Jack saw the towering spire of what must be a ham radio aerial. The mast bisected the full moon pouring down at him from a starless sky. In that bright glare, he noticed too what seemed to be a telephone cable snaking across the brickwork above his window.
At once he broke out in a cold sweat and felt suddenly breathless. He willed himself to stay calm. OK, so they had a ham radio and a phone line. They could've got a message out to the authorities about him if they'd wanted to. But maybe it was broken. And the phone line might be an old one, disconnected when they came here. Or maybe not.
He couldn't concentrate with the moon shining so brightly in his eyes. It was like staring into a hundred-watt bulb. His skin was tingling like he had sunburn, and a surge of panic and nausea welled up inside him.
He hung out through the window in case he was sick. And he saw what had thudded onto the porch roof. Tentatively, he reached for it.
A newspaper was wrapped around a rock and held there with an elastic band.
Why was Ava chucking old newspapers at him? No one had been out anywhere to pick up a new one. No one could get out …
He stared at the date. Blinked. Started again. This had to be a joke. A misprint.
The newspaper was dated September 16th. He'd gone swimming, been faced down by the bear, and smashed himself stupid on August 17th. And that had been just a week ago. Right?
The world seemed to tilt away from him.
Jack staggered back away from the window and collapsed with the paper on the bed. He tore through its oversized pages, scanning the print for anything familiar in the news, stuff that would show up the mistake with the date.
His eyes froze on a small headline circled in red ink. The column was buried right in the middle near the classifieds. The sort of page where old news goes to die.
HOPES FADE FOR THE MISSING BOY
His eyes flicked over the story, his mind numbly cataloging the bones of it. 'Youth missing for a month … Clothes found by river bank … bear tracks … no sign of a body … Family advised to prepare for the worst … '
Then he took in the missing boy's name. ' … Eighteen-year-old Jack River … '
He stared, transfixed. Tears welled up from some cold place deep inside.
Everything he'd been told was a lie.
The Danes could contact the outside world at any time they chose. They just chose not to.
They chose to keep him here for almost a month while feeding him bull about the flooded causeway – bull he'd swallowed like a good little invalid. And that was another thing. To fool him about the time like that … he must've been drugged.
'My herbal cures have been fixing you up,' Marcie had said. 'Better than any fancy drugs a hospital can give you.'
He looked at his still-swollen hands. He'd come into contact with Belladonna, Marcie had said. Then Ava had told him Belladonna was cultivated here. So why?
He bit his lip. Started to shake.
Nah. Get real. Couldn't be.
In that old book of Ava's, it said Belladonna formed part of the ritual that made men into werewolves. What else – hemlock? Camphor? Those ointments Marcie had been rubbing into his skin …
The image of the yellow sticky note flashed into his brain.
Pull back the sheet
Get rid of it
There'd been nothing on Ava's bed because she'd meant to bring the folder to his room. The message was for him. It was his sheet she was talking about.
Slowly, carefully, Jack eased himself off the bed like it might devour him if he made any sudden moves. He pushed aside the pillow and quilt, and then pulled out one corner of the sheet from beneath the mattress.
As he yanked the sheet away, he saw it.
He backed away, wanting to cry out in horror but the bile was too hot and sharp in his throat.
There, stretched across the mattress like some well-fed, basking animal, was the thick, sleek pelt of a wolf.
*****
Ava sneaked carefully back into the house, shutting the kitchen door soundlessly behind her. It was a routine she was well used to. You could get out through the bathroom window if you were ready to risk the drop down into the bushes, but you couldn't get back in the same way. Wesley used the route regularly – he had to, seeing as he'd been grounded for most of his teens – but Ava hadn't sneaked out the window-way for ages. She had no one to see, and nowhere to go.
She could hear the hissing of the hot water pipes in the wall beside her. Had her ruse with the shower been enough to convince her mother to give up the guard duty for twenty minutes?
Beside her, on the wooden worktop, was a huge hunk of raw meat. Deer, probably; there used to be a lot in the forest. Blood pooled stickily around it and was dripping down onto the usually spotless floor.
Ava looked away, revolted, and saw another hunk of meat lying in the corner by the washing machine. Judging by the messy track marks it had been kicked there. Mom must be having one of her 'moods'.
Ava took a deep breath. When Marcie was like this …
Over the muffled beats of Wesley's music, she could hear her mother flipping out at Hal in the living room. Typical. Guard duty looked like it was no longer Marcie's priority. Her tone was charged with the hopeless urgency of a crazy person. There was no way she could sneak past them to get to the stairs.
'But I need to go out and kill,' said Marcie like this was the most reasonable thing in the world. 'Come on, honey. Please, baby. I want it. That's only natural, isn't it? You must want it too … Let's just go do it.'
Ava's dad responded uneasily, talking to Marcie like she was a child: 'Marcie, we agreed we'd cut back on the—'
'Don't give me that "we agreed" shit!' Marcie shrieked back. 'It's what you agreed, you son of a bitch!'
Ava tip-toed to the kitchen door. She opened it a fraction.
'Marcie, the boy must be close to turning,' Hal said reasonably. 'We need to be here for him when—'
'Hal, dear, be here for me right now, OK? Please. I need to go out.' Marcie was quieter now. Her slow, sly voice was somehow scarier than the yelling. 'I'm not strong and stoic like you. Can't live off cold, dead stuff my whole life.'
'You go feeding too much. Stray too far.'
Marcie snorted derisively. 'I can't stop.'
'You can. We all can. It's a choice, we don't have to—' Hal broke off.
Ava froze. Hal had seen her. Defiance blazed in her eyes. 'Right! So it is a choice!' she mouthed back at him.
Hal didn't react, just stared at her.
Then he turned back to his wife, keeping her attention on him. 'Please. Stay in, with me.'
'What part of this aren't you getting, Hal?' sighed Marcie. She cupped his face. With each whispered word, a different nail gouged the skin on his cheek: 'I'm – going – outside – tonight.'
Ava watched as her father put his fingertips to his scratched face and took them away slick with blood. Her mother kissed his cheek and rubbed her face against it.
Hal looked over at Ava. 'Go on,' he mouthed to her.
Ava nodded and crossed the room silently to the stairs.
Marcie was clinging to Hal now like she was too drunk to stand. She laughed a harsh rattling sound. 'I'll bring you back something real nice, Hal. Nice romantic dinner for two, right? Like we used to.'
As Ava quickly climbed the stairs, she couldn't help looking back at the thing that was her mother snuffling at her father's bleeding face. His eyes met hers for a moment.
Each could see the fear in the other.
*****
Jack stared helplessly at the pelt stretched tight across the bed for what seemed like forever. Then he tore it free and rolled it up as tightly as he could. It felt warm from his lying on it and smelled of aniseed and smoke.
And of him.
He slung the pelt to the corner of his room with all the strength he could muster. Then he buried it completely beneath bedclothes.
He was hyperventilating. Fresh air. He needed fresh air. He staggered over to the window – then recoiled from the bright, bloated moon shining through the glass. Sweeping the curtains closed, Jack sank back against the wall.
Just what had the Danes done to him? Something was wrong with him, horribly wrong. All the weird stuff he'd been going through, had seemed so random at first. But now it was starting to add up. And the answer seemed crazy.
The violent dreams of a hunched creature with yellow eyes … the old books and Belladonna … the way his senses had sharpened … the moon tugging him to the window … the pelt on the bed … Mystical, superstitious crap. Stuff to scare little kids with. Except it was happening.
He wasn't sure how much time had passed before the front door slammed shut downstairs, making him jump. A few moments later, Wesley's music was switched off.