Chapter 120: A stranger inside my head

Chapter 120 — A Stranger Inside My Head

Roxanne woke before the dormitory bell with her heart already racing, certain for one bright, hopeful second that she had dreamed the whole thing. Wolves in snares, voices in the trees. Stress did strange things to people.

She lay perfectly still and called out, cautiously, the way one tests thin ice.

Are you there?

Yes. The answer came at once, edged with irritation. You woke me, you know.

Roxanne nearly sat bolt upright. "You were asleep?" she whispered.

I wasn’t. That’s the point.

She dragged a pillow over her face and spoke into it. "Are you really there?"

You asked me that last night.

"I need to hear you say it."

I’m here, Roxanne.

"I’m actually talking to myself."

You’re talking to me. There’s a difference.

Roxanne lowered the pillow, glanced at Isla’s sleeping shape, and tried again in silence. How long have you existed?

As long as you have, I think.

Why have you never spoken before?

I don’t know.

Why can’t you remember your own name?

I know that I am yours. I know it the way I know which way is up. Everything else is like a mirror dropped on stone. Pieces.

Roxanne stared at the ceiling. She had imagined a wolf who held every answer and had simply chosen to keep them. Instead she had found someone as lost as she was, only louder.

At breakfast, Isla set down her spoon and frowned. "You haven’t touched your porridge."

"I’m not hungry."

"You’ve been staring at the same spot on the wall for five minutes."

Roxanne had. She was trying to talk to her wolf without moving her lips or changing her expression, a skill nobody had ever warned her she would need. Her wolf, meanwhile, had opinions about the dining hall.

The boy behind you smells like burnt toast.

Roxanne choked on her tea.

Isla stared at her. "What?"

"Nothing. Swallowed wrong."

And the girl by the window has been eating raw onions. Why would anyone choose that?

Stop, Roxanne thought desperately.

You are terrible at lying, the wolf observed, with obvious satisfaction.

Isla leaned closer and lowered her voice. "Did something happen after movie night? Tessa said you weren’t yourself yesterday."

The whole truth sat at the back of Roxanne’s throat, enormous and absurd. But she had no idea how to explain it, and the warning from the walk home still lay heavy in her chest. "I had a strange experience in the woods," she said carefully. "I’m still trying to make sense of it."

"Do you want to talk about it?"

"Not yet. Can I have a little time?"

"Whenever you’re ready," Isla said, and went back to her porridge. She did not push, and Roxanne loved her for it, and felt like the worst friend in the world.

Between classes she found a bench behind the library, where the hedge hid her from the paths, and sat with her bag clamped on her knees.

"We need rules," she said, very quietly.

I’m listening.

"You can’t comment on everything I see. You can’t tell me what everyone smells like. And you absolutely can’t interrupt me during lessons."

You are the one who keeps asking me questions.

"That’s different."

How?

Roxanne opened her mouth and closed it again. Her wolf was blunt, impatient, and entirely instinctive, and she herself was none of those things. She counted her words before she spoke them. Her wolf seemed to simply leap.

"Can you take control of my body?" she asked at last. It was the question that had sat under all the others.

I don’t intend to, the wolf said, and for once there was no edge in it. You should learn to understand me before anyone attempts anything more complicated.

"Good. Because I’m not handing over my life."

I wouldn’t want it. You make enough questionable decisions on your own.

A laugh burst out of Roxanne before she could stop it, and a passing first-year glanced over. She smothered it with her hand. The fear that had pinned her down since the clearing loosened a little, and what rose in its place was curiosity, bright and unexpected.

Wolf Control met after lunch in the long practice hall, where the instructor walked slowly between the rows of seated students with her hands folded.

"Today we practise recognition," she said. "Close your eyes. Focus on your wolf. Notice what changes in your breathing, your instincts, your emotions. Do not try to command anything. Simply observe."

For years this exercise had meant sitting in a silence so complete that Roxanne had learned to hate it. She had faked it, nodding at the right moments, and no one had ever known there was nothing there.

Today there was.

It came all at once, a flood of impressions rather than words. Movement, the memory of grass beneath running paws. A hundred scents layered over each other, wood polish and wool and somebody’s peppermint. An urge to run, so strong her calves tightened and her weight shifted forward on the bench.

"Miss Silver."

Roxanne’s eyes flew open. She was half out of her seat, one foot braced against the floor. The whole row was looking at her.

"Are you feeling unwell?" the instructor asked.

"I didn’t sleep well." She sank back down, cheeks burning.

"Then be gentle with yourself." The instructor’s voice softened. "Remember, controlling a wolf begins with recognising what you feel, not fighting it."

Roxanne nodded and took it to heart, knowing that the true problem was far beyond ordinary nerves.

After class she walked out to the empty edge of the training yard and put the question that had been scratching at her all day.

Why couldn’t I hear you before?

The wolf was quiet, and Roxanne could sense her searching. I remember waiting, she said slowly. A long, dim waiting. Nothing clear.

Did something happen to silence you?

I don’t know.

Frustration surged. She finally had someone who might understand the strangeness of her life, and that someone could not explain the one thing that mattered most. She kicked a loose pebble across the dirt.

Not knowing the answer doesn’t mean there isn’t one, the wolf said.

Roxanne exhaled. She could not force every secret open at once. She would have to be patient, and she hated that more than anything.

That evening she spread her notes across her desk and set herself an ordinary task. She sorted them by subject and tried the instructor’s advice, picking one sound, the scratch of her pen, and listening only to that.

To her surprise, the wolf helped. Her commentary dwindled to a hush, and the flood of smells and noises thinned to a trickle. For several minutes Roxanne sat in a stillness that felt almost peaceful, aware of the other presence without being swamped by it, like a person sitting quietly in the next chair.

Isla came in, flushed from the corridor. "I’ve made progress," she announced. "My parents sent the documents. Not all of them, but enough to start."

"That’s wonderful." Roxanne turned her chair. She asked questions and listened to the answers, and she did not let her own secret slip into the conversation. This was Isla’s evening. They ate toast on the floor and argued about which forms were the most pointless, and it was entirely ordinary.

It occurred to Roxanne, as Isla laughed, that her life had not changed on the outside at all. Everything inside her had.

Later, after Isla’s breathing slowed, Roxanne stared into the dark.

If I have a wolf, she asked, why didn’t I awaken when everyone else did?

The wolf was quiet for so long that Roxanne thought she would not answer.

Then she said, I don’t know. But I don’t think we should assume we’re ordinary just because we don’t understand ourselves yet.

Roxanne lay very still. She had wanted an answer.

Instead she had been given a reason to keep searching.