Chương 11: Chapter 10 - The Wolfman

I woke up the next morning feeling like someone had spent the night pounding on my head with a mallet. I offered myself a heart-felt groan and followed it up with another as a thank you for my sympathy. I was used to it. I hadn't slept well, and the morning headaches were just another sign that my insomnia was moving in for a spell. I had joked with Ms. Elstein that at least I wouldn't get them when I was dead. Ha. Ha. So much for that idea.

As I was putting on another all-black outfit, I noticed the whisper of an ache, high in my chest. It took me a moment to realize what it was. I was sad and scared. It was a tiny feeling. It'd be easy to ignore. But it was there. Nights had always been the worst for me. I still had to stomp down memories of lying awake in the dark as a young girl, feeling far more sad and scared than I did now.

Over the years, I had developed a whole repertoire for keeping my mental demons at bay when the sun went down, but I was in a strange new place, surrounded by excessively strange new people, and I didn't know who I was to them. It felt like being in a new foster home. I remembered staring up at the ceiling, feeling lonely, and wondering what I would and wouldn't be allowed to do when I couldn't sleep. That was a sensation I hadn't dealt with in years.

Come to think of it, I always had some insomnia whenever I moved into a new place. Step one: painkillers. As one of my therapists had said, there's no point in suffering if you don't have to. I mentally reviewed all the people in the house as I went down the front stairs, hoping to identify one who would know where the medicine was kept, but who wasn't too scary to talk to. Iset was out. She probably didn't take medicine all that often. Ditto with Jacky. I wondered about Darius Vasil. Did vampires take painkillers?

Or did they drink the blood of someone really healthy? The wolfman struck me as someone who might take painkillers. At least I had reason to believe he ate normal food. I hadn't seen it yet, but there were signs. Yesterday morning, when the wolfman had paused at the bottom of the back stairs, Igor had asked him if he wanted breakfast. The wolfman growled, "later," then disappeared out the French doors that led to the yard. I'd been sitting close to those doors, and I cringed as his bulk passed over me. Yeah.

Maybe not the wolfman. He might know where the medicine was, but he was, by far, the most intimidating person in the house. I smiled at the idea that there was someone more intimidating than death. On the other hand, Jack Noctis tried to be polite and approachable. Conrad Bauer didn't. Kappa was in the hallway, near the half-bathroom. He saw me, let out a squawk, and ran over.

"Mera-mera!"

"Hey, buddy."

"Up!" I held out my arms so he could jump on me. Once he was settled on my hip, I said, "I don't suppose you know if there's any Advil or Tylenol in this house?"

"Huh?"

"Don't worry about it." I dragged that heavy little sucker all the way into the kitchen, then put him down on one of the stools at the kitchen island. Igor was grumbling at the main sink.

"Igor, do we have any painkillers?" The grumbling stopped.

"Are you hurt?"

"It's just a headache." He nodded to the tall cupboards behind me.

"First cupboard, top shelf. There's a box of medicine, and there's fresh coffee by the stove." Now here was a man who knew how to treat a headache. If I had flowers, I would have laid them at his feet.

"Thank you, Igor."

"You'll need breakfast with that."

"Breakfast sounds wonderful." Breakfast was wonderful. Igor toasted me a thick slice of whole wheat bread and poached an egg. I'd never had a poached egg before, and I marveled at it while Igor rolled one of his eyes. He put an apple next to my plate.

"You should eat that," he said. Unauthorized tale usage: if you spot this story on Amazon, report the violation.

"Vitamins?"

"Doctor deterrent."

"You don't like doctors?"

"I don't like anyone, but I haven't found the fruit that keeps everyone away." When Kappa and I finished our breakfasts (his bowl of smelly slop looked gross, but he seemed to enjoy it), the bog-creature ordered me to play with him. His face glowed with happy expectation. It felt so welcoming, I decided I could ignore the last bit of my lingering headache. I checked with Jacky, but he said he had a few things to do before we could leave for Both's store.

I went to find Iset, but when I asked if there was anything I needed to do to help around the house, she seemed surprised.

"Igor and Mrs. Park take care of the house. Conrad takes care of the grounds. We're all set."

"There are no chores at all?"

"You should keep your room neat so that Mrs. Park can clean it, and when we get you some clothes, you'll be in charge of washing them, but that's about it."

"So I can go play with Kappa?"

"I wish you would," she said.

"That would give me time to finish some work without interruption."

"Consider it done." I figured I would make a good distraction. It wasn't much of a chore, but at least there was something I could do to feel less useless. Kappa said he wanted to show me his pond. He dragged me out the back door, across the deck, and into the yard. The area reserved for the manicured lawn and flower garden was set apart from the rest of the grounds by a stone wall with a large, ungated opening. Beyond that, the plants and trees looked untouched.

I found it hard to believe it was part of the yard until I spotted three huge piles of autumn leaves gathered against the wall. Kappa called to me, then disappeared around the edge of the wall. I hurried to catch up. When I turned the corner, he was hopping down a walking path, toward a pond. The pond was bigger than I thought it would be, and, like the yard around it, it looked natural.

Based on how carefully someone had laid the flat rocks around the edge, I suspected a lot of work had gone into making it look that way. There were plants all around it, including a large tree whose remaining leaves were a dull yellow. When we reached the edge of the pond, Kappa slipped into the water using a slinky dive that created minimal splash. It was clear he was at home there. His skin blended into the background so well, he almost disappeared.

I could barely make out his black eyes; they looked like two dark, shiny bubbles, floating on the surface.

"This is your pond?" I asked. The two bubbles rose.

"Yes!"

"It's beautiful."

"Fancy fish." I glanced down. Bright orange koi glowed against the green-black rocks.

"Very fancy," I agreed.

"I found it."

"The fish?"

"No! My pond. I found it."

"You're a lucky guy, you know that?"

"Want to swim?" The pond was at least six feet deep, but it looked cold, and I didn't like the idea of swimming around with a bunch of koi.

"No, thank you." Kappa swam to the edge and pulled himself out. He grabbed my leg.

"Play."

"What should we play?" That seemed to stump him.

"Ask Iset?" I didn't think much of that idea. How could I take pride in being a useful distraction if I couldn't hold Kappa's attention for more than five minutes?

"Why don't we play hide-and-seek?" I suggested. He gave me a blank look.

"Hide-and-seek. You know…" He shook his head. I explained the rules to him. He thought it sounded great. I thought it was a brilliant excuse for me to explore the grounds. Since Kappa insisted that he should be the one to hide first, I returned to the deck to start counting. Fifteen minutes later, I was standing at the edge of the pond and yelling about how Kappa couldn't expect me to tag him if he was hiding in six feet of cold water.

"I win!" He clapped his hands on the surface of the pond, splashing water up to my knees. The next time he hid, I only found him because he giggled. Who expects a bog-monster to be able to climb trees? Kappa was fast too. I had to full-body tackle him the moment I saw him, or he would escape and find another place to hide. He didn't seem to grasp the idea that the deck was home base, but he was good at hiding. Hide-and-seek had always been my favorite game.

I didn't have many chances to play it, but every time I did, it stood out as one of my best memories. It was even more fun playing it in a wild yard where there was a new hiding spot every three feet. I scared Kappa from his hiding place in the bushes and blitzed along the stone wall, trying not to lose sight of him. When I turned into the opening, there was a loud shout that was part snarl.

"Watch it!" Too late. Still going top speed, I smacked into the wolfman and bounced off him. His warning might not have been voiced early enough for me to stop, but there was plenty of time for it to launch a gallon of adrenaline into my bloodstream. With trembling hands, I pushed myself off the ground.

"Sorry," I mumbled.

"My fault." His eyes followed me as I got to my feet, then he raised his head and looked around the yard.

"You're out here with Kappa?" he said.

"Yes." I had meant to say more than that, but my mouth, usually so adept at spewing out all kinds of stupid things, failed me. He eyed me again. Could he see me shaking? I curled my hands into fists.

"Stay out of the leaves," he said.

"Yeah. Of course." He turned toward the house. Iset's statement came back to me. I managed to step forward by means of a jerky lunge.

"You're the groundskeeper"—he looked back at me, and my voice scampered off to hide, leaving behind one squeaky word—"right?" Before he got the chance to answer, Kappa yelled "tah dah!" and burst out from the nearest pile of leaves, scattering them everywhere. When he caught sight of the wolfman, he tried to shrink back into the pile with a much quieter ulp noise. There weren't enough leaves left to hide him. I covered my eyes with my hand.

"Oh, geez. I'm so sorry. If you tell me where the rake is—""Don't bother," Conrad said.

"I'll clean it up later." He turned and went back to the house. When the door closed behind him, all the tension whoofed out of my body. I felt like a deflated whoopee cushion.

"Kappa!" The bog-creature threw a few leaves over his head. I marched over and pulled him from his cover.

"Found you! Now you have to help me gather up these leaves."

"Make a hiding place?"

"No, we're making a pile of leaves."

"Why?"

"So the wolfman doesn't have to." We worked on our hands and knees in silence, pushing and shoving the leaves back toward the wall. Wolfman. I knew his name was Conrad, but I couldn't seem to think of him as anything but the wolfman.

"Kappa, you've lived with Conrad for a while, right?"

"Wolf. Wolfy-wolfman," Kappa said. At least I wasn't the only person who struggled to use his name.

"What's he like?" I asked.

"Big! Big wolfman. Big teeth. Sharp." He gnashed his own teeth to demonstrate.

"I don't know," I said as I watched his multitude of fangs grind together.

"You're chompers look pretty sharp to me too."

"For fish."

"Fish?"

"And frogs. Snails." He smiled his toothiest smile.

"My teeth are for food."

"So are his."

"He's not my food. I'm his food." Kappa shook his head.

"Scary." I had my doubts. Kappa didn't look much more appetizing than your average frog, and while bog-monsters might like them, I wasn't sure a wolfman would. On the other hand, I could sympathize with his concern. Call it ego, but I thought I looked tastier than he did.

"I hear ya, buddy." We went back to shoving the leaves toward the pile. Then I had a thought.

"Kappa, you don't eat the koi, do you?"

"Fancy fish. Not food fish. Don't eat the fancy fish."

"Just checking."