"He was really here," she murmured to herself.

"Who was? What do you mean?" asked her mother quickly.

Don't tell her. "Nothing," Lila answered. "All I meant was, I heard the motorcycle, too, but I thought ... it was a dream."

"Well, I hope that's its first and last visit," said Mrs. Crawford firmly.

Lila didn't answer. She couldn't.

He was coming for her.

CUAPTER 11.

"I never seem to see Corey around these days," remarked Lila's mother one Sat.u.r.day night. She was cutting up vegetables for a stew, and Lila was helping her in the kitchen. "Where's he keeping himself?"

Lila opened the refrigerator to take out a package of stew beef. "He's been awfully busy," she said without turning around. "The coach is really working them hard, I guess."

She couldn't bear discussing Corey with anyone. Not with her friends, and certainly not with her mother. It wasn't that she missed Corey, exactly, although after spending three Sat.u.r.day nights in a row at home with her parents Lila was beginning to wonder whether she might have been a little hasty DARK DREAMS * 133.

to leave him without making other plans for herself. It was more that Corey still looked so flinching whenever he saw her that Lila felt as guilty as she did.

But she didn't want to share these thoughts with her mother, who had fortunately gone on talking.

". . . always thought he was a nice boy," Mrs. Crawford was saying. "Certainly presentable, and very polite to your father and me. What are his parents like? Do you know, in all this time I've never met them?"

"Corey's parents, you mean?" asked Lila blankly as she picked up a butcher knife to begin cutting up the stew meat.

"Yes, of course Corey's parents," said Mrs. Craw-ford. "Who else have we been talking about? I was just thinking that when Corey stops being so busy, maybe your father and I ought to-" Abruptly she stopped, staring at her daughter.

"What on earth are you doing, Lila?" she asked.

Lila paused, the piece of raw meat halfway to her mouth.

She had been about to eat it.

134.

Children of the Night "Corey's not going to wait around for you much longer, you know," Samantha told Lila one afternoon over the phone. "He's got to get restless pretty soon, Li. When are you going to let him off the hook?"

"He's off the hook," Lila replied. "I let him off it. If I started going out with him again, that would be putting him back on the hook."

"Oh, don't get technical," Samantha said. "You know what I mean. When are you going to, you know, take pity on him?"

"And start going out with him again? Never."

"But you're being so mean!" Samantha wailed. "For no reason!"

"I have plenty of reasons," Lila said firmly. "I just can't explain them."

"Well, all I can say is they can't be such good reasons if you can't explain them. Come on, Lila. Marci's getting p.i.s.sed. But don't tell her I told you that."

"Why's it any business of Marci's?" Lila asked a little angrily. "I haven't done anything to her!"

"Oh, she's not exactly mad at you," Samantha DARK DRKAMS * 135.

soothed her. "She's just kind of bugged about you letting Karin Engals horn in like this. You know, Karin's really going after Corey-and she'll get him, too, if you don't stop her."

Lila laughed. "Has anyone ever stopped Karin Engals from doing anything she's ever wanted to do?"

"Well, you could have," Samantha said. "At least, the way you used to be, you could have."

"What do you mean, the way I used to be?" Lila snapped.

"You know," Samantha faltered, "before you got all ... um, you know, moony."

Moony was the real problem, Lila knew. The full moon would arrive in just a few days. Would it happen? Was she going to transform again?

The signs were pretty clear that she would. Now that she was focusing inward so intently, Lila noticed coundess little hints that her body was already preparing for the change. Her fingernails seemed thicker. She thought-or was that her imagination?-that she could see better in the dark. And her sense of smell was definitely sharper. Hearing her father tell off an employee over the phone, Lila 136 * Children of the Night could, without any doubt, smell the waves of anger that were emanating from him.

By the first day of the full moon, the scar on her leg had begun to fester again. Now Lila knew what was going to happen.

I'll go to bed extra-early, she promised herself after school. She was sitting by herself on the school bus, staring out the window. Right after dinner. Kind of like an athlete in training. I have a long night ahead of me. I might as well catch up on my sleep. And I'll eat a really huge dinner. That way, when I'm outside, I won't be so tempted to- To kill something for food. But she wouldn't let herself finish the thought.

It was a bright, clear day, one of those days when the air looks as though it's been washed. Certainly there was no chance it would cloud over before dark.

Lila could hardly believe she'd be able to fall asleep, she was so nervous. But the preparations her body was making for the transformation must have been overwhelming. After supper, she slowly climbed the stairs to her room. Heart hammering in her chest, she undressed, put on a T-shirt, and DARK DRHAMS * 137.

pulled back her covers. Her body had scarcely touched the sheets before she fell into a black dreamless sleep.

Tonight, the forest is not big enough for her. It doesn't hold the one she's looking for. Not that she knows who that is. Before, her hunts have had more specific goals: rabbits, squirrels, other insignificant prey. Tonight her only clues about her quarry are that he is a male of her kind, and that he is much more powerful than she. Other than that, she doesn't even know what he smells like.

But she can tell that the forest is terrified of him. Anguished squeaks and squeals keep twittering out from the holes and burrows she pa.s.ses. The little animals fear a daunting presence. Even the trees seem to have drawn together into watchful cl.u.s.ters. Tonight, the stream is hushed, as if listening. Tonight, the forest's dark caves almost eagerly throw their shadows open to the moon. He is not coming here . . . not here, the forest seems to whisper with every rustling branch. We are safe. We are safe . . .

Of course no one is safe. But the wolf can't resist running on. She must find him. She has no choice.

138 * Children of the Night Running with her head down, the wolf finally catches his scent along a narrow trail. She recognizes it without knowing how. It's so complicated, the way her nose works. In captivity, she would be able to pick out this scent, even if it had been diluted by a thousand percent. Undiluted out here in the open, in the woods, it reaches her like wine pouring down her throat. It is sending her a signal she can't ignore: Follow me.

An owl screams a warning as the wolfs dark form lopes past. The wolf doesn't even hear.

He is just ahead, she tells herself breathlessly, ... a little farther ... a little farther . . .

Lila awoke, freezing and frightened, curled up in a ditch. Slowly, confusedly, she lifted her head and stretched her aching arms and legs. Where was she? This was a beautiful spot, but she didn't recognize it at all.

She seemed to be on a little dirt road out in the country. There were no buildings anywhere, just wet meadows and little clumps of pine trees and, in the distance, a hilly patchwork of fields and forests. The red sun was barely above the horizon. It was DARK DREAMS * 139.

still so early in the morning that mist was rising from the gra.s.s.

Lila was shivering uncontrollably. The ditch was damp and stony, and her hands and feet were numb. Glancing down at her legs, she saw that they were again covered with telltale scratches. So she had become a wolf last night.

"And how am I going to get home?" she gasped aloud, stumbling to her feet. Then, as reality hit her, she slowly sank down again. Not only was she scratched and filthy-she was also naked.

Lila wanted to cry. This couldn't be happening. How could something so exactly like the most humiliating kind of nightmare be real?

I'll have to get help, she told herself frantically, hugging herself to keep warm. But how? What if someone drove by and saw her? What could she do?

Suddenly Lila froze. Someone was coming down the road. Her senses still heightened by the previous night's transformation, she recognized him long before she saw him.

It was the boy on the motorcycle.

Oh, my G.o.d, no. Not this. Not him.

The motorcycle was drawing inexorably closer.

140 * Children of the Night Lila could not meet the eyes of its rider. She stared down at the ground, paralyzed with horror and embarra.s.sment. The motorcycle was slowing now. And slowing even more . . . And stopping.

He was there. Next to her. Looking down at her.

"Please," Lila began to beg, looking up from the ground at her pursuer. "Please don't hurt-"

All speech left her at the sight of his face. She didn't know anything about him, but she could tell he wasn't here to hurt her.

He was staring down at her with a strange mixture of disappointment and pity in his green eyes. Slowly he extended a hand as if to help her to her feet. Then he seemed to think better of it. He shook his head and pulled his hand back. Reaching into a backpack strapped behind the motorcycle seat, he pulled out a rolled-up blanket and tossed it down to her.

"Wrap this around yourself," he said. His voice sounded rusty with disuse.

Silently, still staring mutely up at him, Lila obeyed. "Thank youI' she tried to say, but her mouth wouldn't form the words.

DARK DREAMS * 141.

The boy took a step toward Lila, who flinched nervously. Again a look of disappointment flashed across his face. He reached into the backpack, took out a pile of crumpled clothes, and dropped them in front of her.

"Look, I brought you some clothes, that's all," he said. "I don't expect you to trust me. Not yet."

His voice was rough, almost surly, but Lila somehow got the impression that he wished he could be nicer to her. It was only a fleeting impression, though, for the boy didn't say another word. He climbed back onto his motorcycle and started it with a roar.

"Wait!" Lila called. "How did you . . ." But he only continued on down the road without looking back.

"How did you know where I was?" Lila finished, in a whisper. "How did you know I'd need something to wear?

"What's going on?"

With shaking hands she spread the clothes out next to her. A faded pair of jeans, a torn sweatshirt, and a frayed denim jacket. No shoes, but a heavy 142 * Children of the Night pair of socks; she'd be able to manage in those for now. All of it was much too big for her-it must be his stuff-but everything was clean.

Quickly Lila dressed and rolled up the blanket. Then, her shivering gradually abating, she began to walk down the road.

There would have to be a house somewhere on this road. She'd call home from there.

How it happened "And you say you found him in your barn?" the state trooper asked.

Mrs. Ramsey, a stout, capable-looking woman in her late forties, nodded vigorously. "The poor little thing must have been starving.'' She shuddered. ' 'Ifound him with a dead hen in his hand. He'd bitten her through the throat, and he was eating her raw. Feathers and all. He's as skinny as-I cried when I first got him in here and saw what he really looked like. "

"And he was wearing what he has on now?" The trooper glanced down at the small, black-haired boy sitting limply on the floor in the corner of Mrs. Ramsey's kitchen. He was about eight years old and dressed in clothes that must have fit him once. Now, where they weren 't impossibly tight, they were pathetically shredded. His bare feet were so covered with ground-in dirt they might have been leather instead of skin.

' 'Well, I have other clothes he can wear,'' Mrs. Ramsey said defensively. "All the boys' stuff from when they were little. It's just, I thought you'd want to see him the way he was when I found him. "

"Right. " The trooper glanced at the boy and jotted a 144 * Children of the Night few more notes on his pad. ' 'Did he tell you his name ?''

"He didn't tell me anything. "

"You mean he can't talk?" the trooper asked.

"Doesn't seem to. I've tried, but he just kind of ignores me."

Indeed, the child was paying them no attention at all He was examining his hands, carefully turning them over and over as if they held some secret. At last, with a kind of hopeless exhaustion, he let them dangle at his sides.

"He screamed like a wild thing when I found him in the barn. Then he collapsed at my feet.

"Doyou think he's deaf?" asked the trooper.

"No, he can hear. He just doesn't seem to care what he's hearing. Watch. "Mrs. Ramsey banged a saucepan lid on her spotless stove. The boy blinked when he heard the clang, but otherwise he didn 't move.

"Defective, maybe," the trooper suggested.

"Well, he's got a fever. That might account for it " Mrs. Ramsey sighed. "Who'd do something to a poor little boy like this? Leaving him out in the woods to fend for himself? He's been out therefor days, by the looks of him!"

DARK DREAMS * 145.

There was no way she could know it had actually been two and a half years, or that no abandonment could have seemed worse to the boy himself than the terror he 'd been freed of-or than to be caught this way.

"It's a pity." The trooper was silent for a minute, watching the child. The boy's unearthly stillness made him uneasy. He cleared his throat loudly and said, "Well, thanks for calling me, Mrs. Ramsey. I'll take him along now and keep you posted. "

"Take him?" Mrs. Ramsey looked startled. "Take him where?"

"I've got to let the county know about him so they can evaluate him. Then they 'II decide the best place for him.''

"Why can't I keep him? I found him!" the woman protested.

"Well, now, this isn't finders keepers we're playing here. The county 'II have to decide. If you really want to keep him-"

"Of course I do! Poor little thing! It's not as though we don't have the room! My boys are on their own now.''

' 'I'm sure the county will take your wishes into consideration. '' The trooper sighed. He, too, wished he could just leave the little boy here. Surely he would be worse off 146 * Children of the Night being dragged through all the paperwork that awaited the two of them. And then the boy 'd have to go into the hospital for observation, probably, and G.o.d only knew what would happen after that. Whereas Mrs. Ramsey, the trooper knew, would feed him and bathe him and put him into a warm bed and generally act like the mother hen she was. And wouldn't that be better for everyone?

But that wasn 't the way these agencies worked. Everyone did the best they could, and did it all wrong. Maybe she 'd get him back after all, though. It had happened before.

The trooper walked over to the boy and tapped him gently on the shoulder. "Come on, guy," he said. "Time to go for a little ride. We 're going to get you all fixed up, you'll see."

The child didn 't move.