Running with the Pack

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.