Dark Dreams Part 7

How it happened History is full of stories about human children being raised by wild animals. Few are true, although everyone wishes they were. Who can bear the thought of a child being abandoned in the wild1? Much easier to comfort oneself imagining a world so loving that its fiercest creatures will happily adopt any baby they find.

In the boy's case, the wild was infinitely kinder than the being who had raised him, the only parent he 'd ever known. Nothing nature did to him could ever be as cruel or unpredictable. When he escaped, he spent his first few days of freedom fearing only that the guardian would come back for him. Once the boy understood that the other was never coming back, he felt safe for the first time.

Out in the wild he lost the stooped, frightened look he'd had as a child. Extremes of cold and heat stopped mattering to him. He learned to eat whatever he could find whenever he could find it. He learned, too, the habits of the other creatures sharing the woods and fields with him.

The boy never bothered the animals. It wouldn 't have occurred to him to try to befriend them; he was so lonely DARK DRKAMS * 117.

he didn't even know he was lonely. But he did like to watch the animals when they let him.

He liked the wolves, especially. To the boy, who had no idea what a family was, the wolves' interaction with one another was astonis.h.i.+ng. And after the "rescue" was over and he'd been set free for the second time, it was to the wolves that he returned. He liked to think that some of the older members of the pack remembered him.

So when his transformation took place, it seemed completely normal to him.

Now he feels as though he only comes to life during the full moon. The rest of the time, he is a shadow. Which is why, of course, it is easy for him not to care that his life is as empty as it is.

It doesn't feel as empty now, though. This girl has recognized him. He is sure of it.

It's only a matter of time.

CHAPTER 10.

When you're suddenly without a boyfriend and your best friends are ignoring you, you have plenty of time to think about things. On her own most of the time, Lila began to wonder why she'd been chosen-if that was what it was-to become a werewolf. Why had this happened to her?

Could it be heredity? Lila was absolutely positive that neither of her parents had a trace of werewolf blood. Naturally she had no proof of this, but the idea was inconceivable all the same. Still, there might be ancestors who'd carried the gene. Perhaps, by some cruel chance, werewolfism had been pa.s.sed down through the generations and come alive again in Lila.

Or was becoming a werewolf somehow contagious? If so, why had Lila caught it, and from DARK 3ORKAMS * 119.

whom? Surely she was the only person she knew with this problem.

Werewolves could spread their condition to humans, of course. Though the books Lila had read all claimed there were different ways for this to happen, there seemed to be general agreement that being attacked by a wolf or werewolf could transform an ordinary human being into a werewolf as well. But Lila had never been attacked by a wolf.

Or had she? She certainly didn't remember any kind of attack. For the first time, though, Lila wondered exactly how she'd gotten the scar on her leg. The scar had begun to fester before anything else about her had transformed. Perhaps it held the clue to her condition.

"Mom," Lila asked that night at supper, "how did I get this scar on my leg?"

Mrs. Crawford dropped her fork with a clatter. She darted a quick glance at her husband and looked down at her plate, her face working strangely.

"It's not a disfiguring scar, dear," her mother 120 * Children of the Night finally said. For some reason she sounded defensive. "It's hardly visible at all. You can always wear pants if you're worried about it"

"I'm not worried about it," Lila said in surprise. Not most of the time, anyway. "I was just wondering about it, that's all. I mean, you may not even know how I got it"

"I do know." Mrs. Crawford's voice was pinched with discomfort At the other end of the table, Mr. Crawford had broken off eating and was staring into midair with a gla.s.sy gaze, almost as if he was reliving some painful memory from the past What is going on with these two? Lila wondered.

"It was when .. ." Mrs. Crawford broke off. "You remember that we lived in France for six months when you were little?"

"Just bits of it," Lila answered. Her father had been there on business, she knew. "I remember the food. Someone used to give me rolls with chocolate inside."

"That would have been Genevieve," her mother said. "A local girl. She took care of you two afternoons a week."

DARK DRKAMS * 121.

"And I remember a place all covered with flat stones. A playground?"

"A courtyard," answered Mrs. Crawford. "It was in front of the house we were renting. You used to play out there. In fact, it was there that ... it happened."

"What happened?"

Mrs. Crawford wiped her mouth with her napkin and pushed her plate away. "You had a little doll," she said slowly. "Do you remember her?"

"I don't think so."

"You just adored that doll. You called her Croak)-, for some reason. You took her with you everywhere, and you wouldn't go to sleep without her.

"But one day, one very cold winter day ..." Mrs. Crawford took a deep breath. "You forgot your doll. You left her outside in the courtyard. You didn't remember her until bedtime. And then you had a fit "Well, I felt I couldn't give in about something like that," Lila's mother went on. "If I had found the doll for you, it would have sent a very negative message."

122 * Children of the Night "What kind of negative message?" asked Lila wonderingly.

"That you could just go around forgetting things and expect others to take care of them for you. That you didn't need to be responsible for your own possessions. That ail I was there for was to clean up after you. That's what all the books told us."

"Mom, I was three years old!" Lila protested. "Three-year-olds expect other people to take care of them because other people are supposed to take care of them!"

"Don't, Lila. I've had plenty of time to be sorry since then without help from you," said her mother wearily. "Anyway, I sent you to bed. I told you there would be plenty of time to find the doll in the morning.

"But you didn't want to wait that long," Lila's mother continued. "So you waited until your father and I had gone to bed. And you sneaked out of the house.

"I don't know what woke me. I must have heard the front door squeak. I got up and found that you DARK DREAMS * 123.

weren't in your room. I walked to the front door and . . ."

Mrs. Crawford's voice faltered.

"You were outside in your nightgown and bare feet. It was well below freezing. You had gone out to look for your doll. And when I found you, you were at the bottom of the steps with the doll in your hand. And a ... a wolf was attacking you."

"A wolf," Lila echoed in a whisper.

"I don't know where it came from," Mrs. Craw-ford went on rapidly. "We lived in a perfectly civilized little town. We weren't out in the forest somewhere. A wolf in a place like that was a total anomaly."

Lila's father spoke up for the first time. "The police said it was unprecedented for a wolf to attack within the town's limits," he said sternly. He sounded to Lila as though he was profoundly displeased with the wolf for ignoring tradition. "They'd never seen a case like that before."

"I ran down the steps and grabbed you away, naturally," Lila's mother recounted.

Lila stared at her mother, openmouthed. She'd 124 * Children of the Night never told this story before, but now as Lila heard it, all sorts of bells were going off inside her.

"Mom, weren't you scared?" she burst out. She couldn't imagine her mother confronting a wolf in the dead of night.

"I was scared for you, Lila," her mother said firmly. "It never occurred to me to worry about the wolf, huge as it was. I realize now that I must have exaggerated its size in the terror of the moment, but it seemed enormous. Compared to the wolf, you were the size of a tiny doll," she said musingly. "All I could think was to save my baby."

"And you did," Lila finished in a whisper. What had happened, she wondered, to that hopeful, heroic young mother? It was almost impossible to see her in the rigidly controlled, undemonstrative woman Mrs. Crawford was now.

"I don't know how I did it exactly, because it seemed the wolf was actually upon you," Mrs. Crawford went on dreamily. "But I felt stronger and faster than I'd ever felt before in my life. I ran down, s.n.a.t.c.hed you up, and had us both safely inside before I knew it."

"You saved my life?" All these years, Lila had DARK DREAMS * 125.

never known. Not just about the attack, but about what her mother was capable of. I guess she does care about me, Lila thought as the truth suddenly dawned clear as day. She just can't show it, she finished sadly. Now, after all this, I find out.

Now her mother shook off her mood of reminiscence and became the brisk, no-nonsense person Lila had known every day of her life.

"The wolf didn't seem to have bitten you," Lila's mother went on. "It only scratched your leg. But the scratch was bleeding rather severely, so we took you to the hospital in the next town.

"They worried that the wolf might be rabid," she said. "I pointed out that it hadn't bitten you, but they were inclined to be very cautious in a case like this. So you had to have a series of rabies injections. Don't tell me you don't remember thoser Lila shook her head.

"Well, you certainly carried on enough about them at the timeI' said Mrs. Crawford. "I thought we'd go deaf listening to you. And of course it was all for nothing, just as I'd told them."

It's okay, Mom. You don't have to act concerned for my benefit.

126 * Children of the Night "It was a very distressing time for all of us," said Lila's father. "Really, I found it impossible to think about France in the same way after that. I was frankly glad to come home."

"I was, too," agreed his wife. "Once we were back home, I was able to put it all out of my mind." She turned to Lila. "Well, that's the story of your scar," she said briskly. "Do you have any questions?"

"Besides why you and Dad aren't sorry that this happened to me, you mean?" Lila asked angrily. "Gee, I'm sorry that I inconvenienced you both so much. Ruining France for you and everything."

"Don't you take that tone with me, young lady!" Mrs. Crawford snapped. "Naturally we were terribly sorry that this happened to you. I'm only sorry I allowed you to become so dependent on that ridiculous toy. If I'd been more conscientious, the whole thing could have been avoided."

Conscientious about a three-year-old's favorite doll? It seemed like a strange priority to Lila. But surely there was no point in upsetting her mother further, not now that Lila had the information she'd wanted.

DARK DREAMS * 127.

"Just one other thing," she said quietly. "What happened to the wolf?"

Her father answered this time. "Oh, it disappeared," he said. "They never found it. But in the next town, only a few kilometers away, it killed someone the following night. So you can see how lucky you were, actually."

"I certainly can," Lila murmured. Neither of her parents noticed her tone.

By mid-month, Lila's mysterious stranger had started coming by every day. Sometimes the sound of the motorcycle purring would wake Lila in the morning, just seconds before her alarm clock. By the time she got to her bedroom window, motorcycle and rider would always be gone.

Once he pa.s.sed by her school as she was dozing drowsily through American history. Lila sat bolt upright, startled, and then dashed to the window without thinking. She could just make him out turning left at the intersection in front of the school before the motorcycle vanished from view.

"I a.s.sume you're looking for the Dred Scott deci- 128 * Children of the Night sion out there, Lila," said Mr. Heyer, the teacher, irritably.' That being the topic of our discussion, as you are no doubt aware."

"I'm really sorry," said Lila. She could feel herself reddening. "I was-I thought I heard-well, anyway, it won't happen again."

Karin Engals snickered. As she returned shamefacedly to her desk, Lila was glad to see that Marci, who was also in the cla.s.s, didn't even crack a smile. At least Marci hadn't turned her back on her completely.

After cla.s.s, though, Marci made her way toward Lila as they headed for the door.

"It was the same guy, wasn't it?" she asked knowingly.

"What same guy?" Lila said, pretending innocence.

"Come on, Li. You know what I'm talking about. I heard the motorcycle. It was that guy you told us about, right?"

"Of course not." Lila tried to laugh it off. "I just lost my mind for a second-kind of dozed off. You know how it is when you're crazed with boredom."

Marci peered at her suspiciously. "You don't DARK DREAMS * 129.

want me to know about that guy, do you? You're trying to keep him secret."

"Marci, there's nothing to know. I only saw him once. I've never even spoken to him!" Lila hoped she didn't sound as fl.u.s.tered as she felt. For some reason, she didn't want Marci to know that the boy on the motorcycle was coming around so often. Partly it was because she felt as though mentioning such phantom visits-pinning them down with words-might somehow jinx them. Besides, he doesn't want me to tell, she thought, unsure how she knew. We're in this together.

Whatever "this" was.

Very late that night, the sound of the motorcycle broke into Lila's sleep. Without realizing what had awoken her, she sat up groggily.

"What's that?" she murmured.

Then the engine cut off abruptly, and Lila realized what the noise had been.

A throbbing silence descended on the house. On bare feet Lila walked softly to the window and peered outside. It was a dark, windy night She couldn't see the motorcycle anywhere.

130 * Children of the Night But the boy was standing under her bedroom window, his face turned up to hers. Some trick of the light made his eyes glow a luminous green, like a cat's, as she stared down at him.

"Lila," he said once, and disappeared.

A second later, she heard the motorcycle drive away.

The street was quiet again. No lights in any of the houses. Lila s.h.i.+vered. What was she doing here at the window? Had she imagined his visit?

How could he have known her name?

I must have had another dream, she thought wistfully, and returned to bed.

Lila might never have remembered the event if her mother hadn't mentioned it the next morning.

"I thought this was supposed to be a quiet neighborhood," Mrs. Crawford said irritably as she poured herself a cup of coffee. "If we're going to start having motorcyclists riding up and down the street at two in the morning, we may as well move."

"It didn't bother me," said Lila's father. He could sleep through anything. "How about you, Lila?

"Lila?" he repeated. "What's the matter?"

DARK DRKAMS * 131.

Lila was staring at her parents in shock. So it hadn't been a dream after all.