Нил Шустерман: Red Rider's Hood

As I stood there, my heart beating in overdrive, the last of the twilight faded, and the skull on my shelf transformed into the skull of a wolf.

Grandma and Marissa came over that night. We all sat on my bed and stared at the werewolf skull, which just stared back at us, unblinking, its fangs glistening with some kind of strange ectoplasm, like supernatural saliva.

"What's it doing here, Grandma?" I asked. "What does it want?"

Grandma just shook her head. "I know an awful lot about werewolves, Red, but don't know everything. Could be that Cedric was just too powerful to die outright. Could be some part of him is trying to come back."

"Why me?" I asked, but I already knew the answer. I was his consigliere. And I was the one who betrayed him.

The skull vanished when the moon began to wane, but appeared again at the next full moon, and it has been coming back ever since. I've grown used to it now. Well, maybe not used to it, but resigned to it, like a death-row inmate is resigned to his fate. Because, you see, when I wake up in the morning, always just before dawn, that werewolf skull is closer to my bed that it had been when I went to sleep. Each month it gets closer, no matter where I set it before I go to sleep. I don't fear it will devour me, but I do know this: One day I'll wake up to find it clamped down on my arm, breaking just enough skin to pass down the curse.

But that hasn't happened yet, so for now I wait, looking deep into those hollow eye sockets, whispering to it so only he and I can hear.

"My, my, Cedric, what dark, empty eyes you have."

"The better to watch you with, Red . . . The better to watch you with . . ."