The Wolves of Mercy Falls 1
Maggie Stiefvater
The wolves of Mercy Falls have had a rough winter and are starving. They find a girl, Grace, on a tire swing and drag her into the woods. She doesn’t struggle and stares at a wolf with yellow eyes, Sam. He is torn between taking a human life and starvation. Sam decides to save the girl.
Over the years, Grace would stare at the wolves in her backyard, particularly interested in the yellow eyed one that had saved her all those years ago. She tried to make contact him, but he never let her get close enough. Grace notices that she only sees them in the winter and spends the summer wondering what happened to them.
Sam works in a bookshop when he is human in the summer. The first time he saw Grace while he was human was there. She walked in with two of her friends to pick out SAT preparation books. She was busy looking at all the books while her friends picked out what they came for. Grace never looks at Sam, though he spends the whole time hoping she will.
Jack Culpeper was supposedly killed by the wolves. Grace thinks that the wolves are mostly peaceful, but two look a little sketchy. She takes some meat out to her wolf and sees that he has blood on his muzzle. She starts to wonder if he really did kill Jack. She ignores this feeling and approaches Sam. A white female wolf, Shelby, appears and doesn’t like Grace’s closeness to the other wolf. Sam protects Grace from her and walks her to the house. Shortly after, Grace’s dad comes home announcing that he got a raise and that Grace will be getting a more reliable car. That night, Shelby appears at Grace’s bedroom window. Grace growls at her.
At School, a police officer, William Keonig comes in to talk to the students about the police profession and to hopefully give them closure from the wolf attack on Jack. The kids hammer him with all sorts of questions about Jack and the wolves. One kid points out that Grace was attacked. Grace and Keonig agree that the wolves probably aren’t a threat. After school, Grace’s friend, Rachel, cancels the plans that they had with their other friend, Olivia. Grace and Olivia go back to Grace’s to look at Olivia’s photography. Olivia gets mad when Grace only wants to look at the picture of Sam in wolf form. Olivia gets even angrier when her brother, John, picks her up and hits on Grace.
Grace goes outside in hopes of seeing her wolf. She hears a scream that she thinks sounds like Jack. She runs into the woods and finds two wolves, Shelby and the black alpha, Paul, holding down a third wolf, who seems to have Jack’s eyes. Grace decides to tell Olivia her theory about werewolves living in Mercy Falls. Olivia becomes angry again with Grace’s obsession with the wolves. Isabel Culpeper, Jack’s sister, approaches Grace about how the people of Mercy Falls are out killing the wolves right then. Grace starts driving and sees Keonig on the side of the road. She pulls over and he tells her about the hunt. She quickly lies to him telling them that her friend is taking pictures in the woods. Keonig is getting ready to inform the party, but Grace is too impatient and runs into the woods to tell them herself.
Sam is running from the hunters with the other wolves when he is shot. Grace finds him in human form on her back porch. She puts him in her dad’s car and takes him to the hospital, where the bullet is extracted from his neck. A nurse points out the scars on Sam’s wrists. When Sam wakes up, he recognizes Grace’s smell before her face. She asks him why he is human and he explains that it is because it is spring. When Grace tells him that it is September, he realizes that it must be because he was shot. Grace asks about the scars on his wrists and he explains that his parents tried to kill him when he first started shifting into a wolf. Grace faints and uses that as an excuse to borrow scrubs from a male nurse. She gives them to Sam and get him out of the hospital quickly to make sure that the doctors don’t find out about his quick-healing ability. Sam explains that the cold will make him turn back into a wolf, so Grace brings the car around for him.
Since Sam doesn’t have a warm place to go, Grace takes him back to her place. Neither of them are unable to sleep, so Grace invites Sam into her bed. Sam reveals that Grace should have shifted because she was bitten because they thought he was possessed. They both admit that they sometimes wish that she had. Sam wakes up and leaves to get clothing from a shed out in the woods that holds supplies for the wolves. He runs into Shelby, who gives him a hard time about not wanting to be a wolf. Sam returns to Grace’s house and while making breakfast, they kiss.
Sam and Grace decide to go car shopping. They are sitting in a Bronco that Grace already knows she is going to buy when Sam reveals that he had nothing to do with Jack’s death. Jack had been shooting some of the wolves with a bb gun. However, is not ready to reveal that once he becomes a wolf again, he will never change back into a human. He then explains that after a person is bitten, they will get really sick and shift randomly. Then they will be normal before they start regular shifting patterns. After Grace was bitten, her dad accidently left her in the car on a hot day, which almost killed her. Grace is determined to find a cure.
Sam drives Grace to school and then uses her car to see if there is power at Beck’s house (his adoptive father). At school, Rachel tells Grace that there was a wolf in the parking lot the day before. Grace realizes that it was Jack and tells Sam. Sam remembers Beck having to kill a wolf, Christa, who was too angry to be good for the pack. Later, Sam finds Grace’s pictures of the wolves and doesn’t recognize himself until Grace points him out. He tells her about life as a wolf. Sam points out Beck and Ulrick in the pictures.
Realizing that he is the only one around to show Jack the ropes of being a werewolf, Sam starts his search for Jack. He checks Beck’s house, but no one is there. He goes to Jack’s house, but the door is locked. He can smell that Jack has been there and breaks into the house to see if he has gone in. Sam is confronted by a bunch of dead animals that have been stuffed for display. Later, Grace finds out that he father was part of the wolf-hunting party.
Sam takes Grace to a spot in the woods that he had shown her an image of in her head (which is how the wolves communicate). After some brief kissing, Sam starts to get too cold and threatens to shift. They get back to the house, but the car keys are locked in the Bronco. Grace takes Sam inside, but can’t seem to warm him up enough. She decides that the best way would be for him to take a bath. However, because of Sam’s parents attempt to kill him in a bathtub, he resists. She eventually gets him in after he hits his head on something during the struggle. After they get over the akwardness, Grace points out that the milk in the fridge only expired three weeks ago. Someone had been there fairly recently. She asks about the girl staring at Sam in one of the pictures. He tells her about how Shelby wants to be in love with him to get closer to the rest of the pack. After much debate, Sam returns home with Grace. He tells her that the wolves eventually stop shifting back into humans.
The next morning, Sam drives Grace to school and meets Rachel for the first time. Rachel tells Grace that there was a wolf at Olivia’s door. Later that day, Isabel confronts Grace. She says that Jack told her that Grace knows what is wrong with him. Grace is unwilling to trust Isabel with the information she has about the wolves. After School, Grace convinces Sam to drive by Olivia’s house. Before they can get there, Jack as a wolf, runs out in front of the car. Sam tries to go after him, but it is too cold and Grace has to drag him back into the Bronco.
Sam goes to Beck’s house again and is surprised to find him there. Beck tells him that he went to Canada with Salem and brought back 3 new wolves to look over the pack. Sam is infuriated and leaves.
Grace has a day off school and Sam decides to take her on a date. They go to the bookstore that he works at during the summer and they end up kissing in the loft. Grace realizes that this is Sam’s last time as a wolf. They leave the bookstore to find Olivia and John outside. Olivia apologizes for her behavior and asks Grace if she can call her later. Grace comes home, once again, to the lack of oblivious parents and tells Sam about her disappointment in them. Sam remembers his own parent, Beck, teaching him how to kill the neighbors dogs for self defense.
Later that night, Grace decides to introduce Sam to her parents. Sam goes upstairs to see Amy’s art studio. Amy is interested in him and wants to paint him. He plays a guitar to keep himself distracted from the embarrassment. They hear a crash and a scream from downstairs and Sam runs to Grace. Shelby has smashed her way into the house and is attacking Grace. Sam fights her off and Lewis attempts to kill her with his gun. They leave the body on the back porch, but there was enough blood on Sam’s hands to freak him out. They go to the hospital where Grace explains Sam’s past to Amy. Amy asks Grace not to see him anymore, but she refuses. Later when Grace asks her dad about the wolf body, they realize that it is gone.
At school, Grace realizes that Olivia is absent. She tries to get a hold of her, but with no success. Isabel confronts Grace about the wolves again, this time with Olivia’s pictures. Sam and Grace decide that Sam should meet Isabel before they tell her anything. She comes over to Grace’s house to make quiche and after they have all bonded a bit, Sam tells her everything. Isabel wonders why the werewolves don’t just move to Florida and Sam explains that warmer climates mean that there is less temperature variation needed to set off the change.
Grace is finally able to talk to Olivia. She finds out that her friend has been taking care of the rouge werewolf, Jack. However, Olivia hasn’t seen Jack since they fought about finding a cure.
Sam takes Grace on another date. This time they travel about an hour to go to Deluth. He takes her inside a candy shop and has her smell. He uses this exercise to see that she does have wolf senses. Grace leaves the shop to start up the car and finds footprints in the snow. She sees that they were pacing outside the window and then become paw prints after the pile of clothes left on the sidewalk. Beck calls on the way back, asking for Sam’s forgiveness. Sam realizes that Beck picked him out to be changed. He wasn’t an accident like most of the others. Sam and Grace go back home and have sex.
In the middle of the night, Beck calls and Grace accidently answers thinking it was her cell phone that was ringing. Beck explains that Paul was hurt by another wolf enough to almost die, and is in human form. Grace admits to Beck that she knows everything about Sam. Sam takes the phone from her and hangs up.
The next morning, Grace is trying to convince Sam to introduce her to Beck. Same asks if they had sex to get back at her parents, which really upsets Grace. He apologizes when he sees how much the question hurt, and she is quick to forgive him, knowing that their time together is limited. Sam agrees to introduce her to Beck.
Sam continues his search for Jack. While looking at the Culpeper residence, he overhears Isabel and Jack talking about a cure. Jack is determined to get the answer from Grace, since she was bitten and hasn’t turned. As collateral, he bit Olivia to make sure that Grace would cooperate. Sam tries to tell him that he and the pack will do what they canto help him and that Grace knows nothing about her cure. Jack refuses to listen and Sam starts to attack him. Jack shows up to pick up Grace, demanding the cure. Since Jack is beyond listening to reason, she tells him that Beck has the cure. She calls him to warn him that they are coming over while making it sound like they are preparing the cure. When they arrive, they go inside and Beck tackles Jack and locks him in the bathroom. Beck calls Sam’s cell and finds out that his is in an outbuilding on the Culpeper’s property. Grace calls Isabel, who eventually finds him and gets him inside before he can shift.
Grace arrives at Isabel’s to pick up Sam. The three of them come up with the theory that a high enough temperature might be the cure that they are looking for. Isabel suggests meningitis, since the temperatures get high enough to kill a person, but might be able to be withstood by a wolf. Sam asks to see Beck before he shifts, possibly for the last time. On the way back, Grace hits a deer and the car dies. Without the heat, Sam shifts. Grace tries to shift while she waits on the paramedics, but fails.
Olivia calls Grace for help. Grace and Olivia swap wolf stories. Beck calls Grace and tells her that he is about to change. Jack isn’t quite there yet, so he asks her to watch over him. Isabel calls Grace and tells her that she extracted three vials of blood from a person infected with meningitis; one for Jack, one for Sam, and one for Olivia.
Beck stuffs meat full of benedryl and calls for Sam. Beck ends up shifting just before Sam returns to the house. He eats the meat and Isabel, Grace, Jack, and Olivia load him up and start heading to the clinic where Isabel’s mom is a doctor. Everyone goes in. They inject Jack first. Olivia decides to wait and see if the cure works. Sam turns human and is injected, but quickly shifts back and runs into the woods. As they start taking Jack back to Beck’s house, Olivia decides that she needs to shift. She does so and looks gracefully doing it (whereas the other wolves made it look painful).
Jack doesn’t take to the meningitis very well. Isabel and Grace decide that the wolf won’t save him and that they need to get him to the hospital. He dies 15 minutes into the trip. Later, the girls decide to go out to cheer themselves up. Isabel wants a book on how to get fat, but Grace buys a book of poetry that Sam had read to her.
Grace is miserable and missing Sam terribly. She is making plans to go away with Rachel for a distraction. She decides to fill the bird feeder outside before she leaves for a week and that is when Sam reveals himself to her, fully cured.
The Wolves of Mercy Falls:
Shiver
Linger
Forever