01 Six Moon Summer - Seasons of the Moon

by SM Reine

  That was her cue. Rylie clambered out the window and peered around the cabin. Katie had been seated so she could watch Rylie’s door, but now her back was turned. She was calling to Cassidy in the trees.

  “Oh no, I must have gotten lost,” Cassidy said, sounding so innocent that it had to be obvious she was up to something. She was in her pajamas and scrubbing at her face sleepily. “I’m with Group D and I was looking for the bathrooms. Which camp is this?”

  Katie walked over to talk to her, and Rylie darted across the clearing, hanging low to the ground. Her heart pounded. She was sure Katie would spot her at any moment, but she made it to the trail without being followed.

  “Thank you, Cassidy,” Rylie whispered. She couldn’t wait to see how her friend distracted the counselor first thing in the morning. The bathroom excuse couldn’t work twice.

  Rylie and Seth met at their usual spot. He didn’t have his bag of tricks this time. The only thing Seth brought was a belt knife as long as his forearm. He looked ready to move fast, but Rylie wondered if that would be enough to keep up with her on the loose.

  “Let’s hike as far as we can before you change,” Seth suggested. “Wherever the werewolf made its den, it must be a long way from camp.”

  They walked through the forest, straying off the trail when they approached the place Rylie had been attacked. “There’s going to be a camp social between the girl’s side of the lake and the boy’s side,” she said, pretending to be concentrating on climbing a pile of boulders. It was actually so easy now she could have done it upside down and backwards. “Have you heard about it?”

  “We haven’t had announcements this week yet.”

  “It sounds like all the girls are going to get bused over to Golden Lake. I guess there’s going to be dancing and stuff.” She tried to sound casual. “It kind of sounds like fun.”

  Seth made a face. “I don’t dance.”

  “Oh.”

  “But I might dance with you,” he said. His shoulder bumped hers.

  Her cheeks got hot. There was nothing romantic about sneaking into the forest so she could safely become a half-monster, but she almost forgot about it in that moment. “So you’re going to go?”

  “Maybe, if you’re coming.”

  “I want to. I don’t know. The stupid counselor they have watching me doesn’t think I should get to have any fun.”

  “Go over her head,” he suggested. “Ask the director.”

  “That might not help. Everyone’s still pretty mad at me,” Rylie said.

  Seth gave her his slanted smile, and her heart beat a little faster. “I hope you can go.”

  She didn’t have time to get excited. The moon began to call as it rose higher in the sky. After her last several transformations, she could recognize the creeping feeling that meant she was running out of time as a human. It was happening earlier than ever before. “I think I’m going to change.”

  Seth stopped. The forest was thick and secluded, so it was as good a place as any.

  “Okay. You should get ready,” he said.

  “Get ready?”

  “You’re going to be almost entirely wolf this time. You probably won’t be able to fit into your clothes anymore.”

  Rylie blushed. “Right.”

  “I’ll go over there while you change.” Seth pointed to a ridge not far above them. “I won’t look, I promise. Once you pick up the werewolf’s smell, I’ll follow.”

  “I don’t think I can make myself wait for you to catch up with me,” Rylie warned.

  He laughed. “Don’t worry. I can keep up.”

  “Okay. I’ll see you on the other side.”

  Seth dissolved into the trees, and Rylie went about the business of getting undressed and stashing her clothes behind a bush. She should have felt weird getting naked in such an open area. Rylie was modest—she didn’t even wear bikinis to the beach. But it felt completely normal to be bare-fleshed in the forest.

  She could hear Seth climbing the ridge. Even if she felt normal being naked, she was still blushing. She felt like she might blush for the rest of her life.

  The moon called to her, drawing the beast out. She tried to focus on staying human as long as she could. She visualized her human fingers and toes, her face, her blonde hair. But there was no fighting it. The curse was too powerful.

  She changed fast this time, as though her body was beginning to remember the form. Rylie cried out as her face stretched. Her spine elongated into a tail, and her skin burned as fur grew. The only difference this time was that her knees snapped and reversed, forcing her onto all four legs.

  The wolf didn’t care about the pain. Rylie was grateful when it took over for her.

  She focused on the smell of the werewolf when her sharpened senses came to life. Although she couldn’t remember why she recognized the smell, she knew she needed to follow it. Locating the other beast was the only way she could secure her territory.

  Nose to the air, she tracked the smell across the trail and higher into the mountain. She didn’t notice the human trying to follow her.

  The wolf paused by a tree and smelled it. Tufts of fur were stuck to the rough bark, giving her a fresh whiff of the werewolf’s smell. It was recent. He was near.

  Twigs cracked behind her. She turned and saw nothing.

  Quickening her pace, she grew more excited as the scent became fresher. It was still at least an hour’s run ahead, but she was gaining on it.

  The wind shifted, blowing the smell of a human in her direction. This time, when she looked behind her, she saw him struggling to keep up with her. In the back of her mind, Rylie worried for Seth. The wolf was only impressed that he managed to follow her for so long.

  But she also didn’t want anything tracking her. She began to run, leaping from rock to rock.

  “Rylie!” yelled the human.

  She paid him no mind. There was no way he could keep up with her as she approached the steeper places on the mountain. For half an hour, she ran, tracking the passage of night by the moon’s march across the sky.

  When the moon reached its apex, she looked behind her again. There was no sign of the human. She had lost him. Rylie gave a small, inward cry of disappointment.

  The wolf’s pulse sped. The scent she was tracking grew stronger, and she hurried to catch up with it. She crossed the river, jumping over a natural bridge created by a toppled tree. At long last, the trees disappeared entirely, replaced by rough rock worn smooth by the wind.

  The smell had vanished.

  She stopped, looking around in confusion. She was certain she hadn’t left the territory, so the werewolf should have been nearby.

  Proceeding with her nose to the ground, she searched for the smell once more. The wolf had almost reached the very top of Gray Mountain. All the other mountains fell away beneath her as she climbed.

  And then she reached the peak.

  Natural stone pillars formed a ring on a smooth, open plane at the top. It was the same gray stone as the ruins of the church, and it gave off the same air of being holy land: eerily quiet, untouched by wind, and empty of all the little animals that lived elsewhere on Gray Mountain. Snow dotted the shadowy places beneath the rocks where it would never melt, even on the hottest days of summer. Ice limned the pillars. Her breath came from her in cloudy puffs.

  No sound broke the silence but her padding feet. But while it was quiet, the litany of smells formed brilliant images in her mind of men and beasts, and creatures in between. It was as though hundreds of years of smells lingered in one place.

  She climbed a sloped rock that stood above the others. The moon was so huge it looked like she could have leapt onto its surface.

  While sitting back on her haunches, the wolf was the tallest point around. The mountain range stretched below her for miles in every direction, and the trees looked like nothing more than distant grass. Tiny pinpoints of light marked the human outposts below.

  The wolf tilted her head back and gave a soft howl
to the swollen moon.

  Another howl responded.

  She wasn’t alone.

  Looking down upon the rocks below, she saw an animal circling its way up the mountain. It was not a wolf of the forest, of the earth and trees and dark dens. She could smell man on its thick fur and the sour tang of its cursed saliva.

  She moved down the rocks. It was not a safe position, and she wanted to be ready to fight.

  It approached her. She gave a small warning growl.

  They stood across from each other at the apex of the mountain, backed by nothing but the clear sky and moon. She puffed herself up to look more intimidating. The wolf knew she was not complete yet, so the werewolf was stronger. She would not show weakness.

  A second dark shape moved between the rocks, emerging in the moonlight.

  Two werewolves.

  Blood formed a mask on the face of the smaller beast. It had been eating something. They both seemed familiar in some way, as though they were pack—but she had no pack. The wolf was alone.

  They growled and circled her. She stood her ground, turning to keep them in her line of sight.

  She was smaller than both of them, still half-human. The two werewolves were massive beasts, almost more demon than wolf, with bulky shoulders and paws the size of boulders. Their teeth and claws were silver knives in the moonlight. She couldn’t take either of them alone, much less both.

  The bigger werewolf moved forward to sniff her, and its nose raked over her shoulders and back. This was not the one who had been in her home. This was the one that had bitten her. Her upper lip skinned over her teeth.

  Tension throbbed in the air between them. The bigger werewolf stepped back, and the smaller darted at her heels, snapping its teeth.

  She growled and lunged, striking the small werewolf in the side. They rolled together across the mountain and struck one of the rock pillars. She leapt off. It tried to bury its jaws in her belly, and she dodged back.

  The big werewolf tried to move between them, but she wouldn’t give it a chance. Her teeth sank into the furred ruff around its neck. It yelped.

  Pain flashed across her side as the smaller one clawed her ribs. Blood spurted from her fur.

  She was outmatched two to one, and both were more powerful. One injury was enough to convince her that the fight wasn’t worth it. Turning, she fled down the mountain.

  They followed.

  The wolf’s paws pounded against rock. She wanted to reach the trees to hide, but the flash of intelligence that was Rylie told her it wouldn’t be good enough. She needed to make them lose her scent.

  She ducked when the smaller one leapt again, and she felt the breeze from its passing ruffle her fur. It landed in front of her. She swerved to avoid it.

  A splashing sound reached her ears across the crisp, empty night air. The river. Rylie could use it to mask her smell.

  Angling south, she put on a burst of speed. The werewolves growled and snapped and drooled behind her. They weren’t just stronger; they were faster too. She felt jaws bite at her tail, and she tucked it between her legs to keep it out of reach.

  The mountain grew steep. She lost her footing on gravel and slid, paws scrabbling wildly for purchase.

  She bounced on the rocks and landed in a cluster of trees with a crunch. The branches battered her body, scraping and catching on her fine fur. A thick bough connected with her stomach. She grunted and slipped to the ground below.

  Her pursuers were nowhere in sight, but she could hear them. The werewolves crashed thunderously through the branches. There was no time to lick her injuries even though she was half-skinned from her slide down the rocks.

  Getting back to her paws, she dove for the river.

  It split into many smaller brooks by the camp, but it ran thick and furious in the mountains. The last of the melting ice and snow turned it into a freezing, foamy spray. Perfect.

  The bigger werewolf burst from the trees in front of her. She barely stopped herself in time, digging her claws into the ground. She turned to run the other way, but the smaller werewolf blocked her.

  She hunched her shoulders and growled. They didn’t look threatened.

  So close to the river. So close to safety. Rylie was screaming inside.

  The two werewolves maneuvered to force her backward toward a steep drop off. The wolf tried to hold her ground on the very edge.

  Glancing down, she saw the river far below. It was a waterfall.

  She looked between the werewolves and the river. It was a creature of instinct, and not decision-making; the beast had no means to decide whether potential death by falling or drowning was better than being torn apart at the jaws of certain death.

  But Rylie knew she didn’t want to be eaten. The smaller werewolf darted forward.

  Rylie threw herself off the waterfall.

  She hit the water. All the air rushed out of her with a shock of pain. She was swept downriver instantly, battered by rocks and crashing rapids.

  The wolf struggled to surface for air. Her nose found oxygen for a brief second, but then she sank below again. There was no up or down in the river. There was only chaos and the struggle of trying to paddle toward the shore.

  Something hard hit her, tearing open the wound on her side afresh. The wolf gasped and sucked in water. She caught on a boulder and the river crushed her to its side.

  Her snout pushed into the air. She breathed fresh air for a moment, then was swept away once more.

  Beyond the row of boulders, the river grew calmer. She didn’t have to fight to float at the surface. She sped down the mountain, unable to do anything but keep breathing and let the water take her away.

  Her paws finally found purchase in the mud. Her rapid descent halted.

  Inch by inch, the wolf dredged herself out of the water, fur heavy with moisture. It doubled her weight. Finally, she collapsed on dry land.

  Coughing up a lungful of fluid, she tried to make sense of her surroundings. Was she safe? The shore was near where she had begun the night. It saved her hours of walking, but now she was wet and cold and broken from hitting the rocks on the way down.

  Shaking out her fur, she stood on wobbling legs and forced her weary body to trot away from the river. She kept her ears perked, but she couldn’t hear the werewolves following.

  She continued until she grew too tired, then curled up in the shelter of thick bushes to rest. The wolf sniffed the air, but there was nothing to smell. They had not followed her. The only werewolf scents were hours old.

  Licking the wound on her side, she cleaned grit and hair from her lesions so they could heal. Blood dribbled across the ground. A fever swept over her beneath the chill of her damp fur. Once she could rest, the wounds would disappear.

  Morning approached slowly, and the wolf curled her tail over her nose to doze. The beast didn’t dream.

  Something in the back of her mind nudged at her when the first rays of sunlight touched the air, stirring her from her rest. Taking deep sniffs of the ground, a different scent caught her attention. It was a familiar, human smell. She snuffled through the bushes and found a folded pile of clothing.

  Rylie. These clothes belonged to Rylie. The wolf’s mind faded away with the smell of her human form.

  Dawn crept into the sky, turning the violet air into gold. A beam of light touched her through the trees.

  Fire swept over her skin as all her fur fell to the forest floor, leaving bare flesh behind. Stinging pains pricked her jaw as her snout receded into a normal chin and nose. Her gums bled as her sharp teeth fell out and the blunt human teeth grew in their place.

  Rylie found herself lying naked on the dirt with pine needles stabbing her in the side. She sat up, looking at herself in confusion.

  Why was she naked outside?

  She tried to remember the night before, but she couldn’t recall anything. Rylie knew she had hiked up the mountain with Seth, and that they intended to track the werewolf, but things were all a blur from there.

&
nbsp; “Seth?” she called. No response. They must have been separated.

  Blood soaked into the ground around her, and Rylie suspected it was hers. She felt hot and itchy like she always did after super-healing. No injuries remained upon inspection, but her hair was strangely damp.

  Rylie felt there was something very, very important she needed to warn Seth about, but it was as though the wolf was someone else even though they occupied the same body. She didn’t have access to its memories.

  The sky grew lighter. It wouldn’t be long before Katie checked her cabin.