I shook my head. I changed too early now to even see Christmas decorations in stores.
Grace frowned at the steering wheel. “Do you think of me when you’re a wolf?”
When I was a wolf, I was a memory of a boy, struggling to hold on to meaningless words. I didn’t want to tell her the truth: that I couldn’t remember her name.
“I think of the way you smell,” I said, truthfully. I reached over and lifted a few strands of her hair to my nose. The scent of her shampoo reminded me of the scent of her skin. I swallowed and let her hair fall back down to her shoulder.
Grace’s eyes followed my hand from her shoulder to my lap, and I saw her swallow, too. The obvious question—when I would change back again—hung between us, but neither of us put words to it. I wasn’t ready to tell her yet. My chest ached at the thought of leaving all this behind.
“So,” she said again, and put her hand on the steering wheel. “Do you know how to drive?”
I pulled my wallet from my jeans pocket and proffered it. “The State of Minnesota seems to think so.”
She extracted my driver’s license, held it up against the steering wheel, and read out loud: “Samuel K. Roth.” She added, with some surprise, “This is an actual license. You must really be real.”
I laughed. “You still doubt it?”
Instead of answering, Grace handed my wallet back and asked, “Is that your real name? Aren’t you supposedly dead, like Jack?”
I wasn’t sure I wanted to talk about this, but I answered anyway. “It wasn’t the same. I wasn’t bitten as badly, and some strangers saved me from being dragged off. Nobody pronounced me dead, like they did with Jack. So, yes, that’s my real name.”
Grace looked thoughtful, and I wondered what she was thinking. Then, abruptly, she looked at me, expression dark. “So your parents know what you are, right? That’s why they—” She stopped and sort of half closed her eyes. I could see her swallowing again.
“It makes you sick for weeks afterward,” I said, rescuing her from finishing the sentence. “The wolf toxin, I guess. While it’s changing you. I couldn’t stop shifting back and forth, no matter how warm or cold I was.” I paused, the memories flickering through my head like photos from someone else’s camera. “They thought I was possessed. Then it got warm and I improved—became stable, I mean, and they thought I was cured. Saved, I suppose. Until winter. For a while they tried to get the church to do something about me. Finally they decided to do something themselves. They’re both serving life sentences now. They didn’t realize that we’re harder to kill than most people.”
Grace’s face was nearing a pale shade of green and the knuckles on her hand clutching the steering wheel had turned white. “Let’s talk about something else.”
“I’m sorry,” I said, and I really was. “Let’s talk about cars. Is this one your betrothed? I mean, assuming it runs okay? I don’t know anything about cars, but I can at least pretend. ‘Runs okay’ sounds like something someone would say if they knew what they were talking about, right?”
She seized the subject, petting the steering wheel. “I do like it.”
“It’s very ugly,” I said generously. “But it looks as though it would laugh at snow. And, if you hit a deer, it would just hiccup and keep going.”
Grace added, “Plus, it’s got a pretty appealing front seat. I mean, I can just—” Grace leaned across the bench seat toward me, lightly resting one of her hands on my leg. Now she was an inch away from me, close enough that I felt the heat of her breath on my lips. Close enough that I could feel her waiting for me to lean into her, too.
In my head, an image flashed of Grace in her backyard, her hand outstretched, imploring me to come to her. But I couldn’t, then. I was in another world, one that demanded I keep my distance. Now, I couldn’t help but wonder whether I still lived in that world, bound by its rules. My human skin was only mocking me, taunting me with riches that would vanish at the first freeze.
I sat back from her, and looked away before I could see her disappointment. The silence was thick around us. “Tell me about after you were bitten,” I said, just to say something. “Did you get sick?”
Grace leaned back in her seat and sighed. I wondered how many times I’d disappointed her before. “I don’t know. It seems like such a long time ago. I guess—maybe. I remember having the flu right afterward.”
After I was bitten, it had felt like the flu, too. Exhaustion, hot and cold shakes, nausea burning the back of my throat, bones aching to change form.
Grace shrugged. “That was the year I got locked in the car, too. It was a month or two after the attack. It was spring, but it was really hot. My dad took me along with him to run some errands, because I guess I was too young to leave behind.” She glanced at me to see if I was listening. I was.
“Anyway, I had the flu, I guess, and I was just stupid with sleep. So on the way home I fell asleep in the backseat…and the next thing I remember was waking up in the hospital. I guess Dad had gotten home and gotten the groceries out and forgotten about me. Just left me locked in the car, I guess. They said I tried to get out, but I don’t remember that, really. I don’t remember anything until the hospital, where the nurse was saying that it was the hottest May day on record for MercyFalls. The doctor told my dad the heat in the car should’ve killed me, so I’m a miracle girl. How’s that for responsible parenting?”
I shook my head in disbelief. There was a brief silence that gave me enough time to notice the consternation in her expression and remind me that I sincerely regretted not kissing her a moment ago. I thought about saying Show me what you meant earlier, when you said that you liked this front seat. But I couldn’t imagine my mouth forming those words, so instead I just took her hand and ran my finger along her palm and between her fingers, tracing the lines in her hand and letting my skin memorize her fingerprints.