The Wolf Gift (The Wolf Gift Chronicles 1)

"That doctor wanted to have you legally committed," he said to Reuben.

"Well, that was the end of the matter, wasn,t it?" said Grace. "Because nobody, I mean nobody, was going to even remotely consider such a thing."

"Legally committed?" Laura asked.

"Yes, to this phony-baloney rehab center of his in Sausalito," said Phil. "I knew the guy was a fraud from the moment I met him. I practically threw him down the front steps. Coming at us with those papers."

"Papers?" Reuben asked.

"He is most certainly not a fraud," said Grace, and it suddenly became a screaming match between Phil and Grace, until Jim intervened to declare that yes, the doctor was obviously brilliant and extremely knowledgeable in his field, but something wasn,t on the level there, not with this attempt at commitment.

"Well, you can forget him," said Grace. "That was the end of it, Reuben. We just weren,t on the same page, Dr. Jaska and I. Not at all unfortunately." But she insisted in a rolling murmur that he,d been one of the most brilliant doctors she,d ever met. Too bad he was a bit of a lunatic himself on the subject of werewolves.

Phil was snorting, throwing down his napkin, picking it up, and throwing it down again, and saying the guy was a Rasputin.

"He had some theory," said Jim, "about mutational changes and mutational beings. But the man,s credentials just aren,t what they should be, and Mother realized this soon enough."

"Not soon enough for me," said Phil. "He tried to cover his record with some cock-and-bull story about the fall of the Soviet Union and the loss of all his most valuable research. Nonsense!"

Reuben got up, put on some soothing piano music by Erik Satie, and when he sat down again, Laura was talking softly about the forest and how they must all come when the rains finally stopped and spend a weekend hiking the trails behind the house.

Jim managed to get Reuben alone, for a brisk walk after dark in the woods.

"Is it true," he demanded, "this kid was bitten?"

Reuben went silent and then broke down, confessing everything. He was sure now that Stuart wasn,t going to die from the Chrism, but that Stuart was going to become exactly what he was. This sent Jim into a paroxysm.

He actually knelt down on the ground, bowed his head, and prayed. Reuben talked on and on about his meeting with Felix and how he felt that Felix knew the answers.

"What are you hoping for?" demanded Jim. "That this man can make these brutal attacks entirely morally acceptable to you!"

"I,m hoping what all sentient beings hope ... that somehow I,m part of something larger than myself, in which I play a role, an actual role that is somehow intended and meaningful." He tugged at Jim,s arm. "Will you please get up off the ground, Father Golding, before somebody sees you?"

They walked a little deeper into the woods, but close enough to the house to see the bright lights of the windows. Reuben stopped. He listened. He was hearing things, all manner of things. He tried to explain it to Jim. In the dimness, he could not make out the expression on Jim,s face.

"But is a human being meant to hear those things?" Jim asked.

"If he isn,t, then why am I hearing them?"

"Things happen," Jim said. "There are mutations, developments that the world includes but never embraces, things that have to be repudiated and rejected."

Reuben sighed.

He glanced upwards, longing for the fuller clarity of night vision that came with the wolf-coat. He wanted to see stars above, to be reminded that this earth was no more than an ember in the blaze of never-ending galaxies, a thought that always, somehow, comforted him. Strange that it did not do this for others. The vastness of the universe brought him closer to faith in a God.

The wind moved through the branches over him. Something jarred him, a series of sounds that seemed out of cadence with the night. Was he seeing something up there in the dark, something moving? The darkness was too thick. But at once the chills rose all over him. He felt the hair standing on end on his arms. Someone out there, up there.

The inevitable convulsion came. But he suppressed it. He forced it back. He shivered deliberately banishing the chills. No. He could not see anything there. Yet his imagination filled in the nightscape. Beings up there in the dark, more than one, more than two.

"What is it? What,s wrong?" asked Jim.

"Nothing," he lied.

Then the wind came hard through the trees, gusting, doubling its fist, and the woods sang as if with one voice.

"Just nothing."

At nine o,clock, the family took off with the prospect of not reaching San Francisco before one in the morning. Grace was coming back to Santa Rosa tomorrow afternoon to argue further in person that Stuart stay in the hospital. Grace was afraid of something.

"Do you know any more now about this whole syndrome?" Reuben asked.

"No," she said. "Nothing else at all."

"Would you be absolutely straight with me on something?"

"Of course."

"Dr. Jaska - ."

"Reuben, I sent the guy packing. He,ll never come near me again."

"What about Stuart?"

"He has absolutely no way to get to Stuart. I,ve warned Dr. Cutler in no uncertain terms. Now this is strictly confidential, but I,m going to tell you. Dr. Cutler,s trying to get custody of Stuart, or at least some kind of power of attorney with regard to his medical decisions. He can,t go home and he shouldn,t be alone in San Francisco in his Haight-Ashbury apartment either. Look, forget I told you this."

"Right, Mamma."

She looked at him almost despairingly.

They,d done a lot of talking about Stuart, but not about him.

When had his mother ever given up on anything? Surgeons never give up. Surgeons always believe that something can be done. That,s their nature.

This is what all of these things have done to my mother, Reuben thought. His mother stood on the front step staring up at the house, at the dark trees gathered to the east of it, her eyes haunted, unhappy. She looked back to Reuben, and there came that warm affectionate smile on which so much of his well-being depended, but only for an instant.

"Mom, I,m so glad you came up here this evening," he said. He put his arms around her. "I can,t tell you."

"Yeah, I,m glad we came too," she said. She held him close, looking into his eyes. "You are all right, aren,t you, Baby Boy?"

"Yes, Mom, I,m just worried about Stuart."

Reuben promised to call her in the morning as soon as he,d been to the hospital.