not approach, but flee. If it was Niko, why should I be afraid of him?

Things just didn’t add up. Niko wouldn’t put me in danger. He liked me.

The phone rang.

It took about two rings for me to realize it was ringing, and then I got up and picked it up,
swearing inwardly as a streak of red appeared across the receiver.

“Hello?”

“Hey, Maya! This is Jazzy. How are you?”

“I’m doing good. You?”

“Good. Hey, can you do me a favor? I need to take pictures of the puppies, and it would be a lot easier with another pair of hands.”

“Uh…” I shouldered the phone and lifted Truth back into her cage. “Sure, no problem. Lemme ask my dad, and I’ll be right over.”

“Okay. ‘Bye.”

“’Bye.” I put the phone back on its hook, then grabbed a paper towel from the kitchen and wiped at the back of it. Both sides of the paper towel were turning red.

“Dad?” I called.

“Yeah?” His voice came from his room, as a croaked “Maya?” provided a dissonance. He was with Iago.

“I’m gonna head to Jazz’s place, okay? She needs help with the puppies.”

“Uh-huh.”

I went to my room and threw on some old clothes, dabbing my hands on my jeans and leaving red dots behind, yanked on my shoes, and went out the door.

As I ran, I watched the trees. I didn’t see any large canine forms, but I could almost swear I could see streaks of scarlet on some of the blades of grass. I didn’t stop to check.

:o3

Apparently, puppies are physically incapable of holding still. Jazzy was behind the camera now with tiny red lines all over her arms from puppy-squirming with claws attached, and her face was wet with the spit of affectionate red and black-and-tan babies. My turn to wrestle with knee-high creatures of mass destruction.

“Stay still,” I muttered to the red female that was trying to rear up instead of standing square like she was supposed to. She licked at my face and tried to climb up my arm and shoulder. “No…”

“Grab her around the middle and set her on the table, Maya,” Jazz instructed, in a calm tone that seemed at odds with my situation. Twisting my arms like a contortionist, I managed to get my hands around her waist and set her on the table with a groan. She was heavy for a puppy. My palms were complaining and threatening to crack again.

The moment her feet touched the table she was trying to jump again. I put the chain around her neck and then focused on trying to put her feet where they were supposed to be. Every time I moved on to another paw, the one I had placed was in the wrong spot.

“You’re not helping,” I grumbled to her. She licked at my face. “What’re these pictures for, anyway?”

“These are for me to show people interested in buying them,” she told me absently, still poised with the camera, should the ever-rare instance of perfect puppy posture present itself.

“And they don’t want pictures of Dobie babies romping around the yard or biting at each other’s ears?”

“Can’t see their conformation like that.”

I struggled with the puppy for another five minutes, and she started to get tired.
Unfortunately, that meant she wanted to lie down, not stand. Instead of holding her to earth like I had been, I was now lifting her up by the torso and trying to set her on her feet again. By the time I had gotten her to stand straight, my techno music sounded off. The puppy jumped and broke free, running to Jazz and leaping up her front to lick at her face as if concerned that it was her human parent making the noise.

“It’s probably my dad,” I explained, fishing my phone out of my pocket and wincing as my scab cracked. I opened it and held it to my ear without even checking the caller ID. “Hello?”

“Maya?”

SHIT.

I didn’t want to talk to him right now…

“Maya, you there?”

No…

“Maya?”

“Hi,” I whispered.

“Look, Maya, I’m really sorry about what happened last night.” He paused, as if waiting for an answer, but I wasn’t going to give it to him. My heart still pounded at the sound of his voice, but it was different somehow. Scared. “Can I explain?”

“Umm…” I absently tried to pet the puppy, but it was a kind of war between me trying to pet her and her trying to lick the bleeding hand that was reaching for her. “I’m kinda busy right now,” I breathed in a voice that probably wasn’t audible on the phone.

“Okay.” His voice seemed strained. “Can I call you back?”

No, no, no, no, no, no, no…

“Yeah.”

He hung up. I did the same, my stomach acting like it was affected by some kind of hyper
gravity. My throat was tight.

“Maya?”

Pale hands reached for me, and a slender finger curled under my chin, lifting my face. Jazz looked me in the eyes, her brown eyes gazing searchingly into mine. Relief washed over me, irrationally; for a second, I had thought that I would look into clear blue, and had been terrified. The brown was a sanctuary. Overwhelmed, a sob broke through my throat. I was immediately ashamed of breaking down in front of my neighbor, but she just hesitantly cupped my shoulder blades with her hands and pulled me to her shoulder, where I absolutely lost it and started sobbing. She patted my back and crooned to me, but I was barely aware of it. My belly hurt, my eyes hurt, my throat hurt, my eyes were wet, my nose was running…I was making a mess, yet I couldn’t make myself stop. My world was reduced to the shoulder and the hands on my back and the gentle voice above me.

When it finally subsided, I sat, sniffing.

“You wanna talk about it?” the gentle voice whispered above my head.

I shook my head.

“That wasn’t your dad, was it?”

Again, I shook my head. I felt her nod, and we sat there in silence for another couple of minutes, until the puppy nosed her way between us and licked at my salty face. I gave a shaky laugh and pulled away, embarrassed again.

“Do you want to go home, or take pictures, or do you wanna just hang out?” she asked.

“I’ll take pictures,” I croaked with another almost-sincere smile.