Running with the Alpha's Son, page 24
Gently, I come to land on an invisible floor, my toe sending ripples outward in concentric circles, almost like I’m standing on water. But there is no water here. There isn’t anything. Just darkness and stars.
Staring at the ripples emanating from my feet, I spot another set of circular waves meeting mine and interrupting their pattern. The cause of these other ripples is my wolf, standing across the galaxy, watching me.
The anger and violence he evoked before are gone. Now he seems calm. His eyes are soft, subdued, almost…pleading.
We stand at the center of this shattered glass universe and for the first time during this whole trippy moonwalk thing, a sense of calm and purpose washes over me.
“I’ve made it,” I say quietly.
Then my wolf lifts his muzzle into the air, opens his jaws, and howls.
My ears perk up, every hair on my body stands on end, a shiver runs right through me.
“I know that howl. That was you? That was…me?”
My wolf howls again, the crying howl that’s been haunting me for months, the same howl that has sent splitting pain through my brain and interrupted my attempts to mind-link with Jasper. But how can that be? How can it have been me this whole time?
“He calls to you.”
I freeze at the resonant sound of a woman’s voice, echoing in the endless nothingness. I spin around to find my wolf and I have company. A tall, statuesque woman is hovering just above the nonvisible ground, her delicate silver toes drifting millimeters above the surface. She is wearing the most insanely gorgeous gown, a flowing silver dress made of this sheer, iridescent fabric my mind can’t quite comprehend. It’s almost as if it’s emitting a sort of glow, like she’s shining. Her face is long and narrow, her skin pale but not white—it’s almost gray, but shimmering just like her outfit. Her long hair wafts in silver waves, held aloft like she’s underwater. Her arms are long and her elegant hands float by her sides.
“Your wolf,” she says, only her lips don’t move. “He has been waiting.”
Her voice moves through me like electricity, like she’s speaking directly to my mind. “How are you doing that?”
“I am capable of many things. As are you.”
“Is this what it feels like to mind-link?”
“That is an earthly term. I am not of the earth.” Gently, she bows her head, smiling benevolently. “Is that the most pressing question you have to ask me?”
For some reason I’m not scared of her—even though I should be, because she’s a floating freaking hallucination with a one-way communication channel to my brain. But I feel this strange sense of familiarity toward her. Like I know her, have known her, for…forever. Like she’s always been there, watching, looking over and protecting me.
“Why does my wolf call me if he lives within me?” I ask, somehow finding the question at the tip of my tongue.
She lifts her hands as if telling a room full of people to stand, except we’re the only ones here and we’re already standing.
“You speak of your wolf as if it is apart from you. As if you and it are two separate beings.”
“I only mean because, well, he’s there”—I gesture to my wolf, who is still standing quietly behind me—“and I’m here.”
“And yet you are one.”
“Right. We are one.”
“Your wolf spirit is able to appear on this plane because he is at home here.”
“I was going to ask…where exactly is here?”
“The lunar plane,” she mind-says.
“So I did reach it.”
Once again she smiles, and a hint of color almost rises in her cheeks.
“The lunar plane is not a place you journey to or from. It exists in all of wolfkind, the domain of our lunar selves.”
“Is that the same as our wolf selves?”
“Why do you run from that which is most inherently you?” she asks.
Okay, come through with the non sequitur, I think before realizing she can probably hear what I’m thinking and rein my sassy self in. I clear my throat and straighten my shoulders.
“I guess I’m afraid.”
“Afraid of what?”
“That—if I let myself be…myself, that I won’t like it. Or that other people…won’t like it.”
“You doubt your mate?”
“I doubt everyone and everything. I’m full of doubt. I have abundant doubt. And I want to be more sure. I want to know who I’m going to be and whether I’m making the right choices, but all the voices in my head are pulling me in so many different directions it’s hard to make sense of what’s even me anymore—of who I am or what I want. Like maybe I’m just doing what I think I’m supposed to or what’s expected of me. Maybe I’m just chasing around a boy because that’s all I know how to do. Maybe I’m not special, maybe this whole idea of community and belonging is bullshit and we’re all just alone—less like one pack under the moon and more like a whole bunch of weirdo loners making shit up so that we feel better about ourselves, so that we feel less alone. Maybe there’s no such thing as the blood wolf and it’s a story I’ve made up, a fairy tale, to give myself some sense of meaning. I mean, come on, mind reading? Special powers? It’s all a bit out there. And I know you’re a floating spirit guide or hey, maybe you’re actually the moon goddess Selene”—even though I’m mid rant I swear I catch her shrug in a knowing way—“you probably love all this woo-woo magical, moon energy stuff. But that was never my thing. I just wanted to draw and hang out with my friends and now everything is so complicated. And how do I know I’m not just fucking things up? How do I know I’m not doing everything wrong? How do I know I’m not running into a burning building, or running in circles…or…”
I trail off, waiting for her to finish my sentence or answer one of the many, many questions I just spouted at her, but instead she waits for me to finish.
“How do I know I’m heading in the right direction?”
My chest heaves as I pant and catch my post-rant breath. I have no idea where all of that came from. Or why I chose the moment an actual moon spirit or whoever chose to reveal themself to me to offload all my emotional baggage. But standing before this ethereal woman, in this place, with my wolf behind me, I couldn’t hold it all in any longer. And it’s all true…I am filled with doubt. And I thought I needed to escape to clear my head and figure things out but that’s just thrown more voices into the mix. More questions. I lift my eyebrows at the woman, basically begging her to give me some answers or at the very least a little reassurance.
“The truth is, Max—”
Wait, she knows my name? Holy smokes.
“People often ask the moon gods to light the way for them, but there is no one singular path. There is no preordained route you must take. The path is yours to forge. We are only here to light the way.”
With that last sentence, her ethereal glow intensifies. I lift a hand to shield my eyes. Am I right in thinking…did she just say…she IS one of the moon gods.
“Are you Selene?” I ask, hot in the face.
“I am but the light in the darkness.”
Okay, not a real answer.
“Now Max, you should go. He’s still waiting.” She lifts a long hand and gestures to the wolf behind me. “Take my blessings as you forge your way.”
When I turn back, she’s gone, the only trace she was ever here a smattering of pixie dust or space glitter or some other twinkling remnant of her majestic presence sparkling as it drifts slowly to the ground.
“Just you and me now, bud,” I say, walking over to my wolf and crouching down in front of him. I take his furry head in my hands, one supporting his chin and the other nuzzling the fur behind his ear. “I’m sorry I tried to block you out. What’s say we do this next part together?”
I wait for a response, half expecting him to open his mouth and speak, but instead he licks my cheek, a big wet slobbery dog kiss, and I wrap my arms around him, closing my eyes as I hold my wolf self, trying to show the comfort and love I’ve been too scared to give to myself.
“Hey, Squishface,” Katie says.
Wait, Katie’s here too?
I open my eyes and find myself kneeling on the carpet of my bedroom back at Stony Point, my arms wrapped around myself. My wolf is gone…no not gone, he’s just not apart from me any longer.
“You’re going to be late,” Katie says from where she’s sitting on my bed, “as usual.”
Her back is against the headboard and one knee is pulled to her chest, and she looks younger than I remember, as if she’s de-aged by about four years, back to when we were an inseparable duo, besties forever.
“Oh yeah. Late for what?” I ask.
“Oh you know,” she says with a casual shrug. “Everything.”
“How do I get back?”
She tilts her head in the direction of the door. “Through there.”
“Thank you,” I say and head for the door. “And Katie…”
“Yeah?”
“I miss you.”
Young Katie smiles as I step through my bedroom door and suddenly the world is full of light.
I open my eyes and this time I’m back in the real world. Pale dawn light is creeping over the edge of the desert basin. The rocks that surround me look less like teeth now and more like mountains, a series of peaks between which run any number of valleys, each its own path.
Yoki and Omar aren’t here. The accoutrements from the ritual sit in a circle around me, the plate of wolf teeth right in front, only now it’s empty. Feeling strangely awake and nowhere near as sore as a person who slept sitting cross-legged on a patch of sand should, I stand and dust myself off.
Slowly, I make my way to the top of the ridge. The sun is just peeking over the horizon, a few stars remain visible, and to the west a pale outline of the moon hangs low. A short distance from the basin I spot Omar, asleep on his side, half in, half out of a sleeping bag, and a little farther beyond that Yoki is sitting upright, facing the moon, with their eyes closed and their hands palm up on their knees.
I approach cautiously, not wanting to disturb them.
“You’re back,” Yoki says before I’ve quite reached them, a knowing smile playing in the corner of their mouth.
“I am.”
“I hope you found what you were looking for.”
I rub the back of my neck, then catch myself doing it and stop.
“Yeah, I think I did.”
I plop myself down next to Yoki and for a moment I study the moon, just barely visible but still there, always there, moving around and above, always shining.
“Shall we wake the sleeping beast?” Yoki asks, referring to Omar I assume.
“No, let him sleep a little longer. It’s still early.”
Yoki and I watch the moon until it’s fully hidden behind the horizon and the sun is almost a quarter of the way through the sky. Behind us Omar sits up, yawning and stretching. Without speaking we stand in unison, dust off the sand, and prepare to head back.
A ROGUE CELEBRATION
“So what did you see?” Omar asks as we trek back to camp.
My mind is still reeling a little from the whole experience. As the day has heated up, my drifting, calm state of mind has turned into more of a haze and I think the lack of sleep may be affecting me. I keep yawning and my eyelids weigh a ton.
“A whole lot,” I say.
“Did you at least get some clarity?”
I may be yawning and a little spaced out but when I stop to think about it, yes, I definitely have some clarity. In fact, I feel certain a demolition crew is on its way to break down the walls I’d built around my mind.
“Yeah, I think so.”
“That’s great. I’m happy for you, cuz.”
“What about you?” I ask. “You never told me what happened when you did the moonwalk. What clarity did you find?”
Omar scrunches up his mouth and shoos an invisible fly from in front of his face.
“I didn’t find much clarity,” he says, his tone darker than before.
We walk the rest of the way in silence.
The first thing I want to do when we get back sometime in the early afternoon is find Jasper. After everything I saw last night, every version of Jasper, and the distinct feeling like he was always just a hair’s breadth out of reach, I want to hug him and feel his solidity, to know that he’s real.
“Thank you,” I say to Yoki as we prepare to part ways. “For everything.”
Yoki doesn’t say anything. They smile wryly and bow a little before twirling and heading for their tent.
“I’m glad you found what you were looking for,” Omar says a little gruffly, trailing a circle in the dirt with the toe of his sneaker.
“Thanks, and—Omar?”
He looks up.
“Thank you too, for helping me and coming along with me and, you know, being there.”
“Anytime, cuz. I’ll catch you later. Don’t leave without saying goodbye.”
Oh. I hadn’t really thought about it, but I guess now that Yoki has done just about everything they can and I’m feeling good about my connection to my wolf self, Jasper and I should be getting back to the Elite Pack.
“Yeah, okay,” I mumble. Omar turns and something in me tells me to call out. “I’ll see you at dinner, right?”
His placid expression turns into a smile and he salutes with two fingers. “Be there or be, I dunno, human or something.”
Omar leaves and I wait until he’s out of sight. At least we’ll have tonight, I think, trying to ward off the encroaching sense that I still don’t quite want to leave this place. When he’s gone I make my way to the new school tent.
“Oh my moon gods.”
I stand at the edge of the lofty new school tent and can’t quite believe the sight I’m greeted with. Jasper is standing in front of a rapt audience of kids sitting cross-legged on a large carpet, a book in one hand, performing a lively interpretation of whatever adventure story they’re reading. He glances at the book, then hunches over, making his hands into witchy claws and giving the performance of his lifetime.
“I’ll get you, my wolfies,” he says in a creaky character voice. “You’ll never escape my labyrinth, not in a million—”
He stops short when he glances up and his eyes catch on mine. Instantly, his face is beet red.
“Why did you stop?” one particularly precocious kid calls out.
“Keep reading, Mr. Jasper!” another shouts.
I gesture for him to keep going, to which he purses his lips and huffs but then clears his throat and continues on.
“You’ll never escape my labyrinth, not in a million years, not until the moon can be seen in the daylight!”
I recognize the story suddenly. It’s called The Wayward Pup and the Pale Moon. It’s a children’s story, derived from ancient werewolf lore. A pup strays from his pack and as he tries to get home he makes friends with a bunch of other animals: a raccoon, a bear, a rattlesnake, and a hawk. But eventually they’re all captured by this evil witch—who I think is supposed to represent humanity—and in order to escape this giant maze they have to make the moon rise during the day. So the wayward pup recalls everything he learned about the moon gods from his parents and teaches the other animals and together they call on Selene and her family and she lets the moon stay in the sky even after the sun is up. It’s supposed to be an origin story of sorts, to explain why you can sometimes see the moon during the day, what we call a Pup’s Moon.
Jasper bursts into a maniacal evil laugh as the witch who’s trapped her prey in her maze, and the kids explode with screams and shrieks.
As he continues reading, Jasper takes on the roles of the wayward pup and his friends with the same theatricality and commitment as the witch. Who knew my mate had this outstanding acting talent?
Somewhere toward the end of the story, as the pup and his friends call to the moon gods, Tomas appears at my side.
“He’s an excellent teacher,” Tomas says, watching Jasper attempting to play all five animal friends at the same time, resulting in him jumping from spot to spot, contorting his face in all sorts of disturbing ways. “There’s more of his mother in him than even I imagined.”
I glance at Tomas, who has this proud sort of look in his eye and just the first hint of moisture.
“You were close with her?” I ask, although I already know the answer.
He takes a breath and lets his head drop slightly. “She would have been very proud.”
The crowd of pups erupts into applause and I assume the witch has been defeated. When I look back, Tomas is gone.
As the kids jump up, run to Jasper with their little arms outstretched, overwhelm him with their sheer number and the force of their excitement, and tackle him to the ground, I can’t help but wonder if maybe Tomas knew Jasper had this in him all along. That maybe putting him to work at the school wasn’t so much about Jasper learning about his mother, but more about Jasper learning how much of his mother lives on in him.
Finally, Jasper manages to extricate himself from the pile of wolf pups and makes his way to me, a wide smile on his face.
“Enjoy the show?” he asks.
“I didn’t know you were classically trained,” I joke.
“Stop,” he says, a playful note of warning in his tone.
“Seriously, someone call the Academy! Get Scorsese on the phone!”
Jasper shakes his head and rubs his eyes. “You’re never going to let me forget this, are you?”
“Forget! How could I forget the performance of a lifetime? Seriously, I’m changed. The depth! The range! The physicality!”
“Insufferable,” Jasper mutters.
“Jasper?” a squeaky voice asks, and we both look down to find a kid has attached itself to Jasper’s leg. “Will you read us another? You do the best voices.”
He groans and rolls his eyes, his head flopping backward. But then he scoops the little girl up into his arms and says, “Just one more, okay?”
