Prom came and went. Daniel spent the evening playing RPM:
Quarter Mile with Fischer.
After church that Sunday, his family drove an hour north to the outlet stores in Boaz. Daniel got gloves, wool socks, and a coat so thick, he could hardly put his arms down. He balked at the poofy knit caps, though, telling his mom he’d rather lose an ear to frostbite than walk around in anything that stupid.
The joke made him remember the first night he’d met Charlie Say What. He’d been scared for Misty; she barely came up to the monster’s chest. She talked about her mom, though, drawing a story out of Charlie about his own parents.
Daniel shook the memory out of his head. He’d chosen. He’d left all that behind.
His parents also bought him sheets and matching pillowcases, a brushed-steel touch lamp, and a desktop CD player. Daniel didn’t need any of that stuff; his old lamp and CD player worked fine. But his parents wanted him to have some new things when he got to Cornell.
At school, teachers treated Daniel like a thug. His old friends treated him like an outcast, and the outcasts treated him like a traitor. He went through most days without speaking a word to anybody.
With isolation came a slow clarity. Daniel had plenty of time to think about the fire, the double-edged gifts of Amanita muscaria, and how much control the wolf had seized by the end. Daniel had gone searching for answers about who he was and almost lost himself completely.
But even with that gut-tightening, hand-trembling realization, Daniel would sit in class, obsessively running his tongue over short cuspids and dull premolars. He didn’t like seeing himself in the mirror. His reflection seemed repulsive, like he was covered in burns.
Four months of shifting skin had left Daniel a stranger to his own humanity. The rest of the pack had been at it before him, and if Daniel had neared the point of no return, they were forging even further.
In the mornings, the pack leaned against one another around their picnic table. Daniel rarely heard any of them speak. They just watched the hand-lickers with wary eyes.
Misty usually slept through government class. It meant she wasn’t causing trouble, so Mrs. MacKaye was happy to ignore her. Her appearance became more and more savage. The second week before finals, she wore the same clothes three days in a row, steadily accumulating grass stains and splatters of mud. Not only did Misty spend most nights prowling, she must have started sleeping among the tall weeds at the furnace.
Thursday, Daniel waited outside the classroom for Misty. He needed to try talking to her again. He couldn’t let her destroy herself over him. When Misty saw him, there was no more expression in her eyes than if somebody had left a chair sitting in the hallway. The hair on one side of her head was getting matted.
“Look, I—”
Misty stepped around him and kept walking, heading to the cafeteria. Daniel kept on her heels.
“Misty, please.” It felt good to say her name again. “You’re really starting to worry me, okay? You look like hell. When was the last time you slept in an actual bed?”
“You better go before the pack sees you.”
“I don’t care about them. And since when did you? What about Europe? About everything else you wanted to do besides prowl?”
“Changed my mind.”
Fear hardened into anger. Daniel grabbed her arm. He had an urge to shake her. “Look, I’m a douche bag. I am. But I still know you’ve got a lot more to offer than spray-painting walls and eating fucking garbage.”
“You don’t know anything about me.” She yanked free. “You don’t know what I’ve got to offer. You don’t even know Marc’s behind you.”
Daniel hadn’t been paying attention to the whirl of noise around them. Suddenly, he noticed the dull crack of thick rubber soles. He turned and almost bumped into Marc.
“Leave her alone.”
“Relax. I’m just—” When Daniel touched Marc’s chest, it set Marc off. Slapping his hand away, Marc grabbed him around the neck and chest, pinning one arm.
“You don’t tell me what to do. You don’t touch me.” Marc’s lips pulled back into a snarl. Daniel would have laughed if he’d thought Marc was mimicking a wolf. But walking upright, speaking human language, was the facade now. The tic revealed how thin it had become.
“Quit it, Marc,” Misty said.
Daniel tried to twist away, but Marc held tight. Eric and Val edged in from either side. They wanted to hurt him. Daniel raised a foot to keep Eric back when Misty snapped, “Marc!”
Her brother let go. Daniel coughed and staggered a couple steps. People had started chanting, “Fight! Fight! Fight!” around him. Eric led Marc and Val through the crush of bodies. None of them glanced back at Daniel. Only Misty lingered.
“I won’t stop them next time,” she whispered before turning to follow her pack.
The idiots were still chanting, “Fight! Fight!” even though Daniel was alone in the circle. He had to vanish before a teacher came rushing up. Shoving through the crowd in the opposite direction as the pack, he ducked his head and pretended he didn’t know what was going on. People laughed. “Got beat down, bitch.” Daniel ignored them.
The hushed corridors of books made the library feel like a drowsy wood in the center of always-humming school. Since his exile from the pack, it had become his sanctuary.
Daniel set his bag on one of the tables but didn’t sit down. He wandered, thinking about the evening after the fire. Misty had seen how serious their game had become. Daniel had convinced her to keep playing. He could have told her, could have told all of them, that they could be anything besides wolves ranging through a rusted-out steel town. Misty had loved and trusted him. The whole pack had. They would have listened.
His moment of greatness had come, not a diploma or money but true greatness, and Daniel had squandered it. All he had left were the Milestone towers of Cornell.
The past few weeks, he’d let go of everything he’d never had in the first place, returning to his destined path. Daniel didn’t know if he wanted to follow it anymore, but he was, because it felt safe and familiar. Now, Daniel realized the penance for cowardice would be watching Misty letting go too. She traveled in the opposite direction as him but for the same reasons.
Masks from a decades-ago school play decorated the wall above the drama section. The sun had faded their painted lips and cheeks. Splits in the papier-mâché revealed yellowed newspapers beneath. Daniel skimmed the shelves. The Merchant of Venice, The Merry Wives of Windsor, A Midsummer Night’s Dream. Reaching up, almost afraid to touch it, he slipped the slender volume from its place and sat down on the carpet.
Through the forest have I gone, but Athenian found I none, on whose eyes I might approve this flower’s force in stirring love. Night and silence—Who is here? Weeds of Athens he doth wear: This is he, my master said, despised the Athenian maid; and here the maiden, sleeping sound, on dank and dirty ground. Pretty soul, she durst not lie near this lack-love, this kill-courtesy.
All the other characters kept silent, just words on the page. But Daniel heard Puck’s galloping rhymes in Misty’s voice and birdsong laughter.
On top of every other regret, Daniel wished he could have seen her kicking the dust off four-hundred-year-old lines, before gossip, lies, and hard lessons turned her snarling and suspicious. In his imagination, she bounded through the play’s enchanted forest, completely fearless of the real world looming just beyond the footlights. No wonder she’d beaten all the boys for the part.
Churl, upon thy eyes I throw all the power this charm doth owe. When thou wak’st, let love forbid sleep his seat on thy eyelid.