Green Fairy (Dangerous Spirits) (2 page)

Sol’s father conceded the battle of silence, which meant that perhaps it had not been a battle after all. “How,” the large grey wolf growled with velvet, disarming softness, “after three years, do you get
demoted
to backup second baseman?”

Sol knew the iron that lay beneath those words. “Taric’s just better than me,” he said. His father stayed quiet. “He hits better, he fields better, he…he’s better.”

“If you were trying your best, he wouldn’t be better.” His father’s condescension made Sol grit his teeth. Over the smell of steak, his father’s scent had acquired the acrid tang of anger, though the older wolf’s voice remained calm. “Didn’t you work with him a lot last year?”

“Yeah…” Last year, Taric had been, if not a friend, at least someone willing to pair up with Sol in workouts. “He put on a lot of muscle.”

“He stays longer at practice. Why did you stop working out with him? Why do you let him show you up?”

“He stays at practice because he lives in a trailer!” Sol said.

“He
cares
.” His father growled the words. They hung over the table.

Sol lifted his head, meeting his father’s brown eyes, looking down the long muzzle with the same brown top and grey sides his brother had, the same black-tipped ears, the same full cheek ruffs. Every time he looked down his own black muzzle, or at his black paws or tail, he saw the differences. Since Natty’d gone, his fur seemed even more black, his hazel eyes even more speckled and strange.

To his right, Sol’s mother was so quiet she must have been sitting stock still. She said, softly, “Do you want the boy to get good grades or be a good baseball player?”

His father didn’t look away from Sol. “His brother led the football team to the state finals and graduated with honors. Let the young wolf fight his own battles.”

Sol couldn’t bear his father’s scrutiny. He turned to the empty wooden chair again, staring at the old claw-scratches marking the arms. Natty hadn’t understood him, but he’d stuck up for him. Without him, the buffer between Sol and their father was gone. When they scraped against each other, Sol was the one who felt worn away after every encounter.

His father pressed. “Well? We haven’t talked about baseball in weeks. Maybe months.
Do
you care?”

“I care,” he said, because to say anything else would be suicide. He couldn’t say,
there are things I can’t talk to you about
, because teenagers can only keep secrets for as long as the parents don’t know that there
are
secrets. He couldn’t say he wanted to talk to his brother, because his father would tell him to pick up the phone and call, and he couldn’t say why he couldn’t do that now. His chest constricted around his heart. He put his paws up on the edge of the table to try to steady himself.

“You don’t care that much about your grades.” His father’s ears were cupped forward, his fur bristled out. Not as much as the time he’d caught Sol and Natty playing with matches in the backyard, but enough to keep Sol’s tail curled. “Mostly you seem to care about talking to your friends. Or is it just ‘friend,’ now? I haven’t seen you with Xavy, or Mika, lately.”

“They’re
your
friends’ sons,” Sol muttered.

“You’re always with that otter.”

“Meg. She’s his girlfriend,” his mother said.

His father raised a large paw, held it over the table for a second as though considering the possibility, then swept it aside. “She never comes to the baseball games.”

“She doesn’t like baseball,” Sol said. “She says it’s a farce.” The words were a mistake, he knew, but he was desperate to divert his father’s anger.

“And no doubt you think the same.” His father’s grin, humorless, showed his long canine teeth. “Is she also a plant-eater?”

“No,” Sol blurted out.

“Then
what
does any of this have to do with eating
steak
?”

His father’s fist pounded the table, sending plates rattling, shocks up Sol’s arms. The young wolf jumped. His tail curled in tighter; his paws clutched each other. His tongue rasped against his palate, trying to form words. “I…I…I…” He swallowed, dry. “Don’t want to. Any more. It’s cruel. They’re living things.”

The older wolf pushed his lip up, showing his inch-long canine fang and the ivory, glistening teeth around it. “You see this? God made us to eat other living things.”

He made
you
that way
. Sol’s brain raced.
I’m different. Just because I have teeth doesn’t mean I have to eat steak. I can make my own choices.
But all the words he could force past his dry tongue were “I…don’t want to. Anymore.”

“Solomon James—”

“Let ’im.” His mother’s quiet voice cut through the angry growl. Her softer, lighter muzzle leaned toward Sol’s father, her paw covering his on the table. “It’s a phase. I went veggie one year.”

“That was in college. And it’s not the same. If he doesn’t eat steak,” his father growled, to her now, “he’ll never win back his starting spot.”

“I’ll…” Sol’s tongue stuck to the roof of his mouth as his father got up from the table, walked around to him. He cringed, and hated himself for it.

The older wolf stood and stared down at him, then grabbed his wrist and held up his arm. He closed his other paw around Sol’s bicep and squeezed, hard.

Sol bit his tongue to avoid crying out. His ears flattened, but he couldn’t shut out his father’s words. “You going to be an All-Star baseball player with this?” His father glared down at him. “You think you can build muscle with broccoli?”

His eyes held Sol’s with an iron grip. The young black wolf felt tears starting and willed them back. If he cried at the table on top of everything else, his father would call him weak to his face, would send him upstairs. He licked his lips nervously, and his father released his arm and his eyes with a huff of disgust. “You’ll eat steak with the rest of the family.”

Sol forced words through the pressure closing his throat. “I don’t—” He’d thought he was safe, but his voice cracked, betraying him. He clamped his jaw shut and stared down at the pile of vegetables on his plate.

His mother spoke up, softly. “You can get protein from beans and supplements. Mrs. Finch—the goat—buys them for her family. I’ll ask her what she gets.”

“You will not.” His father cut a piece of his own steak. “I don’t want her knowing Sol wants to give up meat. I don’t want anyone knowing about it because it is not happening.”

“Wha—” Sol tested his voice. It held, precariously. “What are you gonna do? Force-feed me meat?”

His father’s fork clinked against the plate as it came to rest, and the older wolf rested his paws flat on the table, as if threatening to stand again. “If necessary.”

“Jerius,” Sol’s mother murmured.

“I’ll…I’ll make myself throw up, then.” Sol’s ears came partway up. “I’ll make myself sick after every dinner.”

“Boy,” his father growled. “Don’t push your luck.”

“Pretty soon I’ll throw up from the taste of meat because I won’t be accustomed to it.”

“Sol,” his mother said. “Not at the table, sweetie.”

Sol’s father held his fork in the air, a piece of steak on it, but he was glaring at Sol. “Is that something else you got from that bullshit psychology class? Because I will beat the psychology out of you if I have to.”

“You can’t make me eat meat!” Sol yelled.

“You will not eat anything at this table until you do.” His father wasn’t quite yelling back, but he wasn’t far from it.

This was where Natty would step in and say something disarming like, “Hey, let him eat what he wants, Dad, I’ll keep an eye out for him.” Or maybe, “Let him give up meat, Dad. More steak for me.” And his father’s fur would lose that bristly look, and his mother’s ears would come up, and maybe they would laugh. But Sol couldn’t make that happen.

“Let him try it,” his mother said. “What if he gets his baseball spot back?”

“How is he going to do that without eating meat?” His father sounded as incredulous as if she’d suggested Sol grow wings and fly.

“He’ll work extra hard,” his mother promised for him, “won’t you?”

Sol nodded. He knew enough to keep his mouth tightly closed.

His father held up a paw, ticking off points on clawed fingers. “That means more practice. Stay late at school, work out on weekends, spend time with your teammates. No hiding up in your room with your computer.”

“I…”
I use it for school
, was his standard excuse for the time he spent online looking up pictures and forums, talking to people who were more like him than the sports-obsessed, car-obsessed cardboard cutouts in his school, but he swallowed the words and nodded again. “Yes, sir.”

“Well.” His father’s teeth still showed behind his long black lips. “The Lakeside game is what, a month away? Beat that ’yote for your starting spot by then and you can eat whatever you want. And,” he said as though it were an afterthought, “you’ll still get that car for your birthday and graduation.”

“What?” Sol yelped.

“Otherwise…” His father shrugged. “I’m sure your mother would appreciate a new set of kitchen appliances.”

His car? His
car?
He felt as though the legs of his chair had buckled, as though the floor had dropped out from under him. His appetite for even the steak he was pretending he didn’t want was gone, in a stroke. Thoughts tumbled like bricks through his mind: getting away from the house, driving to Millenport, getting to see Carcy… Everything ruined, tumbling like a card house when the ace had been cruelly yanked from the foundation.

His mother bowed her head, lowering her ears. Sol knew she’d done her best, but still, he thought, she could’ve defended him a little more. Natty would’ve said something like “Aw, Dad, you don’t mean that,” but if Sol tried it, the words would twist and sharpen and he’d be yelled at, or maybe cuffed. Definitely sent to his room without the rest of his dinner. Sullen, he shoved his fork into the pile of vegetables and lifted a clump of them to his muzzle, ignoring the smell of the steak and his father’s loud chewing.

Afterwards, in the kitchen, his paws soapy with dishwater, nose filled with the domestic scent of lemon and duty, he replayed the conversation in his mind, thinking of all the things he should have said, dwelling on the loss of his car. He had it all picked out, too, or rather, his father and Natty had picked it out for him, a sporty two-door green something. Now the image of it flickered in his mind, tenuous, obscured by his father’s glare.

His mother spoke up, softly. “I can try s’more creative things with vegetables,” she said. “If you’d told me…”

Sol picked up a plate and stared at it. The edges of the meat’s juice lingered there in a brown pattern, like a foreign language. He attacked it with the sponge until the place gleamed white, then turned it so it reflected the greenish-grey stone walls, the lighter slate ceiling, his own black muzzle.

“Sol?” His mother touched his shoulder.

“Sure, Mom,” he said. “That’d be great.”

“You’ll work hard at baseball?”

He rinsed the plate and set it out to dry. “If you get a dishwasher,” he said, “at least I won’t have to wash dishes.”

“Your father didn’t mean that. He was just—”

“I think he meant it.”

She let her paw drop, the claws snagging his shirt and then falling free. “It won’t matter,” she said. “You can get your spot back.”

“Taric’s good.” Sol found his own plate, where no stain had survived the initial rinse. He passed a sponge over it and then rinsed it again. Sooner he was done, the sooner he could get out of here. He needed to talk to Meg, about dinner, about school, about the car.

“So are you. Just…try hard? For me? You’ll be off to college next fall, and it would be nice to have just a peaceful time until then.”

The pleading in her voice worked its way under Sol’s fur, until the idea of a peaceful few months was reasonable rather than laughable. “Sure,” he said, rinsing the glasses. “I’ll try hard. Can I go over to Meg’s to study?”

His mother smiled, tail beginning to wag. “Long as it’s just studying.”

His heart quickened. “Her parents are home, Mom.” He snapped when his parents talked about his girlfriend or having sex, or when they wanted to know who he was texting on his phone, which is why he didn’t do that in front of them anymore. Because worse than losing his baseball position, worse even than being a vegetarian, would be having that conversation.

“I know, but they’re otters.”

“God.” Sol turned the water off and rubbed his paws dry. “Don’t worry, Mom, I’m not doing anything risky.”

He couldn’t see any way to get the car without devoting his life to baseball for the next two weeks, but at least he wanted to talk to Meg and Carcy, get out some of the frustration that gnawed at him and pushed his feet down the hill. At Meg’s, he could have his phone out to text Carcy while doing his homework and nobody would tell him to put it away, although Meg sometimes asked to see. Also, Meg had a pool in her room, and though he didn’t really want to swim (especially in her private pool), he still enjoyed lying in the humid air of the otter home. It made his fur feel thick and warm.