Jasper Lilla and The Wolves of Banner Elk Read online

  Mom laughed, and Mrs. Dietrich started laughing, too.

  When their laughter slowed Mrs. Dietrich said, “Thank you. I didn’t think I was ever going to laugh again.”

  “Look, Alice,” my mom said, “if I was writing a movie scene about a last conversation between two people who loved each other, I’d have written it that way.”

  “What way?”

  “Playful,” said Mom, then she added, “I want you to know I believe you. I don’t know what I can do, Alice, but someone did this to him, and I’ll do what I can to see that justice is brought to whoever it is.”

  My mother’s tone was stone cold. It made me shiver. I had never heard her talk like that before. “You know who’s responsible, too, don’t you, Alice?”

  “Why? What are you going to do?”

  My mother laughed. “I’m not a killer, Alice. I’m a writer. I do research. I can get to the bottom of things, but I have to know where to look.”

  “There’s only one person who’d benefit from shutting Franz’s research down,” said Mrs. Dietrich. “The owner of Lion Pharmaceuticals, William King Lyons.”

  Three

  Jasper and Riley

  Having similar school troubles brought Riley and I together, and being able to talk to each other about anything kept us together, but the thing that made us best friends was when I lost my big brother, Linus. Riley had lost her mom to leukemia when she was eight. I lost my dad before I was born, so I knew about only having one parent, but I never knew him so it didn’t really feel the same as Riley losing her mom or me losing Linus.

  Linus was ten years older than me. He died two years ago when Riley and I were freshmen. He was flying a rescue mission in Afghanistan when his helicopter malfunctioned and crashed. His helicopter was sidelined for maintenance, but a distress call came in and he took it out anyway.

  Riley was with me the Monday after Linus’s funeral. Mom, Aunt Maggie, and Carol were gone, so we had the house to ourselves. I sat on my bed while she looked at a picture of Linus in his uniform. When she rubbed my back and told me it was okay to cry, the floodgates opened up. When I was done I confessed that since Linus died I was too afraid to go into his room.

  “I’m not superstitious,” she announced as she marched down the hall to Linus’s room, opened the door, and let herself in.

  I followed her.

  “After my mother died I went into her jewelry box and got her mother’s cross necklace. It was my mother’s favorite necklace, and I knew my Aunt Brenda was going to want it.” She reached inside her blouse and held the small gold cross up for me to see. “So I claimed it,” she bragged.

  I knew right away what I wanted to claim for myself: a wolf’s-tooth necklace that had belonged to my father. Linus kept it in his desk in a small leather pouch.

  “I don’t have to worry about someone taking what I want,” I told her.

  She elbowed me on the chest. “But you’re going to want to claim it anyway. That will make it completely yours.”

  “Let me see,” she said as I took the pouch from his desk.

  I couldn’t help feeling strange as I took the necklace out. My hand shook as I held it out for her to look at. It was much larger than I remembered. One end was wrapped with a very thin leather cord that also served as the strap.

  “It’s so cool,” she said as she took it from my hand. She held it open for me to dip my head through.

  Our faces were closer than they had ever been. I forgot what else was happening. I could smell her strawberry lip gloss. I noticed that her eyes, which had always reminded of big brown puppy eyes, had flecks of green in them. Her attention was so focused on the necklace, though, that she didn’t catch me staring at her.

  Once she had the necklace in place, she put both her hands on my chest and pushed me back upright. It was a different kind of strange I felt as she smoothed out my shirt with her palms and then leaned up against me while she fixed my collar. It took everything I had to keep from putting my arms around her.

  As she tucked the wolf’s tooth under my shirt she said, “Now, don’t you take that off until you get comfortable wearing it.”

  I’m glad Riley talked me into claiming it, but she was wrong. That didn’t make it mine. Making it mine would require something more. I decided to duplicate a ritual Linus had told me about when he was initiated into the Varsity Club, an exclusive service club. Linus was asked to join when he was a sophomore. The initiation ritual was a harmless gesture that was not supposed to be dangerous at all. It had to do with the Lion Pharmaceuticals building, although it wasn’t Lion Pharmaceuticals at the time.

  Lion Pharmaceuticals is located a couple of miles outside of Boone, North Carolina, on the site of what was once the estate of Harley Makrus. When Harley died, the mansion was donated to the county as a meeting hall for weddings, banquets, and the Watauga High School prom. In the middle of the circular driveway in front of the mansion was a circular flowerbed, and in the middle of that was a replica of Michelangelo’s statue of David. The initiation ritual was to sneak in, place a tuxedo T-shirt on the David statue, and get a selfie with the David in the background. The ritual had to be done just after dusk, but before security began to patrol at ten o’clock. The only thing that changed since Lion Pharmaceuticals bought the estate was that they used Dobermans for security, but that wasn’t supposed to be until ten, so I had plenty of time to earn the wolf’s-tooth necklace.

  After dinner that night I rode my bike out to Lion Pharmaceuticals, climbed the oak tree, and waited until the traffic out of the parking lot stopped. The ritual had gone like clockwork right up to the point when I was looking at the selfie I had taken. It was a good picture of me, but unfortunately I completely blocked the tuxedoed David from view. It was as I tried for a second pic that I heard the sound of the Dobermans. The noise startled me, and I dropped my phone. As I bent over to pick it up I caught a glimpse of the Dobermans. They weren’t supposed to be there, but there they were and they were moving my way in a hurry. Forgetting the phone, I began to run. What I should have done was run into the building, but I didn’t think of that. What I did think of was that I’d never outrun them back to that old oak tree.

  On the left side of the building the terrain dropped steeply down into a rocky forest, and that’s where I headed. I was going to find a tree to climb. It was a good plan, but it almost got me killed.

  I just barely reached a tree I could climb before the Dobermans caught up to me. For half an hour I stood there watching five snarling Doberman pinchers jump and snap their teeth at me.

  When all that fervor tired them out, they formed a semicircle around and settled for just staring at me. Their shift allowed me to shift as well. Confident that they couldn’t reach me, I lowered myself to a sitting position.

  Sitting there surrounded by five really ticked-off Doberman Pinchers, I had nothing but time to think. Sooner or later someone would come to see what the dogs were barking at and I could go home. At least that was what I kept telling myself.

  I’ve heard about people being so scared they couldn’t feel it anymore, but I never understood it until that point. Aunt Maggie called it terror. “When an animal is being pursued by a predator and it can no longer escape, it freezes. That’s what terror is,” she explained. I had asked her what the expression “like a deer in the headlights” meant. “The creator made them that way so they would not suffer.”

  As I sat on that ledge I knew I was afraid, but I couldn’t actually feel it. What I felt was numb. Then this thought hit me: Numb isn’t the absence of feeling; it’s a feeling all by itself. I was feeling a large dose of it right then. I found myself wondering if the numbness would keep me from suffering if I fell out of that tree. That thought was followed by a surge of fear that the numbness quickly swallowed up again. I promised myself that, if I survived this ordeal, I’d tell the world what I had discovered about numbness being a feeling.

  It felt good right then to think about what I’d do in the future.
It felt good right then to think I’d have a future. In the glimmer of satisfaction about my insights, I tried to reposition myself, which made my right leg swing out just low enough for one of the Dobermans to get a hold of my shoe. He tore it off easily and began shaking it back and forth violently.

  Instinctively I scrambled back up to a standing position.

  Tearing apart my shoe gave them renewed energy, and the barking and jumping started all over again. I hid my face behind my hands as if looking was what made it real. I remember pleading with them to “just stop” and “go away,” and then their barking took on a different tone. It was higher pitched and more feverish.

  It didn’t make any sense to me, but their barking sounded more fearful than ferocious. My curiosity got me to open my eyes, and sure enough, they looked afraid. When I was their focus their bark was different. They paced back and forth a step or two and only crouched to jump at me. Now as they barked they stayed in a constant crouch. It was as if they were preparing a counterattack.

  They weren’t looking at me anymore but at something behind me. In an attempt to see what it was, I leaned forward just a bit and lost my balance. What I remember next is the briefest of moments when the branch beneath me was gone, but I was not yet falling. The moment lasted only long enough for me to notice, and then I dropped.

  I didn’t bounce when I hit the ground. I crumbled. I crumbled into a ball, with my face buried in my left arm. I was a goner. I knew it. There is no possible way I was going to survive whatever would happen next. I remember thinking, I’ll never see my mother again.

  I didn’t look but could hear the dogs getting closer. I felt the hot breath of one of them on the back of my neck. I was about to find out if terror really reduced suffering. I pleaded again, “Please stop.”

  The next sound I heard was a yelp. It sounded farther away than I had expected. When I peeked from behind my arm, all five dogs had retreated to a spot about ten yards away. They were huddled together and still barking, but the bark was void of the menacing quality from before. I stood up. I was still trapped where I was, but there was some distance between them and me, so I chanced a glance to see what they were staring at. I’m still not really sure I saw what I saw.

  It was wolves. They were staring at the Dobermans. The wolves weren’t looking at me, but I still recognized the intensity in their eyes.

  I was so relieved that the Dobermans had backed off that it didn’t dawn on me that the wolves might be even more dangerous. It didn’t seem like the wolves even noticed me. They were, in effect, protecting me, but that seemed unlikely, so I reasoned it must be that they had a taste for dog.

  The wolves were as still as statues starring at the Dobermans. There was no growling, no gnashing of teeth. The largest wolf, an all-white one, held center position. I watched them in awe but nearly jumped out of my skin when suddenly the white one turned its head and looked directly into my eyes. One wolf then jumped over me, then two and three at a time jumped over me. I was holding my breath as they were springing over my body.

  What was left of the dogs’ bravado disappeared as they turned and sprinted back toward the mansion. I lost sight of them, but I lay there listening to the sound of the chase for a while longer. Then I noticed that I was still holding that tooth.

  Four

  Jasper Questions His Sanity

  What just happened? That was the question on my mind as I rode my bike back home. I must have still been pumped up, because the ride home was almost all uphill and I hardly noticed. Not a mile downthe road and I was already wondering if it was real. But itwas real. I was missing a shoe, a phone, and a hunk of skin along my right ankle. It was real enough.

  When I came to the only downhill section of road I was going to hit, I straightened up more and coasted. Coasting meant no hands on the handlebars, so without thinking about it both hands went back to Linus’s wolf’s-tooth necklace. It felt smooth to the touch in a way that I hadn’t noticed before. I rubbed my thumb across its curve. It was worn smooth, like it had been rubbed a million times before just like I was rubbing it now. Then the craziest idea popped into my head. What if this was a magic necklace? What if rubbing it is what called the wolves to my rescue? Those wolves came when I took hold of that tooth. I mean, they came exactly when I took hold of it.

  I knew it was a crazy thought while I was thinking it. I thought it anyway, which seemed crazy, too. I knew I had to talk to someone, but who? I couldn’t tell anyone at home. If Carol was home, she’d say I was seeking attention. Aunt Maggie wouldn’t say anything at all—she’d just look at me like I was nuts—and all Mom would hear was that I trespassed, lost a phone and a shoe, and nearly got killed. She wouldn’t care so much about the phone or the shoe, but she’d mention them. Nearly getting killed would concern her, but she was such a freak about me being out in nature that I wouldn’t be in trouble for that either. The trespassing was going to be a problem.

  Mom was a stickler about the rules. Actually she was a stickler about “natural” rules. According to my mom, natural rules are rules that made living with other people and with the world work. She used to say, “Men don’t make up natural rules. They just name what is already in creation.” She didn’t care about man-made rules. She’d say, “Those rules are designed to benefit the rule makers, not creation.” When Mom thought a speed limit was posted just to be a moneymaking trap, she’d make a point of speeding up, but if a speed limit was to protect a deer crossing or a deaf child, you’d better obey it if she was in the car. I wasn’t sure whether trespassing was a natural rule or not, but since Linus didn’t tell her when he put the tuxedo on the David I wasn’t going to either.

  I decided to tell Linus. It made me feel good to decide that, but it only lasted a moment before I realized that I couldn’t tell Linus. I cried again. I didn’t cry for long, though, because I had to pedal uphill again and that was distraction enough to dry me up. But crying again did make me realize there was only one person I could tell.

  Five

  Telling Riley

  “Did you get in trouble?” Riley asked. I had just told her that I didn’t get home until 9:30 the night before.

  We were sitting in the Come Back Shack. It’s one of Riley’s favorite places because you get so many choices. Besides picking what sandwich you wanted, you could pick the size, the bun, and even the style. She had her grilled chicken California style with avocado, Swiss cheese, and tomato. I was a purist with my burger: lettuce, tomato, and mayo.

  “Nah,” I told her. “Aunt Maggie was the only one home when I got there.”

  “What did she say?”

  “She didn’t say anything. She just held my head in her hands and squinted as she inspected my face.”

  “She didn’t say anything,” Riley repeated.

  “She didn’t have to say anything.”

  Riley shook her head back and forth slowly. “I know what you mean. Sometimes when she looks at me, it feels like she can read right into me.”

  “I know,” I told her.

  She waited for me to continue, but I was speculating about what Aunt Maggie might have read in my face the night before. “So,” she finally said.

  “So?”

  “So, why were you so late getting home?”

  I told her about wanting to earn the wolf’s-tooth necklace by doing what Linus did. I told her about climbing over the fence, goofing up the picture, and dropping my phone when the Dobermans showed up. I told her about being chased and hiding up on a cliff. I didn’t tell her about the wolves right off.

  “That’s my father’s place,” she told me when I stopped talking.

  “I know, but I didn’t think putting a T-shirt on his statue would hurt anything. Does that really bother him?”

  “Not usually,” she told me. “He grumbles about insurance stuff whenever some kid puts a T-shirt on that statue. He’s afraid somebody will get hurt and then sue him like it’s his fault.”

  “I’d never do that.”

 
“But he doesn’t know that,” she said. “Besides, that’s not what he got upset about this morning.”

  I didn’t want to ask what upset him. Something about her tone or how she squirmed when she said it worried me.

  “How’d you get away from the dogs?” she asked.

  “Something scared them off,” I told her. I knew I had to tell her the truth, and eventually I would, but right then I thought I’d better go slow. “Why?”

  “Those security dogs disappeared last night. My dad got a call this morning while we were having breakfast. The security people are blaming my dad’s company.”

  “Are they suing him?”

  “I don’t know. Probably,” she said with a shrug. “He was pretty angry. I heard him say, ‘Let them sue me.’ Then he told whoever he was talking to that they should hire people this time.” Then she looked at me with her big old hounds’ eyes and asked, “Do you know what happened to those dogs?”

  “Maybe,” I said. I still didn’t want to tell her, but I knew I had to. I stood up and circled the table to sit next to her.

  “What are you doing?” she asked. Her face was all scrunched together like she was confused, but she slid over for me anyway.

  “I don’t want anyone to hear us,” I told her as I sat down.

  I put my arms and elbows on the table and leaned in her direction. She did the same. I closed my eyes and took a slow breath to calm down. She still smelled like strawberries.

  “Like I told you before, I was sitting in that tree waiting for those dogs to get bored or for someone to come get them.”

  She nodded.

  “But neither of those things happened.”

  “Just tell me,” she said. She seemed a little frustrated with me.

  “It’s hard to tell,” I told her. “It’s kind of unbelievable.”

  “Quit stalling,” she said.