He rarely noticed the white translucent silhouette that often accompanied him on his explorations, though his imagination was surely deep enough to believe in such things. He wrote off the cloudy shadow as a reflection caused by sunlight piercing the canopy above, or perhaps a glint off of a body of water, or maybe floating dandelion fluff, gathered like a school of fish, drifting in the steady breeze. Though high school was a few years away, he still believed in a number of childhood tales — fairies a remote possibility, the uncanny behavior of a rabbit sitting up and sniffing in an oddly human way, the babbling brook every now and then uttering something that resembled, “Come closer.” And let’s not talk of the shadows of the night, the way the moon cast questions into every dark corner of the woods, unanswered most nights — now and then a bark, or whimper, perhaps a sharp-tongued scream.
When he tripped on the root, he glanced quickly back over his shoulder, wondering why the mighty oak might betray him, as he pinwheeled down the bank, rolling over the earth, cracking his skull on a rock that herniated up through the dirt, landing face down in a foot of shimmering water. And it was there that he lay still, not moving, until the ivory wolf billowed over the thick bushes and gurgling waterfall, to stand by the boy as the child violently choked out his last few breaths. It turned its head from one side to the other, its ears twitching, blue eyes gleaming, its long tail puffing out, as it stood up, and walked to the boy. It yelped once, barked again with more ferocity, and then grabbed the boy gently by the nape of his neck and pulled him to safety at the edge of the thin, cold creek.
When the child woke, his head hurt, as did the stinging bite marks on his neck, that he would later assign to insects. He touched the lump, his fingers coming away red, and then he ran home to his mother.
• • •
“It has always been eat or be eaten,” he sighed.
When he thought of his transgressions — plucking flowers for his shining mother, an arrowhead for his exhausted father, armloads of branches for a fire in the back yard, holes dug to unearth squirming worms — it previously had felt like adventure, a sharing of wondrous resources.
Now, it felt like trespassing.
Older now, he turned away. Frowning, he rejected the magic of a morning scattering ladybugs in a field of high grass, an afternoon lost in catching slick frogs, an evening chasing flashing fireflies. He was beyond such frivolous pursuits.
Or so he thought.
His back to the woods, ready to head home, there were chores to still be done, homework waiting for him when he heard a noise, the hair on his arms raised up, electric. Something was hurt; something was dying.
He responded quickly.
Into the woods he dashed, the old familiar trails less so, crowded with branches that reached out in greeting, thick bushes overflowing with buds and purpled vines, the noise deep inside the darkening forest, not quite to the clearing, but far enough in to be filled with creeping shadows.
When he found the fox, he was startled by how orange its coat was, the brightness a shocking burst of color in the layers of green and brown. It was hurt, lying on its side, chewing at one of its legs, blood pooling underneath it, a glossy stare in its eyes. When it saw the boy it opened its long jaw and let loose a high-pitched call that was more human than the boy wanted to admit. Its voice was sharp and hoarse, and as he got closer, he noticed more damage to the poor animal — legs bent and broken, tufts of fur gone, with raw skin beneath, one of its eyes shut, panting in short breaths, its pink tongue slick with saliva.
There was nothing the boy could do for it, except put it out of its misery. There were plenty of large rocks scattered throughout the woods, and when he found one that was large enough to do the job, he sobbed and picked it up, the forest suddenly quiet. His arms trembled as he held the boulder over his head, tears streaming down his face, his gut filled with turmoil. It only took one rock, thank God, and he tried not to look, only glancing quickly, to make sure it was done.
He didn’t see the clutch of pups hiding in the bushes, until after it was all over. The mewling animals, in a writhing mass of muted orange, would never survive without the mother. The child knew this much, and so he picked the rock back up. The innocence of youth would be abandoned for the responsibility of adulthood. Once, twice, so many times, over and over the rock was raised, and then dropped, the mewling and crying turned to a sickening silence. He stepped away, wavering, tipping over, before vomiting into the bushes, as he knelt in the dirt, shaking.
In the shadows, the white wolf watched, and shifted — darkening in the setting sun, a bitter taste in its mouth.
• • •
Frustration over a promotion ended up costing him his job for good — and the rage that bloomed in his chest startled those around him. His aura darkened, filling the space with a dark cloud that vibrated with anger and sickness. Nobody wanted to catch his sickness, and so they gave him a wide berth.
A factory, an office, a construction site, or a restaurant — does it really matter where he worked, and what exactly he lost?
It does not.
It was as if a crack in something solid — a wooden cabinet, an iron door, a concrete embankment — had been wrenched open, spilling out all of the chittering hysteria that lay inside him. It was surprising in the moment, even to the young man, but he was beyond controlling it. He shoved in a pry bar, and leaned back, putting his full weight into it, and those dark thoughts that he had tried so very hard to stuff down deep, and ignore, came rushing out in a great, gushing malevolence.
Violence begets violence and so everywhere he went, his mouth would open wide to scream vile curses, revealing secrets that had been entrusted, crossing lines that could never be backed over.
The stares.
The fear.
The sadness.
The way his arms opened wide, hands fluttering like two birds of prey warring over a fish, shattering glass whenever he was near it, hands pounding whatever sturdy surface was close by, fists through walls, spittle flying from a mouth that would not shut.
His rage would erupt and overflow in waves. It would manifest in the dark corners of bars where bloody, swollen knuckles were worn like jewels, with pride. It would seep out of him at sporting events, where his lips would lather with blood sport, the players on the field gone berserker, his red face echoing their violence from the stands. It would raise its eyes and sniff the air at the most humble of places — grocery stores, and hardware stores, and department stores — over a rotten fruit, an ineffective tool, or the wrong piece of clothing, be it size or brand or color.
It wasn’t once, it was again and again — the first time the most surprising, the subsequent raptures leaned into, summoned at will, a part of his DNA now. He was as powerless as a scarecrow, propped up in a cornfield, bursting at the seams with sorrow, loss, and regret — unable to do anything but watch, as his life careened out of control, the downward spiral of his existence filled with buzzing flies, clacking beetles, and squirming maggots.
It wasn’t until this fury engulfed him — bridges burned, friendships ended, love and lust doused with cold water — that he would hear the snapping of the teeth, its jaw opening and closing, eyes ablaze, tongue lolling in ravenous hunger, the shadow wolf filled with a darkness that held no stars, no light at all. It was more like an oil spill, a blackness that showed no end, a void that would reflect nothing away from it — never-ending, all consuming, eager to multiply and expand.
Wherever he was, whenever he was, there was a moment right before it all faded to a dull vibration, that his hand would fall off the edge of the bed, or onto the floor, or over the dirt — the black beast nipping at his fingertips, suckling the blood that spilled out. It would nibble, and feed, a glint in its eyes that had no right to sparkle.
• • •
He was tired — of the suffering, of the emptiness, of what he’d become.
The garden around him bloomed with wonder — splashes of red roses, next to a cascade of yellow Forsythia, whispering grasses bearing witness to his expiration. Underneath the purple lavender, there was still an earthy rot, a sprinkling of death in the middle of so much life, but the woods continued to hold fireflies, dotting the foliage with wonder and light.
Sitting in the faded Adirondack chair, he knew there wasn’t much left in him, the snuffling of a cold nose just below his right hand, comforting. He didn’t need to look down to see the cloudy wolf hunched there, tongue lolling, a shimmer in its gleaming eyes. They were old friends now, having been through so much together.
The pounding in his chest grew louder — anxiety rippling over his flesh, so many regrets, the mistakes that would eclipse his fractured heart, and what it felt like to come to an agreement, to push through the darkness, only to find more emptiness, a pinprick of light too far away to matter.
He let out a soft moan and grabbed his chest — the skin tearing, as the flesh split open, a smile pushing across his face. The gaping tear had never really healed, so when he ran his trembling fingers over the shimmering wound, tears ran down his face, the whimpering of the white wolf in the distance shifting to an aching howl that filled his ears with a dizzying noise. It stood on a distant hill, watching, waiting, kept away by thorny bushes and poisonous vines, pixelating in the encroaching gloom, before winking out of existence entirely.
The old man inserted his fingers into the gap, trying to massage the ache that lay there, knowing it would do no good. So he gripped the beating muscle and tugged, the separating much easier than he thought it would be, the spark in his own eyes turning dull and glassy, as he fed the tainted muscle to the hungry, snapping teeth of the wolf that had survived.
