I felt bad after I came. Not extremely bad, because it was far from the first time I’d come thinking of it so the guilt was starting to wear off, but a little bad. I couldn’t imagine how Jules would feel if he knew. He’d probably think I was some kind of pervert. Maybe he’d laugh and tease me about it. Maybe he’d start feeling uncomfortable around me. I pushed the feeling down. I knew it wouldn’t be the last time I masturbated to that night. After all, I’d been thinking about little else for weeks.
Weeks.
Months.
Maybe more.
13
Itwasahot,sweltering summer that year. Jules and I had both graduated from college and we tried to find work in construction like we’d done for the last couple of years, but work wasn’t easy to come by. I got a week or two here and there, and Jules did too. A lot of the time one of us was working and the other was home all day on his own. It was a fucking boring summer. Not as bad as the summer Jules went to Cedar Key, but it was close. My mood was appalling. Irritation seeped from my pores. Frustration did too.
By the middle of July, it had reached fever pitch. Jules was working and I was home that week. I walked up and down the road between the cottages to kill time. I’d taken to pacing. I paced up and down our living room and kitchen, and for good measure, in the early mornings and evenings, I paced all the way around the pack land. Knowing I’d checked the perimeter and that the whole pack was safe seemed to calm me. It got to the point where I couldn’t sleep if I hadn’t done it. As I headed back up the hill, I saw Mrs. O’Malley on her porch.
“Yoooo, boy,” she called. “What are you up to?”
“Waiting,” I snapped. That’s what it felt like. It felt like the only thing happening in my life was the long, endless nightmare of waiting to shift.
“Me too,” she said brightly.
I took the bait. “What are you waiting for?”
“Oh, you know, death mainly.” I must have looked shocked, because she shrugged and said, “That’s the main thing, but not the only thing.”
“What else are you waiting for?” The conversation was darker than I’d been expecting, but my mood was close to pitch black anyway, so I didn’t mind all that much.
“I’ve been waiting my whole life. You know that, Sully boy? It’s what I do. I wait. For the last few years, I’ve been waiting for death. Before that, for over twenty years now, I’ve been waiting to hear the cry of a new Cleary wolf pup, and before that, ever since I was a girl, I’ve been waiting for the White Wolf. And I still am.”
“What d’you need him for anyway?” I said. Then, to try to get a rise out of her, I added, “Him orher.”
She chuckled at that. “Oh, the next White Wolf is a he, but the one after that . . . for all I know, that one might be a she.”
I rolled my eyes. I was damn sure she was having me on. There was no way she could know that. “Seriously, why are you waiting for him?”
She shrugged. “I guess I want to fly one last time. Need him to shift me, ’cause I can’t do it on my own anymore.”
Mrs. O’Malley was something else. I realized then and there that she was so crazy she might just outlive us all because of a mad determination to see a myth, a legend, a fairy tale, come to life.
“How do you do it? How do you wait and not feel angry all the time?” I asked.
“Oh, I gave up anger for Lent one year and I never took it up again. And do you know, I haven’t missed it at all.”
I didn’t even bother asking what a wolf like her had been doing observing a Lenten sacrifice. I didn’t want to get into all that. Instead, I said, “Do you think I should try giving up anger for Lent next year?”
She laughed at that. “Don’t be so silly, boy. You need yours.”
14
Theendlessboredomofsummer was broken by rumors of vampires headed our way. The pack was abuzz with news. Apparently, they were heading up toward us from Oklahoma. We didn’t see a lot of vampire activity in Clearwater Valley, but now and again, they’d swing by, and we’d run them out of town. As shifters, we were uniquely programmed to despise vampires. I hadn’t even shifted yet, but I knew they weren’t for me. Just the thought of them made my skin crawl. Dead men and women with ice cold bodies feeding on human blood.
Ew.
No thank you.
The rest of the pack were riled up as hell. Dalton and The Brothers were huffing and puffing and flinging violent threats around. Even the omegas were on their feet instead of lazing under the cottonwood tree.
I spent a lot of the day sitting on our porch, watching the circus. Now and again, my mother would come out of the house and look over at Mrs. O’Malley’s. Once or twice, I saw Jules’s mom do the same thing.
I woke up early on Saturday morning and drank my coffee out on the porch. It was hot as hades, and it wasn’t even eight in the morning. My mother was already on the swing chair on the porch. She was looking up and down the road. For a second, I wondered if she was looking for vamps, but that couldn’t be it. It was broad daylight. There was less than no chance of running into a vampire. Jules’s mom was out on her porch too. She was reading a book, but she didn’t seem all that engrossed. She looked at our place and then she cast her eyes up at Mrs. O’Malley’s.
