HE CAME to me as a wolf. He was large and white, with splashes of black on his chest and legs and back. He was larger than I would ever be, and I had to tilt my head back to see the entirety of him.
The stars were out above, the moon fat and bright, and I felt something thrumming through my blood. It was a song that I couldn’t quite make out. My arms itched something fierce. Sometimes I thought the marks on my skin were starting to glow, but it could have been a trick of the moonlight.
I said, “I’m nervous,” because this was the first time I was allowed to be out on the full moon with the pack. It had been too dangerous before. Not because of what the wolves could do to me, but because of what I could have done to them.
He cocked his head at me, eyes burning orange with flecks of red. He was so much more than I ever thought someone could be. I told myself
I wasn’t frightened of him, that I could be brave, just like my father was.
I thought I was a liar.
Other wolves ran behind him in a clearing in the middle of the woods. They yipped and howled, and my father was laughing, tugging on my mother’s hand as he pulled her along. She glanced back at me, smiling quietly, but then she was distracted.
But that was okay, because so was I.
Thomas Bennett stood before me, the man-wolf who would be king.
He whuffed at me, tail wagging slightly, asking a question I didn’t have an answer to.
“I’m nervous,” I told him again. “But I’m not scared.” It was important to me that he understood that.
He lowered himself to the ground, lying on his stomach, paws out in front of him as he regarded me. Like he was trying to make himself smaller. Less intimidating. Someone of his position lowering himself to the ground was something I wouldn’t understand until it was too late.
He made a low whining sound from deep in his throat. He waited, then did it again.
I said, “My father told me that you’re going to be the Alpha.”
He pulled himself forward, belly dragging along the grass.
I said, “And that I’m going to be your witch.”
He came a little closer.
I said, “I promise that I’ll try my best. I’ll learn all that I can, and I’ll do a good job for you. You’ll see. I’m going to be the best there ever was.” My eyes widened. “But don’t tell my father I said that.”
The white wolf sneezed.
I laughed.
Eventually I reached out and pressed my hand against Thomas’s snout, and for a moment I thought I heard a whisper in my head.
packpackpack.
“IS THIS what you want?” my mother asked me when it was just the two of us. She’d taken me away from the wolves, from my father, telling them she wanted to spend time with her son. We were sitting in a diner in town, and it smelled of grease and smoke and coffee.
I was confused, and I tried to speak through a mouthful of hamburger.
My mother frowned.
I grimaced and swallowed thickly.
“Manners,” she scolded.
“I know. What do you mean?”
She looked out the window onto the street. The wind was sharp, rattling the trees so they sounded like ancient bones. The air was cold, people pulling their coats tightly around them as they walked by on the sidewalk. I thought I saw Marty, fingers stained with oil, walking back to his auto garage, the only one in Green Creek. I wondered what it felt like to have marks on my skin that could wash away.
“This,” she said again, looking back at me. Her voice was soft. “Everything.”