Naomi nods thoughtfully. “Good. But I know it’s still hard
to watch someone else transform. It’s a helpless feeling.”
“Yeah,” I
say, “I mean, I’m happy that I don’t wolf out like that any more, believe me,
but it’s almost worse, worrying about somebody else. I almost wish it could be
me, you know?”
“Survivor
guilt,” Cicely says. I had almost forgotten she was there, she has been so
quiet. “You feel bad for being the one who isn’t suffering. You feel like it
should be you, like you don’t deserve to be the one who escaped.”
I know we
aren’t just talking about D.J. any more, and I also know she’s right. Looking
at D.J. chained to the wall brings me right back to the helplessness I felt as
I watched Cicely die. I can’t save D.J. from turning, any more than I could
save Cicely from getting vamped. The irony of it never ceases to amaze me: I
more powerful than any human could dream of being, but I’m powerless over this.
I’m Super Man, but I can’t save anyone. I’m finally in control of myself, but I
can’t control anything else.
Naomi
reaches out a hand towards me, then quickly draws it back. I know she’s itching
to touch me, to charm me, but she isn’t going to do it in front of Cicely.
Instead,
she lays her hand on D.J.’s shoulder, and I picture the energy flowing into him
like honey. “Jonah used to read a lot,” she says.
It’s the first time she has talked
about her lost love in a while. I don’t want to scare her away from the
subject, so I try to sound casual. “Yeah? What did he read?”
“Everything. Research about wolves.
Folk tales about lycanthropy. Poetry.”
“Poetry?” It’s hard for me to
picture a werewolf sitting around reading poems.
Naomi smiles at the look on my
face. “There can be answers in poetry, too, Ander, and we were looking for
answers. Jonah loved poetry. But his real love was mythology. Did you know
that, in the Norse myths, the cosmic wolf is destined to destroy the world?”
“Sounds
right,” I say. “I’ve felt like I was going to destroy the world a bunch of
times.”
“Why hasn’t
he? Destroyed the world, I mean?” Cicely says. I’m not sure if she’s talking
about me or the cosmic wolf.
“Well,”
Naomi’s hand moves to the silver plated chains that hold D.J.’s arm. “The gods
keep him tied down. At first they tried to bind him with the world’s strongest
chains, but he broke them.”
I laugh
nervously. “You consider this a pep talk, Naomi?”
Cicely
laughs, too. Naomi gives me a look.
“They found something better!” she says, “The dwarves told them they needed to
weave a rope out of six impossible things.”
“Yeah?” I say,
“Like what?”
Naomi’s
brow furrows as she struggles to remember. “The root of a mountain, I think?
The breath of a fish? Stuff like that.”
I feel
disappointed in spite of myself. For a second I had hoped there was some real
answer hidden in the myth. “The breath of a fish doesn’t sound that strong,” I
note.
Cicely
grins. “Strong smelling, maybe.”
D.J.
stirs and opens his eyes.
“Well,” Naomi
smiles kindly at him, “The point is, it worked. They wove the rope of
impossible things, and even though it was as thin and soft as spider silk, it
still held the wolf down and kept him from destroying the world.”
“Six
impossible things,” I say skeptically.
“Before
breakfast!” Cicely adds. We all look at her like she’s crazy. “You know? That
line from Alice
Something
about her words makes me think of Michael, shuffling around the kitchen after a
long night at the bar, trying to make another batch of potion for me before I
leave for school in the morning. Trying to hit on the six impossible things
that would keep me from destroying the world that day.
“And he’ll
never break out?” D.J.’s voice is hoarse with pain. I didn’t think he had been
listening. He’s scared, I can tell, no matter how hard he tries to hide it.
“Well…”
Naomi reaches out one cautious hand to stroke D.J.’s cheek. I see him relax
little at her charming touch, but not that much. “The truth is, they didn’t
believe it could hold forever. They believed the wolf would some day get free.”
Cicely
widens her eyes at Naomi to say why are
you telling him this?
“But the
point,” Naomi says quickly, “is that, even if the wolf destroys the world some
day, today is not the day.”
Today is
not the end of the world. Well, maybe not for all of us, but for D.J. it’s the
end of the world as he has known it, the beginning of another life, and no
matter how strong he thinks he is or how ready, it’s going to feel like that
cosmic wolf has swallowed him whole. That much I know for sure.
Cicely
slips her hand into mine and gives it a little squeeze. She looks up at me and
smiles her most reassuring smile. It makes me think of all the little things
that bind us – the impossible things, the things that shouldn’t be. They may be
soft as spider silk – soft as Cicely’s hand in mine – but they keep us from
hurting each other, no matter how bad we want to. Tonight we will wrap D.J. in
the strongest chains, but ultimately that’s not what will keep him from hurting
someone. Cicely has told me about the night of the Fall Formal, when I chased
her across the fields behind the school, how I caught her, but then hesitated
for just a second when I looked into her eyes. And I let her go. I can’t
remember that, of course, and I’m not sure what to make of it, but I know what
Michael would say: It’s the little threads that connect is too each other – the
little threads that connect us to our real selves - that keep us from
destroying the world.
And we’ve
just gotta pray they hold.
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