HUNTER’S MOON by M.P. McCUNE
W
hen she first met the wolf, he was a man. He sat on a fallen tree trunk by the side of the path leading to her grandmother’s house, clothes perched uneasily on his slight frame, his clean-shaven face luminous in the trees’ shadows. They acknowledged each other with a nod, as people do when they meet in the woods, and he fell in step beside her. His silence wrapped around her like a blanket, protecting her from the sharp edges of the sounds of the forest: twigs snapping, squirrels scolding, the cry of a horned owl. When they reached the clearing where her grandmother lived, he walked on, leaving her with a farewell glance to mark the place they’d parted until they met again. The house treated her like a stranger. Its windows stared blankly as if they’d never seen her before and the boards of the front porch shuddered indignantly at her touch. Shadows spilled out of the half open door, lapping at her feet until an undertow of darkness pulled her inside. The next morning, the whiteness of the girl’s skin alternated with purple bruises, resembling the pattern of sunlight filtered through tree leaves. “It’s hunting season. We don’t want anyone to mistake you for a deer,” her grandmother said from behind her, draping a red cloak over her shoulders. The girl shook like a wet dog, throwing off her grandmother’s touch. The girl had a closet full of shawls and sweaters from past visits: “to protect her from the wind,” “to shield her from the sun,” “to keep the rain off,” “to keep the warmth in.” Curious glances stuck to pretty clothes like flies to a web, keeping anyone from looking beneath them. “Run along now! I’ll see you next week!” The man joined the girl on her way back. Wind fluttered the cape, exposing her arms. They walked in a silence brittle as ice. When they reached the forest’s edge, he loitered under the trees to listen to her mother scold her loud enough for the people at the end of the street to hear: “Just look at you! How many times have I told you not to leave the path, it’s dangerous! There are wild things in the woods, you’re lucky you only had a fall!” The next time she saw the man, he was a wolf. He sat alone in the meadow between the village and the woods the night of the full moon, staring at her window. When their eyes met, he nodded. She climbed out and followed him into the trees. More wolves met them one by one until restless grey bodies surrounded her. Their howls swept through her like a winter wind, scooping up her voiceless anguish and carrying it with them out into the air, leaving her empty. She fell asleep in their midst but woke up in her own bed. Muddy footprints too large to be her own trailed to and from the window. Every week the man waited for her at the edge of the forest, until the day of the next full moon. She
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