A/N: Big thanks to all the readers for this! A special thanks to my beta for this story, Sillysac, without whom this chapter wouldn't make so much sense. The italics are just to differentiate MStiefvater's writing and my own. Just finished Linger and omigod, I can't believe it. Uber good work, Maggie. Some of this chapter inspired by "I Go Back To May 1937" by Sharon Olds. She's a magnificent poet, you should google her work. Shiver and all its characters belong to Maggie Stiefvater. No copyright infringement intended. There is abuse in this chapter, so be forewarned. It's not very graphic, but mostly to get a point across.
Chapter two, Grace
It all started when I was six years old. Our family was in financial trouble, the whole small-town life not really making either of my parents the wealthy entrepreneurs they'd like to be.
Mom wanted to be an artist, but she couldn't support her dreams by getting a studio to display her work or the proper supplies to let her thrive. (We didn't know then that it was because Dad had been drinking our money away, as well as spending it on other unsavory things.) Dad had always had simple, yet unobtainable dreams. He wanted to be a psychiatrist, but when he was studying in college, he had met Mom.
It was a typical, gag-worthy story of boy-meets-girl. Dad went to the coffee shop Mom worked at every other day, and eventually they got to talking. They realized they had a lot more in common than they had expected, and they fell in love. Pushing aside his hopes, dreams, and parents' objections, Dad proposed, and Mom said yes.
They went on what may be the cheapest, crappiest honeymoon of all time and I was conceived. They worked hard, trying to make and save up as much money as possible to raise me. Mom landed a second part-time job at a daycare center, learning some parenting skills and sharing her love of art with kids. Dad got an assistant's position at a psychiatrist's office during the day and a night job, doing inventory at a local chain grocery store.
In nine short months my parents had been able to scrape together enough cash together to insure my well-being for the time being. They had created a sort of safety net; selling unwanted valuables, investments, along with their jobs. They had a roof over their heads, jobs and insurance, and support from some friends and family. It should have paved the way for a bright, happy future - my parents were young, energetic people with an aura of hope surrounding them. There was no way to predict that only six short years after my birth, dad would snap like a twig.
So when I came home from school that day, Mom out working and a drunken Dad at home, I was terrified. I hadn't ever seen my father drunk before. He had been the good dad; the average, embarrassing one that told me lies about boys and made lame jokes to waitresses.
Now, he was sprawled out on the couch, an empty beer bottle in his hand and an open bottle of whiskey within reach. He had been mumbling something about 'lost futures' and 'ungrateful people.' I could feel it in my body, the tension and fear seeping into my veins and making my heart pound. I set my backpack down quietly in the entryway and whispered, "Dad?"
His half-closed, half-crazed eyes zeroed in on me, the anger building up like a fire behind his irises. "You piece of shit!" he slurred at me. "You." He drew the word out slowly and accusingly. I almost started trembling under his gaze. "You RUINED me! I could have had it aawwwwllll, and then that whore tricked me!"
His words were terrifying, The alcohol making his small, southern accent stand out in a way I had never noticed before. He was chugging down his drink again at a pace that made my small frame quiver at the sight.
Mom had told me before that if anything like this happened, to play it safe and go along. Try to make it out to a safe place.
"Okay, Dad. I'm sorry. It won't happen again," I replied solemnly. My high voice was strained, but I prevented it from shaking. I began to slowly make my way to my room, not wanting to get his attention.
Too bad it didn't work.
"WHADDA YA MEAN? It won't happen again?" he shouted, the words filled with disgust. He was standing now, scaring me more. "You're damn RIGHT it won't happen again!" I didn't know what to say, so I just looked from him to my bedroom door every couple of seconds.
He grumbled under his breath, but it sounded like a threat. I tried to creep over to my room again, but his drunken state didn't inhibit his ability to catch my moves at all. All of a sudden, his face changed into one of pure fury. I was no longer his daughter and he was no longer my dad; I was the reason for his failures and he wanted revenge.
He charged me.
I shoved the door open and lurched into my room, diving under my bed. I pulled the stuffed animals that I had stored underneath around me so that I could be as hidden as possible, with Big Bird by my head to camouflage the blonde and a bright pink Taz by my shirt. He burst in only seconds after I had, and grunted, searching. I could hear him check my closet to no avail.
Then my bed sheets.
Then under the bed.
I yelped as he grasped hold of the back of my shirt and pulled my scrambling form out from under it. He was hovering over me, yelling incomprehensible words. Tears started running down my cheeks, to my hair, and I had never expected what came next.
Sure, he had yelled before, but not like this. But then he was grasping my upper thigh, enough to make me cry out in pain as I was sure the blood had been cut off. Then he slapped at my rib cage, leaving me stinging and eventually numb. He yanked at my hair, making more tears fall from the corners of my eyes. Eventually he stopped, grumbling and going to his study, taking the whiskey with him.
He told me not to tell Mom; that if I did, he would make sure I would never see the likes of her again, possibly even the sunlight. The next day, I wore capris and a longer sleeved shirt than usual for an April day, but nobody questioned it. Dad gave me an apologetic, but angry look. It was very confusing and scary for me.
Back then, he only got drunk enough to beat me a few times a year, but as I grew bigger and his fury went on, unabated, things got worse. It went from a few times a year to a few times a month, every other month.
Mom always told me that she loved and cared about me more than anything, and I knew she meant it, but she was also a flighty woman. After all, she hadn't really expected to have a child so soon in her life, but was happy to have me, age and traadition be damned. Mom never noticed the marks because I never told her and Dad was usually sleeping or sobered up when she got home. Even if she did notice a little discoloring in passing and asked, I would always reply with an excuse that involved rough play or wrestling with other kids, maybe even some clumsiness if she got suspicious. The third year, when I was nine, I had almost slipped up and let a bruise on my arm show; it was winter, so he spread out the markings since I could cover up more. Mom had gasped at the yellowish purple on my forearm.
"What is that?" she had practically shrieked.
"What?" I mumbled. Then I caught on and wracked my brain for an answer. "Oh, ummm... oh, that's right!" I tried to make my face light up with recognition. "I had to stop quickly. I was walking through the woods, you know, and stopped and tripped. I landed on a pretty big, sharp rock. I don't know how it didn't break the skin..." I trailed off, watching her face to see if the lie was believable. Even at nine I was beginning to fool my mom.
Her brow furrowed and she frowned, but she nodded slightly, accepting it. "Just be careful. If anybody, and I mean anybody," her eyes flickered to Dad's study, "is hurting you, you can tell me. You know that, right? I love you, Grace, and I'll take care of you, no matter what." It tugged on my heartstrings to see her like this and know I was lying to her, but I was sure it would be a lot worse if I decided to tell her my terrifying, dark secrets.
It was that same winter I had my first encounter with a yellow-eyed wolf. My wolf.
It was a late January day, and I was home alone. Mom and Dad were working overtime in an attempt to catch up on heating and electricity bills as well as our small, but costly, holiday celebrations. My parents decided that since I was almost ten and our house was primarily concealed by woods, I could be trusted at home by myself. I was finishing up with my schoolwork and planned to go for a walk - against my mother's wishes - since the sun was out. It had been unseasonably cold that afternoon; 15 degrees, if I remember correctly. There shouldn't have been any reason for me to remember so precisely, though...
I held my arms out to my sides, prepared to correct myself if I tripped or fell. I was taking long, large strides to try to keep the snow from getting in or around my boot-tops. I didn't hear anything apart from my footsteps; snow has a way of silencing everything, as if to hide impurities with its white, muted flakes.
I remember getting the breath knocked out me by an impact that hit me in the side. I remember darkness. I remember lying in the snow, a small red spot of warm going cold once again, surrounded by wolves.
They were licking me, biting me, worrying at my body, pressing in. Their huddled bodies blocked what little heat the sun offered. Ice glistened on their ruffs and their breath made opaque shapes that hung in the air around us. The musky smell of their coats made me think of wet dog and burning leaves, pleasant and terrifying. Their tongues melted my skin; their careless teeth ripped at my sleves and snagged through my hair, pushed against my collarbone, the pulse at my neck.
I could have screamed, but I didn't. I could have fought, but I didn't; I knew it would have been pointless, but more than that, I had been waiting for this. To just be free from life's abuse and perjuries. Why fight? I thought to myself, disturbingly at peace. I just lay there and let it happen, watching the winter-white sky above me go gray.
One wolf prodded his nose into my hand and against my cheek, casting a shadow across my face. His yellow eyes looked into mine while the other wolves jerked me this way and that. I held onto those yellow eyes for as long as I could. Yellow. And, up close, flecked brilliantly with every shade of gold and hazel. I didn't want him to look away, and he didn't. I wanted to reach out and grab his ruff, but my hands stayed curled to my chest, frozen to my body.
I couldn't remember what it felt like to be warm.
Then he was gone, and without him, the other wolves closed in, too close, suffocating. Something seemed to flutter in my chest.
There was no sun; there was no light. I was dying. I couldn't remember what the sky looked like.
But I didn't die. I was lost to a sea of cold and reborn into a world of warmth.
I remember this: his yellow eyes.
I thought I'd never see them again.
##
When I was surrounded by darkness again, I saw those yellow eyes flashing before my eyes. I held onto them like a lifeline, struggling against the pain and the fear.
Nothing quite made sense; the screaming that sounded so familiar, the rapid and urgent shouts, a booming male voice, and the violent twisting in my gut and the heat coming over my body. If I was attcked by wolves, then why am I still alive? I thought. There was a loud crack and that male voice again.
However incapacitated I was, I still knew that sound to be a shotgun. Panic started seeping into my consciousness. What were they doing? Were they going to hurt the yellow-eyed wolf?
I was suddenly being lifted off of the ground. Numbness and exhaustion were taking over me, making my worries and fears melt away like snow in the summer.