It was my uncle who decided to give me to the wolf pack. Not that I’m complaining or anything. It was the best thing he’d ever done for me.

     He really couldn’t have been more obvious about it. He gave me a basket full of sweet bread and meat, put me in a bright red parka, and told me to walk through the woods to catch the train to Grandmother’s house. Might as well just hang a sign around my neck asking to be kidnapped, according to the stories our neighbors tell. There are always rumors about the woods—how the people who live there are evil, even insane, and how the wolves who roam the trees are as smart as human beings. Uncle must really think I’m dumb, especially as there’s a path along the edge of the trees that’s much safer and only a few minutes longer. But I didn’t complain, and I wasn’t surprised. I had been planning this with the Wolves for months. 

     I stood at the door, my basket hung carefully over one arm. Most of my few belongings were already with the pack, but the last of them were hidden under the food in my basket—my journal, my stuffed bear, and the bag of coins the wolves had paid my uncle for me. He wouldn’t be happy to see it was gone, and I allowed myself a moment of grim pleasure at the thought. 

     Uncle waved me out the door. “See you later,” he said, gruffly. There wasn’t a trace of regret in his voice. 

     I didn’t look back once. I had only spent a year within the walls of that house, after Mom died and I was shuttled off to live with my uncle, and I had no affection for it. I walked past the rows of dingy and colorless cottages, past the graveyard that held my mother’s bones, towards the woods and my supposed doom.

     The smell of the trees wrapped around me like my mother’s arms as I stepped into their shade. In the village it was only grey and brown and more grey, but there, in the filtered light, there were more colors than I knew how to name. Thousands of shades of green rustled and glimmered around me, in the moss and the leaves and the patterns shifting against the forest floor. The air was damp and clean, free of the rot that hung over the village. I felt like every step pulled some kind of poison out of my body.

     Shapes began to flit through the darkest shadows along the path only a few minutes into the trees. I remembered, briefly, my fear when I first arrived and heard the howling from the woods late at night. 

     But then I had met Yuna on one of her weekly trips to the market for supplies. The market is a loud, dangerous place, full of people who would happily cut your throat to steal a loaf of bread. But she was quiet and thoughtful in the face of it all, and she walked with a straight spine and unhurried steps—like a person who had made friends with her fears. I was drawn to her straight away. I kept coming back to talk to her every week, and eventually she introduced me to the Pack and invited me to join them.

     They were nothing like I had expected. They cared for each other and the forest more than most people in the village cared about anything. Those were my friends circling in the shadows; soon I would learn to change form like they could. So when the shape of a wolf darted out into the path in front of me, I broke into a smile.

     I watched as its fur vanished and its bones lengthened, quickly, into the shape of a girl. In seconds, Yuna was standing on the path in front of me. I leaped to embrace her. 

     She laughed and kissed my cheek as she hugged me back. Her long black hair hung in a single braid down her spine, and a few loose strands tickled my nose. “Hey, Rossa,” she said as she pulled away, her dark eyes glittering. “Are you ready to be kidnapped?”

I dug out the bag of coins and returned it to her, grinning. “You bet.”

     She tucked it away and took my hand. “Then come on, already.”

     The excitement that had been living dormant in my chest expanded and thrummed through my entire body, and I wondered if Yuna could feel it sparking in my fingers. “Are we going home? To the den, I mean?”

     “No.” 

     “Wait, what?” I drew up short, and the shadows along the path stopped too. “Where are we going?”

     Her fingers tightened on mine. “First things first. We’re going to teach you to shift.”

     I caught my breath. “Now? Already?”

     “Of course.”

     “You never really explained how this works. How are you going to teach me?”

     She smiled at me—a little sadly, I thought—and we kept walking. “Rossa, do you know where the stories the villagers tell about us come from?”

     “Not really.”

     She took a deep breath. “Well, about twenty years ago, a bunch of people decided they wanted to cut the woods down to make it easier to come and go from the village. They didn’t succeed—obviously—but they did get rid of a couple acres of trees, and hunted many of the animals they displaced. They managed to kill off every last wolf that lived here.”

     I tried to follow. “Real wolves, you mean? Not you guys.”

     “Yes and no.”

     “What?”

     “Yes, they were real wolves. But they’re the reason we’re able to do what we do.”

     “Yuna—”

     “Shh.” She let go of my hand, and we watched as the wolves crept out of the trees towards us. 

     I drew a little closer to her when I saw how many of them there. I knew those were my friends, hidden under layers of muscle and fur and glinting eyes, but they were certainly a scary bunch. 

     They sat calmly on the path in front of us, and all at once, they changed back into the people I knew—Alice with her pink hair and gentle old Curtis with his cane and everyone else in between. They smiled at me silently. I tried to move forward to greet them, but Yuna stopped me with a hand on the arm.

     I turned to ask her what was happening, but something in her eyes stopped the words from coming. 

     “Don’t be scared,” she said softly, letting go of my hand. 

     “Yuna—”

     She closed her eyes, and as I watched, the faint shape of a wolf broke away from her form, almost like dust. It landed on all fours on the forest floor. I recognized that snout, the muscle in its shoulders and the small nick in its ear. This was Yuna on the ground in front of me—or at least, what Yuna looked like as a wolf. But human Yuna was still beside me. 

     I didn’t say anything as the whole pack underwent the same strange process until there were nine wolves standing before me, sunlight filtering through their forms. I remembered what Yuna had said: they managed to kill off every last wolf that lived here.

     I felt tears fill my eyes as I suddenly understood. These were the spirits of the animals that had died.

     More of them materialized out of the trees. I saw birds and deer and even a bear, and finally, the shapes of three more wolves. One of them came and stood right in front of me. 

     I got down on my knees. I knew the wolf was dead, but its eyes looked so very alive—full of light and danger. It pulled its lips back in a growl, all its muscles tense and quivering, and it sprang.

     I couldn’t help it; I screamed and fell backwards. But no pain came, as I expected—just a blast of cold and a rush of images.

     My own memories rose up in me first. I saw the home I shared with my mother, remembered all the peaceful nights at home—felt, for a moment, as if she was there with me—remembered watching her grow ill, and then burying her and living in a haze of grief with my uncle, cut off from my home and the people I loved, until I met Yuna for the first time.

     Then the memories shifted, and I saw the wolf’s first moments with its eyes open, staring up into its mother’s fierce eyes—saw its first kill, felt the excitement of dusk falling and the simple wild joy of living in the pack. Then, inevitably, came the familiar stab of loss. I saw the cold blue eyes of a hunter and felt the memory of the bullet piercing its ribs. My memories mixed with the wolf’s until I wasn’t sure who was who anymore.

     As I sat there, shivering and trying to process it all with Yuna’s steady hands on my shoulders, I understood why the new pack protected what was left of the woods with such vigor. I sat, and breathed, and let the memories flow. A new peace of mind stole over me as the images began to slow. Under all the chaos of the wolf’s thoughts, I uncovered a fierce kind of loyalty—to its pack, to my friends, and now to me. I understood that I was a part of the pack now, permanently linked to the forest and everything that lived there. 

     I don’t know how long I sat there before my vision cleared. The faint shapes of the spirits had departed—but I could still feel the wolf there with me, ready to become flesh again if I called, and I broke into a smile. I looked up to see all of my friends but Yuna shift back into wolves. 

     “Welcome to the pack,” Yuna said, and all around us, the wolves began to howl a welcome song.

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       - Anonymous

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