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.