Wolfsong (12 page)

I hadn’t known when Gordo had tethered himself to me. Not in a way that could be defined.

But I knew what it was now.

And I felt it. This warmth in my chest, up through my neck and arms. My face and legs. Like little flutters of sunlight through the leaves of a tree.

The wolves around me began to howl. Their song rolled over me, and I thought it would break me apart. I yelled along with them, melding my voice with theirs. I’m sure it was nothing like the song of a wolf, the measly cry of a human. But I gave it all I had because it was all I could give.

The howls died down.

The weight lifted from my chest.

I opened my eyes.

Above me stood a wolf. He was smaller than the others. Thinner. And he was pure white, not a single discoloration on his entire body. His ears twitched. His nostrils flared.

He looked down at me. His eyes were orange, bright, and beautiful. They flared briefly before they faded back to his normal blue, and I knew he was in there. I knew it was still the little boy who thought I smelled of pinecones and candy canes. Of epic and awesome. I tried not to think about how many things made more sense now, because it threatened to overwhelm me.

So instead, I said, “Hey, Joe.”

And he tipped his head back and
sang
.

THEY RAN
through the clearing. Into the trees. Back out again. Chasing each other. Nipping at each other’s heels.

Joe was gangly at first. Unsure. He tripped over his own feet. Sprawled face-first into the ground. Got caught up in sights and sounds and smells.

He ran at me full speed. Feinted left when I braced myself. Yipped loudly as he flew by me. Turned back. Rubbed against my legs like a cat. Nose in my hand.

And then he was off again.

Thomas and Elizabeth stayed close by him. They’d growl at him softly if he started to get overexcited.

Mark sat next to me, almost as tall as I was. He chuffed quietly to himself while he watched Joe.

Carter and Kelly broke off into the woods. I could hear them crashing through the trees and underbrush. Stealthy predators, those.

And then it all hit me. It all crashed down upon my shoulders.

Reality shifted because it had to.

I inhaled sharply.

Mark whined softly at my side.

Gordo said, “Are you okay?” and I said, “Holy
shit
.”

Gordo didn’t laugh. I didn’t expect him to.

“They’re fucking
werewolves
!”

“Yes, Ox.”

“You’re a fucking
wizard
.”

“I’m a witch,” he said with a scowl.

“
Why the fuck did you keep all of this from me
!” I roared.

It wasn’t meant to come out like that.

It was meant to be reasonable. Calm.

But I was scared and angry and confused and reality was shifting. Things made sense, so much more sense now, but they didn’t. At all. The world was not full of monsters and magic. It was meant to be mundane and marred with little broken pieces of
fucking retard
and
you’re gonna get shit, Ox
.

And it wasn’t just meant for Gordo. No.

It was meant for all of them.

The wolves. The witch. The fucking tethers.

Don’t make me regret you too
, my father had said, and for some reason, all I could think about were the motes of dust in their (
her
) room, dancing in the sunlight while I touched the curved stitches that spelled out
Curtis, Curtis, Curtis
.

But that was then and this was now.

Because I was (
not
) twelve anymore.

I was (
not)
a man.

I was (
not
) pack. I was. I was. I was and the tethers. Holy god, the
tethers
, I could feel them
pulling
and—

Gordo was in front of me.

Suddenly I was
surrounded
by wolves. All of them.

They growled in unison as Gordo grabbed my arms. He ignored them.

“Ox,” he said. “You need to breathe.” He sounded hoarse.

“I’m
trying
.” It came out high-pitched and broken. And I couldn’t. I couldn’t catch my breath. It was stuck somewhere between my throat and lungs. Little flashes of light danced across my vision, and my fingers felt numb.

One of the wolves whined at my side. I thought it was Joe, and wasn’t that something? That I could already recognize him as a wolf even though an hour ago I didn’t know such things existed?

Little things. Slotting into place.

Pack and the
touching
and the smells and the howls deep in the woods. The family nights where I wasn’t allowed to follow that always came when the moon was white and round. The stone wolf in my hand. The way they moved. The way they spoke. The bad man. The bad man who took Joe. It had to be because of—

Joe whispered,
I’m going to be a leader one day
, and didn’t I feel a fierce pride at that when he said it for the first time? Didn’t I just
glow
with it even though I had no idea what it meant?

There were facts I was aware of.

Simple truths.

My name was Oxnard Matheson.

My mother was Maggie Callaway.

We lived in Green Creek, Oregon.

My father left when I was twelve.

I was not smart. I was dumb as an ox (
Ox
).

People were gonna give me shit.

I wanted nothing more than to have a friend.

Gordo was my father-brother-friend.

My mother liked to dance.

Tanner, Chris, and Rico were my friends. We belonged to each other.

The Bennetts were my friends (
pack pack pack pack)
and we had Sunday dinner because it was tradition.

Jessie was my girlfriend.

Joe was my—oh, Joe was
my
—

Those were my simple truths.

And reality shifted. Reality bended. Reality broke.

And here I stood in the middle of a moonlit field, my father-brother-friend with his tattoos that shifted more colors than I thought existed standing before me, shaking me, shouting, yelling, “
Ox, Ox, Ox, it’s okay, Ox, it’s okay don’t be scared I’ve got you.
”

And here I stood in the middle of a moonlit field, surrounded by wolves (
PACK PACK PACK PACK
) and they pressed against me, and in my secret heart, through these little bonds that I hadn’t known were there, I could hear whispers of songs and they were
singing
to me.

Elizabeth said,
hush, ChildSonCub, hush. there is nothing to fear.

Thomas said,
Ox, Ox, Ox. i am your Alpha and you are a part of what makes us whole.

Carter said,
don’t be sad, FriendPackBrother, because we won’t leave you.

Kelly said,
i won’t let anything happen to you. i will be by your side.

Mark said,
there is no reason to be alone anymore. you will never be alone.

And Joe. Joe sang the loudest of all.

He said,
you belong to me.

miles and miles/sun between us

THOMAS SAID,
“Do you want to become a wolf?”

It was the Sunday following the full moon. Thomas and I walked through the forest before dinner. Joe had tried to follow us, but Thomas ordered him back to the house, eyes flashing red, and I wondered why I’d never seen it before. How could I have missed what should have been so obvious to me? Joe had slunk back into the house, one last quick glance at me.

He waited to ask until we were far enough away from the house that the others couldn’t hear us. I had learned much about the wolves over the past few days. Heightened sense of smell. Of hearing. They could heal. They could shift. Half shift. Full shift. Alphas and Betas and Omegas. Omegas were dark things. Scary things. Feral and without their tethers.

I learned more than I ever thought possible.

And we walked through the forest again. Just him and me. He touched the trees every now and then, like he always did. He breathed deeply. I asked him why.

“This is my territory,” he said. “It belongs to me. It’s been in my family for a very long time.”

“Your pack.”

He nodded. “Yes, Ox. My pack. Our pack.”

And didn’t that make me warm?

It did.

“These trees,” he said. “This forest. It’s filled with old magic. It’s in my blood and it thrums and writhes within me.”

“But you left,” I said.

He sighed. “Sometimes, there are greater responsibilities than home. Sometimes, we have to do what is necessary before we can do what we wish. But every day that I was away, I felt this place. It sang to me and it ached and burned. Mark came back to check in because I couldn’t. To make sure the place still stood.”

“Why?”

He smiled at me. “Because I’m the Alpha. I don’t know if I would have been able to leave again.”

“How far does it go? Your territory.”

“Miles and miles and miles. And I run them all, the ground beneath my feet and the air in my lungs. It’s like nothing else, Ox.”

I touched the nearest tree and tried to feel what he felt. My fingers scraped against the bark, and I closed my eyes. I laughed at myself quietly. I was ridiculous. I wasn’t anything like them.

And he said, “Do you want to become a wolf?”

I opened my eyes because there
was
something there. There were these little bonds, like strings, that pulled in my head and my secret heart. I couldn’t quite give them names yet, because they were so new, but it was close.

I could name Joe’s, though. His was easy.

I said, “Do you want me to be a wolf?”

Thomas grinned at me, full and blinding. “So many layers,” he murmured as we walked through the trees.

I wouldn’t be like them, not completely. That much had already been explained to me. A human turned never was. There was a difference between being bitten and born. Instincts, for one. They’d had their whole lives. I’d be stumbling like a child.

“There would be differences,” I said aloud.

“There would,” he said.

“But I would be a Beta.”

“Yes. One of mine. Eventually, one of Joe’s.”

“Why aren’t Carter or Kelly going to be the next Alpha?”

He said, “They weren’t born to be. Joe was. He will be an Alpha.”

I didn’t want to offend him, but I couldn’t stop the words. “I would have something you wouldn’t. If I turned.”

“Oh? And what would that be?”

I touched the tree again. “I would remember what it was like to be human.”

There was no anger from him. He put an arm around my shoulders and touched his cheek to my hair, rubbing once. Twice. A third time. They did that. I understood why now. I was part of them and they needed me to smell like I was. It was weird. And comforting. He pulled away. “You would,” he said quietly. “And you would make a fine wolf.”

“My mom,” I said by way of excuse, trying to stall for time while everything reeled around me.

“It’s up to you,” he said.

“Is she pack?”

“In her own way.”

“She would have to know.”

“I trust you, Ox,” he said, and I closed my eyes. The weight of his words were not lost on me. Not with his family’s history.

“Would I lose myself?” I asked him. “The part of me that makes me
me
.”

“No. I wouldn’t let that happen. You would still be you. Just….”

“More?” I asked bitterly.

“Different,” he said. “Ox. Ox. You will never need to be more. Of anything. You are perfect just the way you are. Humans are… special. Human pack members are revered. You will always be protected. You will always be loved.”

A bee flew past my legs and I followed it with my eyes until it disappeared. “Then why ask?”

“Because you will always have a choice. We are defined by the choices we make. When you turn eighteen, should you want the bite, I will give it to you.”

I looked at him. He was watching me closely. “I could run with you,” I said shyly. “At the full moon.”

He laughed. “You’ll do that anyway. You might not be as fast, but we won’t let you fall behind.”

“Why didn’t you tell me?”

His smile faded. “To protect you.”

“From what?”

He said, “There are things far greater out there than you or I, Ox. Both good and bad. The world is bigger than you could possibly imagine. We’re safe here. For now. But that might not always be the case. This is a place of power. And places such as this always attract attention.”

“What’s changed?”

“Joe.”

I looked away. “Would you have told me if he…?”

“Yes. One day.”

And I left it at that. “It’s probably dinnertime,” I said. “It’s tradition.”

And his smile returned.

I WONDERED
if Thomas had noticed I never answered his questions. About becoming a wolf. I thought he did. I thought he knew everything.

“I KEEP
you grounded,” I said to Gordo not long after. We were alone in the shop, getting ready to close up for the day. It was almost time to go back to school and these quiet moments we had would become few and far between.

He didn’t answer right away. I was okay with that.

I locked up the front doors and followed him out back, where he’d have his smoke and I’d pretend to have one too and we’d shoot the shit for another ten minutes like we always did before we went home.

He was sitting in his ragged lawn chair, twirling the lighter in his hands, cigarette behind his ear. He was watching a flock of birds flying by overhead.

“My father,” he said.

I waited.

He cleared his throat. “My father,” he tried again. “He was… not a very nice man.”

I wanted to tell him that we had yet another thing in common, but the words died on my tongue.

“You don’t know this world, Ox. Not yet. If you did, you would know my father’s name. He was very powerful. He was strong and brave and people worshipped the ground he walked on. Hell, I did too. But he wasn’t a nice man.”