Chapter 6

Marvel 

Today, If the world had a ceremonial bell to mark my arrival, it would sound like the sick, flat scrape of brakes outside Cedar Grove Junior High. Mom drums the steering wheel in the driver’s seat, one hand on the gearshift, her thumbnail frayed to the quick from gnawing. She looks at the mirror before checking her phone for the hundredth time. “You ready, kid?”

I consider saying, For what? But I know the lines: “Yeah.”

I swing my bag over my shoulder and let the door shut too hard. I wince at myself. I’m pretending I’ll just walk away, but I can feel someone watching, making sure I was safe and could not fall into any danger. I enter the school and fund the kids shuffling in clusters.

I stop and hang back for a second and notice the principal standing outside. He walks towards me “Welcome back marvel, loving the school already?” he asks smiling at me.

“Sure.” He claps my shoulder with a hand that could palm my skull. “You’re in good hands.”

The hands in question push me through the atrium, then down a corridor lined in chipping blue lockers and motivational posters all over. All the normal preamble of new schools—snickers, the long stares, the odd thrown eraser—happens in fast-forward, like everyone’s been briefed in advance. They smell it on me, the rot of “new kid,” maybe something else underneath.

Today the first period is science. I find my name on a label and stick myself in the assigned seat. The teacher, Mrs. Yates, wears a floral blouse and a perpetual wince, as if the light is always too bright for her. She spends twenty minutes going over safety rules and how to use a pipette, I hated how long the lesson was and only wished it was over already. After putting as in groups, i find myself at a table with a girl whose hair is buzzed close, black as a police dog’s, and the boy next to her with a vest of acne armor and white, stunted eyelashes. They avoid looking at me directly, as if my gaze carries a contagious skin condition they were trying to avoid. I hated this treatment but I didn't mind. I wasn't good at making friends anyway so i carried on with them.

Mrs. Yates calls pierced the air. “Marvel Dillard?”

“Here,” I say putting my hand up, and a ripple of amusement passes through the entire classroom.

“Huh.. just like the comic books,” someone in the back says, quiet but not quiet enough for Mrs Yates to hear.

She ignores them and hands me a handout note. I flip through the handout without reading. The words slide past my mind. Outside the window, I notice a car still idling across the street and it gives me goosebumps. Could it be him? Could he be watching me and.. why? Why would he do that.

Mrs. Yates clears her throat pulling me from my reverie and points to the terrarium in the corner. “We’ll start with a simple experiment. Observation. Dive in, make a list of everything you notice about our class snake.”

The boy with the acne vest looks at me, grimacing like it hurts. “I’m Parker,” he says. “You wanna get things going…?”

“Marvel.” I try so hard to smile. It’s possible I look like I’m about to puke.

We huddle at the glass looking at the snake, an albino corn, eyes red as a nosebleed, its tongue flicking at us. I’m I supposed to write down what I see, but my brain keeps skipping, stuttering, like the world’s buffering at something i couldn't quite understand. The snake fixed it's gaze on me.

Parker jots: “White, pink stripes, you scared of it?”

I say, “She knows she’s being watched. That’s why she’s playing tough."

He snorts, but the snake’s limpness does look performed. Maybe she’s as bored by this place as I am. I see her breathing, the flutter of her side against the warm sand, almost like she’s laughing at us.

Parker tries to meet my eyes. “You from the city?"

I nod. “Yeah, I just moved back with my mom.”

He raises his eyebrows, “Did you… ever see, like, shootings?”

I shrug. “Mostly on TV.”

He’s disappointed. In the next half an hour, we lapse into silence, and I count to thirty before the bell rings. The snake doesn’t move once.

The rest of the day unfolds as expected, the names and faces a blur,the teachers each more tired than the last. The only class that registers is gym, because I am forced to run laps and my lungs try to fight back. I somehow manage to finish last, but the PE teacher, shouts encouragement from a folding chair.

“Dig deep, Marvel!” he yells, as if I’m about to break a world record. “Push through!” My stomach pushes through the finish line, then threatens to exit my body. Everyone was fast. Even the girls im my class beat me up. I breathe heavily as I walk to the rest of the kids, my head bent low.

"Thats enough for today kids, tomorrow we push even harder." He says and dismisses us.

I'm the locker room when a kid in a too-small T-shirt comes up behind me. “You sweat like a pig,” he says, then fake-oinks. I don’t respond. The more you try to belong, the less you do.

I walk out carrying my bag pack just waiting for mom to arrive but in stepping outside the classes, i notice the weird car is gone, so I hang around for some time. The school is smaller than it looks, just a few kids being picked up, a library shaped like a bunker. I take a walk around the school just to get a good view of the place. Something thrashes in the bramble across the library. I freeze, then stand. My shadow stretches over the water, tall and unsteady. There’s a flash of fur, gray and sleek, not a dog or a coyote, but something in between. I don’t move. The animal stops, stares back at me with black, flat eyes. I hold my breath. It’s me and the beast, both waiting for the other to flinch. How could such an animal be wandering here in school with the children outside? Wasn't it dangerous?

I quickly follow it behind the classrooms suspicious of what I was seeing, I was more alert and watched it crawl down the wired fence and off to the bushes. I didn't waste a second I ran and jumped in what seemed to be a huge bush but I couldn't see the animal anymore. I paused to see and the smell of it was even stronger.

I find a shape down in the mud, a print, almost like a dog’s, but stretched and split, the toes too long. There are two, side by side, one bigger, one small. I kneel down to touch it, fingertips cold, but the print is fresher than the ground around it. I can almost feel the thing breathing, as if the paw itself is a mouth.

I moved further into the trees. The air getting denser with each step i took but my curiosity was only growing, the kind of hush you only notice when you’re breaking it. A thought crossed my mind. I should go home, but the memory of that animal’s stare drags me forward and i notice something moves ahead, faster than anything I’ve ever seen just a flick, a ripple of gray fur and pale eyes. I shout without meaning to. The animal stops. Turns.

For a heartbeat, I see it. It’s wrong, put together like a puzzle that was finished in the dark. It was so huge, almost like a huge dog,too wide, but the eyes—human, almost, gold and bright and knowing. It looks at me, and it doesn’t blink. For a second, I think it’s going to talk.

Behind me, branches crack. I spin and slip on the mud, hands hitting ground, knuckles scraping raw. When I look up, it’s gone.

But someone else is there, picking their way down the hill: Valentine, trench coat flapping like a threat.

“Marvel!” he shouts, and I can’t tell if he’s angry or scared.

“I saw it,” I say, backing away from him, heart doing a hummingbird in my throat.

He doesn’t ask what. “We have to go.”

He grabs my arm, not hard, but firm enough to know I’m not getting away. We ran back to the school area.

“What was that?” I ask, but he shakes his head.

“You wouldn’t believe me.”

“Try me.” I pause my face now serious.

He studies me like a test he’s sure he’ll fail.

“Listen… I need to hear the truth,” I said, though my voice felt smaller than I wanted it to.

His face was tense, like he was holding something back, but he took a shaky breath. “We… we are werewolves. All of us.”

My eyes widened. My stomach twisted. “All… all of you? But… why? What do you mean? Why me?”

He paused, and I could see the weight in his eyes, something jagged and heavy. “Because… you’re one of us. You’ve been… changing. Feeling things you didn’t understand. It’s normal. Part of who you are.”

“Changing…?” My voice caught. My hands twitched, trying to understand. The running… the smells… all of it… “So… all the… stuff… I felt… the running fast… the smells… the… I’m not… I’m not crazy?”

“No, you’re not crazy, Marvel,” he said softly, and somehow those words made my chest unclench a little. “You’re learning. You’re… special.”

“Why?” I whispered, voice breaking. “Why do you know this?”

He swallowed, like the answer was lodged somewhere he couldn’t reach, but then it came. “Because you’re my son, Marvel. And your mother doesn’t know that I know.”

Everything froze in my chest. I blinked, trying to process the shock, the disbelief, the confusion twisting in my gut.

Then it started to make sense. Slowly, pieces clicking together. My shoulders relaxed, just a fraction. I tried to steady my racing thoughts, the storm inside finally finding some rhythm.

“So… that’s why… I felt… different. I thought… I was just… weird.

“Not weird,” he said, firm and calm. “Strong. Brave. And… with time, you’ll learn to control it, to understand it, okay?”

“Brave?” My voice was barely audible.

“Yes. Brave.” The word hung in the air like it meant something. I let it sink in, letting it fill a space I didn’t even know existed inside me.

Gradually, I felt the tension in my shoulders ease, my breathing slowing, though my heart still raced with questions.

“Werewolves… but there are rules. Things you need to learn first. You can’t just go running off alone following any animal you see.”

Rules? My eyes lit up, a mischievous spark forming. “Rules… mmmh. I can handle rules. I can… I’ll figure it out.”

Questions spilled out of me before I could stop them. “Can I run too? Like… faster?”

“Yes,” he said, smiling, and my chest lifted with excitement. “But it takes practice. And patience.”

“I can practice. I want to… I want to see what I can do.” My voice trembled with eagerness. “Can I run fast? Really fast?”

“Yes,” he nodded. “But not alone. Not yet. You’ll need guidance.”

I frowned, thinking. “So… I can't run anywhere alone. But… can I see the moon? And… the stars?”

“Yes.” His words made my chest tighten, awe blooming inside me. “You’ll see things differently. Hear things differently. Smell things… more than you ever thought possible.”

I tilted my head, trying to absorb it all. My small chest rose and fell rapidly. “So… I’m not alone? You who else… all of us… we’re together?”

“Yes.” Relief and pride swirled inside him—but I felt it too, somehow, sinking into me. I was beginning to understand. I was accepting it. Finally.

He hesitated, searching my face like he needed more confirmation, eyes hungry for answers.

“We’re stronger than humans,” he said softly, and I shivered at the weight of the words. “Faster, too. Our senses, hearing, smell, sight, they’re sharper."

A slow breath, a mix of excitement and nerves, filled me. I took a small step, testing myself, eyes alert to every sound, every movement. “I… I think I can do this,” I murmured, almost to myself.

“Not just think. You will.” His smile made something inside me lift, and I nodded, feeling a strange mix of fear, pride, and exhilaration.