Eyes of the Wolf

40

“I feel like I’m haunting her.”

Adam shot me a glance from the corner of his eye. “How so?” he queried.

“Well, she thinks I’m dead, and here I am wandering around her place as a big shaggy dog making sure she’s okay.”

Seconds later his mouth twitched. “Well, in some cultures they believe that people are reincarnated into animals after they die.”

I raised an eyebrow at him. “Isn’t it in India or something, where they believe that people are reborn as cows?”

“I think so. Somewhere around there, I think.”

“So you think there’s werecows running around Africa?”

He grinned. “Well, if we can turn into big wolves, why can’t people turn into cows?” He glanced at me again. “And I’m pretty certain India is in Asia.”

“Oh shut up.” Here was some of the smiling I had been missing. I looked up at the darkening sky before I leaned back in my seat and relaxed, staring idly at a spot on the air bag where somebody had left mongo-foot shoeprints. Curious, I lifted my right foot and set its heel where the same spot was on the print, and saw several inches between my big toe and the toe of the shoe.

“I would prefer it if you didn’t put your feet on the dash,” Adam chided.

“Somebody left really big footprints on it. They had huge feet.” I laughed. “I’m so tiny it’s ridiculous.”

My feet came down, and I looked up just in time to see his dark hazel eyes finish sweeping over me. When he realized I’d caught him, he shrugged. “Being short isn’t that big of a deal. Besides, your wolf is one of the biggest out there.”

I shrugged dismissively, not wanting to talk about my being vertically challenged, something niggling at the back of my mind. Furtively, I peered out of the corner of my eyes at my companion and look him over. Tall. Blonde. A bit cut up and callused, with some visible scarring on his neck and face. Nothing completely out of the ordinary. Most of the wolves were tall, and they were of varying hair colors. And, from what I’d gathered, the longer you were a wolf, the more scars you bore. He was about as scarred as Blaze, so it wasn’t like he was in some unnatural MINT condition or something.

His eyes fastened on me, and this time I’d been caught staring. I almost dropped away from that deep hazel, until it clicked.

“Why are your eyes hazel?” He blinked. My head cocked to the side. “All the other wolves’ are blue.”

He stiffened and the eyes in question shifted away from me and refocused on the rode. “I was born like this.”

I frowned, the gears in my head whirring like pinwheels. “And you were born a wolf, right? So why are you all weirded out by naked people?”

I could hear his heart speeding up, his breath puffing through his nostrils. He opened his mouth as if to answer, then slammed his foot on the brake at a T intersection.

“Which way?” he asked hoarsely. My head tilted again slightly when I noted that his voice cut out before it could deepen to a growl. Did everybody Change differently, or was this also significant? Why was he different?

His head rolled back on his shoulders before he glowered again at the road in front of him, ignoring the honking of a car behind us. “Which way?” he repeated.

I pointed mutely.

:o3

One of the problems with being a wolf is that I can’t exactly ask specific questions. Communicating as a more canine mammal was much more instinctive, every body movement translating into some message. Tilted head of trying to understand something. A tail wag for agreement or just enthusiasm. Asking specific things is pretty difficult.

We parked on the edges of the Shell station parking lot, as far from the gasoline—and its nasty smell—as possible while still being in a legal parking spot. There we Changed behind the little building and loped into the fields where we are now. We haven’t spoken since the intersection, though now that we are running together, the awkwardness is a bit easier. As wolves, we don’t have to speak. His eyes, now green, don’t matter so much. He is Pack.

:o3

We crouch in the grass by Roy’s pasture. I notice that his gold fur blends immaculately with the yellowed stalks around us. The plants crushed under our feet release a pleasant smell, and it helps me settle as I drop to a crouch at Sparrow’s side.

Roy’s head rises quickly, his ears forward and listening. I am reminded of the deer I have hunted, and I start panting again. The horse’s ears pin back and he trots anxiously in his pen, farther away from us. Running from us. I rise from my belly in a leap, charging toward the prey—

Teeth close over the skin on my neck and yank me to the side. I cry out at the unexpected pain, and Sparrow growls low in his throat. Slowly my senses return, and Roy is no longer so interesting to me. I shake my head and my companion releases me. I should’ve eaten before going to wait for the truck. Finally, I find out why Eagle is usually so insistent on my eating so much so regularly. I don’t think I would forgive myself if I killed Roy.

The sun has finally dropped beyond the hills, but I know that Chris will still be awake. I lead Sparrow around the house until we see the light of the window. Inside, Chris is sitting and reading a book on her window seat with the window cracked open a bit—a problem caused by our trying to force it open in middle school and accidentally breaking its track of where to slide. I know her ceiling fan is on inside because her scent flows quickly to me—she still smells like fake strawberries. Her pale hair pools in the crack between her pillow and the wall. On the other side of the mown lawn, I lie down with my head on my paws, glad I can see her again and yet incredibly depressed. I want so badly to go to her, to let her know that I am not dead. I am alive, and I miss her.

“Chris!” a male voice rings through the house, making our heads rise. I forgot that Chris’s being awake would mean Brad’s being awake as well. She puts her finger in her book to give her brother attention. At this distance, I can barely make out his form; my recognition has gotten better as a wolf, I think absently. “Chris, look out your window!” Next to me, Sparrow tenses. Chris’s head turns in our direction. “Are those the biggest dogs you’ve ever seen or what?”

Sparrow is on his feet, still ducked low, and nosing at me. I am still enthralled, I have missed them so much—

“Maya?”

My name, my human name, is so softly spoken that, had I not had the ears I have, I would not have heard it, but as it is the faint draft of the fan carries the sound of her voice to me, and it wakes me. I stand up, my tail between my legs as a very human realization of this is bad starts echoing in my head. She is up and sprinting out her bedroom door in less than a breath’s span, and I can hear her feet pounding in the direction of her back door.

Our feet are pounding, too. Sparrow is barely ahead of me, and he is slowed down by his constantly looking back and checking for me behind him. Distantly, I think, that’s not very wolflike either, but the thought flies away with the wind as we gallop away from the blue-haired girl crying the name of her dead best friend.