“I guess.” I don’t remember. Seems likely, though. “Looks like you got him one, too.”
“Oh, yeah?” I can hardly move, though I turn my head toward the sound of her voice.
Alby grins her pixie smile. “Yeah. Got a big bandage on his neck, he does.”
I lick my lips. Imagine I can taste blood. “Probably cut himself shaving.”
Her smile fading, Alby says, “Whatever you say, Red.”
I try to roll over, turn away from her, but something holds me down: leather straps at my ankles and wrists. One across my waist.
“Five-point locked leather,” Alby says, with some reverence. “You were really going crazy when they brought you in. Foaming at the mouth, even.”
I lay my head back down on the small hard pillow. Close my eyes. Maybe I can get back to my dream.
* * *
Mr. L visits me in the dark room with the leather straps. He has no bandage on his neck, but there are scratches there. I know why. I have his skin under my fingernails. In my teeth.
“Little Rojo,” he says, almost lovingly, “you must learn control.”
I try to laugh but all that comes out is a choking cough. He wanders slowly behind me, his fingers trailing through my red hair, my cap of blood.
“You must learn to walk the path.” In front of me again, he glances up, at the television camera, the one that always watches. Puts his back to it.
“And will you be my teacher?” I say before spitting at him.
He looks down at me. Smiles. “If you let me.” Then he pats my cheek. Before he can touch me again, I go away.
* * *
The forest is cold that night and I stand on a forked road. One is the path of needles, one the path of pins. I don’t know which is which. Both are paths of pain.
I take the left.
I don’t know how far I travel – what is distance to me? I am a night’s walk from my den, a single leap from my next meal – but I am growing weary when the trap closes on my leg.
Sharp teeth and iron, it burns as it cuts. A howl escapes my throat and I am thrown out of myself.
I see Mr. L standing over the strapped body of a girl. I can’t see his hands. But I can feel them.
He looks up as I howl again, his face caught between pleasure and pain. I tumble through the thick walls and out into the cool night sky, into the dark forest, into my fur body.
I tear at my ankle with teeth made for the task. Painful seconds later, I leave my forepaw in the trap and limp back down the path.
* * *
It is days later. Weeks. Nighttime. Moon shining in my tiny window. They couldn’t keep me tied down forever. The law doesn’t allow it.
I am crouched in the corner of my room, ruined tube of toothpaste in my hands. I have figured out how to tear it, unwind it, form it into a razor edge. I hold it over my arm, scars glowing white in the moonlight, blue vein pulsing, showing me where to cut.
But I don’t. Don’t cut.
Instead I let the pain rise within me. I know one quick slash can end it. Can bring relief. But I don’t move. I let the pain come and I embrace it, feel it wash over me, through me. I let it come – and then, I go away.
* * *
I am in the forest, but I am not four-footed. I am not thick-furred. I have no hope of tasting blood or smelling the sweet scent of terrified prey.
I am me: scrawny and battered, short tufts of ragged red hair sprouting from my too large head. Green eyes big. A gap between my top front teeth wide enough to escape through.
I stand in the middle of the road. No forks tonight, it runs straight and true like the surgeon’s knife. Behind me, tall trees loom. I take two tentative steps and realize I am naked. Embarrassed, I glance around. I am alone.
Before long I see a white clapboard cottage ahead of me. Smoke trails from a red brick chimney. Gray paving stones lead up to the front door. I recognize the house. It is more threatening than the dark forest with its tall trees. Grandma lives here.
I turn to run, but behind me I hear a howling, long, low, and mournful. I know the sound – wolves. Hunting wolves. I must hurry inside.
The door swings open silently. The first room is unlit as I step in. I pull the door closed behind me. Call into the darkness, “Grandma?”
“Is that you, Red?” Her voice is lower than I remember.
“Yes, Grandma.” My voice shakes. My hands shake.
“Come into the bedroom. I can’t hear you from here.”
“I don’t know the way, Grandma.”
I hear her take a deep breath, thick with smoke, rattling with disease. “Follow my voice. You’ll remember how.”
And suddenly, I do remember. Three steps forward, nine steps left. Reach out with your right hand. Push the thin door open.
“I am here, Grandma.”
Outside, there are disappointed yips as the wolves reach the front door and the end of my trail.
“Come closer, Red. I can’t see you from here.”
“Yes, Grandma.” I step into blackness and there she is, lying in the bed. She is bigger than I remember, or maybe I am smaller. The quilt puffs around her strangely, as if she has muscles in new places. A spot of drool dangles from her bottom lip.
I look down at my empty hands. My nakedness. “I haven’t brought you anything, Grandma.”
She smiles, showing bright pointed teeth. “You have brought yourself, Red. Come closer, I can’t touch you from here.”
“Yes, Grandma.” I take one step forward and stop.
The wolf pack snuffles around the outside of the house, searching for a way in.
Grandma sits up. Her skin hangs loosely on her, like a housedress a size too large. Tufts of fur poke out of her ears, rim her eyes.
“No, Grandma. You’ll hurt me.”
She shakes her head, and her face waggles loosely from side to side. “I never hurt you, Red.” She scrubs at her eye with a hairy knuckle, then scoots forward, crouching on the bed, poised to spring. Her haunches are thick and powerful. “Sometimes the wolf wears my skin. It is he that hurts you.” Her nose is long now.
“No, Grandma.” I stare into her dark green eyes. “No, Grandma. It’s you.”
She leaps then, her Grandma skin sloughing off as she flies for my throat. I turn and run, run through the thin door, run nine steps right and three steps back, push open the front door, hear her teeth snap behind me, severing tendons, bringing me down. I collapse onto the paving stones.
Howling and growling, a hundred wolves stream over and around me. Their padded feet are light on my body. They smell musty and wild. They take down Grandma in an instant, and I can hear her screams and the snapping of her brittle old bones.
I think I will die next, bleeding out onto the gray stone. But leathery skin grows over my ankle wound, thick gray fur. My nose grows cold and long and I smell Grandma’s blood. Howling my rage and hunger, I leap to my four clawed feet. Soon, I am feasting on fresh meat with my brothers and sisters.
* * *
I wake, not surprised to be tied down again. Seven points this time, maybe more, I can’t even move my head.
“Jesus, Red, you killed him this time.” It is Alby, drifting into view above me.
“Go away, Alby. You aren’t even real.”
She nods without speaking and fades away. I go to sleep. I don’t dream.
* * *
Next morning they let me sit up. I ask for my journal. They don’t want to give me a pen.