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.”
GESTELLA
SUSAN PALWICK
Time’s the problem. Time and arithmetic. You’ve known from the beginning that the numbers would cause trouble, but you were much younger then—much, much younger—and far less wise. And there’s culture shock, too. Where you come from, it’s okay for women to have wrinkles. Where you come from, youth’s not the only commodity.
You met Jonathan back home. Call it a forest somewhere, near an Alp. Call it a village on the edge of the woods. Call it old. You weren’t old, then: you were fourteen on two feet and a mere two years old on four, although already fully grown. Your kind are fully grown at two years, on four feet. And experienced: oh, yes. You knew how to howl at the moon. You knew what to do when somebody howled back. If your four-footed form hadn’t been sterile, you’d have had litters by then—but it was, and on two feet, you’d been just smart enough, or lucky enough, to avoid continuing your line.
But it wasn’t as if you hadn’t had plenty of opportunities, enthu-siastically taken. Jonathan liked that. A lot. Jonathan was older than you were: thirty-five, then. Jonathan loved fucking a girl who looked fourteen and acted older, who acted feral, who was feral for three to five days a month, centered on the full moon. Jonathan didn’t mind the mess that went with it, either: all that fur, say, sprouting at one end of the process and shedding on the other, or the aches and pains from various joints pivoting, changing shape, redistributing weight, or your poor gums bleeding all the time from the monthly growth and recession of your fangs. “At least that’s the only blood,” he told you, sometime during that first year.
You remember this very clearly: you were roughly halfway through the four-to-two transition, and Jonathan was sitting next to you in bed, massaging your sore shoulderblades as you sipped mint tea with hands still nearly as clumsy as paws, hands like mittens. Jonathan had just filled two hot water bottles, one for your aching tailbone and one for your aching knees. Now you know he wanted to get you in shape for a major sportfuck—he loved sex even more than usual, after you’d just changed back—but at the time, you thought he was a real prince, the kind of prince girls like you weren’t supposed to be allowed to get, and a stab of pain shot through you at his words. “I didn’t kill anything,” you told him, your lower lip trembling. “I didn’t even hunt.”
“Gestella, darling, I know. That wasn’t what I meant.” He stroked your hair. He’d been feeding you raw meat during the four-foot phase, but not anything you’d killed yourself. He’d taught you to eat little pieces out of his hand, gently, without biting him. He’d taught you to wag your tail, and he was teaching you to chase a ball, because that’s what good four-foots did where he came from. “I was talking about—”
“Normal women,” you told him. “The ones who bleed so they can have babies. You shouldn’t make fun of them. They’re lucky.” You like children and puppies; you’re good with them, gentle. You know it’s unwise for you to have any of your own, but you can’t help but watch them, wistfully.
“I don’t want kids,” he says. “I had that operation. I told you.”
“Are you sure it took?” you ask. You’re still very young. You’ve never known anyone who’s had an operation like that, and you’re worried about whether Jonathan really understands your condition. Most people don’t. Most people think all kinds of crazy things. Your condition isn’t communicable, for instance, by biting or any other way, but it is hereditary, which is why it’s good that you’ve been so smart and lucky, even if you’re just fourteen.
Well, no, not fourteen anymore. It’s about halfway through Jonathan’s year of folklore research—he’s already promised not to write you up for any of the journals, and keeps assuring you he won’t tell anybody, although later you’ll realize that’s for his protection, not yours—so that would make you, oh, seventeen or eighteen. Jonathan’s still thirty-five. At the end of the year, when he flies you back to the United States with him so the two of you can get married, he’ll be thirty-six. You’ll be twenty-one on two feet, three years old on four.