Part 18 (1/2)

Grandmother says it's an old Polish saying. (Great-Aunt Dorothy says Russian.) What it means is that wolves are wild. Their other oft-quoted saying is Latin: lupus non mordet lupum. ”A wolf does not bite a wolf.” Which leaves the rest of the animal kingdom free for the biting.

We can't be tamed. We shouldn't live in cities.

Grandmother quotes those to me a lot. Said them even more back then, when she was trying to persuade me and Dad that it would be best for me to live on the farm. To stay there for the rest of my life.

I cannot explain to her why I love the city so. I have tried. But how can I describe it to someone who has never been there? To someone who fears it?

She hates the city because she says it destroys nature. She thinks there's no nature here.

She's wrong.

Nature is everywhere. I don't even have to go into the parks to find it. There are weeds and gra.s.s poking up between cracks in the sidewalk, out of the sides of buildings and walls. In the city there are no streets without plants. There are gardens in abandoned lots, on balconies, even on the roofs of buildings.

Plants mean insects, microbes in the soil.

Nature's the same in the city as in the country. It's just tougher. There are not many varieties of woodp.e.c.k.e.rs in the city, no deer, precious few racc.o.o.ns. But rats, pigeons, mosquitoes, flies? They all do fine.

Nature's everywhere. Under my feet, rats and insects. Over my head, pigeons, sparrows, even the occasional red-tailed hawk. There's nowhere in the city-in the world-that a spider isn't within reach. There are bigger animals, too, not just the people, the cats, the dogs, but the occasional pig or llama, the horses, and the squirrels, the foxes and woodchucks and snakes and lizards.

The Greats cannot see how strong nature is. How it survives even in the least hospitable circ.u.mstances. Just like them.

FAMILY HISTORY.

The Greats are divided on werewolf origins.

Grandmother says it goes back to the beginnings of humans. We evolved from wolves; they evolved from monkeys.

So why don't humans turn into monkeys once a month?

Grandmother has no answer to that.

Great-Aunt Dorothy tells about a deal made between a man and a wolf way back in the early days. They were escaping a predator bigger than either of them. They both ran for a narrow cave opening. There wasn't enough room for both of them so they fought. The predator came closer. The wolf proposed they share the s.p.a.ce. He cut his belly open and told the man to crawl inside. Then the wolf wedged his way into the cave.

But when it came time to separate they couldn't. They were bound to each other. A mannish wolf, a wolfish man.

Dad said his grandfather told him that there was no cutting involved and that it was a woman, not a man. The wolf and the woman had squeezed so tight together trying to get into the cave that they melded into each other so that you couldn't see where the wolf began and the woman ended.

Great-Aunt laughed at that one. She said that's not how she heard her daddy tell it. The woman and the wolf fell in love, lay together, and werewolves were their babies.

The other story Grandmother told was that the Wilkins had made a deal with a pack of wolves way, way, way back before countries had names, when people lived in tribes, eking out an existence, moving from spot to spot. The pact was to keep from moving, to stay in the one spot, safe and sound even in the winter. The Wilkins would share food with the wolves; the wolves would fight their enemies.

The Wilkins were able to s.h.i.+ft from hunting and gathering to planting and harvesting, raising goats and pigs and grains and vegetables. They fed the wolves; the wolves defended them.

They lived so close together that it wasn't many seasons before the human tribe and the wolf pack were indistinguishable. Not too many years before they were all part wolf and part human.

They're interesting tales though I doubt they're true.

Here's what I think: Horizontal gene transfer.

You have brown eyes and the ability to curl your tongue, and your kids have brown eyes and can curl their tongues. That's because you pa.s.sed on those genes, which is the regular way genes get pa.s.sed on: vertical gene transfer.

But genes can also be transferred horizontally from one organism to another. It's called HGT. I know there's no doc.u.mented case of HGT happening between big organisms. Humans and wolves are big. Each with at least twenty-three thousand different genes, way bigger than bacteria and viruses, who can have as few as eight. But if it can happen between bacteria why can't it happen between bigger organisms? If a tomato can have fruit fly genes in it or, more relevant (since humans put the fruit fly in the fruit), if cows can acquire a gene from a plant to help their digestion, then why can't wolves and humans do the same?

Though I'm not talking the one gene, I'm talking many. There'd be the gene (or genes) that makes the change possible. A gene no one's ever heard of, let alone mapped. Then there's all the wolf genes that express when I'm wolf and human genes for when I'm human.

Not to mention why. Could it be a means to preserve genes-wolf genes-that were approaching extinction? That would explain the Canis dirus werewolves. Increasingly the Canis lupus ones, too. Though when the first werewolves emerged gray wolves were everywhere. There are other animals of roughly human size that have gone extinct. Are there were-saber-toothed tigers?

I would love to map my own DNA. What would it show? Humans have 85 percent the same DNA as wolves. What do I have? Ninety-five percent? Ninety-nine? Or do I have the same 85 percent as everyone else? Along with hidden werewolf DNA.

When I'm a scientist-a biologist who specializes in wolves-I'll find out. I'll map my own DNA. Secretly. I'll prove that it is HGT. That we were made by a horizontal transfer of genes a few million years ago.

Unless it was a virus. Something that attacked an ancestor's DNA and caused ma.s.sive mutations resulting in unstable genes that express both as wolf and as human.

There's so much I don't know and that I can't ask Yayeko without making her eyebrows go sky-high.

Why am I Canis lupus while most werewolves are Canis dirus? Is that even true? How do I find other people like me? Does that mean there are two kinds of werewolves? Or are there more? Are there African werewolves who are Canis simensis? The sole African wolf? Or Canis rufus werewolves? Or are they both too small? There are many recognized wolf subspecies. Are there werewolves for every one? Or only the ones that are roughly human-sized?

I don't know where I come from. Or what I am. I don't know how I am. I don't know anything.

BEFORE.

The real change came on me four weeks after the false alarm. The warning signs were the same but this time I ignored them. I did not want to sit in that cage waiting, getting filthier and more wound up and miserable by the hour.

The first sign was a tightening of my skin as I walked to school. It felt itchy in the exact same way it had with the false alarm. I kept walking. It didn't feel so bad. At recess there was a tiny bit of blood. Spotting, same as last time. I figured that even if the change was real I still had plenty of time to get through the school day and then walk home.

Like before, I didn't feel hot. My teeth didn't hurt.

It was in math cla.s.s. Second-to-last cla.s.s of the day. We were learning number puzzles. We had to draw three shapes but make sure they were all touching, then four, then five. Five was impossible. I was trying to make it work when the first wave of heat hit me. Then more itching. Then sharp pains in my belly, dots in front of my eyes. My head began to throb. My teeth hurt.

Inside me things were moving. I knew what it was. I had to get home.

I stood up.

”Micah, sit down,” the teacher said, without looking at me.

I fell down.

I didn't mean to but the muscles turned to liquid in my legs. At least it felt that way. But when I looked down they looked like human legs.

”Are you alright, Micah?” The teacher was staring at me.

”No,” I said, amazed that my tongue and mouth were cooperating. I tried to stand up, clutching the desk for support. My bones were turning into knives. ”It's my illness.”

I had a file. The note about my illness was in the file. All the teachers knew about it.

”I have to call my dad.”

I think that's what I said but the next thing I knew my body was buckling. It felt as if the spine was coming out of my back. ”I have to go. Call my dad. He knows.”

I have no idea if the words came out or not.