Connor and the Wolf City

Book summary

In "Connor and the Wolf City," tragedy strikes schoolboy Connor when his father disappears in Ireland, leaving Connor blind yet bestowed with a mystical inner sight. Nightmarish visions soon manifest into reality, pulling Connor and his friends through a portal to Lupusopolis, a wolf city besieged by monstrous forces. As Connor embraces his role as a wolf-spy, he faces a daunting challenge: to broker peace or plunge into an epic battle. This enthralling tale merges the mundane with the magical, asking if a young boy can mend a fractured world.

Excerpt from Connor and the Wolf City

Connor’s heart was beating fast as he watched his bedroom’s wardrobe door slowly close. A pair of hairy, clawed hands pulled the doors shut, until the clasp snapped. It sounded loud in the silent room, but Connor knew his mum wouldn’t hear it. She never did.

Moonlight shafted through a gap in the curtains of Connor’s bedroom, alighting on the doors now closed, as if they had never been drawn open to expose the creature within. Connor’s breathing began to slow as the excitement passed. Yes, he was excited, but not very scared. Only a little afraid.

The wolf in the wardrobe had visited again.

* * *

Mrs Meredith, Connor’s mum, shouted to her son up the stairs, for the third time in less than ten minutes, for him to make his sleepy way downstairs for breakfast.

‘Connor, I won’t tell you again. Come on down or you’ll be late for …’

‘I’m down, I’m down,’ Connor drawled tiredly as he made his way to the breakfast bar that protruded from the small kitchen’s worktop. He was wearing his new school uniform.

Mrs Meredith gave her only son a quick kiss on the forehead as she placed a steaming bowl of instant porridge in front of him. Connor sighed.

‘Thanks, Mum,’ said Connor, picking up a spoon and eating the gooey meal. He was not a great fan of porridge. His mum told him the meal was healthy and that it would keep him going until lunchtime, and it was true, but Connor was getting tired of the oaty cereal day after day. But he knew money was tight in the Meredith household, so he accepted his lot and emptied the bowl after sprinkling a copious quantity of sugar on to the featureless grey mound of congealed oatmeal.

It was Monday morning and Connor was about to start the second week in the top class in Year 7 of his new school, one of the best secondary schools in the area, his mum told him. After a nervous start he had enjoyed his first week at St Brendan’s, and had made a couple of good friends already.

Even so, Connor wasn’t looking forward to this day. It was to be interrupted by yet another hospital appointment. And this he dreaded.

He dreaded seeing the doctor because Connor had a secret.

Connor was blind. Yet he could see. But only he knew this. And he was afraid a doctor would discover his secret.

But this was not the reason for Connor’s hospital visits.

Mrs Meredith was looking at her son concernedly. He seemed tired and unhealthy. She smiled as Connor looked up.

‘Don’t forget, I’ll collect you from school at 12.30. We need to get to the hospital at one o’clock so we will need to get a move on. No dawdling, all right?’

‘Ok, Mum,’ said Connor. He stood up to put his shoes on and was reaching for his book bag when the doorbell rang. At the same moment, the familiar sound of muffled shouting emerged from the party wall dividing their home from the house next door. The shouting was rising in volume and there were sounds of things being broken. Connor’s mum frowned and shook her head slightly, but she said nothing. Noisy neighbours were just another thing she had to put up with as a widowed single mother starting out in a new home in a new town.

Connor responded to the doorbell and opened the door. There was his new friend from school, Evelyn. She was in his class and had befriended him on his first day. An instant bond was forged, and they had become the best of friends. She carried an identical book bag and smiled at Connor as she brushed her dark hair from her green eyes.

‘Going, Mum, bye’ shouted Connor as the two children made their way to school, slamming the door behind him. Mrs Meredith watched them through a window as they made their way down a tidy path between a neatly trimmed grass lawn, through a shabby wooden gate, which squeaked as it opened and rattled closed, and down the road lined with scruffy, unkempt houses.

The argument next door reaching a noisy climax as Mrs Meredith put her coat on and went to work, carefully locking the front door on her way out.

* * *

At the hospital, they waited an hour to see Dr Rothwell, a clinical psychologist who was treating Connor with therapy sessions for what Dr Rothwell described as night terrors.

To Connor, the doctor seemed stern and unconcerned as he sat behind his desk. He wore a purple shirt and pink tie with his dark grey suit. The doctor’s suit jacket hung limply on the back of the chair where he sat. He flicked through Connor’s file, then looked up and smiled at the boy.

‘So, how have your nightmares been this past week, Connor?’

Connor thought how he should answer for a moment. He knew they weren’t nightmares, but he had to say something.

‘The same, Doctor,’ answered Connor.

‘Hmm, hmm,’ uttered the doctor. ‘The wolf in the wardrobe? Has it been every night?’

Connor nodded. His mother sat stiffly beside him, lips compressed so hard they were beginning to turn white. It was upsetting to see her son under therapy for what she could only describe as hallucinations.

Then Connor found some courage and said, ‘It’s not just the wardrobe.’

The doctor stopped writing and looked at Connor over the top of his half-moon reading spectacles. ‘Go on, Connor,’ the doctor said.

‘They’re under the bed as well. And I see them out of the corner of my eyes, but when I turn to look, they’ve gone.’

‘And is it the same wolf every time?’ asked the doctor.

‘Oh no. The wolf is in the wardrobe. There are all sorts of creatures wandering around my bedroom in the dark. All sorts,’ said Connor.

‘And I have dreams. I dream about my dad. And I dream about battles and monsters.’

‘I see, and do they wake you up?’ the doctor asked.

‘Well, no, not really. You see I’m not asleep when they appear.’

Dr Rothwell frowned as he made swift, halting notes in Connor’s medical file. Then he looked up, and smiling at Connor in the way medical men smile in order to convey reassurance, he said, ‘Connor, why don’t you go with the nurse, and she will give you something to drink and a biscuit. I just want a quick word with your mum. To go over a few details, you understand.’

The nurse led Conor into an ante-room.

Then the doctor turned his intense psychologist’s gaze on Mrs Meredith, who was looking worried.

The doctor smiled his reassuring smile again, this time for the benefit of Connor’s mum.

‘Mrs Meredith, I think it would help enormously if I knew a little about Connor’s father. Please do accept my sympathies, by the way. But all I know is what I have read in the newspapers. Would you be able to furnish me with a reliable version of the events that led to Mr Meredith’s death?’

‘Of course, Doctor. Anything to help Connor.’

‘So, according to the newspapers Mr Meredith died in mysterious circumstances in the Wilderness of Ireland immediately after some military manoeuvres?’

‘Yes, sort of. Perry, that’s Mr Meredith, was never found. But his blood was found in the area he was seen in last, Wild Nephin Park in Mayo,’ Mrs Meredith’s lips began to tremble with still-fresh grief as she recounted the story.

‘We have never had a funeral, you see. So, Connor has never really been able to say a last goodbye.’

‘Yes, I see. Can you tell me a little more?’

‘Perry was a doctor of veterinary microbiology and genetics. He was leading an experiment with the Ministry of Defence and the Department of Agriculture to reintroduce wolves back into the wild in the Wilderness. But because of the opposition from farmers and locals it was decided to genetically engineer the wolves so they wouldn’t go after livestock or humans. It seemed to be working at first. The first tranche of wolf introductions went well. It was a small sample and the animals seemed to thrive, and the locals weren’t discomfited in any way.

‘Perry was over the moon when he arrived home to tell us the good news. It would mean a promotion and a rise in salary in his job as a government vet.

‘Problems started with the introduction of the second tranche. The animals began to fight among themselves. They split into rival factions, almost tribal. Perry told me about it in a long phone call from a public call box. That was the last I ever heard from him. The money ran out and the line went dead. Perry was never seen again.’

‘Very mysterious. Please do accept my condolences, Mrs Meredith. It seems quite certain that Connor has fixated on the wolves and grown other nightmare creatures in his mind to join them in his psychosis. He has already told me a little about this, and you have just confirmed that this could possibly be the main cause of the problem.’

‘What can we do to help, Doctor?’

Rothwell smiled, ‘We’ll get to the bottom of it all, don’t you worry, Mrs Meredith. It may be a long road, but now we have something to go on and we will start with that. I am certain we will stop these waking dreams Connor is getting. These things do happen, Mrs Meredith, and although I have never experienced one quite like this before, we have always had a positive result in the end.’

* * *

At home Mrs Meredith sat Connor down on the lounge sofa, gave him a drink of juice and then sat next to him. They were sat across from the television, but the TV was switched off.

Connor sipped his juice and waited. His mum always explained to him what the doctor told her after he had been asked to leave the room following the weekly consultations.

‘The doctor thinks you will need therapy sessions for quite some time, Connor.’

‘He thinks I’m a looney, doesn’t he,’ said Connor.

‘No, he doesn’t think that,’ smiled his mother, smoothing down Connor’s ruffled hair comfortingly as she spoke. ‘He thinks you are suffering from a sleep disorder. He says it’s called a W-Nightmare, or waking nightmare. It’s a form of sleep paralysis which he says can occur either at the point of waking or at the point of falling asleep. In either case they can result in terrifying hallucinations. It sounds just like the things you’ve been describing.’

‘It’s real, Mum,’ said Connor. Tears began to flood his eyes, but Connor fought hard to prevent them from flowing down his cheeks. Connor felt he had to help his mother. His father was missing, believed dead, and he was the only man of the house – even though he was just a boy. Even so, Connor felt he needed to support his mother, despite knowing he couldn’t do very much.

‘The doctor says it only seems real. He said it can seem as real as you and me sitting here talking about it now. But he says it is a hallucination. Nothing more. He says he thinks the shock of your father’s death may have triggered it. But he thinks that given time, and therapy, your nightmares will be gone forever.’