Memoirs of a Girl Wolf (20 page)

We went back in the cafeteria and got the rest of our lunch and sat at our usual table in the courtyard until Mr. Henry came out and yelled at us to go back inside because the courtyard was off limits for the season.

We at least had enough time at our cement table outside with the beautiful snow falling on us to enjoy each other’s company, and I was able to light up a little and just enjoy him without letting Mom and Phoenix stuff get in the way. That I was saving for that afternoon and confronting Mom was the very first thing I planned on doing once Reign dropped me off at home.

But at the moment something else bothered me a little. I figured the reason I could sit out in freezing temperatures without a jacket was due to the wolf thing, but why wasn’t Reign cold either?

21

All morning I avoided holding Reign’s comforting hand, but on the bumpy ride home from school I kept my hand in his and the closer we got to my house the harder I gripped onto his hand until he jerked his hand out of mine and made a hissing sound through his front teeth as he shook his own hand up and down.

“Sorry,” I said with an embarrassed frown on my face. “I’m excited to see Josh.”

He nodded in understanding, but kept both hands on the steering wheel until he pulled into the lane and came to an eventual stop in front of my house. He parked the truck behind Mom’s Toyota. I was happy to see she was home, but suddenly a wave of anxiety washed over me.

I slowly opened the door, but before I could jump out Reign touched my shoulder and said it was time for us to exchange phone numbers.

“I can’t believe we haven’t yet. I kept forgetting to ask you,” Reign said.

I rambled off my number so quickly I had to repeat it twice more for him. “Now, I’ll call you for a ride next time instead of showing up at your house,” I said.

Reign smiled. “Ah I don’t mind that. You know how ‘bout I just give you ride every morning? I already bring you home.”

“Okay,” I said. I was in too eager of a hurry to say a proper goodbye. I shut the door on him as he was mumbling something I didn’t hear. I ran up to the house, but paused with my hand on the door knob. I had played this scenario out in my head all day. I imagined walking right up to her and demanding the truth, but now faced with it, I wasn’t sure if I could go through with it. I wasn’t sure if I wanted to know the truth after all, but what was the alternative? Spending my life pretending to be unaware about where I slept at night?

Taking a deep breath, I pushed open the door and walked confidently into the house. I noticed Josh’s overnight bag right away at the bottom of the stairwell. I breathed a sigh of relief knowing that he was home. I guessed the twins were both upstairs in the attic or their room. Mom was probably in her own room working at her desk.

I quietly walked through the house and down the long, narrow hallway toward Mom’s room. Her door was slightly ajar and I was struck with a feeling of déjà vu from months previous after returning from Sydney’s sleep over and I walked in on Mom on the phone and I was certain she had been crying.

She was on the phone now. She sat at her desk with her back to me. Her head was in her hands and her fingers kneaded her forehead as she talked in a weary, tense voice. I was going to push open the door right then and demand her attention when I heard her say, “Viktor.”

She was talking to my father.

As quiet as I came, I backed away from the door and down the hallway until I was in the kitchen and I picked up the portable black phone on the counter so that I could listen to their conversation. I had never invaded mom’s privacy before. I felt like I was crossing a huge personal boundary, but then again she had no problem crossing mine.

Mom: “Why did you send someone instead of coming yourself? When are you coming home?”

Viktor: “Soon, love,”

Mom: “You’ve been saying that for twelve years, Viktor. I don’t think—I don’t know that I can keep waiting for you.”

Viktor: “You’ve been saying that for twelve years.”

Mom: “Oh, Viktor. This is just too much. What do I do?”

Viktor: “I sent him to help you to help both of you. You can’t lock her up for the rest of her life. You can’t control this. You don’t know how. Only she can control it.”

Mom: “No, I’m not gonna give up. I’m gonna find a cure.”

Viktor: “A cure to what, love? She’s not sick. She is who she was always meant to be.”

Mom: “I’ve been talking to a woman who knows a voodoo doctor who may be able to bind this. She can just be a normal girl and go to college and have a family . . .”

Viktor: “I forbid it. That’s not your choice.”

I heard enough. I ended the call on my end and walked straight for her bedroom where I threw open the door.

“Mom,” I said, in an angry, bitter tone so that when she turned her head and saw me glaring at her she knew that I knew and that I only wanted one thing: to know more.

The phone dropped from her hold as she stared at me with her lips parted in surprise then an anxious look flashed across her face. She said a quick goodbye into the phone, citing my name and then placed it down on the desk in front of her. She sat staring at me for a couple seconds with her blue eyes darting across my angry face and posture. Brushing bangs away from her forehead, she cleared her throat and stood.

“How was school?” she asked, walking with open arms told me.

I couldn’t contain them any longer. All day I had fought to keep my emotions in check, but with her in front of me and trying to embrace me into a hug I could not control my tears and suddenly they spilled from my eyes and rolled down my flushed cheeks as I tried to find my voice to tell Mom everything I wanted to, but all that came out was a sad, angry whimper.

After aggressively wiping my cheeks with my hands and pushing mom’s arms away as she tried to comfort me, I sucked in a gulp of air and said, “I know.”

“You know what?” Mom asked with a forced smile.

“I know everything.”

“Huh?” Mom continued her façade.

“You were just talking to Viktor. I heard you and you were talking about me. That I’m a-a wolf. You lock me up at night in the attic and you put chains on me and you leave me in that smelly room all night . . .” I broke down into sobs again. I hated that I was crying and this made me cry harder.

Mom didn’t break eye contact with me as she stepped backward until she fell into the couch in front of her bed. She cried also, but not as dramatically as I was.

“I don’t . . .” She struggled with words. I imagined her thoughts were going as rapidly through her mind as mine were. “How did you . . . I mean . . . daddy and . . .” She leaned over in frustration and grabbed her head in her hands before taking a deep sigh and patting the cushion next to her on the couch prompting me to sit beside her.

I didn’t. I didn’t want to be near her. I had managed to stop crying. I didn’t want to appear so weak and vulnerable not even in front of Mom. I breathed deeply through my nose and lifting my head, pulling back my shoulders, and straightening my spine I walked over to the couch, but instead of sitting next to her like she expected I sat on the arm of the couch as far away from her as possible.

“Okay, fair enough,” Mom said as she watched me cross my arms and glare at her. “We should talk, I suppose.”

“I want to know,” I replied.

“What do you want to know?”

“From the beginning. I deserve to know what’s happening to me.”

Mom rubbed her lips together and cleared her throat before starting, “There is a gene dominant on daddy’s side that has been passed down through generations. I honestly don’t know the very beginning that is something daddy will have to tell you. You, like your father, and your grandmother are Morphics.”

“Mor-what?” I interrupted.

Mom held up her hand. She wasn’t in the mood for my commentary. “The ability to change between a human, such as you are in at this moment, and an animal. In our family this animal is a wolf. The gene is dormant until the sixteenth year of life when your body is mature enough to handle the transformation. Right now, with you being a new wolf, your transformation is controlled by the moon and so every night I give you tea which puts you to sleep and then I carry you upstairs to the attic where I lock you in a little room until morning. Then in the morning I carry you back to bed and tuck you in. I’m so sorry. I don’t know what else to do, Mickey. I don’t know how to control you. I have been trying for years to find a cure to find a way to eradicate the gene from your DNA. I have traveled all over the world and brought you a drug from almost every continent and then on your sixteenth birthday when you didn’t come home and you said you blacked out I knew that all that tea and all my travels did nothing, so I resorted to . . .”

“Drugging and chaining me up at night? Why not tell me, Mom. You’ve been lying to me.”

“I want you to be normal, Mickey. I don’t want you to have to deal with this. I was protecting you.”

“From what?”

“That lifestyle. Wolves, honey, they don’t live long. It’s dangerous. Daddy is constantly moving around. He can’t come home. I don’t want that for you. I want you to only have to worry about whether or not you’re going to make cheerleading or I don’t know the football game this weekend. I want you to be safe and here with your family not out there always moving and alone.”

Mom reached for my hand and because I could feel how genuinely concerned she was for me and how much she really believed her actions only came from a place of love, I let her take hold of my hand and pull me on to the couch. She hugged me, tightly.

“You shot me one night. I remember. You said I dreamed that but I didn’t. You shot me,” I said.

Mom nodded. “A tranquilizer. I keep it in the attic just in case. That surprised me that night because the moon wasn’t even out, and then talking to daddy he said that I’m confused about everything how it works. I don’t know. I thought I was doing a good job.”

“Am I dangerous?” I asked. This is what had been bugging me the most. Why was I chained and locked up and shot with tranquilizers.

“When you change you’re an animal twice my size and you aren’t conscious as a wolf. That’s why you can’t remember when you wake up in the morning.”

My black outs and headaches; now I understood. But I was still disturbed by Mom’s actions the past months. There was just something not right. If this gene was dominant in my family then surely they had learned how to control themselves in a wolf state and was that what Viktor had told Mom just now on the phone. That was why he sent Phoenix to help me.

“I think I need to talk to Viktor’s friend again,” I said, standing from the couch. “I have to go find him. He may still be out in the woods.”

Mom stopped me before I had a chance to leave the room. With my hand rested on the door handle I turned to look at her. She held up her finger indicating for me to wait and stood also from the couch. She walked over to the French doors and opening them she said in a soft tone, “Phoenix, you are welcome to come in now.”

I walked up behind Mom and looked out on the deck half expecting to see him standing there as if he had been waiting out there ever since I last saw him but I didn’t see him anywhere on the deck or near the house. We both turned our heads when we heard a rustling in the woods and noticed a black wolf emerge, trotting toward the house. It jumped over the steps of the deck and landing in front of us was Phoenix with black jeans rolled up at the ankles and wearing the same blue shirt sloppily buttoned, standing in front of us.

“About time because the majority of what she just told you is wrong,” he said as he walked past both of us into the dim bedroom.

22

He stood beside the couch with his arms crossed tightly in front of his chest. Staring at us down his long nose with his head slightly raised, he remained silent and waited for Mom to shut the French doors and for us to then resume sitting on the couch where we had sat moments before his arrival.

An uncomfortable silence settled over us as we all waited for someone else to speak and then finally I cleared my throat and made introductions. “Mom this is Phoenix,” I mumbled.

“I know. Viktor sent you?” Mom said, her voice raised a little when she mentions my father’s name. The name that always sounded harsh when I said aloud sounded soft and heartfelt when escaping from Mom’s pursued lips.

Phoenix nodded. “Months ago actually.”

“Why didn’t you talk to her sooner?” Mom asked. Her tone was becoming stricter as she breathed deeply with more confidence and her nervous, weary demeanor melted away as she stared this potential threat to my normalcy in the eyes without looking away.

“I had to make sure and I’ll tell you,” he laughed, annoyed, “it was hard at first. I couldn’t figure out what you were doing with her.”

“Hey,” I said, loudly. I hated when people talked like I wasn’t in the room, but now their eyes rolled onto me and I felt nervous with their focused attention. “I’m right here,” I added.

“Well, I’d prefer Viktor come himself,” Mom said, turning back to Phoenix.

“You know he can’t,” Phoenix replied, giving mom a look that evidently communicated enough for her to nod her head in understanding. I sighed. More secrets.

“But he sent a stranger,” Mom said.