Part One: All The Better To See You With

Chapter One

I got up from my seat and left the theatre barely half an hour into the movie. The entire "mythology", if the back-story’s quick explanation can be called that, was over within the first five minutes. I know because I counted.

Part of me knew I should stay and tough it out. It wasn’t easy for me to make friends, and since a group of girls from school had asked me to go with them to see the new werewolf horror flick, I realized I should make an effort. But that socially sensible side of me is my human side.

The side I hate.

The truth was that I didn’t care what those people thought of me. I didn’t care what anyone thought. I didn’t belong with them, wasting my days tapping my pencil on the desk in my classroom and spending my nights looking longingly out the bedroom window in my foster home. I didn’t belong locked in the cage called my human body.

I pushed through the throng of teenagers lined up in front of the ticket booth and concession stands, then made my way outside. The weather was freezing cold. It felt more like January than mid-October, and no matter how many layers of clothes I wore, I was always shivering. With the incredible lack of hair humans have on their bodies, one would think they’d have enough sense to live farther south. That would have solved a lot of my problems.

I brushed my white-blonde hair from my eyes, and pulled up the fuzzy collar of my faux-fur trimmed jacket. I wish I could describe the air as fresh, but of course it wasn’t. Living among humans for three years, I had almost forgotten what fresh air was. More kids stood outside, shivering through their too thin--yet fashionable--jackets, puffing away at their cigarettes. For at least ten square feet outside the front door there was nothing but smoke. Mmm, smells like cancer. That’s one brilliant habit humans have.

My foster family wasn’t expecting me home for at least another two hours, so I could allow myself a leisurely walk home. I didn’t need to worry about them checking up on where I was. In truth, I think they were giving up on me. At fifteen, I was the second oldest of the three kids that stayed with Frank and Cindy Jenkins. They had a six-year-old to worry about, and she was a handful. It was her third foster home in as many years, and though she had A.D.D. and was prone to tantrums, the Jenkins still had hope for little Rebecca. Then there was Charlie, a year and a half older than me, and well adjusted to long-term foster care. He’d been with the same family for almost five years, and I’d overheard conversations that they wanted to adopt him.

And then there was me, River Wolfe, found at approximately age twelve with no language skills. There were no matching missing persons reports found, no one to claim me. I was described as withdrawn and short tempered, with some developmental delays...or so I read in my file one day when Rachel, my social worker, came over for her scheduled evaluation. From what I read before she returned from the bathroom, she had me completely nailed. Except for the werewolf part. Minor detail.

"Hey," I heard a voice call behind me as I rounded the corner of the movie theatre. I figured the guy was hailing someone else. Rarely did anyone go out of their way to speak to me, so I continued on my way.

"Hey," the same person said again, this time even closer. "Hey, you got a light?"

I stopped and turned. I didn’t know the guy, and I didn’t care to.

"You got a light?" he repeated.

I stared directly in his eyes, and didn’t move.

He seemed confused at first as he returned my look, then something else took a hold of him. I spotted it in the furthest depths of his eyes, and in the way his throat constricted as he tried to swallow. Fear. Everyone knows the saying that wolves are as afraid of humans as humans are of them. Being both, I fear nothing. But more importantly, both fear me.

I refused to break the stare. After only a few seconds more, he dropped his eyes. Despite how removed from the animal kingdom people like to believe they are, we are all still subject to the same social behaviors.

Satisfied I had established myself as the dominant one, I turned and continued my walk. Behind me the guy must have regained himself.

"Freak," he muttered, then his footsteps pounded in the other direction.

Yes, I thought. Wait until my back is turned, then call me names if it makes you feel superior. After all, I was a freak. Three years ago I had transformed into a monster, so I suppose "freak" was fitting.

My mind was drawn back to the stupid film the girls from school asked me to. Not that there weren’t some truly riveting plot developments: man bitten by wolf, turns into werewolf, attacked by a hail of silver bullets, changes by a full moon, blah blah... Now I’ve never been shot by a silver bullet. Hell, I live in Canada: I’ve never even met someone shot by a regular bullet. Perhaps I’m invincible to all but silver, but I’m in no rush to find out. As for the full moon, I only wish it was true. When I first learned to read, I spent hours researching werewolves, and found out some people thought that those bitten turned into wolves every night. Again, no such luck. I have no super senses--at least not anymore--and no preternatural strength. I must seem like the crappiest werewolf ever.

I do have something in common with all that terrible werewolf movie, though. I was bitten. The difference is that I wasn’t a human bitten by a wolf.

Chapter Two

The real me--the wolf me--seems like a dream now. A beautiful, wonderful dream. I like to tell myself that this human life is the actual nightmare, and the wolf life will be waiting for me when I wake up. I’m a terrible liar, however. Especially to myself.

Several blocks from the theatre, I neared the closest thing my town had to a forest. It was simply a park with young maple trees evenly spaced out, and a ground completely cleared of underbrush. A pretend forest to make humans feel as though they’re spending time in nature without actually being anywhere near it. I have a theory about people: they avoid nature because it reminds them of death. Predator catches prey, the cycle of life--it’s something people pretend they aren’t a part of. What seems so unpredictable and chaotic is far closer to order than anything I’ve seen in the human world, though.

After deciding to spend some time in the wannabe-forest, I was about to cross the street when a car came speeding down the road. It whipped past me, then skidded to a halt. As it backed up, I was able to place the license plate. The silver, four-door car belonged to the Jenkins, and since they rarely went out on a Saturday night, I determined the driver could only be one person. As he pulled up beside me, he flipped on the interior light. I recognized the blue and white sports team jacket spread across wide shoulders, wavy dark hair always in need of a cut, and steely blue eyes. I was right: it was Charlie.

"River?" my foster brother said as he rolled down the window.

I didn’t reply. I rarely reply to people, especially when words seem unnecessary. Never on The Discovery Channel do you see one wolf ask another wolf if she is the particular animal she looks like.

"What are you doing out here? Isn’t the movie still on?"

Though I didn’t understand why it was any of his concern, I was able to recognize I was in the type of
situation where a response was expected.

"Got bored," I said.

"You should have called. Cindy would freak if she knew you were out here so late."

I didn’t think she would, but I said nothing.

"Hop in," he said, reaching over to unlock the passenger door. When I made no move to join him, he nodded at the door. "Come on, it’s freezing."

"Like to walk," I replied. Yes, I tend to keep my speech as monosyllabic as possible. I’ve found that the fewer skills people think I have, the less they demand of me.

"River, I’m not letting you walk home alone," he said. "Come on, I’ll buy you some take-out."

Knowing Charlie, he’d want to throw me over his shoulder and force me in the car. Hell, he’d toss me in the trunk if I refused. Not that I couldn’t put up a fight or stare him down if I needed to, but I thought it best to comply. I opened the door and got inside.

"What do you mean you ‘got bored’?" he asked, my explanation probably finding its way into his head at just that moment. Charlie was kind and friendly, but not too bright. He didn’t have the excuse of growing up as a wolf with no human contact: Charlie was just your average "Sped" kid. So was I, but I think being admitted to a tenth grade special education class despite the fact that I had only been alive for four years, (three as a human, one as a wolf), I was doing all right.

"Movie sucked," I said as he started speeding down the road again. "Got bored."

"So you just left?"

"Yeah."

"In the middle of the movie?"

That was one of those redundant questions I didn’t feel I should answer.

"You don’t just do that, Riv."

"Well, I did."

"What, did it scare you?"

"I got bored," I said, with more of an edge to my voice. Although I said Charlie wasn’t that bright, he was far from stupid, and I didn’t see why he required me to repeat myself.

"I was planning to stop at KFC, then the video store. Want something?"

I shook my head.

"Nothing at all?" he said as he pulled up to the drive-thru. He glanced at me, but I kept my eyes fixed straight ahead. With a sigh, he turned to order.

That’s another thing I didn’t understand about the movie I had been watching. Why do all newly turned werewolves feel compelled to eat raw meat? Having eaten both, I must say the cooked variety tastes far better. And I was fine with eating meat for the first year I was a human. Then one of my workers took me to a grocery store to work on my social skills, and I saw racks and racks of pre-packaged meat. I didn’t get it, and it took a lot of explaining on her part to get me to understand. My pack and I chased down deer, I caught the occasional rabbit on my own--all that I understood. We killed and fed for survival. But seeing the wall of meat, barely recognizable...it just didn’t seem right. Most animals will accept food no matter what form it comes in, but becoming human brought an entirely new awareness. Mass slaughter, even for consumption, was just another way humans tried to remove themselves from nature. And since I wanted nothing to do with being human, it was another custom for me to defy.

"Want a french fry?" Charlie offered as he picked up his order and started driving again. He knew I would decline, but he was the sort of guy that would offer anyway.

"No thanks."

He chatted on and on all the way to the video store, and continued for the short walk from the car to the building. Charlie doesn’t like silence, so he’ll talk about anything to fill it.

"Cindy wanted anything classic Mel Gibson," he said, scouting the action section. He settled on Mad Max. I didn’t know who "Max" was, or why he was so mad, but it didn’t look like the kind of movie Cindy would want to watch. She liked sappy comedies about unavailable men and the cute, yet clumsy girl who ultimately wins his heart.

"And Frank...he wants something sportsy."

I stopped in front of a shelf and held up a DVD with some sort of ball on it. I confess, I have trouble telling sports apart.

Charlie laughed. "Bend It Like Beckam--the inspirational story about an Indian girl who wants to play professional soccer. I don’t think that’s what he had in mind."

I shrugged and wandered away. I pretended to study the movie covers while Charlie picked out something for Frank. Though I was forced to trade in my heightened sense of smell and hearing for vision in color, I still felt some things acutely: mainly when someone was watching me. People often stared at me, as if they could tell something was different about me, and I had learned to ignore it. But I had a far more unsettling feeling as I stood there in the video store.

While some people might casually glance around as they perused the shelves, I was not that subtle. I flat out turned around to study each of the humans in the store. I didn’t recognize anyone, and I found no one staring at me.

My gaze was drawn to the window. Though I could see nothing but my own reflection in the glass, I knew someone was there. With the bright lights of the store, it would be impossible to see who was outside, so I stared into my own dark eyes. That was where the person would be looking, so that was where I would send my glare.

Receiving my own angry stare wasn’t completely undeserved. I hated my reflection--hated looking human. My hair was sliced to my jaw line because that’s how Cindy cut it, and my somewhat trendy clothes were the ones she picked out. My height reached almost six feet, which was apparently tall by human standards, for Cindy had a hell of a time finding jeans that were long enough. I suppose I was tall and lean as a wolf as well. I must have looked like an arctic wolf, though living in Ontario I was actually of the timber variety. My hair was almost white, and my skin unusually pale, so I figured my fur must have been the same.

I wondered if the person watching me saw the wolf in my eyes, as I did. They were wide, a very dark brown, and there was something animalistic about them. People say eyes are the window to the soul. That was the one thing that gave me comfort: I was still a wolf inside. I was still me.

"Whatcha looking at?" Charlie said as he stopped beside me and peered out the window.

"Nothing," I said.

"Ready to go?"

"Yes."

"Did you pick out a movie?"

"No."

"Come on, there must be something--"

"Tired," I said. "No movies--want to sleep."

"Okay," he said, and he started for the counter.

I hated that I would have to take my eyes from the glass first, but I realized I couldn’t stand in the video store all night. I tore my glare from the window and followed Charlie.

When we got outside, I looked around, but saw no one. Perhaps there hadn’t been anyone there at all...no, that possibility was too much for me. I would rather some creepy guy be stalking me from across the street than be wrong. To be wrong would mean I was losing the last of my animal sixth-sense, and that was something I couldn’t bear to contemplate.