Running with the Pack

INSIDE OUT ERZEBET YELLOWBOY

Gretchen’s dreams were drenched in forests, luminous and thick. In them she ran until she faded and dissolved, a spill of black ink ever thinning on the surface of a bright moon. That moon, which also shone in her dreams, was fading now as the sun slowly burnished the landscape beyond her open window. Sheer curtains wavered as the day’s first breeze touched them. The hem of one caressed Gretchen’s face as she slept. She pushed it away and watched as mist was swept from the field by a broom made of eldritch light. She did not need an ephemeris. Her blood knew what this night would bring.

She had the day, she thought. Might as well make the most of it; her sisters would insist. They shared an old farmhouse on the far edge of town, rented it from the owners who gave up their crops many years ago. The house was run down, the shingled roof sagged and paint flaked from the wooden siding. Behind it, unkempt fields spread out, sometimes spitting up stalks of corn in late summer. Gretchen’s older sister, May, had her own small garden where lettuce, onions, tomatoes, beans and other greens Gretchen cared nothing for grew wild, almost, for May was a lazy mistress to her own crop. She worked hard, she said, at the grocer’s in town, and besides, rain and sun did most of the growing for her.

Gretchen twisted her black hair in a knot, wishing for the thousandth time for the courage to cut it all off. Her sisters would murder her and she knew it, especially Molly, youngest of the three women. Molly’s hair had never known scissors; she abhorred them. Her hair hung to her thighs in a thin wash of amber, straight as a carpenter’s line. Molly worked at the bar serving drinks to the locals, a perfect job for a pinched and unpleasant young woman. The men respected her, the women ignored her, and Molly was fine with that. There were few enough jobs to be had in this small, nowhere town, and Molly didn’t care who thought what as long as she was employed. The clients tipped her well, no doubt for her loyalty. When strangers came in for a night on the drink, she made certain they knew their place and she kept them in it.

Gretchen did not have a job and resented her sisters for theirs. If ever she could work, it wouldn’t be in this town. People asked too many questions in a place like this and she and her sisters were already considered a bit strange. What kind of women would live on their own? What sort did not entertain men? May swore she had no time for such things, while Molly kept her dalliances far away from home. As for living alone, they simply said they preferred it that way.

“Morning,” May said as Gretchen wandered into the kitchen. There was bacon on the stove and coffee in the pot, but Gretchen could not eat today.

“How do you feel?” May asked, as usual.

“I’m fine.”

“You sure you won’t eat something? I made enough for all of us.”

Every month, the same. Gretchen sighed. Good-hearted, frumpy May meant well—both of her sisters did. Still, Gretchen felt stifled by their overbearing care. Trapped, she was, no better than an animal in a cage, unable to fend to for herself.

“Thanks, but no. You know how it is.” Gretchen shrugged and sat at the table, unable to pretend she led a normal life.

“Have you seen Molly yet this morning?” May said.

“No. She worked late last night, didn’t she?”

“Yeah, traded shifts with Paul so she could have today off. She’ll sleep in, I guess.”

Molly and May both always made certain they were home on this day and the next. They did whatever they must to protect Gretchen. She should be grateful for that, but instead it made her more aware of the freak she was.

Gretchen watched May eat jealously. The scent of meat made her mouth water, but if she gave in to hunger now, it would not go well this night. She rose and pushed open the screen door leading out to the back, where bindweed covered the remains of an old stone step. In the sky, barely visible, she could see the moon outlined by the light of the sun. It would glow, fully rounded, when night fell. Her hair felt heavy and thick, it bristled along her arms and behind her neck. Her skin tightened, grew uncomfortable. She scratched at her calves with her foot.

May watched—Gretchen could feel her sister’s eyes on her. By the end of the day, she would feel everything.

Momma always said, “Beware the wolfweed, it will change you,” but Momma said many odd things. It was ten years too late to wonder at what else Momma knew. When Gretchen was fifteen years old, Momma died. May, eighteen then, took over the care of her sisters. They had been together ever since. Where their father was, no one knew.

If only Momma could see me now, Gretchen thought. She’d never say I warned you or I told you so. No, Momma would have held Gretchen as she cried, and as she changed.

Momma knew every herb in the field, every tree in the forest and every flower that bloomed by the road. Wolfweed grew wild in the woods near the house where the four of them lived, when they were a happier family. The plant was dense, dark and beneath wide, purple leaves there were thorns as long as fingers.

“This one, we can eat. This one here,” she would say, “we must avoid.”

She was soft-spoken and gentle, and stronger than anyone Gretchen knew. She must have been, to raise three daughters alone. The night she died none of them heard a thing. Momma, too proud and perhaps too strong, never once called for their help. May found their mother the next morning, sideways in her bed. Gretchen ran. Into the woods, heedless of danger, she fled from the blood-stained sheets upon which her mother had vomited up her life.

It was dark in the trees. Gretchen tripped over a root and fell. She hit the thorns before she saw them, felt the welt raise on her shoulder when she landed in the patch of wolfweed. She thought nothing of the plant, but the pain brought her back to her senses. Slowly, brushing leaves and needles from her hands, she rose and looked back toward home.

May wrapped her arms around Gretchen as she entered, put salve on the wound and said nothing of her flight. They each had to deal with Momma’s death in their own way. Molly, thirteen then, had curled into a ball on the sofa and was crying.

Two weeks later it began to happen. The moon, bloated with their grief, hung low in the sky. They were packing; May was moving them. They could not live in that house, she said. Not where Momma died. It was late, the three were tired. Molly was rubbing her eyes.

Gretchen, wrapping dishes in newspaper, suddenly felt her skin begin to burn. It started at her shoulder where the wound, red still but nearly healed, raised up, incredibly inflamed. Gretchen yelped, attracting the attention of her sisters, whose eyes widened as they turned to her.

“Gretchen, what is it?” May said as she rose from the floor and ran to her sister’s side.

“It burns,” Gretchen whimpered, her hands clutching her arms.

She began to rock back and forth as May held her. Molly crept over to her side. Huddled there, on the floor of the old kitchen, Gretchen learned the language of pain and her sisters, that of fear.

Gretchen didn’t know how they’d managed to get from there to here, but here they were, in another old house, near woods with no sign of wolfweed. Ten years gone, and it never got any easier. May and Molly still held her as it happened, still stroked her hair and whispered in her ear, we love you, Gretchen, speaking her name over and over as though to help her remember who she was. They accepted, now, there was no cure.

May put her plate in the sink as Molly staggered into the room. Gretchen turned from the door to greet her, but all she received in response was a savage grunt. Molly was no morning person, that was sure.

“Coffee,” she said, and May obliged.

“Rough night?” Gretchen asked when the cup was empty.

“Hell yeah. The Bailey boys were at it again, had Tucker pinned to the wall and would have beat him senseless if John hadn’t of walked in.”

May rolled her eyes. “John’s after you, you know.”

“I know it,” Molly said. “I’m not messing with a cop, no way.”

Gretchen and May exchanged a glance. They both knew Molly fancied him, but didn’t want to risk the law getting too close.

“I don’t see how it could hurt,” May said.

“I do.”

Gretchen turned away from them. “I’m going for a walk.”

“You’re in a mood,” Molly said.

“Yeah.”

“She’s hungry, leave her alone.” May put her hands on her wide hips and tried to stare Molly down.

“She shouldn’t be out there alone today, you know.” Molly stared back.

“She knows what she’s doing.”

Molly raised an eyebrow, but said nothing more.

Gretchen left them to their bickering. She wouldn’t be gone long, she knew the dangers and the risks. She was restless; she only wanted a little time alone. It happened this way, sometimes. The morning would call her out, as though the monster in her was willing to greet the sun, if only it was able.

She no longer knew who was the monster and who was not. She, Gretchen, walking upright, dressed in ordinary jeans and a shirt, brown eyes and black hair, could pass through any town without notice. No one would ever guess, much less believe, what she was. She carried her terrible secret and knew, as she passed bland strangers on the street, she would sink her teeth into any one of them if she must. She, it, hunting on all fours, sniffing the air, saliva dropping from her jaws, knew nothing about secrets. She, it, was a pure thing, run on instinct. It knew nothing but scent and sound. Gretchen hated the monster. She hated the unholy charade her life had become.

Her sisters were waiting for her when she returned to the house. They worried too much about the wrong things, Gretchen thought, but she smiled at them anyway.

“It’s a beautiful day. You want some help out in the garden?”

“Sure,” May replied to Gretchen’s offer with a smile. “The weeds must be taking over by now.”

“They are. Molly, you coming?”

“Why not,” Molly said. “There’s nothing else to do.”

The three sisters spent several hours beneath the sun, sharing gossip and a jug of water and laughing as though it was any other day. For a time, the specter of the evening was vanquished.

“I’m starved,” Molly finally said, and then glanced at Gretchen, who had suddenly become very still. “Sorry.”

Gretchen shook her head. “It’s okay. I’m not that hungry now.”

She lied. Her belly growled, but not with a hunger her sisters could ever feed. Unless she ate them, she thought.

It was a fear they had, early on, before they realized their scent scared her off. They would not be pleased to find Gretchen contemplating it now. Gretchen stifled a cruel laugh. It was the monster, easing its way out.

She showered as they ate their supper and cleaned up after them when they were done. They worked, she tended the house. It seemed an unfair trade, but fair had nothing to do with this life they lived.

Afterward, they all became restless. These last hours were the worst as they waited for a thing that would give them little warning when it finally appeared.

They never, ever used the word werewolf. Gretchen was not some figment of myth or superstition. But they knew, sure as they knew the sun would rise in the morning, that’s exactly what their sister was.

Wolfweed: rare, mysterious, grown out of the book of legend. They would never have believed it, had they not seen firsthand what it could do. When they finally made the connection, they went back to the old woods and burned every inch of it out. Only one thorn survived and this, Gretchen kept, as a reminder to heed Momma’s words.

They had no idea how it worked. Years of their own research had not offered a clue and a medical assessment was entirely out of the question. Even to ask that the thorn be examined was too dangerous. May had visions of her sister being used in weird genetic experiments. She imagined the military becoming involved. No sister of hers would be treated like an animal, even if animal she was.

At dusk, Gretchen stripped off her clothes, right there in front of her sisters. They watched as she wrapped a sheet loosely around her lithe body. They would reach out to her then, if they could, but Gretchen was tense and closed in. Her long night was already beginning as she prepared for transformation.

As the sun touched the ground, they filed out of the house. Somberly they sat on the earth behind the garden, where laughter echoed from only a few hours ago. The moon was still pale, but as night crept in around them it pulled shadows along the ground. Gretchen began to shiver and her eyes rolled.

May gently unwound the sheet from Gretchen’s shoulders and pulled her into her arms. Molly, close behind, leaned against her.

“We’re right here,” they said. “Gretchen, we’ll be right here.”

Gretchen could no longer hear them. Her body was aflame and her sinews tense as her bones reconfigured themselves. She growled and groaned as fine hairs thickened in their follicles. She arched her back and flung out her arms. Her sisters ducked, but did not leave her side. Gretchen wept and she screamed as though touched by a thousand suns.

They clung to her as long as they could, until—for their own safety and hers—they had to back away. Squatting, they watched as their sister transfigured from young, lovely woman to wolf.

It rose on trembling legs, shook itself and loped away, bristling. It would have run if it were not so weak; the scent of humans terrified it. The woods called, the moon shone down and behind it, two sisters put their heads in their hands and cried.

The wolf stopped at the tree line, sniffed the air and padded its way into the brush at the edge of the field. Its fur condensed the heat still wafting up from the mulched leaves below. Pines, a few twisting maples, an oak here and there: these were the wolf’s landmarks, scented time and again as it made its way down the familiar trail.

It reveled, one could say, in the freedom of movement. Limbs stretching as blood pumped through its veins, it ran, dodging fallen limbs, leaping through bracken, careless, for a little while, of the sound it made as it traveled.

Soon, the wolf slowed. The trees were thick in this part of the forest, close and tall. Moonlight trickled over the uppermost leaves, but close to the ground light was scarce. The wolf did not steady its pace because of this, however. It knew, as wolves do, that it must attend to its surroundings. Each scent and sound meant something. The wolf translated; its ears flicked back and forth, its nose pointed north.

Hunger moved it. She knew, by the hollow of her belly, that it was long since she’d eaten. She smelled prey, but it was distant. Water was close. A stream that wound its way over a rock-strewn bed, once much wider, ran just west of where the wolf was standing. She picked her way between the trees until she reached it. A dam, abandoned last season, was slowly being dismembered by the current. She had feasted here, before the beavers left for less dangerous turf.

She followed the water upstream, northward, toward food. The soft earth of its bank absorbed her prints. After several miles, she stopped. She raised her nose. Some unfamiliar odor stretched her out; her hackles raised and a low growl began in her throat.

Ahead was a place she knew well. Knew to avoid, not from any recent danger, but because of a lingering scent. Man-scent. A dwelling, an old cabin—though she could not name it as such—nestled in a clearing near the stream. It had grown, over time, into the trees, or the trees had grown back into it, reclaiming it as part of their wooded tribe. The roof was all but gone. What slats remained were leaf- and lichen-thick, barely visible to the eye. The door hung open, the cupboards were home to mice and the rafters to birds.

There was a tang in the air, the taste of iron, that was not there before. And, entwined within it, the raw stink of human activity. Something else tinged the place, a musk that covered the wolf in a cloud of memory. She knew that scent, somehow, and though she feared it, the flavor it of spoke to her of home. She shivered as she crouched beside the water, tail flat on the ground.

She knew not to approach the cabin. Her usual detour took her far around the clearing, but something about these new, disturbing smells drew her in. She circled cautiously, creeping ever closer, all senses alert. The air was close and still; the strange odor remained.

The wolf had never known another of her kind. The land was emptied out. Any pack that may have once claimed this territory had been hunted to its end. She ruled by default, killed as she pleased and knew to avoid the places of men. She knew, as wolves know things, that she was now breaking survival’s rules.

The scent that teased her on was foul. Feces, blood, urine: it was the stench of pain endured too long. No fresh kill was this she trailed, nor healthy flesh for the taking. It was human, but it was also more. For the first time, she caught the whiff of wolf in the forest. She was compelled to follow. It seemed to her that she, forever so alone, had been somehow divided.

Close now, near enough to see the outline of the cabin, she came to a full stop and crouched again. Dragging her belly along the ground, she inched forward. Leaves rustled, though what sound was night and what was wolf could not be distinguished. She was a shadow, black as the sky, sleek and cautious. The wolf knew fear, but she crept onwards until instinct told her this is close enough.

The clearing was just there, beyond the thicket in which the wolf lay, ears alert for danger. The cabin sat on the far side and before it, some thing the wolf could not decipher enclosed a figure stretched out prone on the ground. The wolf exhaled a sharp burst of air and suddenly, the figure rose. The wolf bristled, but did not back away. Information cluttered her brain; there was no way to make sense of the mingling of scent. Matted hair, half-crusted wounds, wolf and woman combined. The figure turned. Eyes met eyes in the still night. The wolf, overwhelmed, stood and ran.

To the stream and through it she rushed, feet finding and following a path between trees and shrubs, until finally, confusion was behind her. She halted, panting, and put her nose in the air and howled. Every hair on her body stood erect as, for the first time ever, she was answered.

The night, half gone, pulled the wolf back into it. Hunger moved her now, and a sense of hurriedness. She must hunt and eat before the dawn. She did not know the source of her impatience, only that these things must be done. North again, she found her prey. A raccoon, rifling through a rotted log, was eventually devoured. Back now to the stream, which she followed, circling wide of the clearing, ignoring the scents and sounds, pacing herself so as to reach her destination in time.

As the moon dipped low and dark began to fade toward morning, she found herself at the edge of the wood. Across the field the house lay quiet. She knew this place, was drawn to it though the wolf would never comprehend why. In her mind it was den and desperation.

At dawn, the wolf began to writhe. A cacophony of growls and yelps ensued as muscles tore and bones bent under the force of change. The wolf, lost in this transfusion of blood to blood and genes gone awry, was captive in a human mind until, as the sun erased the moon, it disappeared.

May and Molly left the house at dawn. They carried two jugs of water, a bundle of washcloths, a towel, bandages of assorted sizes and a soft blanket in which to swaddle their sister. They knew she would be close, but not exactly where. It was always the same. The wolf came, by some intangible understanding, as close to its human home as it could bear.

They didn’t speak until they found her.

“Gretchen,” they said. “Gretchen, we’re here.”

They sat her up, pulled leaves from her hair. Later Molly would wash and comb it. They checked her hands and feet for wounds. Often, they would find scrapes and bruises. This morning there were none. May dampened a washcloth and wiped vomit from her sister’s chin. Her body, a merciless thing, regurgitated food as it shifted. While Gretchen knew this, the wolf would never learn. May gently scrubbed at Gretchen’s cheek where blood had dried in dark smudge. May did not think about how it might have got there. It was not her business to judge the wolf.

“Come on,” they said when they were done.

They stood her up between them and wrapped the blanket around her naked body, allowing her to lean on each as they slowly made their way across the field.

Inside the house, they steered Gretchen into bed, pulled the curtains and left the door ajar. She would sleep for hours and when she woke, she would still be somewhat confused. The sisters were used to it now, they carried on with their day as Gretchen dreamed of running, running, and following scents to their end.

The phone rang not long after. Molly answered with a groan.

“Shit,” she said as she hung up the receiver a few moments later. “I have to go in tonight. Ryan is sick.”

“I bet he is,” May said. “Sick of working at Rudy’s.”

“Whatever. If you can’t take the boozers, you shouldn’t work in a bar. I’m in at eight. Will you be okay with Gretchen?”

“I don’t see why not. She’ll be almost herself by then. We’ll be fine.”

“It’ll be a late one.”

“I know.”

Molly fiddled with her mug of coffee, turning it round and round.

“What’s up? You seem awfully quiet this morning.” May knew her sister well enough to sense that something was on her mind.

“I don’t know.” Molly paused, and then continued. “Do you ever think about the future?”

“Not if I can help it.”

“I mean, do you ever wish . . . ”

May cut her off. “Stop right there. No, I don’t wish.”

Molly sighed. “I don’t know what’s wrong with me.”

“I do. You’re getting old.” May laughed, hoping Molly would join her.

Molly did laugh, though it was not quite the joyous sound May wanted.

“Let’s fix something nice for lunch,” May finally said. “Something Gretchen will like.”

It was the scent of a roast stewing in the pot that pulled Gretchen of out her slumber. She woke in a daze of half-remembered moonlight. It took her several minutes to assess her surroundings. White walls, wooden bedposts, ancient dresser with two handles missing: finally she recalled her whereabouts. Safe, she exhaled relief. Shakily, she pulled loose trousers to her hips and tied them. She lifted a worn shirt from the back of a chair and buttoned it, though her fingers clumsily left half of it undone. Warily, still sensing her environment more than seeing it, she slipped out of the bedroom and made her way down the stairs.

Her sisters greeted her as usual.

“Good morning, Gretchen. How do you feel?” May was always the first to question her well-being.

“Hey, sis,” Molly said.

“What do I smell?” Gretchen asked in response.

Her sisters were never quite sure if they were talking to wolf or woman on this, the day after the full of the moon. Appearances were deceptive, and May more than Molly understood that the wolf often lingered much longer in spirit than it did in body.

“Meat. I made stew for lunch,” May said as she watched Gretchen’s nostrils flare.

The wolf had left its mark as time passed by. After ten years of this, Gretchen no longer had a taste for much fruit, nor certain vegetables. Leafy salads were fine most of the time, and certain berries, but beans, tomatoes, and onions were out of the question. She drank water, milk, and occasionally coffee, but not tea and never soda. Meat was the staple of her diet, but May could live with that as long as Gretchen didn’t start asking for it raw.

As she ate, Gretchen’s thoughts slowly settled into more familiar patterns. Something was different this morning, however. Some memory, some unfamiliar disturbance tugged at her. She touched it, circled it as the wolf would, tried to catch the scent of it, but to no avail. What happened last night? She felt an ache she did not recognize.

“What is it?” May asked when she noticed Gretchen staring absently at the window.

Gretchen blinked her eyes. “Nothing. Something. I don’t know. Last night. I don’t know.”

She never spoke of the night. May, concerned, put a hand on her sister’s forehead. “Nothing seemed amiss when we found you. You sure you’re okay?”

“Yeah. I’m fine. Don’t worry,” Gretchen smiled, a bit more like her usual self.

“Well, let me know if you need anything,” May said.

“I will.”

After she finished, Molly washed her hair and helped her dress in more reasonable clothes. By then, Gretchen felt almost human. Molly nattered on about nothing while May swept the floors. Gretchen caught herself gazing toward the dark forest and shook her head. Whatever was haunting her must not be brought into the light.

What the wolf knew as it ran through the forest was like a distant dream to Gretchen, one that she always gladly let fade the following day. She despised everything about the wolf and what it had done to her. She separated it, culled it from the experience of her own life, pretended that she and it were two distinct beings. They would never meet, nor know of each other’s cares. Yet, that night, as she curled up in her bed, images passed behind her closed eyes: a cabin, a cage, a shape inside it. Scent returned, new blood on old, musk, hair, and fear.

Gretchen sat upright in horror as it came to her. The wolf had seen a ravaged woman in a cage, and she was alive.

“Holy shit,” Gretchen whispered into the room.

Sleep did not come easily that night and wouldn’t have at all had she not still been exhausted from the night before. Dreams stirred like leaves on the forest floor, but she could not catch them. They passed, like summer does into autumn.

For days she was restless. Alone when her sisters worked, she paced the halls, ate little and worried at the wolf’s memory. There was no way to know what was real and what was not. The human mind must categorize, put color to objects, know distance in feet and yards. The wolf-mind knew shapes, sensations, the taste of air. She felt dirty, touching these things. Shame at what she was overpowered her at times, bending her knees, crawling along her skin like an insect. She rubbed at her arms, shivering, and tried to brush it off. She almost did cut off her hair, as though by doing so it would distance her from the wolf. She warred with it, she did not want to know the wolf’s mind, and yet she must comprehend these visions. If this thing she thought she’d seen was real, if there was a woman in a cage, she must do something. She could not leave her out there alone.

There was something else come through from that eerie night. A longing, a connection almost, that Gretchen could not name.

“That’s it,” she said at last to no one. “I’ve got to go back.”

The next day her sisters both worked early. May’s shift began at nine, Molly’s at one. When they were gone, Gretchen left a note on the table, packed food and water into a bag and left. She did not know when she would be home; she could not guess how far away the cabin was. Her sisters would worry if she did not return before them, but she could not bring herself to tell them of her plan. There was no way to explain it, this thing she saw out of the wolf’s eyes.

In the woods, she stopped. Each direction seemed as viable as the other. Gretchen realized with a slow burn of horror that she would never navigate this place on her own. But for the image of that woman, she would have turned away then and given up, gone back to the house, done anything but what she must do now.

Gretchen breathed deeply and focused, trying to invoke the monster that slept inside her. Down deep she went into the primal source of mind, where flesh means less and instinct is all. She moved, step by step, until her feet became sure and led her onwards toward the stream. Gnats flew into her eyes, things scurried in the brush and overhead, a bird called out in warning. She grew hungry, she gnawed on bread and chicken left over from the last evening’s meal. Hours passed and she barely noticed. She was only half-human now. The wolf led her through the wood.

She stopped in a copse as fear gripped her. Gretchen neither saw nor heard anything unusual, but she heeded the feeling and kept still for several long moments. In the quiet, a faint whimpering and whining—the sound a dog would make if it were pleading—became audible through the trees.

Gretchen pressed on, urgency driving her steps. Fully herself now, she was less cautious than she should have been; sticks snapped underfoot and branches cracked as she pushed them out of her way.

She tracked the sound of the weeping animal to the clearing. She stopped at its edge and ducked down behind a young maple surrounded by brush. Twigs caught in her hair and snagged on her shirt; she ignored them. From behind the tangle of branches she saw the cabin, forlorn and yet obviously tenanted, for there was freshly cut wood stacked beside it and litter strewn around the door. She registered the dwelling, but it was not this that held her attention. In the scuffed and flattened ground before it, she saw what had been making the noise.

Silent now, hackles raised, a crushingly pathetic wolf was held in a cage. It was an ancient construction of black iron, much like those used in old traveling circus shows. In the advertisements, they rose up from the backs of colorful wagons in a merry display meant to arouse excitement and draw unwary customers in. The reality of the device repulsed her. The wolf, sensing her presence, turned toward her. Eyes met eyes. Gretchen’s breath caught in her throat.

Before she had time to process the vision, as if any sense could be made of it, the door to the cabin was kicked open and a man stood in its frame. He was as rotted as the wood surrounding him. Thin, knotted hair topped a skeletal face. Two narrow eyes glared out at the wolf as, from behind the door, the man pulled a rifle.

“Whatsa matter,” he called out to the wolf. “Ain’t you had enough?”

Gretchen held her breath as he approached the cage, gun held over his shoulder. The wolf and Gretchen cringed as one as he swung his weapon, clanging the butt against the bars.

“Cry, you freak. Cry, or I’ll give you something real to cry about.”

The wolf began to whine and writhe on its belly, opening wounds on its legs that would never have a chance to fully heal if this was their treatment. The man grinned and looked out into the forest before turning away. As the cabin door slammed shut behind him, dislodging debris from the roof which fell in a soft rain to the ground, Gretchen felt her skin begin to burn.

The monster was close. Wolf called to wolf and the strange ache blossomed in her chest. Rage consumed her; she tried to tamp it down, aware of the danger she was in. Slowly and ever so silently, she backed out of the thicket and, still on all fours, crept away from the clearing. When she could no longer see the cabin, she rose, but she kept to the trees, moving swiftly from one to the other until she reached the stream.

Home never looked so sweet as it did when she finally left the woods. Running, she crossed the field, only slowing as she reached May’s garden. May was home by now and Gretchen did not want to rush in and alarm her.

“You’ve been gone for hours!” May said when Gretchen entered the kitchen. “Where have you been?”

“Didn’t you see my note?”

“Yeah, but ‘gone for a walk’ could mean anything.” May peered at her sister. “Are you okay?”

Gretchen knew better than to lie to her sister, but she wouldn’t give her the whole truth. How could she? “Not really, no. I got a little creeped out in the woods, that’s all. I don’t even know why I went out there.”

May inspected her sister’s face. “Yes, you do.”

Yes, Gretchen did, but she wasn’t prepared to admit it. There was no woman out there; it was just a wolf. Sad, yes, but just a wolf. It had nothing to do with her. She’d been tricked by her own imagination. She wouldn’t let it happen again.

“Well, you just take it easy, okay?”

“Promise. I’m going to get cleaned up and then I’ll help you with supper.”

“Good. There was a sale on ribs and I grabbed a few packs. We’re having those.”

In the shower, Gretchen scrubbed her body until her flesh glowed a pale red. No matter how she tried, the wolf would not wash away. She wept, quietly so May wouldn’t hear her, unable to contain the emotions that wanted to pull her to the tiled floor.

The monster had been so close. Too close. She still felt it lurking now, just there where she could almost touch it, if she reached a hand into herself. It, she, was howling in frustration. It felt terror and again that same rage. Gretchen was overcome with a scent she couldn’t possibly, as a human, comprehend. As the hot water finally wore away her confusion, a clear thought evolved in her mind.

I was certain there was a woman in that cage.

But it was the wolf’s foul memory describing that figure, not hers. Gretchen shook the water from her hair. There was not much difference remaining between them, and she was terrified.

The two conflicting memories tortured her throughout the evening. Both Gretchen and May were relieved when Molly walked through the door.

“How’d it go?” May asked as Gretchen smiled a greeting.

Molly blushed and May’s eyebrows raised.

“Fine,” Molly said.

“Just fine? Come on, something happened. You’re red as an apple.”

“John asked me out,” Molly said in a small voice very much unlike her.

“And?” May would not give up.

“I agreed.”

“I knew it!” May grinned and swatted her sister on the arm. “It’s about time.”

“But . . . ”

“No but. I know what you’re thinking. Don’t worry about it. When’s your hot date?”

“Tomorrow night. I’m meeting him in town. He’s a cop, he’s going to ask questions, you know.” Molly insisted on airing her fears.

“Tell him we’re weird,” Gretchen said. “Just enjoy yourself, for god’s sake.” An unbidden harshness edged her voice.

Molly stared, and then finally said, “All right.”

Three sisters did not sleep well that night.

Molly did something the next evening that left both Gretchen and May dumbfounded. Her hair was piled on top of her head and her eyes were lined with black kohl. Their younger sister was transformed, but this was no monster that greeted them at the stair.

“You look lovely!” May said as she hugged her.

Eyes downcast, Molly said, “Thank you.”

“It’s true. You must really like this guy,” Gretchen teased.

“I just felt like doing something different,” Molly said, but her sisters were not fooled.

After she’d gone to meet John at the diner, May slipped off to read in her room. Gretchen, left with her thoughts, began pacing again.

Molly seemed so happy tonight, Gretchen mused. It was the first time she’d seen her make an effort with her appearance. Gretchen frowned. There was no reason for either of her sisters to become spinsters on her behalf. Molly—though she hid it well—was a joyous soul who would do well with a family of her own. May might, in time, find someone, though Gretchen doubted it. May seemed content to follow Momma’s lead. These troubles seemed far removed from Gretchen’s own muddled reality, but they were closer than she realized.

Gretchen now felt a fool for ever imagining her own life as a cage. She was fortunate, she finally realized, to have such sisters as hers. Anyone else would have put a bullet in her, or worse. She could not stop thinking about the wolf, battered and starved. That, she thought, could have been me. Still, it was just a wolf, unless what she saw beneath the moon was true? Could it be? She put her hands to her head to still the pictures that passed in a blur before her closed eyes.

They were interchangeable, wolf and woman. Wolf saw one thing, woman another. Gretchen thought she’d explode from the contradiction and she let a small cry escape from her throat. She sank into the sofa in the living room, huddled over and wrapped her arms around herself. The ache returned, an incredible longing. She understood, at long last, how very lonely she was.

Gretchen never shared Molly’s interest in boys—not in school, when the possibility still existed, nor as as a young woman, when because of the wolf a lover was out of the question. Before the change, she often wondered if there was something wrong with her. Even May had the occasional weekend foray into the strange world of men. Not so, Gretchen. There was once, just before Momma died, when a girl in her class made her young heart flutter. The way she felt when this girl entered the room scared Gretchen. When Gretchen changed, it was almost too easy to accept that love was not for her. Better that than face this other thing.

Now, wolf scented wolf and the woman Gretchen had become was in turmoil as she was slowly forced to recognize an affinity. Cotton curtains fluttered in a breeze, drawing Gretchen out of herself. She would have to go back. There was nothing else she could do.

“You’ve been spending a lot of time in the woods lately.”

May could no longer hide her concern. Gretchen had been irritable and distracted for days, but that was understandable. The moon was rounding and would be full in less than a week’s time. But this strange mood of her sister’s began when she returned from that first trek in the forest, and only increased every time she went there. Daily now, Gretchen left the house while her sisters were at work. Molly, who came in late most nights, was unaware of Gretchen’s habits, but May had been watching and finally she demanded an answer.

“I know. It’s okay, really it is.”

“You’re lying to me. You’re a mess every time you come home. What’s going on?”

Gretchen turned her face away from her sister. How to explain the horror she witnessed daily? She had honed the skill of silent stalking, she had inspected the cabin from all sides and the cage next to it. She knew the habits of the man who kept the wolf in such horrific conditions. She knew how purely awful he was. She saw the locks, too, that kept the cage sealed, and the keys hanging from his leather belt. She knew the wolf now. Ragged and broken in body, its spirit remained intact though as far as Gretchen could tell, it wouldn’t for much longer.

The man was brutal. She saw what and how he fed the creature, rotted meat dangled over the cage, withheld until the creature crawled, begging, toward him. Her ribs pushed through her sides and her coat hung in patches over scabbed flesh. Her eyes wept dark matter down over her nose. Gretchen felt the monster in her shift and slither, struggling to surface. She fought to keep it down.

“If you must know,” she finally spoke, “it’s the wolf.”

There. Not a lie, but not exactly true, Gretchen offered this to her sister in appeasement. She also knew that to mention the wolf was to draw a line neither of her sisters would cross.

“Oh Gretchen, I’m so sorry. I wish I could do more to help.”

“Well, you can’t.”

May sagged and Gretchen, contrite, hugged her.

“I’m sorry,” she said. “Don’t mind me.”

“What are you two fussing about?” Molly said as she swung in, a pleasant smile on her face.

Molly was going through a change of her own. Under John’s attention, at first reluctantly accepted, she was softening. An inner beauty once known only to her sisters was transforming the shape of her face, so much so that even the patrons at the bar had commented.

Gretchen wanted to say wolves, but she didn’t. There was no reason to deflate her sister’s good mood.

“The usual. Gretchen wants a whole cow for supper and I’ve only got three steaks thawed out,” May said.

They shared a laugh, but Gretchen’s was false and both sisters knew it.

Still troubled by her initial memory of a woman in the cage, she agonized over it until the night of the full moon. There had to be way, she thought, to be certain of what the wolf saw. She and the monster shared the same brain, didn’t they? Somehow the wolf knew to go home when the night was gone. Somehow she must be able to connect with the beast and remember, more clearly, what it would see. Gretchen soured at the thought, but it was the only way she knew to solve this puzzle.

That night, as her sisters held her, Gretchen fought for control. Pain, she could almost endure. It was the sensation of every cell dislocating from the others that was impossible to bear. Her consciousness separated as her tendons burned. Her vision blurred and shifted, condensed and expanded with her skin. Remember, she thought, my name is Gretchen. She screamed with the effort, but as her sisters moved away, all that was Gretchen was gone.

The wolf hunted. A young fawn, unattended for one moment too long by its mother, went down easily under her strong jaws. She shredded it, burying what she didn’t eat well away from the scene of its demise. In ever tightening circles she coursed through the forest, avoiding the outlying fields. Shortly after midnight, she found herself beside the stream. The running water triggered an echo of remembrance; she put her nose in the air and waited, for what she did not know. The wind stirred the upper leaves of the trees, bringing with it the taste of metal. The wolf shuddered and, as wolves do, it recalled. It turned and ambled along the bank, snuffling as it went, and then stopped as a cry pierced the night.

She would have run, but something held the wolf back. She knew that sound, it resonated and called her out, back to the clearing. Wolf eyes watched; she scented present danger but saw nothing. The cage stood empty. The cries came from within the shuttered cabin. The wolf crouched low and waited again, alert and still.

In time, the wolf’s patience was rewarded. The cabin door opened and the man emerged, dragging someone behind him by the arm. The wolf tensed; the stink was incredible. She watched as he approached the cage, kicked it open with his foot and heaved his baggage inside. The wolf saw the way his hands moved on the iron and heard the locks click into place. The figure inside did not move as the man walked away, but it wept with a most pitiful sound. The wolf recognized the song of sorrow. The place reeked of fresh blood and pain.

The wolf waited still. Night settled softly around her. It would be dawn soon and as the sun drew nigh, she felt her usual compulsion to return home. She did not. She was held as captive by the cage as the figure inside it. The scintillating scent of wolf buried within woman held her there.

Finally, at long last, the figure moved. It rolled onto its side and heaved itself up with a bruised arm. One hand wrapped around a bar of the cage. She leaned her head against it and sighed. The wolf, watching this, must have disturbed a leaf with its breath. The woman turned and met the wolf’s eyes.

Something was exchanged between them, some plea in a coded language only those two could understand. It lasted for but a moment, and then the woman lost her grip and slid back to the bottom of the cage.

The wolf was done here. She retreated through the forest, breaking into a trot only when the clearing was left far behind. Home called, dawn was coloring the horizon. She was running out of time.

She had not yet reached the boundary where wood met field when it came upon her. The wolf, mid-stride, twisted and fell. Leaves scattered in her wake as she slid for a few paces in the dirt. Tortured by her own mutation, she choked on vomit and released a burbling half-howl. When it ended, several endless minutes later, Gretchen lay motionless on the ground.

She did not respond to her sisters’ calls. They, trampling through the brush at the edge of the wood, were almost frantic.

“Where could she be?” Molly said, her eyes wide with fear.

“I don’t know.” May’s brows drew in. “She must be close. She knows to come home.”

“She’s been acting funny lately. I hope she’s okay.”

May was surprised Molly had noticed. “Has she said anything to you?”

“No, not really. She just seems so withdrawn.” Molly kicked a pile of damp leaves out of her way.

“It’s hard on her. She needs us, Molly, maybe more now than she ever has.”

“I know.” Molly hung her head. “I’ve been away too often. I’m sorry.”

“Oh, no, that’s not what I meant.” May was overjoyed at Molly’s newfound romance and did not want it to stop. Molly deserved all the goodness she could get.

“We just . . . ” May hesitated. There was nothing they could do for Gretchen that they weren’t already doing. “Never mind. Let’s keep looking.”

They were close to panic when they finally found her, stretched out in a copse of trees. She sat upright as May’s hand touched her, startling her sisters who gasped and jumped back.

“It was a woman,” Gretchen said. Her voice was hoarse, not yet acclimated to human vocal cords.

May recovered and wrapped Gretchen in the blanket. “We’re here, Gretchen,” she said. “We’re right here.”

Gretchen sagged into her arms. May and Molly said nothing as they tended her and half-carried her back to the house. Once she was in bed, they met in the kitchen.

“What was she talking about?” Molly asked.

“I’ve got no idea, but we’re going to find out. She needs to talk about whatever has been bothering her and we’ve got to make her do it. Tonight.”

“She’ll be a mess!”

“I know it. She may actually open up.”

Gretchen did, and it was not what her sisters expected.

“I’m telling you, I know what I saw.”

“You can’t possibly expect us to believe you know what you saw out there as a . . . a wolf. You’ve said yourself you don’t remember anything. And what you have seen is bad enough.”

“You’ve got to tell someone, Gretchen.” Molly was terrified that the someone would be John. They were getting along so well; the last thing she wanted was for him to discover just how weird her family was. And yet, what Gretchen described was a matter for the authorities. John was sure to learn of it, one way or another.

“It’s no ordinary wolf. Under the full moon, it is a woman. We can’t bring in the law. What do you think they’ll do with her? And how long do you think it will be before they look at me?”

Perhaps now had not been a good time to speak to Gretchen after all, May thought. Yet, she had a point. If, and that was a large if, Gretchen had seen another of her kind as she so astonishingly suggested, they could not risk anyone else becoming involved.

“Okay. You’re tired. Why don’t we call it a night and see what tomorrow brings.”

Relieved, Gretchen nodded. “Fine. But I know what I saw.”

After she’d staggered off to bed, Molly and May sat in silence.

“Do you think it’s true?” Molly finally asked.

May reached across the table and took her hands. “I don’t know. I think she’s just had a bad dream. But don’t worry. We’ll make sure John stays out of it, whatever it is.”

“Thank you,” Molly said, holding on tight. “Thank you.”

Gretchen rose the next morning in a stupor. The walls of her bedroom were close and confining. Her legs were weak and she clung to the back of a chair until she found her balance. Shadows seemed superimposed on the window frame: dark limbs of trees, scuttling creatures, the outline of a wolf somehow standing upright.

She was more certain than ever that what the wolf saw was accurate. Her sisters might not believe it, but she knew. She could not leave it alone. Gretchen gathered her wits. Both sisters were awake before her. She cornered them in the kitchen before either could wish her good day.

“I can’t leave her out there. Don’t argue. This is none of your business.”

Shocked, the sisters turned as one. Gretchen’s eyes were black, feral. They felt the monster there in the kitchen where no monster belonged. Fear tainted Molly’s belly, but May held firm.

“Let us know what you need.”

“I need time. Alone,” Gretchen said.

Molly drew in her breath, but said nothing as Gretchen sat at the table and put her head in her hands.

“It hurts,” she said and Molly went to her side.

“You need to eat.”

May heaped a plate with bacon, sausage and eggs. Gretchen ate with her fingers as Molly stroked her hair. It was an uncomfortable morning, but it passed and by noon the eerie light had dimmed in Gretchen’s eyes.

“Will you see John tonight?” Gretchen asked as Molly dressed for work.

“No,” Molly said with a frown.

“Why not?”

“I don’t think I should see him again.”

Gretchen took her by the shoulder. “I know what you’re thinking, Molly. Don’t. You really like this guy, I can tell. Promise me you won’t give him up because of me.”

Molly wiped a tear from her eye. “But it’s too dangerous. What if he finds out?”

“You and May can’t protect me for the rest of my life. You need to have a life, too. Look at me.”

Gretchen turned Molly toward her. Molly saw her sister, as familiar as her own skin. She also saw, very close to the surface, the wolf. They clung to each other for a moment before Molly stepped away.

“Okay. I won’t stop seeing him.”

“Good,” Gretchen smiled.

“Be careful, will you?” Molly said quietly.

“As careful as I can.”

Gretchen cornered May in the living room that night, before she could turn on the television to watch her favorite show.

“I’ve got to set that woman free.”

“What?” May said, startled. “What do you mean?”

“Just what I said. I can’t leave her out there to die.”

“But what about that man? You said he had a gun.” May’s flesh grew cold. She rubbed her arms, suddenly very afraid.

“I don’t know. I’ll think of something.”

“It’s too dangerous. You could be killed.” May grabbed her sister’s hand.

“Better that than live like this!” Gretchen shouted and snatched her arm away.

May realized then just how deeply Gretchen’s loathing of herself ran.

“And what of the wolf?” she asked quietly. “Would you leave it out there if you didn’t have these crazy dreams?”

“They aren’t dreams!” Gretchen said, eyes wild, but something in her sister’s voice reached her. Would she do such a thing? It was true, it was not the plight of the wolf that moved her, pitiful as it was. Only the thought of the woman drew her back, again and again.

“Gretchen,” May said softly, “if what you’ve seen is to be believed, that thing out there is somehow one of your kind.”

“I am not a wolf!” Gretchen bared her teeth.

May sighed. Gretchen had to face this thing she was, but she was clearly not yet ready.

“What can I do to help?”

“Nothing. Do as you’ve always done. Do what makes you happy,” Gretchen said and leaned into her sister. “Just once, May, do what makes you happy.”

“You make me happy,” May said as she left the room.

Gretchen watched the wolf, now almost too weak to stand. She watched the man until she knew his daily routine as well as she knew her own. She came to know the forest as only a wolf could, each tree, rock and thicket became her own. She practiced silence, she stopped wearing shoes. She almost thought the man had become aware of her presence, or a presence in the nearby wood. He came out of the cabin, gun in hand, and stood still, as though listening for some sound. This happened several times, but he never detected the shadow that was Gretchen.

Drop by painful drop, Gretchen came to love the creature in the cage. She wished, still, for her vision to clear, for she could not think of it as a wolf. She saw only the woman she was sure the wolf became beneath the moon. She wanted to see her face, she wanted to wash the sores on her body and comb out her hair. She wanted to hold her, to offer safety and to keep her from further harm. Drop by drop, Gretchen understood. She was going to kill the man.

At home, she thought of nothing else. May absorbed her silent sister into her routine as Molly’s romance flourished. Neither were aware that Gretchen intended an action which would have at one time been unthinkable to her. It was the wolf within and the wolf without that forged this thing she had become. She considered weapons, poisons, traps and at last, she considered her own bare hands. She could think of no sure way to see the job done. Two weeks passed, then three and she was no closer to a solution. Her bed was unmade, her laundry piled up, she ate as though she starved.

On the morning before September’s full moon, she was rummaging through her closet in search of a clean shirt when she found her answer. Forgotten amidst the dust on the top shelf was a small shoe box. She pulled it down as though it was lost treasure and carefully removed the lid. Inside, wrapped in tissue, was the thorn she had plucked from the wolfweed just before they burned it. She lifted it out reverently, between two fingers. It had not withered in all the last ten years. The outline of an idea, cruel and terrible, formed in her mind.

“You’re going into the forest at night?” May asked, home from work early in the evening.

“Yeah. I’ll be fine.” Gretchen was tired of repeating herself. She knew May would never stop worrying, but she also knew this thing had to be done.

At dusk, she left a pensive May in the kitchen and made her way into the woods. She and the wolf stalked as one. She felt its raw presence within her, she spoke to it, drew it forth, allowed it to breathe in the still air. Her eyes could not see as well in the night as the wolf’s and so she let her knowledge of the wood be her guide. She heard the stream before she reached it; the water rushed lightly over rocks and limbs. She followed it until, at a tall oak, she branched off toward the clearing. Gretchen knelt behind her usual tree and was overcome by the eternal patience of the wolf.

She had no way to know if her plan would work. She had only her own experience to go by. Gretchen did not even know if the thorn retained its potency. All she had was hope, and though she tried not to think of how that hope lay in the thing she most hated, it had become too obvious to ignore. Gretchen relied on that which had changed her to change him.

The wolf was sprawled on the bottom of the cage, sides faintly rising and falling with its breath. An air of resignation emanated from the sad thing. At least she’s still alive, Gretchen thought. I’m not too late.

Gretchen had never spent a night in the forest, but she had watched the man inebriate himself day after day and knew he would drink himself to sleep. Beer cans and bottles littered the clearing. Where he found the funds for his habit she could only guess. As she lay there, he staggered out once to relieve himself. She was grateful to see him so far gone.

At least an hour had passed with no sound from him before Gretchen dared to move. She knew she should hurry, but when she reached the cage, she paused. The wolf, scenting her approach, raised it ragged head. Gretchen grasped the bars with her hands and looked into its eyes. Had the wolf not been subjected to such excruciating cruelty, this closeness may not have been achieved. But close they were, faces two feet apart, and in other, less obvious ways. The wolf made no sound as Gretchen tried to convey her compassion and her love. She allowed herself to believe, for just a moment, that the woman inside the wolf understood.

The cabin loomed in the moonlight. She crept quietly to the door and pushed it open, holding her breath and listening for any motion from within. There was none. She entered slowly and saw the man sprawled across a rotted cot, his pants and his shirt all undone. Gretchen grimaced at the thought of touching him, but anger drove her on. She peered around, noted the location of the gun. It was propped against the wall beside him and was probably loaded. She gently lifted it and was surprised by how heavy it was. What to do with the thing? She placed it under the cot and, with her foot, slid it as far back toward the wall as she could. Fear raised the hair on her neck, but before she could reconsider she took the thorn from her pocket and jammed it in.

He rose with a roar as Gretchen ran from the cabin as fast as the dim light would allow. The man, confused, did not at first follow, but soon enough Gretchen heard his drunken shouting from the clearing. She, by the stream, stopped to listen. His voice was slurred, his curses struck out at the night, at demons invisible and at the helpless wolf. Gretchen feared he would take his rage out on her, but she could not linger.

Back home in her bed, adrenaline kept her awake for hours more. When she finally did sleep, her dreams were blood-soaked. When she woke, she was ravenous.

She had one last concern. Would she, the wolf, go to the cabin that night? Gretchen kept her mind fixed on it throughout the day, hoping to convey to the wolf the necessity of it, since the knowledge of what she had done would disappear. That night, as her sisters held her, Gretchen gave in to all of her fury as she changed.

The night swallowed the wolf. Never had the two sisters seen it run so quickly from them. They feared for Gretchen, always, but now they also feared for whatever or whoever was out there.

In the wolf’s mind, confusion reigned. It wanted to hunt, it wanted to feast, it wanted to sprint through the trees, chasing down its unwary prey. It did none of these things. As though directed by forgotten instinct, it ran toward the stream. Northward it went by the bank, feet splashing in mud, body weaving between the reeds. It was stopped by a sudden awful scream. Nose raised, it smelled all of those things it had come to associate with the cabin: old blood, iron, and pain.

The wolf growled; it did not like these things. And yet again it caught the scent of itself in the air: wolf, woman, and wolf again. There was danger and there was fear, but the wolf shook them off. Something moved it toward the clearing, some taint of another half-scented life. It had a purpose now and suddenly the wolf almost remembered.

Wolves do feel rage. They know the sudden anger of a hunt gone wrong, or of a mate killed by a farmer’s bullet. They feel these things, not as a human would, but solidly in their bones. The wolf’s eyes gleamed like stars at what it saw there by the cabin.

A grey and mangy wolf was throwing itself at the bars of the cage in which the woman who had so confused Gretchen was crouching. Gretchen, her sleek fur a testament to her fine health, leapt into the clearing and closed her jaws on the rival wolf’s exposed throat. They spun, his hind legs flailing at her underbelly, and landed with a crack in the dirt. He broke free, they circled each other, hackles raised and open mouths drooling. Gretchen tensed and lunged at him again.

At that moment she was neither wolf nor woman. Some hybrid, a strange cross-breed, her agile body seemed to inherit all of her disparate elements as she launched at the male with her teeth fully bared. This was not a hunt; it was murder. The male went down.

Though he kicked and scrabbled, Gretchen pinned him with her bulk and he could not loosen her grip on his throat. He writhed and gurgled, he shuddered and bled, but her jaws clenched all the tighter. With one last jerk of his leg, he finally lay still.

Gretchen backed away from the carcass, raised her head and let forth a slow howl. As she did so, the woman in the cage looked skyward. Two cries filled the night in unison, one of victory and one of relief.

When the chorus was over, the wolf snuffled around the clearing but was hesitant to leave it behind. Hunger was assuaged with a haunch of venison found beside the cabin. The wolf ate, tearing flesh from the bone, as the woman reached her arm out through the bars.

The man must have changed there at the cage. His clothes were in tatters on the ground not a foot away. The woman fumbled with his trousers, using fingers unsure of their function, until she was able to pluck out the set of keys. She mimicked his earlier movements of inserting key into lock. The wolf cocked its head as it watched the woman struggle. The top lock took the most effort, for she hardly had the strength to stand, but at last even that came undone. She fell to the floor as the door swung open and there she remained.

Dawn was coloring the horizon by the time the wolf had finished eating. It felt the urge to travel home, but a different need, one unfamiliar and yet somehow expected, kept it there. It sniffed at fallen limbs and drifts of leaves in the clearing as it slowly approached the cage. Warily, unsure of the creature inside, it touched its nose to her foot. She held out her hand and the wolf’s breath came hot on her palm. At that moment the sun tipped the trees in golden daylight and the wolf changed.

Gretchen came to her senses and remembered. She pushed her aching body up from the ground and looked around her. Her eyes squinted at the body of the dead wolf, now a feast for ants and beetles. She saw the man’s clothes, torn and wrinkled, by the cage. And then, as light filled the clearing, she saw the woman silently watching. Gretchen pulled her weary body close and wrapped her arms her. For one, sweet moment they embraced before the woman also changed.

Gretchen pulled away and watched the transformation. This must be what my sisters see, she thought. It was incredible, the woman stretched and bled, but Gretchen knew there was nothing she could do ease her. She watched with a sense of shared agony until the change was complete. Gretchen reached out a cautious hand and stroked the wolf as it lay with its sides heaving. She wanted to label her feelings for the creature unnatural, but so, she knew, was she. As she watched the animal breathe, wolf called to wolf. Her longing for the comfort of a kindred spirit proved too much.

Gretchen stretched out next to it and looked into its eyes, noting no difference between it and her. As morning broke fully around them, Gretchen curled up beside the warm body of the wolf. She relaxed as the animal gently washed blood from her face with its rough tongue. She threaded her fingers into the wolf’s fur, mindful of wounds, both old and new.

“I won’t leave you,” she said, and the wolf lay her head down and sighed.

When they were unable to find their sister, May and Molly made the difficult decision to involve John. He knew the area and was as close to the authorities as the sisters were willing to get. Molly called him that morning, after they’d spent two hours calling for Gretchen in the woods with no response. She said only said it was a family emergency and asked him to please come. He was there within the hour, his maroon car easing neatly into the drive.

“What is it?” he said as they ushered him in, all business.

“Our sister is missing, but sit down. We have to explain something first,” Molly said.

“When did you last see her?” he asked as he made himself comfortable, accepting May’s offer of a cup of coffee, black.

“Last night, but listen. She’s not . . . ” Molly looked to May for assistance.

“She’s a wolf.” May didn’t see the need to delay the issue. “She’ll be a woman by now, but she’s gone.”

John eyed the two sisters oddly, but kept quiet. They were obviously stressed and he was used to unusual situations. As a police officer, he thought he’d seen it all.

“Look, I know it sounds crazy, but our sister is a werewolf. She changes during the full moon,” Molly hoped he wouldn’t end it with her right there.

He did something far worse. He laughed.

As Molly turned away, disgusted, he pulled himself together and apologized. “I’m sorry. It’s just so unlike you to tease me this way.”

“I’m not joking.”

The look in Molly’s eyes warned him that this was not a matter she took lightly. May’s face was stern and her arms were crossed at her chest.

“This is not a game, John,” May said. “We need your help. Last night, Gretchen went into the woods. She does it every full moon. Normally she comes back in the morning and we get her at the edge of the trees. She’s not there and we need your help to find her. You know those woods, we don’t.”

Okay, John thought. I’ll go along with this. I’ll treat it as any other case. “What do you mean, get her?”

Molly rolled her eyes. “She can’t walk very well after changing. We have to help her home.”

“Changing.”

“Yes, changing. You don’t have to believe us about the wolf, but if we do find her, you must promise not to say anything about her condition. Just do that much, will you? Now, can we go?” May was anxious. Perhaps they shouldn’t have told him, but they didn’t know what else to do.

John gathered up some gear from his car as the sisters bundled their usual assortment of bandages and cloths in a blanket. When he asked them what the items were for, they explained. As they made their way into the woods, the sisters attempted to describe what had happened to their sister. They told him of the wolfweed, the long years of watching their sister become something other than human and finally, they told him of what she had seen in the forest.

It upset him that they hadn’t mentioned this before they left—he would have brought his gun. Off duty that day, he hadn’t even considered it. The sisters made him promise again and again that he would let them handle whatever it was they found. He was there only to lead them through the forest, not to rush in and be an unwanted hero on their behalf.

He almost believed them by the time they reached the stream. “Would she have come here for water?”

The sisters looked at each other. Did the wolf drink? They didn’t know.

“Wait a minute, look here,” John suddenly said, pointing at the ground. There, at his feet, was the clear track of an animal. He gazed at them, astounded. “That’s a wolf.”

“And?”

“There hasn’t been a wolf seen around here for twenty years.”

“There was a wolf around here last night, we told you,” Molly said. “Can we follow the tracks?”

“We can try,” he said. “There used to be an old hunters’ cabin nearby. The tracks are headed that way. We’ll check it out.”

It was after noon when they reached the clearing. Molly saw them first. “Oh my God, look.”

May put a hand on John’s chest before he could react as Molly grabbed her arm. “Don’t scare them.”

It was too late. The wolf raised its head and in doing so, woke Gretchen. She stared out at her sisters as though she didn’t recognize them.

“Gretchen, we’re here,” May said. She slowly knelt on the ground, pulling John and Molly down with her.

Gretchen focused her eyes on the three of them. The wolf didn’t move.

“She’s hurt. We have to help her. I’m not leaving her here.” Gretchen finally responded.

“Gretchen,” May spoke slowly, as though to a child, “that’s a wolf.”

“Yeah,” Gretchen said. “So am I.”