Lupine

When the sun goes down, darkness closes around the village with familiar dread. At nightfall, every door is latched shut, curtains are drawn, children tucked tightly in their beds. The darkness keeps hands clasped, axes by the door, and knives tucked under pillows. It huddles livestock too close together in their pens. Dogs sniff the air, hair standing on end, baring teeth and snarling at a shadow at the edge of the forest. 

Just before midnight, the woman lays her daughter in the crib. The baby is swaddled in white linen, and her soft cheeks are lit warmly by the flickering glow of a single tallow candle. Her husband sleeps soundly on a pallet in the corner of the cabin. The woman lets her hand rest softly on the sleeping baby before she moves it back slowly, careful not to wake her.   

She blows out the candle. The moon lights her feet on the dirt floor. She gazes out the window into the darkness. She cracks the door to the outside; it groans as she opens it just enough to slip her body through the passage. The baby behind her stirs in the crib, the woman pauses, looking back momentarily before escaping into the night. 

The air is crisp yet weighted with lingering smoke. The woman closes her eyes and breathes in deeply, lifting her face to the moonlight. Her dark hair unfurls from a loose knot and cascades down her back. Her heavy shawl drops into the grass at her feet. She unbuttons her night gown, and it falls over her lithe shoulders, revealing her bare skin to the night sky. Her senses awaken, muscles tensing with a shiver in the cool night air. Goosebumps spread from her arms, over her breasts, and down her legs. She drops a bundle of her clothes on a boulder that guards the path to her cabin. 

There is a tightening across her belly, an aching in her elbows and knees. Her bare toes sink into the soil beneath her. She hunches, her long hair falling over her face. Her fingers sink into the dark soil at her feet, lengthening into gripping claws. She inhales sharply, biting her own lip, stifling a scream as her arched spine cracks. The column of vertebrae disappears underneath a wave of dark, coarse hair that spreads over her back, down her arms and legs. 

Hunching on the ground, now in lupine form, she whimpers softly. The smoke and the soil and grass clear her senses. A different scent reaches her nostrils: sweet, damp earth and moss. 

She rises to her feet. The cabin behind her remains quiet and dark. With another deep inhale, a euphoria washes over her, urging her to take off into the night. With four limbs padding against the earth, she runs, abandoning the worn paths to cut through the pastures specked with purple lupins. Her gait is quick and steady. As she cuts through farmland, she hunkers low to the ground. She cautiously passes by barns with sheep huddled inside. The houses are quiet and dark, and the smell of meat and turnips lingers in kettles over cooling fireplaces. 

There is a bell tower where the pastures meet the forest's edge. It is watched over by a young man with a bow. The man is alone and asleep in the tower. She creeps low to the ground; her ears tuned to the steady intake of his breath. She slips past the tower, and into the safety of the deep forest. 

The trees close over her, welcoming her home as her feet pad quietly over the mossy ground. The moonlight pokes through the heavy blanket of branches overhead, lighting her way. She winds around the maze of trees, pausing every so often to lift her head, ears perked, senses alert, before sniffing the ground to resume her steady gait.  

She reaches the top of the hill on the other side of the forest. She gazes over the village. The moon hangs overhead large, overbearing, casting long shadows and reflecting from ponds. She inhales deeply. The air spreads through her lungs with relief like a first breath after emerging from underwater. A subtle vibration deep in her belly intensifies with each intake. Then it rises to her chest and escapes her throat as she lifts her face to the moon. She howls. The sound effortlessly leaves her body, deep, bellowing, expansive in the night air over the village. 

Then silence falls over the forest. Her nostrils flare. She smells flesh, dried blood, oiled leather. There is a low vibration in the earth underfoot. It overwhelms her senses. She turns to follow the smell, hunger now growing in her belly. Her feet quicken, and the air rushes past her ears as the scent grows stronger. She sniffs the ground, and the soil reveals the smell of leather boots. She pauses; the forest is eerily silent except for the groaning and cracking of the trees shifting in the breeze.  

A twang, whisk, and a sharp pain in her shoulder. An arrow has burrowed deep, and she falls forward, whimpering. There is a rustling overhead. She pulls herself to her feet, limping, when a man drops from a tree, his boots thudding against the ground. He raises an axe as he barrels toward her. She bares her jaws, snarling, hearing the thumping of his heart in time with her own beating quickly in her chest. She lunges toward him, and the axe head falls heavily beside her. She closes her jaws on his arm, pulling him to the ground. His hand reaches for a knife strapped to his leg, and she snaps at his wrist, his arms, blood and saliva running down her teeth as they roll together over the forest floor. She rips at his flesh, his blood running salty and metallic over her tongue before his movements weaken. She closes her jaws over his throat, ripping at the tensing and loosening in his veins. His body goes limp, arms falling outward. The knife drops to the ground beside him. She relaxes the grip of her jaws from his neck, now noticing the deep pain in her shoulder where the arrow had wedged. 

A warm glow lights the horizon like low embers in a dying fireplace.  

Dawn. 

In the distance, she hears her baby's cry. She rises, bloodied jaws lifted to the sky, ears perked. She turns away from the man's body and limps down the hill toward the village. She winds through the forest, her footsteps quickening to a gallop. Pain shoots through her limbs with each uneven step. She passes through the farmland, through the field of lupins, to the boulder where her clothing rests. As she steps, the dark hair falls away from her pale skin, revealing bloodied arms. The arrow pushes out of her shoulder, falling to the ground. Her claws contract into long, callused fingers. The dark soil stains her palms. Her bones crack, muscles pulling, lengthening. Her long hair cascades behind her, now coated in blood and twigs. She drapes the cold gown over her body and wraps the shawl over her shoulders. She disappears into the cabin.