Forever

It was impossible, but here I was, standing at the lodge, wearing my skin.



And then I saw Beck’s death, and my breath was a ship pitching at sea, uneven and perilous.



I thought of Grace in the woods, both of us wolves. The feeling of running beside her, having what I’d dreamed of all of those years before I’d known her properly as a girl. Those hours spent as wolves together were exactly what I’d imagined they’d be, no words to get in the way. I’d wanted winters of that, but I knew now that we were destined, again, to spend those cold months apart. Happiness was a shard rammed in between my ribs.



And then there was Cole.



This impossible thing had only been made possible because of him. I closed my eyes.



Koenig found me beside the pump. “Are you all right?”



I opened my eyes, slowly. “Where are the others?”



“In the woods.”



I nodded. They were probably finding someplace they felt safe enough to rest.



Koenig crossed his arms. “Good job.”



I looked into the woods. “Thanks.”



“Sam, I know you don’t want to think about this right now, but they’ll come back for the bodies,” he told me. “If you want to get th —”



“Grace will shift soon,” I said. “I want to wait for her.”



The truth was, I needed Grace. I couldn’t go back there without her. And more than that, I needed to see her. I couldn’t trust my wolf memories to know she was all right until I saw her.



Koenig didn’t press me. We went into the lodge, and then he retrieved another set of clothing from his car and laid it outside of the lodge door like an offering. He returned with a styrofoam cup of convenience store coffee while drinking one of his own. It tasted awful, but I drank it, too grateful for the kindness to refuse.



Then I sat on one of the dusty chairs in our new home, my head in my hands, looking at the floor, sifting through my wolf memories. Remembering the last thing Cole had said to me: I’ll see you on the other side.



And then there was a soft knock on the door, and it was Grace, dressed in a slightly too-large T-shirt and sweats. Everything I’d meant to say to her — We lost Cole. Beck’s dead. You’re alive — dissolved on my tongue.



“Thank you,” Grace said to Koenig.



“Saving people’s lives,” Koenig said, “is my job.”



Then she crossed to me and hugged me, hard, while I buried my face in her shoulder. Finally, she pulled away and sighed. “Let’s go get them.”



CHAPTER SEVENTY-FIVE



SAM



In comparison to our journey that morning, it took no time at all to get back to the field where the helicopter had found us.



And there Beck was, his body a wreck. There were all kinds of internal parts lying outside of him that I’d never considered him having.



“Sam,” Grace said to me.



His body was so flat and thin looking now, like it had nothing left in it. And maybe it didn’t. Maybe it had all been annihilated from the blast. Those pieces, though. That he had dragged with him before he died. I remembered the bird that Shelby had killed in our driveway.



Sam.



The mouth was parted open, the tongue laying over teeth. Not like a dog would pant, but in a strange, unnatural way. The angle of the tongue made me think that the body must be stiff. Just like a dog hit by a car, really, just another dead body.



sam



say



his eyes, though



something



it had his eyes



sam



and I had so much left to say to him



you’re scaring me



I would be fine. I was fine. It was like I had known all along that he would die. Be dead. That we would find his body like this, ruined and undone, that he would be gone from me and we would never fix what had been broken. I would not cry, because this was just the way it would be. He would be gone, but he had been gone before, and this wouldn’t feel any different, this absolute gone, this forever gone, this gone without hope of spring and warm weather bringing him back to me.



I would feel nothing, because there was nothing to feel. I felt I’d lived this moment a thousand times, so many times that I had no energy or emotion left to bring to the scene. I tried out the idea in my head, Beck is dead, Beck is dead, Beck is dead, waiting for tears, for feeling, for anything.



The air smelled like spring around us, but it felt like winter.



GRACE



Sam just stood there, shaking, hands beside him, silent and staring down at the body at our feet. Something terrible in his face made tear after noiseless tear slide down my cheek.



“Sam,” I begged. “Please.”



Sam said, “I’m fine.”



And then he just crumpled gently to the ground. He was a curled form, hands up behind his head, pulling his face down to his knees, so far beyond crying that I didn’t know what to do.



I crouched beside him and wrapped my arms around him. He shook and shook, but no tears came.



“Grace,” he whispered, and in that one word, I heard agony. He was running a hand through his hair again and again, knotting and releasing fistfuls of it in his palm, ceaseless. “Grace, help me. Help me.”



But I didn’t know what to do.



CHAPTER SEVENTY-SIX



GRACE



I used Koenig’s phone to call Isabel.



Sam, Koenig, and I had spent an hour picking our way over the scrub, performing the morbid job of counting the wolf bodies and seeing if Sam recognized them. Seven wolves dead, including Beck. We hadn’t gotten to Shelby’s or Cole’s bodies yet.



Sam stood a few feet away, looking out into the woods, his hands linked behind his head. As always, it was a gesture that was at once intensely Sam but also Beck. I didn’t remember if I’d ever told Sam that. I didn’t know if it would help or hurt to tell him now.



“Isabel,” I said.



Isabel just sighed.



“I know. What is it like for you there?”



Isabel’s voice was unfamiliar. I thought maybe she’d been crying. “Oh, the usual. I’m grounded for the rest of my life, which is, like, until next week, because after that, they’ll kill me. I’m in my room right now because I’m tired of screaming.”



That explained her voice.



“I’m sorry,” I said.



“Don’t be. I got there a little late, didn’t I?”



“Don’t beat yourself up, Isabel. I know that’s what you like to do, but you didn’t owe the wolves anything, and you came anyway.”



She didn’t say anything for a long time, and I wondered if she believed me. Finally, she said, “And they’re sending me to California to live with Nanna until they can sell the house.”



“What?”



I spoke so sharply that Sam looked over to me, frowning.



Isabel’s voice had no intonation at all. “Yeah. I’m taking my finals and then I’m on a plane with my stuff. Isabel Culpeper. This is her noble end. Back to California with her tail between her legs. Do you think I’m weak for not just taking off?”



Now it was my turn to sigh. “If you can keep your parents, I think you ought to. Your parents love you, even if your dad is a jerk. It doesn’t mean I don’t want you to go.” Isabel in California? “I can’t believe it. Are you sure they won’t change their minds?”



She scoffed. It was a raw sound, a new wound.



“Tell her thank you,” Sam said.



“Sam says to tell you thank you.”



Isabel laughed. Ha. Ha. Ha. “For leaving the state?”



“For saving our lives.”



For a moment, we didn’t say anything. From the direction of the lake, a loon cried. If I hadn’t known, logically, that I had been here this morning, I wouldn’t have remembered it. As a wolf, everything about this place looked different.



Isabel said, “Not everybody’s lives.”



I didn’t know what to say to that, because it was true. It wasn’t really her fault, still, but I couldn’t tell her it wasn’t true. Instead, I said, “We’re in the field. Where was Cole’s — uhh — where did he —”



She interrupted, “There was a bank by the road. There should be my tire tracks. He was a few yards before that. I have to go. I have to —”



The phone went dead.



I sighed and closed my phone, relaying the information. Together we followed the directions, which led us to Shelby’s body. It was surprisingly unmolested, except for her face, which was so destroyed that I couldn’t bring myself to look at it. There was a lot of blood.



I wanted to feel compassion for her, but all I could think was She is the reason Cole is dead.



“She’s finally gone,” Sam said. “She died as a wolf. I think that would please her.”



All around Shelby’s body, the grass was smeared and spattered and stained with red. I didn’t know how far away Cole had died. Was this his blood? Sam was swallowing, looking at her, and I knew that he saw past the monster to something else. I couldn’t.



Koenig muttered something about needing to make a phone call and moved off, giving us some distance.



I touched Sam’s hand. He was standing in so much blood that it looked like he had been wounded himself. “Are you doing okay?”



He rubbed his own arms; it was getting cool again as the sun went down. “I didn’t hate it, Grace.”



He didn’t have to explain. I could still remember that feeling of joy at seeing him bound toward me as a wolf, even if I had no way to remember his name. I remembered exchanging images with him at the head of the pack. They all trusted him, like I did. I said softly, “Because you were better at it.”



He shook his head. “Because I knew it wasn’t forever.”



I touched his hair and he bent his head to kiss me, quiet as a secret. I leaned on his chest and together we stood, buffered from the cold.



After several long minutes, Sam stepped back from me and looked at the woods. For a moment I thought he was listening, but of course, no wolves would howl from Boundary Wood now.



He said, “This is one of the last poems Ulrik had me memorize.



“endlich entschloss sich niemand



und niemand klopfte



und niemand sprang auf



und niemand öffnete



und da stand niemand



und niemand trat ein



und niemand sprach: willkomm



und niemand antwortete: endlich”



“What does it mean?” I asked.



At first, I didn’t think that Sam was going to reply. His eyes were narrowed against the sun, looking out into the woods we’d escaped into an eternity ago, and then, into the woods we used to live in, an eternity before that. He was such a different person than the one that I had first met, bleeding on my back doorstep. That Sam had been shy, naive, gentle, lost in his songs and his words, and I’d always love that version of him. But it was okay, this change. That Sam couldn’t have survived this. For that matter, the Grace I’d been then couldn’t have.



Sam said, looking at Boundary Wood,



“at last no one decided



and no one knocked



and no one jumped up



and no one opened



and there stood no one



and no one entered



and no one said: welcome



and no one answered: at last”