The Hundred Lies of Lizzie Lovett(31)

My heart was pounding, and a chill ran down my spine, but not the kind of chill like when you’re cold or scared. The kind you get when you realize you’re about to hear something incredibly important.

“So Lizzie’s kneeling there, and she whistles. And just like that, one of the wolves comes out of the den. She called it, and it came. It walks right up to her, and they stare at each other. The wolf is this massive gray animal. It towers over Lizzie, just watching her. A minute later, it turns and goes back to the den, and Lizzie finds some guy who works there and tells him the brown wolf is sick. The zookeeper guy goes and checks it out, and sure enough, the brown wolf is sick.”

“The gray wolf told her!”

“That’s what it seemed like, yeah. Like they were communicating. I asked her what the hell had happened there, but she never said. We didn’t talk about it again.”

I picked a piece of pineapple off the pizza and chewed slowly, taking in Enzo’s story.

“If she’s a werewolf, why didn’t she just change into a wolf and come back after the full moon?” Enzo asked quietly.

I wondered the same thing.

“I don’t know. In most werewolf legends, the person can change at will. They’re at their strongest during the full moon, but they don’t need its power. In other legends, werewolves are forced to change on the full moon whether they want to or not. But the rest of the time, they can shift when they choose. So maybe Lizzie hasn’t been back in human form since the night she disappeared.”

“You really believe all this, kid?” Enzo asked.

That was maybe, probably, a really good question.

“Yes,” I said. And if Enzo noticed my hesitation, he was nice enough to not call me on it.

I met his gaze, and we stared at each other for a long moment before he said, “So, what do we do?”

“I told you—we find her. And help her figure out how to, you know, balance her two forms. You can have your girlfriend back.”

“And what do you get out of it?”

I shrugged. “Knowing for sure.”

“Knowing what happened to Lizzie?”

“Knowing there’s more to the world than what we see every day.”

Enzo nodded. Maybe he wanted the same thing.





Chapter 14


The Hunt Begins

Things in my house had been tense since the caravan arrived. My dad constantly made passive-aggressive comments about the hippies, and I didn’t bother with the passive part. My mom was annoyed at both of us for not embracing—or at the very least accepting—Sundog and his followers.

Rush was the only one who was indifferent to the caravan drama. He’d gotten a job as assistant coach of the peewee football league, and he seemed happier in general since then. He was also keeping weird hours and wasn’t saying where he was spending time, which pretty much meant he had a new girlfriend.

I couldn’t ignore the caravan as easily. I couldn’t even eat breakfast without seeing their camp out the back window. I wished all their tents would blow away. I wished the government would place a ban on tie-dye and unwashed hair. I wished their pot would turn into oregano.

“When I first met your mother, I thought all of this was charming,” my dad said on Saturday morning when we were alone in the kitchen together. “She seemed so free.”

Through the curtains, we could see the dreadlocked girl named Calliope playing guitar with Timothy Leary curled up at her feet. Someone had put a tie-dyed bandana around the dog’s neck.

“Free of what? Besides responsibility, I mean.”

My dad gave me a look. “You’re one to talk, kiddo.”

I ignored the comment. How could I take on more responsibility when all my efforts were concentrated on just surviving high school?

“Is that why you fell in love with Mom?” I asked. “Because she seemed free?”

“In a way. I loved that she saw the world in a way no one else did. Does that make sense?”

It did.

“Before I met your mom, I spent every second doing the right thing. What people told me was the right thing anyway. I studied, played sports, applied to the right schools. I was exactly what I was expected to be.”

“And Mom changed you?”

“I like to think we changed each other.”

Outside, one of the older men walked up to Calliope and offered her a joint. She stopped playing guitar long enough to accept it.

“Someone’s going to call the police.” My dad sighed. “You can smell marijuana from the street.”

The guitar started again. Timothy Leary raised her head lazily. I wondered if she was high too.

“Do you know what a sundog is?” my dad asked.

“Besides the guy in our backyard?”

“When your mom told me about him, I thought I’d impress her by telling her the definition of sundog.”

“What is it?”

My dad leaned forward eagerly, with a professorly look. “It’s a weather phenomenon that creates the illusion of multiple suns in the sky. The Greeks and Romans first wrote about it, but the most notable sundog in history occurred on the day Edward IV won the Battle of Mortimer’s Cross. Later, he made it his badge.”

I should have known it had something to do with medieval history.