"Kit Reed - What Wolves Know" - читать интересную книгу автора (Reed Kit)

Where Happy loped along on all fours when he ran with the pack, race
memory kicks in, now that he is here. This place he hoped to forget was not
built for wolves. He stands and prowls the house on bare feet. She has left
food: some kind of meat on the kitchen table, brownies. He empties the
plate, pulling strings of plastic wrap out of the half-chewed chocolate
squares before he swallows them. Now, the other thing? As SoniaтАЩs cub he
never fouled the lair. There is a bathroom just off the kitchen. Happy
cringes. What was he supposed to do back then, when he was small and
trapped in here? Who used to hit him and hit him for forgetting?

He touches the nail where the belt used to hang and the ghost family
rises up like the missing limb miraculously restored. Growling, he quits the
house.

Can you ever walk out of your old skin and back into the woods where
you were so happy, running with the wolves? There are no woods outside
this house, just streets and cement sidewalks and metal fences around
house after house after identical house; there are few trees and no hillside
which means no caves, no undergrowth and no place to dig, where he can
pull in brush to cover himself; it is worrisome and sad. The urban sky is like
a cup with Happy trapped under it. He relieves himself and goes back
inside. The old room is safe, now that he knows he can lock it.

****

His days donтАЩt change.

At night he goes out to eat what she leaves and to relieve himself.
One night it was a meat pie, another, a whole ham.

People come. Sometimes they call outside his room, but Happy will
not answer. The wolf doesnтАЩt howl unless there is another like him out there,
howling or yipping the reply. Brent comes, but not Susan. In the long
periods he spends curled under the crib, Happy thinks about this. Her body,
expanding with every breath as they rode along in the car. The way it felt,
and how he misses it.

If he canтАЩt do what wolves do, he understands, he wants to do what
he can do with BrentтАЩs woman. How the parts go together remains a
mystery; he only knows what he needs. Brent comes with a doctor, a
talking-doctor, he says through the locked door. The doctor talks for a long
time, but wolves have no need for words. The doctor goes away. Brent
comes with a man who promises money. When you have nothing, you need
nothing. Brent comes with another man, who makes threats. Wolves will not
be threatened. When you are threatened, you go to ground and stay there.
They go away. Brent comes back. He shouts through the locked door. тАЬJust
tell us what you want and IтАЩll bring it! Anything, I promise, if youтАЩll just come
out so we can get started.тАЭ
 There is one thing, but Happy will not say it.