Wolf Dreams

Chapter 3-2

THERE WAS A STUDENT waiting for me in the hallway when I headed back to campus to deal with my inherited mess after a quick stop home to swallow my meds and toss the cat tooth into my kitchen junk drawer. Adena had also demanded a bite to eat, and I’d changed my shoes because my feet were killing me. To cut a long story short, by the time I rounded the corner and found the freckled class perfectionist waiting for me, I was running quite a bit behind.

He was bundled up against the winter chill, head bowed in a manner that promised our interlude wouldn’t be brief. Still, I smiled and welcomed him. “Joe.”

“I know this isn’t your office hours....” The sixteen-year-old freshman started apologizing the moment I came into view.

“Don’t worry about it.” I dug for my keys in my bag then took a look through the narrow office-door window as I fumbled with the lock. Inside, the piles of my predecessor’s jumbled-together stuff looked taller than when I’d left them. Great.

I was a slob at home, but I liked my workspace tidy. So it had been a bit of a shock when I’d arrived at my office a week ago to find the room full of unlabeled artifacts related to Blackburn’s specialty—the first humans to grace the North American continent. There were stacks of scientific journals by the hundred on the same topic. And, off in one corner, an odd mass of wires and chemicals must have had something to do with a hobby; it certainly made no sense to my archaeological eye.

Even Adena’s perch had been shunted out of the main thoroughfare. The raven cawed annoyance at leaving the center of attention, but she still fluttered off my shoulder and onto her wooden foothold as I ushered Joe inside.

“Tell me about your paper,” I nudged him. The freshman was brilliant, but he required a fair amount of hand-holding. I had a feeling by the time he achieved the age of the average freshman, he would have grown into his own skin.

That happy day was two years in the future however. So I ignored my to-do list and prepared to hold some metaphorical hands.

Sure enough, the flood gates opened as soon as I gave him the opportunity. “I was thinking of delving into Native American petroglyphs.” His eyes sparkled as he lost track of his surroundings and traversed more familiar terrain—the inside of his own head. “Subtopic: form constants and the possible use of hallucinogens. I’d like to track down modern shamans to interview, but I doubt I’ll have time to speak with more than one or two.”

He glared at me then, frustrated that I’d given him less than a week to compile his magnum opus. I swallowed my amusement as I replied. “You do realize that when I said you needed secondary sources, I was referring to scientific articles? This isn’t a dissertation, Joe. This is only 25% of your grade in one class.”

“Yes,” he started. “But the material merits—”

We both glanced up as someone tapped on my open door.

***