Chapter 7

The next morning, Sarah managed to shake off the effects of her fainting spell the previous day. She insisted that she was fine and just wanted chores to do to take her mind off things. She quietly did the few Helen assigned to her.

Helen had immediately noticed that Sarah seemed even more withdrawn than usual this morning and somewhat disorientated. But the girl pretty much brushed off any attempts at conversation. She intended to stay busy and focused on other tasks.

Finally, after her house and farm chores were completed, Helen insisted that Sarah rest in the kitchen with her. She had just made coffee and breakfast. It perked up their moods after they each downed a cup of coffee.

"Now, Sarah, can you tell me what's eating you this morning?" Helen asked.

"I had a crazy dream last night, that's all." Sarah occupied her attention, buttering her toast.

"What kind of 'crazy dream'?"

"It was nothing. Aren't all dreams crazy?" Sarah didn't want to talk about the crazy yet brief and almost exhausting blur of emotions and feelings she'd experienced during the night.

Helen sensed that it wasn't merely the girl putting up a barrier again or being dismissive… something about last night has rattled her so much she couldn't bear to speak of it, at least not yet.

"True, but they don't spill over into our waking lives, well … not usually," Helen noted, remembering a recent case of twenty-six young men in Laos dying in their sleep. The doctors attributed it to poor diets and extreme stress from the Vietnam war. The grief-stricken superstitious family and villagers, however, blamed wicked spirits attacking them while they slept.

Helen decided to give the girl her privacy about it. "Well, after you finish up breakfast, we're going to head out for a while."

Sarah tensed. "You mean we're going to a lab?"

Helen smiled. "No, we're going into town. I think you could use some new clothes and shoes, and we should do a couple of other things while we're out too." Helen wanted to visit her favorite salon to touch up her hair and add some highlights. She hadn't told anyone how self-conscious she felt after noticing the first few strands of gray hair the other day. She blamed the excessive stress she'd been under lately.

Sarah appeared conflicted at the prospect. "So we're going into town… around other people."

"You'll be fine. You've got to get used to it at some point."

"Will David be joining us?"

"No, he can't afford to be seen where people might recognize him. Remember, the general public thinks he's dead."

"Yeah … that's right."

After they finished eating, Helen tidied up the kitchen while Sarah washed the dishes. Afterward, they went out to Helen's car, and Sarah slumped in the passengers' seat.

"I'd like to ask you a few questions, Sarah, if that's alright with you."

Sarah tore her eyes away from the passenger side window. Helen was taking them on a rather scenic route toward the nearest town. Judging from Helen's tone and the way she phrased that statement, this wasn't going to be a pleasant topic of conversation.

"Does this have anything to do with my… appointment at your lab, later?" Sarah's eyes narrowed.

"Yes," Helen admitted. She spared a hand to touch the girl's shoulder. "It'll be at least twenty-five minutes until we reach town anyway. I thought we could get any serious talk we need to do out of the way, then we can just focus on shopping and enjoying ourselves at the salon, okay?" Helen gave Sarah's shoulder a squeeze.

"Okay," Sarah resigned with a sigh. She was rapidly learning that, especially with Doctors and Helen and David Banner, it was better just to cooperate, and it would soon be over anyway. "What do you want to talk about, in regards to my… lab appointment?" Sarah's eyes tightened.

"Actually, before we get to that, I would like to discuss how you're going to pay me back for the damage to the lab and the fire ants I've had to re-order."

"I thought your insurance paid for that. And I have been doing things around the house, and I have been staying with your Dad whenever you asked me to."

"My insurance paid for most of the damages, yes, but not the fire ants. Remember, you shouldn't have been in the lab without my permission, and you certainly shouldn't have been messing around with anything. There is a reason it was locked."

"What do you want me to do?"

"You can either do some work around the farm – we still have a few trees that need the berries and nuts picked, or you could try and get a part-time job in town. Either way, the work experience will be good practice for the future, it will look good on a potential resume, and you need to hold yourself accountable when you damage someone else's property."

Sarah drew in a deep breath and let it out slowly. "If I got a job in town, how would I get there? I don't drive, and we know I can't be seen running around in wolf form."

Helen looked thoughtful as something occurred to her. "Do you think you might be interested in learning to drive?"

"I'm not sure, I'd never given it much thought," Sarah shrugged.

"Well, in the meantime, I could give you a ride to town periodically if you need it."

"One thing at a time, please," Sarah said. "I just want to get this lab exam over with first before I think about anything else, okay?" She folded her arms, leaning back in the passenger seat. "So, what do you want to ask me?"

"There are a few questions I have about some of your…" Helen hesitated, trying to think of the tactful way to phrase it. "Bodily functions."

"I thought that was going to get checked out at the lab." Sarah winced.

"Yes," Helen said patiently, "but …" She cleared her throat. "There are a few … feminine questions I would like to ask you, ones that have to do with your time of the month and other issues. David and I felt you might be more comfortable discussing them with another woman."

"Oh. Right." Sarah considered that for a moment. In truth, she didn't like the idea of talking about her weird body at all, but… she had to admit, at least to herself, that she would have been far more embarrassed or put out if David had tried to ask them. She sighed, "Okay… what are the questions?"

"David and I touched based on… He'd read some of the things in the only documentation he had available about the changes made to your biology, body chemistry, and DNA. But it didn't tell everything. Please bear in mind that these questions are just to help us continue to understand what's normal and what isn't for you."

"Yeah, I get that already," Sarah growled. "So, what are your questions?"

Helen frowned at her rudeness, but shook her head and let it go. Over the next several minutes, they went over a few sensitive details about her body. Helen gently and tactfully asked her to go into more detail or clarify something if she was unsure or if Sarah answered vaguely or tried to change the subject.

Helen was aware that Sarah had a slight crush on Lucan. She felt it was important to feel out whether Sarah had the same biology as regular girls, mostly if she wanted to pursue a relationship with any man in the future.

It took a long moment for Sarah to answer. "I have noticed once a month, I have just two days of minor cramps, a little bit of bleeding, then it's over. Nothing like I did when I was human. My periods are a lot lighter."

"Do you get headaches or migraines?"

"No," Sarah said a little too quickly, then relented. "Maybe just a little. But it never lasts long, and I hardly notice it." She shivered as she remembered something else. "Just as long as I don't have to go through that other thing again."

"What other thing?" Helen glanced in her direction at a red light.

Sarah pressed her lips together as she recalled a very uncomfortable event that happened not long after she'd first become a werewolf, and her condition had stabilized. It led to a conference with Tasha Pines, who had seen the same thing happen with other test subjects.

It had also led to very uncomfortable testing and examinations of areas on her body that no one ever liked to have examined, even under normal circumstances. She squeezed her eyes shut, trying to shove that memory back into a box. That was one thing she refused to relive in her mind if she could help it, and she didn't want to talk about it.

In a way, it had led to Sarah having to learn about the birds and the bees all over again, at least where werewolfism was concerned.

"Sarah, I realize this isn't easy to talk about," Helen gently prompted, "but we need to know about anything abnormal if we're going to try and help you."

Sarah stared hard out the passenger side window, looking very much like she wanted to jump through it and escape the conversation. "I've already told you about my headaches and my period. What else do you need to know?"

Helen frowned, sensing a new barrier being thrust up between them. She got the distinct impression that, for Sarah, trying to talk about whatever this was was a particularly sensitive and painful issue.

"Sarah, it's okay." Helen tried to pat the girl's shoulder. "If this is too much to talk about right now, it can wait."

Sarah flinched and swatted her hand aside, causing Helen to withdraw her arm with some surprise at the sudden, dark look in Sarah's eyes. After a moment, however, the look faded and was replaced with a mix of apologetic bashfulness.

"I… didn't quite catch that," Helen said, slightly hesitant, as the girl mumbled something.

Sarah still didn't quite look at her as she grated through clenched teeth, "I'm part-wolf, so that means now I have a heat cycle."

Helen slowed the car and pulled over to the side of the road, then faced the girl. "Could you say that again?" she asked.

Sarah sighed deeply and stared Helen in the eyes. "With my new … body chemistry … I go into heat at least two times a year."

For a moment, Helen wasn't sure how to respond. "Well, that isn't something I expected, but I guess it makes sense." she finally said. "Can you tell me what the heat cycle is like?"

Sarah sighed again, looking away. Her body language made it clear she felt like the question was too personal, and that answering it would feel akin to being asked what her first intercourse was like or if she'd ever shared physical intimacy with anyone.

"I'm sorry, Sarah, we don't have to talk about this right now." Helen pulled the car back onto the road and resumed driving. "Please know that I wasn't trying to embarrass you or make you uncomfortable. I'm just trying to –"

"You're trying to be like my big sister or aunt who can get stuff out of me that I'd be too uncomfortable talking to David about, I get it." Sarah sighed at the sharpness in her own tone. "Look, I'm sorry too. I just don't like talking about it. I feel weird enough talking about my transformations or other wolf stuff like eating raw meat. I don't need to feel weirder by blabbing about how my hormones go insane when that heat cycle starts, and it's like I'm gonna go crazy if I can't have sex." She stared very intently at her shoelaces.

"It's not as unusual as you might think," Helen pointed out. "Human beings have sexual urges too. Women particularly get it around their period."

"Not like this. It's…" Sarah's face scrunched up. "It's frantic. It's like going through drug withdrawal and having a huge craving when you're not even addicted to anything." She eyed Helen, seeing nothing but compassion and encouragement in the older woman's blue eyes to continue.

Sarah's face softened, and somehow she found it easier to go on. "It's like … it's like … the space between your legs is screaming for …" She winced. "Penetration. It's a few days of torture where you can't think of anything else. Even the best food loses its flavor."

Helen's cheeks reddened, but she understood Sarah's predicament. "There are ways to ease those urges, you know."

Sarah shrugged. "Yeah, I discussed it all with Tasha, but the wolfism makes it too extreme, and they keep coming back."

Just as they wrapped up their discussion, Helen turned on the radio to fill an awkward silence as Sarah sheepishly scrunched down her seat. Soon they noticed that another car had begun to tailgate them.

Helen noted it when she turned off down a one-lane road that would interconnect with a broader street. The other car maintained a pace right behind them, the fenders mere inches apart. Helen looked into the rearview mirror and recognized the clunky Oldsmobile and the female driver behind the wheel.

"Agatha!" Helen hissed between clenched teeth as she gripped the steering wheel and pulled out onto the main street.

The other car pulled up alongside Helen's, despite the lanes not being wide enough. Agatha had the gall to scoot over and stretch across her passenger seat, thrust her arm out the wide-open window, and rap her knuckles against the window on Helen's side.

Helen maintained a firm grip on the wheel but rolled down her window a few inches. "Ms. Blackwell, are you insane?" she snapped. "Get back in the right lane before you get yourself or someone else killed!"

"But Helen, I just wanted to know – "Agatha cut herself off when she noticed another car coming straight toward her from the opposite direction. Her eyes widened, and her tires squealed shrilly as she pulled back into the correct lane, in front of Helen's car.

However, Agatha proceeded to go at a turtle's pace and kept to the middle of the street, preventing Helen from going very fast and preventing her from getting around her car. Clearly, Agatha wanted Helen to pull over for a chat.

"Who is that crazy woman?" Sarah asked. "What does she want?"

Helen sighed, her hands clenched so tightly around the wheel now her knuckles were turning white. "It would seem Ms. Agatha Blackwell is particularly bored today and wants to nose into the Banner's private affairs." Helen beeped the horn, but the other woman wouldn't take a hint.

Agatha stopped the car in the middle of the road, which forced Helen to stop. In turn, Helen simply gave her a stern look, then put her own car into reverse, proceeded to do a U-turn, and drove off in the opposite direction. She could vaguely hear Agatha's screeching curses.

Helen spent the next five minutes going down several different roads with different turns and detours, trying to lose Agatha's sight while obeying the traffic laws. The corners of Helen's mouth quirked upward, satisfied when she spotted Agatha being pulled over by a cop for trying to cut across someone's lawn illegally, striking a fire hydrant in the process. The rest of the trip was uneventful, even Helen did take a slightly indirect route to the salon to make absolutely sure.

When they arrived, Helen glanced at Sarah as she shut off the ignition. "I presume you have been to a salon before?" She recalled David mentioning that Sarah had been sheltered.

"A few times with my mother when I was a kid. All I ever got was my hair cut, which I can do myself now." Sarah ran a hand through her hair indicatively.

Helen leaned a little closer and briefly examined the ends of the girl's hair. "It shows," she stated. "It looks very uneven as though you hacked it off with pruning shears."

"I did not, I used scissors! Besides," Sarah gently pushed Helen's hand away, "the only reason I cut my hair is that it keeps my wolf hair shorter and easier to deal with."

"Nonetheless, if you get a job or end up doing anything else out there, you will need to be presentable. There aren't many employers who want to hire someone who puts minimal effort into their appearance."

"I get it, I'm ugly as a wolf, and I'm not very nice to look at as a human, either," Sarah growled softly, folding her arms.

Helen gently took her chin, looking over her features and locking eyes with her. "Sarah, looks are not important, I mean, they really shouldn't be, but out in the working world, they are. You're quite pretty. Once your hair is done and your face is refined a bit, you will look amazing. That's why we're here. Let's just have fun. It's a girl's day out."

Helen grinned as Sarah brightened at the prospect.

When they entered the establishment, Sarah hung back. She allowed Helen to talk and make arrangements, mainly since Helen was already familiar with the beauticians and salon. Sarah felt her throat constrict guiltily, knowing she had caused a lot of damage, and she still needed to pay for her losses. And yet, Helen continued to do nice things for her.

It took her a long moment to get used to the unfamiliar sights and smells of the salon. Part of her mind remembered more of the details when she went to one much like this with her mother years ago, complete with the same black-and-white checkered floor. The most significant characteristic she could recall was that the salon she'd seen as a child had really annoying, bubble-gum pink walls that were loud on the eyes. She was grateful that these walls were a lovely lavender-pink; it was much nicer to look at.

Sarah occupied herself by watching other women admiring themselves in the mirror and chatting with the manicurists and shampoo girls. She staring at the glossy model photos on the walls and popcorn ceiling while she and Helen waited for their turn up front. Helen tried offering Sarah a magazine, but the girl shook her head.

"Sarah, it's not polite to stare at other people," Helen chided softly.

"I'm trying to get used to this place. I have a sensitive nose, remember? This place has a lot of weird chemical smells… among other things." Sarah wrinkled her nose.

Helen found herself sniffing the air briefly, but she didn't detect anything that struck her as unusual. Hairspray and cosmetics had a strong scent. However, her senses only noted that because she paid attention after Sarah mentioned it. However, Sarah seemed astutely aware of every single smell as though it had been amplified seventy-five percent.

"It must be the hair dye and bleach that's getting to you. The chemicals often smell like rotten eggs." Helen remarked.

When it was finally their turn, they were seated next to each other in identical black swivel chairs. Sarah's hairstylist was pleasant with a short, attractive pixie cut. Helen whispered to Sarah that sometimes they paired you up with a stylist who knows your hair type. Helen received a quick trim and some coloring to touch up her highlights, but she had requested more be done for Sarah.

Sarah didn't react much when her hair was washed and combed. She saw her stylist thumb through a book of hair designs and pick one that'd work best. Sarah was extremely grateful that her ear had healed up for the cut. Helen eventually left her side to sit underneath the hot dryer.

Sarah cringed when the stylists began to pluck her eyebrows with a pair of tweezers and patted cold alcohol to help numb her skin. There were many hairs beneath Sarah's natural brow line and a thick patch above her nose, almost giving her a unibrow. When the job was done, Sarah's eyebrows still had a bushy quality but had been thinned out in a way that looked attractive and stylish.

The stylist then played with some concealer and face makeup, dabbed it lightly around Sarah's face and under her eyes, and then deftly blended it all in. She remarked that Sarah had flawless and clear skin.

"Thanks … just soap and water," Sarah mumbled at the compliment. Helen had told the stylist that Sarah preferred a natural look, so she avoided laying the foundation on thick. The stylist put some color on her eyes – light browns, taupes, and gray. She added mascara and smudged eyeliner just beneath Sarah's waterlines to give her a lightly smoky, mysterious look that seemed to match the quiet girl's personality and features. She finished off with a charming beige-pink lipstick color and gloss.

The attendant swung her around in the chair, and Sarah gazed in the mirror. She almost didn't recognize the pretty young woman staring back at her. Helen smiled wide and quickly pulled a small camera from her purse to get a few shots. Sarah stood, admiring her reflection with a smile as she took in her whole appearance appreciatively. Helen snapped as many photos as she could to capture the wolf-girl's rare smile. Sarah thanked the stylist and turned to leave, just to have Helen gently stop her. It turned out they weren't finished yet; they still had their nails to get done.

Helen explained away Sarah's nails as a skin condition. The manicurist simply took it in stride after that, trimming and filing down Sarah's thick nails that had lengthened and curved almost unnaturally. She did her best to hold still while some of the skin surrounding her nails was attended to. Her hands were gently moistened in rosewater and lotion to soften them. The hardest part was to get Sarah to sit still while the pink-lavender nail polish finished drying under the tiny fans.

After Helen paid and tipped the salon staff generously, she halted Sarah outside.

"You did good there, Sarah. Much better than I expected. And I think you look fantastic. The stylist, Beth, really accentuated your best features."

Sarah grinned meekly. "Thanks. I tried to relax. They weren't very imposing. It … it feels good getting a makeover."

"It sure does!"

The women proceeded to the grocery store, where they chatted idly as they went.