Monsters

Ahead, not fifty feet away, the forest was awash in shimmering silver-blue shafts, bright enough to cut tall, inky shadows. She could make out the tree limbs on beds of needles; the individual stones around her banked fire, the coals dozing under a blanket of ashes; even the gleam of individual grommets on her tent. From his place close to the fire ring, Buck’s head raised and cocked a question at her sudden appearance in the middle of the night, especially since she’d kicked him out of the tent.

“Holy shit,” she whispered, and watched in a kind of awe as her breath smoked not sickly green-gray . . . but blue. She’d set her boots outside the tent, and now she fumbled them up, her fingers suddenly clumsy, mouth dry. I should wake up Tom. He’ll want to see this. We should get the others. Yes, but she wanted to be certain first. She jammed her bare feet into her boots. Too late, she realized that in her rush, she’d forgotten to shake them out. To her relief, her toes discovered that no one had dropped in for a visit.

She’d made camp within a sheltering stand of hemlock and sugar maple, but there was a clearing to her left. Now, pushing to her feet, she darted that way with Buck galumphing after. In only a few seconds, she splashed into a pool of light so intense that what she first saw, to her right, was only the long fingerling of her shadow as it ran away. She could see Buck’s shadow, too, and the double gleam in his eyes as he stared, wondering what in hell had her so worked up. Turning on her heels, she looked left and up through a break in the canopy . . .

And into a night sky where the thick web of clouds had, finally, pulled apart. Only the brightest stars showed. That was because the moon was high and full—and white.

“Oh my God.” Her hand flew to her mouth. “You’re there, you’re really there, you’re back, you’re the moon, you’re—”

At that moment, Buck grumbled a low warning. She heard a soft shush of a foot over earth.

Then, to her left, the smell rolled from the deep black of the forest.

She hadn’t lied. She really did believe that her monster only worked one-way: a drop behind the eyes of someone else, and not vice versa. The odor might have been there for a while, although not too long. Earlier, she’d been outside with Tom and smelled only the strong, keen, cold metal of Superior, the fresh resin of woods, the fire—and Tom, of course. She’d been very focused on him, his taste, the feel of his mouth and hands, and then the urgency of his body against hers. His scent saturated her skin and hair and every part of her. Tom was so strong, a hum in her blood, and what they made together was so sweet as to eclipse all else.

Now, though, she recalled the dream, brief but vivid, that had awakened her. The image was more like a crane shot from a faded video: a swooping pan that showed woods and a blur that might be a tent and then the lake, not black or sickly green, but steely blue and sparking with moonlight where small waves curled over rocks.

That was when the monster raised its head and took a whiff, and she woke.

“It’s all right,” she said to the wolfdog, not knowing if this was true. Yet she smelled no spike of danger here: only cool shadows and gray mist, a hint of apple.

And rot. That was there, too. Still.

She mightn’t have spotted him if not for the moon. He was that far back in the trees. Just a suggestion of a person there, a stick figure cut out of black construction paper.

At the sight, everything in her that was human iced. Not the monster, though, with its scaly arms and needle teeth. Wolf was a buddy, someone with whom to play. For her, it was as though the monster decided to take her worst nightmare and make it real.

This would end in only one of two ways: with Wolf dead or— eeny-meeny-miny-mo—Tom, Chris, Ellie. Take your pick.

“You can’t do this, Wolf,” she said to that dark silhouette in the trees. “They’ll kill you.” Or I will, to protect them. “I want to walk with Tom. I’m sorry, Wolf. Go back to Penny. She needs you. I wish I could help you be Simon again, but I don’t know how. I don’t know if you can.” Or if I should try.

Yet her right hand just happened to be in her parka pocket, and she felt two things, both of which crinkled. One she’d put there a while back. Hadn’t forgotten it. She was saving it for a special occasion. Until this second, she thought she would share it with Tom and Chris and Ellie. A kind of celebration as they began their long walk, together, toward something new.

The other was her mother’s letter, the one Ellie stole back from Harlan. Having read it enough times to memorize it, she didn’t need the moon’s strong light. The lines that jumped out of the black of her mind now, though, were ones her dad penned.

A word of advice, sweetheart: when you’re at the brink; when it’s a choice between what’s safe and what might be better, even if what’s best is also scary, take a chance, honey. Take a deep breath and—

* * *

She hadn’t lied to Tom. She had . . . omitted? No, that was wrong, too. She hadn’t quite understood, that was all. In retrospect, assuming the monster might jump behind alien eyes when it hadn’t been properly introduced went against her experience.

In the last week, her dreams were crowded with images she recognized: the deserted ranger’s station, her smashed Toyota, that sign pointing the way to Moss Knob and Luna Lake. All familiar places along this long walk back to her past.

For Wolf, though, they were all new.

So, now . . . Wolf saw what she did? By getting into her dreams? Or quietly slipping behind her eyes while she was awake yet unaware? There was no way to be certain which, but either would answer how he’d managed to track her down. With Buck, Wolf shouldn’t have been able to smell her at all. Unless that, too, was Changing.

Something else to think about: If Wolf could see through her, even if only when she dreamt, what about . . . emotions? Thoughts? What if, somehow, she now could do what Finn couldn’t? Not piggyback on a signal but truly receive one?

Take a chance.

Could she do this? She felt her impatient monster pressing its nose against the glassy backs of her eyes. Should she? This wouldn’t be a tap-tap. This would be as it was on the snow while the lake house burned, but instead of Wolf trying to rediscover who he’d been in her face, it would be she who reached for him, like Meg Murry pushing past IT to find her brother.

When you’re at the brink; when it’s a choice between what’s safe and what might be better—

Gathering herself, she closed her eyes and let a tendril, one monstrous and scaly little arm, go. Her mind shimmied with the sensation of a swoon that was a leap . . . and then she was behind Wolf ’s eyes and could see herself: hair loose and legs bare, in a silver-blue pearl of moon.

And then for a moment—and only that—she also let go of herself, trusting in love and her strength, allowing the door to open enough to brush his mind with tentative, ghostly fingers and truly feel for the boy beneath the monster. She gasped as her chest filled with a deep and bitter ache that was Wolf ’s grief and loneliness and longing.

She opened her eyes. Her monster wasn’t pleased to come back— she could tell from that spastic little flutter—but it knew what it could do to itself. Anyway, she was busy. One more thing she really needed to try.

“I don’t want you to die, Wolf, if you can be Simon again. If you think you might be close.” She withdrew the half of that King Size Almond Joy she’d saved for a treat, a celebration of the possible. Stooping, eyes still on the boy wreathed in shadows, she prized out the cardboard insert. The wrapper crinkled in the hush. A perfume of rich chocolate and sweet coconut and spicy almond swelled. Moving carefully, she set the candy atop its wrapper on the ground between them.

Because what the hell: sometimes, you feel like a nut. Take a chance, honey. Take a deep breath and—

“Jump, Wolf,” she said.

And then Alex took a step back and waited with Buck, in fresh moonlight, to see what would happen next.