Shiver

After school, Grace wants to drive by Olivia’s house to see if Sam can pick up Jack’s trail. As they head to Olivia’s house, Grace notices the book of poems by Rilke that Sam is reading. She tells Sam that she doesn’t “get” poetry, preferring to read non-fiction books. Sam speaks aloud a few lines of the original German to Grace. She can sense the lines are sad. Sam is happy at Grace’s observation and suggests she has an instinct for poetry since she focuses on the rhythm of the words. Sam nearly kisses Grace before he spots a bluish-grey wolf with hazel eyes near Olivia’s house.

Sam yells at Grace to pull over, and he chases Jack into the woods with Grace on his heels. It is only when he’s deep in the woods that he feels the bite of the cold and has to turn back with Grace. Grace is angry at Sam’s recklessness. Sam doesn’t know how to tell her that he is afraid Jack may be like Christa, the violent wolf Beck had to put down. Sam and Grace get into the car and warm up. Sam has an epiphany: It is possible the person who restored the power and removed the mail was Beck, not Jack. Sam has assumed Beck is in his wolf form, but the assumption may be wrong. He decides to seek out Beck.

The next day, while Grace is at school, Sam goes over again to Beck’s house. To his surprise, he sees Beck pulling his SUV in the driveway. A delighted Sam runs over to Beck, who is in human form and wearing multiple layers of clothing to beat the cold. However, something about Beck’s scent makes Sam wary. He decides to wait before telling Beck about Grace. Sam and Beck hug. Beck tells Sam that after the shooting, he and Salem—the wolf Sam believes pulled Grace off the tire swing—went to Canada. Beck has brought home the future. To explain himself, Beck opens the back door of his car. Three teenagers are in the back, their hands zip tied. Sam can immediately see they have been bitten and are in the painful process of transformation.

Beck tells a horrified Sam that he bit the humans and recruited them for the pack. For its safety, the pack needs new members capable of turning into people for the next few years. Beck’s time is up, as is Sam’s. Beck doesn’t know why the process of becoming a wolf for good has been faster in Sam’s case, but senses it may have something to do with the violence Sam’s parents inflicted on him. Sam tells Beck he will go to hell for the terrible thing he has done and leaves. That night, he longs to tell Grace about what Beck has become, but once again, stays quiet.

The next day, Sam declares he wants to take Grace out on a proper date, the destination a secret. The two head out excitedly in Grace’s Bronco. Grace is happy to see Sam laughing freely. She asks him if he misses being a wolf. Sam says that though he likes his wolf-state, he prefers being a thinking, feeling human. He feels more himself in this form. Grace can sense from his tone of yearning that this will be the last year Sam changes to a human. This is why Sam wants to make the most of his time with Grace. Grace tells Sam that she cannot remember how she got home after he pushed the other wolves away during her attack. Grace finally realizes that Sam changed into a human and carried her home.

Sam’s first stop on the date is a “Grace-shop,” the independent bookstore called the Crooked Shelf, which Grace loves. Sam takes Grace to a little loft at the top of the store and reads out an English translation of the Rilke verse. Grace is so moved she begins to cry. Sam hugs her and tells her they don’t have time to be sad. Outside the bookstore, they run into Olivia and her brother, John. Grace introduces Sam to them. Olivia asks Sam if he wears contacts. When Sam says yes, Olivia looks disappointed. When he’s alone with Grace, Sam frets Olivia may have recognized him from the pictures she took of him as a wolf. Later that evening, Sam can smell Shelby has urinated on Grace’s deck again.

Unable to sleep, Sam thinks about the growing threat of Shelby and Jack. He knows Shelby’s capabilities. When Sam was 13, Mr. Dario moved into the closest house to Beck’s place. Wealthy Mr. Dario had ferocious guard dogs, capable of ripping off a person’s face, that he kept under control using electric shock collars. The collars could be controlled by a power box coated with powdery black paint. Mr. Dario assured Paul and Beck that the dogs would never leave his property.

Sam obsessed over the dogs, worried they would hurt Paul or Beck someday. He asked Beck to teach him how to kill, so that he could finish the dogs if the need arose. Beck showed Sam videos of deadly dog-fights and used raw chicken to teach him how to snap bones. What Sam learnt was that even small terriers could defeat larger dogs by tiring and then suffocating them. One day, the worst of Sam’s fears came true. Two of Mr. Dario’s dogs got loose and attacked Paul and Beck in their wolf-forms. Sam ran out and killed the dog biting Paul. Beck was proud of Sam, but Sam had eyes for only one thing: Shelby, who’d joined them, had powdery black paint on her fingers. It was Shelby who disabled the shock collars and freed the dogs.

After Sam has been at Grace’s house for a few weeks, Sam asks Grace if she is bothered by her parents’ indifference. Sam thinks it’s strange that her parents haven’t noticed he’s been around or even visited Grace’s room. At first, Grace pretends she doesn’t care about her parents but finally tells Sam she wonders why she can’t make her parents love her. Sam tells Grace her parents’ negligence is not her fault. They are simply self-centered people.

When Grace hears her parents come home, she decides to finally introduce Sam to them as her boyfriend. Sam and her parents exchange pleasantries. Sam asks Grace’s mom if he can see her studio.

Sam compliments Grace’s mom’s paintings, and she’s pleased by his discerning taste in art. She confesses to Sam that Grace doesn’t appreciate her art. For her part, Grace’s mother cannot understand Grace’s practicality and love of numbers. Grace’s mom asks Sam if he can sit for a portrait. Sam agrees but wants to play a guitar to avoid feeling self-conscious. As Grace’s mother paints his portrait, Sam plays the guitar and sings a song he wrote about Grace. Just then, they hear a terrifying crash from downstairs, where Grace is doing her homework.

Sam remembers Shelby showing him her scars from when the wolves bit her. Shelby said her stomach had looked like hamburger meat after the attack. Being killed by a wolf must be the worst way to die.

Sam rushes downstairs and finds the glass of the back door broken, cold air streaming in. In the kitchen, Shelby has Grace pinned against the cupboards, her muzzle clamped on Grace’s arm. Sam hits Shelby with a skillet and gets her off Grace. Grace’s father walks in with the gun and shoots Shelby. Shelby slumps on the floor, bleeding profusely. The smell of the blood and the cold air hit Sam suddenly and he begins to shake, dangerously close to turning. Grace screams at her parents that they need to get Sam warm fast.

Grace’s parents take her and Sam to the hospital. To explain Sam’s response to the blood and cold, Grace tells them about Sam’s parents nearly murdering him. She says the traumatic incident deeply affected Sam, who can no longer stand the sight of blood. Grace leaves out the part about Sam being a werewolf. Grace’s mother expresses concern about her dating a boy with such a complex history. Grace counters that her mother has no right to act parental after ignoring Grace for so long.

Grace’s wounds from Shelby’s bite are already healing, suggesting that her body, like Sam’s, can repair itself fast. As Sam and Grace wait to be discharged, Grace spots Olivia’s mother in the hospital.

The next day after Shelby’s attack, Sam and Grace are in her father’s study, the warmest room in the house. Grace finishes her homework, while Sam reads a book. When Grace’s father comes up, Grace asks him what he did with Shelby’s body. Her father said he left the body on the deck. Sam feels a sick dread since the body is no longer on the deck, suggesting that Shelby is still alive. He’s angry at the carelessness of Grace’s parents. However, Grace’s father trivializes her concern, saying wild animals must have carried off the body.

Though Sam came dangerously close to changing the day of Shelby’s attack, he braves the cold every day to look for Shelby and Jack while Grace is at school. However, he cannot find either a scent trail or their tracks, which is puzzling. Though humans disappear, wolves do not.

As November approaches, the days get colder. Sam and Grace don’t talk about the inevitable, but they feel a constant sense of loss. At school, Grace asks Rachel about Olivia, who is absent. Rachel tells her that Olivia’s been sick and unreachable over the phone. Grace and Rachel decide to visit Olivia’s house at the end of the week to check up on her. Grace discovers a touching note Sam has left in her backpack, quoting a poignant passage from Rilke’s love poems. Moved, Grace sits in an empty classroom, trying to think, once again, of a cure for Sam.

A seemingly agitated Isabel finds Grace in the classroom and shows her a sheaf of pictures Olivia dropped. One of the photos is of a wolf whom Isabel can see is Jack. Isabel knows that whatever is wrong with Jack also affects Grace’s boyfriend. She cannot understand why Grace won’t help her locate her brother. Isabel has never caused Grace any harm. Grace tries to explain to Isabel that she is afraid of what Jack—who was a bully as a human—may have become as a wolf but cannot find the words. She tells Isabel she will help her.

When Grace tells Sam about the events at school, Sam says they need to come clean to Isabel. Isabel will not be the first family member to know about a loved one transforming: Beck’s wife knew too, before she died from breast cancer.

Grace invites Isabel over to her house. Isabel, Sam, and Grace make quiche in the kitchen, while Grace’s mom works upstairs. Grace puts on the radio to further drown out their voices. She and Sam dance, enjoying a few moments of respite. Finally, Sam admits that both he and Jack are werewolves. Jack has been rapidly switching between human and wolf states, which is typical of the newly bitten. As time passes, the interval between changes will become longer and more predictable. Sam says he worries Jack will lose his inhibitions in his wolf form. Isabel says that though she didn’t like Jack’s bullying streak, she still needs to find her brother. Grace tells Isabel that she and Sam will help her find Jack.