Grateful for the Wolf
By Amy Clare Fontaine
I hate it when the werewolf comes for dinner. But he comes every full moon night. Mom and Dad tell me to be patient with “Uncle Randall.”
But how can you be patient with a werewolf?
We are sitting at the dining room table, eating a perfect turkey on perfect china. Everything is perfect, and everyone is smiling, shoveling mashed potatoes and gravy into their mouths and getting all sappy about the things they’re grateful for this year.
Except me. I just glare at the werewolf, waiting for him to ruin everything.
Mom shoots me her sternest look from across the table. Aunt Hilda, who is seated to my left, elbows me. Dad shakes his head at me when no one else is looking. Everyone is trying to give me subtle cues to stop glowering at the werewolf. Everyone but the werewolf, who is pointedly ignoring my simmering rage.
And then it happens. The werewolf’s hands start twitching. He drops his fork and knife onto his plate with a clang. His eyes roll into the back of his head. A soft growl begins in the back of his throat as he collapses to the floor.
Everyone stands up from the table all at once. Mom is at the werewolf’s side in an instant, gripping his shoulders as they erupt in shaggy fur, trying to help him stand.
“Randall. Randall, it’s me. Your sister. Jen.”
I don’t know why she always does this. As if the werewolf cares who she is at this point. He is crouched on all fours now, his yellow eyes wild.
He lunges for the turkey, toppling the table as he grabs it in his mouth. Other families always have leftovers from Thanksgiving dinner.
Not us.
Like a whirlwind swirling through the splintered wreckage of the table, the werewolf eats everything. Everything. Even the stuff from other people’s plates disappears into his maw. Not that there are really plates anymore. The werewolf is like a family dog with bad manners times fifteen. He’s also the reason we’ve never had pets—at least, not since the night he killed Binky. When I close my eyes, I can still see the blood.
No one even tries to stop the werewolf. Instead, they shepherd him out the back door with raw elk steaks bought specifically for this purpose. Mom hollers at me from the next room.
“Billy, can you clean up while we’re gone?”
I grumble, knowing it’s not a question. It’s an order. The adults will be busy driving through the wooded acres around our house, keeping an eye on the werewolf. They bring dart guns loaded with tranquilizers. If they need to knock the werewolf out, they can.
I don’t know why they bother following him, though. We have a reinforced electric fence around our property to keep him inside, and a metal apron extends several feet into the ground underneath the fence to keep him from digging his way out. He’s got forest to roam, deer and elk to chase. But I guess they’re afraid he might hurt himself. Or get out anyway, despite all their precautions.
Mom says that when she was growing up, in the days before electric fences and tranquilizers, she and Aunt Hilda and my grandparents would roam the forest on foot, setting out these contraptions called leghold traps. They bought them from fur trappers passing through town, but they modified them a little, widening the jaws and adding rubber padding so the werewolf wouldn’t get hurt. They would make werewolf scent lures out of the smelliest roadkill they could find—skunks or deer or rattlesnakes, anything really, all cut up and mixed together, liquefied and fermented in little glass jars in the cellar. They used the scent lures to get the werewolf to step into their traps. If a trap grabbed his leg, it would hold him in one place; my mom and aunt and grandparents staked all the traps so he couldn’t run away. Once the werewolf was caught, they watched over him as he thrashed around, until morning came and he was a harmless, shivering man once more.
It’s crazy to me, just thinking about it: all of them keeping vigil over that psycho werewolf every full moon night. My mom talks about it as if it had been a really special church service or something. Apparently, they brought food and water and scented candles to the werewolf, sang him songs, their breaths misting in the chilly woodland air. Apparently, he listened. Fell asleep.
I shake my head and start sweeping up the splinters of the table. I’m sixteen now. I deserve a nice Thanksgiving dinner. A dinner that doesn’t end with cleaning up after a stupid werewolf.
A howl pierces the night. I keep grumbling and sweeping.
Hours pass. The dining room is clean, albeit empty of a table and a nice set of china. No one comes back. I check my phone that’s charging on the kitchen counter. No messages. For a moment, worry beats its wings around my heart, but I’m too angry to be afraid. I’m alone on Thanksgiving, and no one has even bothered to tell me what’s going on.
Everyone else’s vehicles are still missing from the driveway when I go outside, and I don’t even see any lights in the woods around the house. I get into my pickup and rev the engine.
Miles away from our property, I pull off the dirt road and hike up the hidden trail through the woods towards my secret place. The full moon is so bright that I don’t need a flashlight. I climb the boulder on the edge of the cliff and gaze down at the valley below me. I can see the woods and fields and towns carpeted with low-lying mist, and, beyond them, the silhouettes of distant mountains. I sigh with relief, breathing deeply of the crisp, cold air.
This is my place. I may not have a family that can get through a simple dinner when the full moon’s out, but at least I have this. This is mine.
I pull out a cigarette and lighter from a pocket of my leather jacket. I struggle to light the cigarette. The air is too damp.
A twig snaps behind me.
I freeze. Slowly, barely able to breathe, I turn my head.
Down at the base of my boulder, a huge gray wolf is watching me with yellow eyes.
The werewolf. I would recognize him anywhere.
I expect him to come tearing up the side of the boulder like a wildfire, hungry for my blood. Instead, he sits down calmly at the bottom, his eyes never leaving mine. And suddenly, a familiar voice rings loud and clear in my head.
You should really quit smoking, you know.
Somehow, I know this is not the angel on my shoulder speaking. I laugh hoarsely. “Are you kidding me?”
The werewolf wrinkles his muzzle, his ears flattening against the sides of his head.
It’s bad for you. What if you get lung cancer when you’re older?
I scowl at him. “At least my bad habits don’t hurt others.”
The werewolf flinches like a whipped dog. The voice in my head is silent for a long time.
This isn’t a habit, Billy, the werewolf says at last. It’s a condition.
“Whatever.” I start fumbling with the lighter again. The werewolf growls, and I’m so startled that I drop the lighter. It clatters over the edge of the boulder, falling toward the valley below.
Shit.
I turn and glare at the werewolf. “What are you doing here? How did you get out? If you injured any of them…”
The werewolf stops growling and closes his mouth. I didn’t. Believe it or not, they agreed to let me out for a bit, so I could come find you. The werewolf’s ears perk forward, and he stares into my eyes. We need to talk, Billy.
I fold my arms across my chest. “Why? Why should I talk to a fucking animal?”
The werewolf stands up. On four legs, as usual. He looks like a pretty normal wolf, actually, aside from the fact that he’s the size of a horse. His tail curls slightly around one of his back legs.
You don’t have to say things like that, Billy. I can already smell how you feel.
For a moment, I just stare at him.
“What? You can smell feelings?”
In my head, the werewolf laughs at me. Of course! It’s quite marvelous, actually.
I gape at him. I can’t believe I am having a conversation with the monster who killed my dog.
Oh, right. He’s a monster. My eyes narrow.
“If you think I’ll forgive you for all you’ve done after some small talk, you’re dead wrong.”
The werewolf’s ears flatten again, and the tip of his tail tucks between his legs. I know, Billy. I’m not asking for forgiveness, not yet. Just trying to help you understand.
I turn away. I can’t light another cigarette and it’s making me antsy. Already one of my legs has started bouncing up and down. At this rate, I will be growling at the werewolf before long.
But I can’t exactly leave, can I? There’s a giant wolf pacing at the base of my boulder, like a dragon guarding a princess in a tower. I am not this werewolf’s fucking princess. I bare my teeth like a feral chimpanzee.
“Move it, wolf! I’m not in the mood for your little heart-to-heart right now!”
One of the werewolf’s eyes glints up at me briefly, before he continues to pace back and forth.
I am not going anywhere until you listen to what I have to say.
I groan, smacking my forehead with my palm. So much for the intimidation strategy.
Oh, right. He’s a fucking werewolf. Well-played, genius.
I lie on my back on the boulder and close my eyes.
“Sure,” I sigh. “I’m listening. Whatever.”
Good. Thank you, Billy. I can hear the werewolf’s voice in my thoughts even with my eyes closed. I try to drown him out by playing my favorite heavy metal song in my head, but it doesn’t work. His words cut through it.
Firstly, Billy, I want to say that I’m truly sorry. I’m sorry my condition has been a burden on our family for all these years. I’m sorry for all the trouble I have caused. I’m sorry you’ve had to put up with having a werewolf in the family when you’ve made it very clear that you want nothing to do with me.
I grimace, my eyes still closed. “You said you’re not asking for forgiveness.”
Not yet. The werewolf sighs. I can sort of feel his breath, in my head. It’s a strange and uncomfortable feeling.
Billy, you and I are blessed with an exceptional family. I grew up in a time when it was not very good to be a werewolf. Not that it’s ever a good time to be a werewolf. The werewolf laughs sadly.
Hearing an audible whimper, I open my eyes and sit up. The werewolf is sort of crouching at the foot of the boulder, staring up at me with his tail between his legs and his ears folded back, whining under his breath like a puppy. He sounds so much like Binky used to sound that I almost feel sorry for him. Almost.
You see, people were not as accepting of werewolves back then, because they didn’t know as much about lycanthropy as we do now. People always fear what they don’t understand.
The werewolf curls up at the bottom of the boulder and closes his eyes. For a fleeting moment, I think of trying to sneak past him. But I know he would smell and hear me, and I’ve seen what his teeth can do. I look up at the full moon and sigh. If only I could light a cigarette.
Back then, if you became a werewolf, your family would lock you up in an institution. You would spend the rest of your life in a padded room. Without the forest. Without a future. Without love.
I shiver, rubbing my arms, my breath forming little puffs of fog in the air. My leather jacket isn’t so helpful now that it’s getting colder out. I am starting to envy the werewolf’s thick fur.
I sneer at him. “I wish they had locked you up, too.”
One of the werewolf’s eyes opens, looking up at me.
My parents—your grandparents—and my sisters—your aunt and your mother—loved me too much to do that to me. They were determined to keep me at home, to give me the most normal life I could possibly have. To work through my problems with me, despite all the suffering I caused. Because we were a family. And that’s what families do.
The werewolf is looking at me with both eyes now, his head resting on his front paws, his tail swishing from side to side on the ground behind him. His words make me sick to my stomach.
A piece of the rock below me crumbles away beneath my fingers. I grab it and hurl it at the werewolf.
“I don’t care about your stupid sob story! Go away!”
The werewolf leaps to his feet and dodges my stone. His hackles rise, but his voice remains annoyingly calm.
Billy—
“You aren’t family to me! Family members don’t imprison each other on the edges of cliffs. They don’t intimidate each other into conversation!”
As I probe the boulder with my fingertips, I find more stones to chuck at the werewolf. I grab a handful and throw them at him as I make my way down the side of the boulder. He backs away.
It’s working. Why didn’t I think of this sooner? My aim is excellent. All those years as a Little League pitcher have sure paid off.
I run down the trail through the woods. I know he can catch me if he tries. His legs are faster than lightning. But he doesn’t follow me.
I get into my pickup and rev the engine. The engine sputters and dies with a sickening wail. I notice—too late—that I left my lights on this whole time.
“Fuck. Fuck! Fuck!”
I bang my head against the steering wheel. This is the worst Thanksgiving ever.
I don’t even have my phone on me to call someone to ask for a jump. I left it at home, in the kitchen. I figured if my family was too busy babysitting the stupid werewolf to at least give me a buzz about what was happening, then I didn’t want to answer any calls from them anyway. Let them worry about me for a change!
God. Me and my fucking pride.
I am slamming my fist against the dashboard when I see yellow eyes glowing just beyond my driver’s side window.
Billy.
I freeze. The werewolf is right on the other side of the door.
Billy, please hear me out.
I am laughing. Or crying. Or both.
I have nowhere to go now. He is right there, right by the flimsy driver’s side door of my shabby little two-door pickup. Even if I crawl to the other side of the cab, he can get over there in an instant, before I even open the passenger’s side door. And I obviously can’t drive anywhere. I am well and truly fucked.
“Please don’t eat me!” I whimper. Sob. Something. So much for my pride. Ugh.
I didn’t want to die this way. I wanted to die jumping through flaming hoops Evel Knievel-style on a Harley or something. Then again, getting ripped to shreds by a werewolf is still pretty metal.
Billy, calm down. I’m not going to hurt you. I promise.
I wipe the tears from my face with the back of my hand. Okay, I guess I was crying. I pound my fist against the window, trying to act tough, trying to forget about the stinky wetness in my boxers.
Okay, I was doing more than crying.
“Why should I trust you?” I yell. The window is closed, but his ears are perked towards me, and I know he can hear every word. “You’re a werewolf! You have zero self-control!”
That’s not quite true, says the werewolf. His yellow eyes stare into my soul. Trembling, I punch some buttons to turn the heat on. Nothing happens.
Dead battery. Right.
“What the hell does that mean?” I snap.
The werewolf’s ears swivel in several different directions.
I can’t control the fact that I change every full moon. It’s who I am, and who I will be for the rest of my life. And being a werewolf is both a blessing and a curse. When I’m wolfed out, I can smell and hear and see and do so many amazing things you can’t even imagine. But those heightened senses come with a price. The werewolf’s breath fogs up the window as his nose presses against the glass.
You see, retaining a human consciousness in a wolf-like body…it’s overwhelming. Imagine for a moment that your world is alive with smells. All the things you can see—and even many things you can’t—have their own unique smells. The rubber of your tires. The metal hull of your truck. The paint peeling off its sides. The rust. The dust in your cab. The pizza you ate in the cab last week, and all the toppings that were on it. The two friends—one male and one female—who ate the pizza with you. The cigarette butts in your ashtray.
“Hey!” I frown at him. “Why is this about my smoking again? At least I don’t throw my butts out in the woods!”
The werewolf shakes his head. As I was saying. Imagine that your wolf body is sending you a million different sensory signals a minute. Then imagine that your human mind is struggling to keep up, to compute, to translate all those signals into words. But it lags behind your wolf body like a fat kid at a marathon. It’s a sensory overload of the first degree, intense enough to make your head explode.
Imagine that on top of this, you’re starving all the time. A large gray wolf can eat over twenty pounds of meat in one sitting. And you’re much larger than a large gray wolf. So your head is exploding from all the new sensations coming in from the world around you. And you’re so hungry that your stomach is screaming with pain. And the only thing that can satisfy you is meat, lots and lots of meat. And you don’t even care where the meat is from.
Saliva drips from the wolf’s open mouth. He is staring at me through the window, not even blinking. I can’t breathe.
“Are…are you sure…you’re not going to eat me?”
The werewolf turns away from me. No.
I am not entirely sure what he means.
For a few minutes, neither of us says a word.
“How…how do you handle it all?” I manage to say, finally. “How have you not gone insane by now?”
The werewolf gazes up at the moon.
Most werewolves do go insane, he admits. The first year after I turned was the hardest of my life. And probably the hardest for my parents and sisters, too. But they took care of me, even though everyone told them they should put me away. And we got through it together, somehow.
The werewolf’s tail wags a little.
Over the years, it’s gotten easier. I’ve learned a lot about my condition and how to deal with it, and so has our family. Even more importantly, society as a whole has learned more about lycanthropy and become more tolerant towards werewolves. Researchers have figured out ways to improve our lives. Just last year, a pharmaceutical company began to produce a medication that makes our transformations more manageable. That medication saved my life.
I’ve been rummaging around in the glovebox for a while, looking for my spare lighter, but the werewolf’s last statement makes me pause. Impulsively, I slip my right hand into my left sleeve, rubbing the scars on my wrist. Medication saved my life, too.
“I…I know what you mean.”
I say this in little more than a whisper, but I know he can hear me. He can hear everything. For a moment, I wonder what that’s like. What it’s like to be a wolf. What stories the whispering wind tells his nose.
He turns his head and looks at me through the window. I know you do. I’m your uncle, after all.
I wince. I crank open the passenger side window just a crack. Whip out the lighter I found in the glovebox. Spark the far end of the cigarette between my teeth. At some point while I was listening to the werewolf, I kind of forgot how twitchy I’d been feeling since I lost my lighter on the rock. My puny craving for nicotine sort of pales in comparison to the shit the werewolf’s been going through since he was a kid. But I still breathe a sigh of relief as I feel the familiar scratchy tingle in my lungs.
The driver’s side door opens with a click. I drop my cigarette and scream. The werewolf just opened the door with his paw. I didn’t know wolves could open doors.
I crawl to the passenger side of the cab. “Don’t come any closer!”
My cigarette burns out. The werewolf falls back on his haunches in front of the open driver’s side door, cocking his head at me.
You still don’t trust me?
I gulp loudly, willing my hammering heart to quiet down.
“I…”
The werewolf wrinkles his nose. You stink, Billy.
I laugh like a dying goat. “Oh, um, sorry? A jackass of a werewolf made me piss my pants!”
That wasn’t a criticism, just an observation. I’m sorry I startled you. The werewolf jerks his head in the direction of the woods. Come on. I’ll take you home now.
I blink at him. “Wait. What?”
Someone can come back here with you to jump your truck in the morning. It’s getting late. I’m sure your parents are starting to worry.
I fidget in the passenger seat. “I’m not going into the woods with a werewolf. Alone. At night. Unarmed.”
The werewolf whines. This is still about Binky, isn’t it?
My palms are getting clammy. I twist my hands around and around each other. “I… What? Um, yeah, maybe? I mean, well, going into the woods with a werewolf just doesn’t seem like a good idea, period, but now that you mention it, yes, you also ripped my dog apart before my very eyes! When I was five years old! Why the hell should I trust you now?”
A chill goes up and down my spine. Cold air is blasting into the cab through the open door. The werewolf sees me shaking. He puts his front paws into the driver’s seat and leans across it to the passenger seat, nuzzling me like a dog. He is very warm. In an instant, I’m hugging his neck. Running my fingers through his fur. Scratching behind his pointed ears.
Do wolves purr? Is that a thing? Because I think that’s what I’m hearing.
I’m sorry, Billy, whimpers the werewolf. I’m so sorry about your dog.
My teeth are chattering, but I’m so much warmer with my arms around the werewolf.
“I…I know you are. I’m sorry I’m always such an ass.”
Did I just say that? I guess I did. And I’m petting a werewolf as if he’s a poodle.
Guess I’ve finally lost my mind. Nothing else left to lose, really.
The werewolf takes a step back, getting his front end out of the car. I grab my keys, my lighter, my pack of cigarettes, stuffing it all into the pockets of my jacket. I lock the passenger door, close the window, slide back to the driver’s side of the cab, and step out of the truck, locking and shutting the driver’s side door behind me. The werewolf stands only a foot away, watching me.
There is no going back now.
Death by werewolf will be pretty metal, anyway.
The werewolf lies down with his legs folded under him.
Get on my back, Billy. And hold tight.
Dear God, what am I getting myself into?
Now we’re flying through the forest on a little deer trail. The wind whips past my face as I clench the thick fur of the werewolf’s neck, holding on for dear life. The trees blur around us so fast that I feel like I’m on a rollicking roller coaster ride. I kind of want to scream. Or puke.
But for crying out loud, I am riding a werewolf! This has to be the most metal thing anyone has ever done.
“Woohoo!” Once I’m comfortable enough to briefly let go with one hand, I punch the air. “This is awesome!”
The werewolf’s powerful muscles ripple beneath me, propelling us onwards.
We are racing through a wide clearing when the werewolf suddenly stops and sniffs the air. His hackles rise, and a low growl escapes his throat.
Billy, he says. He sounds…scared? Billy, just stay calm.
“What is it?” I ask, looking ahead at the empty clearing. I squint at the line of trees on the other side. “I don’t see—”
Out of the shadows beneath the trees steps a bear.
It’s a huge male grizzly. His golden fur has a ghostly sheen in the moonlight. Snow begins to fall on us as we stare at him. The bear is huffing, stamping his feet. Glaring right at me and the werewolf.
Billy, says the werewolf, listen to me. Get off my back, and back away slowly.
I swallow. My mouth feels like cotton. I jump off his back. I scream.
I run.
The grizzly charges. He’s fast. Too fast. In seconds, he’s looming over me. I fall to the ground and hug my knees.
The werewolf rams him from the side. The grizzly staggers back.
Go, Billy! cries the voice in my head. Get to the trees. Follow the moon and you’ll hit the highway.
The two behemoths circle each other in the center of the clearing. I gape at the werewolf.
“But—”
GO!
The clearing dissolves into a swirl of snapping jaws and raking claws, roars and growls and bellows like thunder. I hear a yelp of lupine pain, and my heart skips a beat.
Taking a deep breath, I sprint to the trees.
I’ve been stumbling through snowdrifts for over an hour when a lone howl breaks the cold, white silence. Turning, I see a huge gray wolf limping towards me through the snow, leaving a bright red trail behind him. I run to the werewolf, wrapping my arms around his neck and hugging him tightly. It’s partly to get warm—I’m freezing—and partly…something else.
“Are you okay?” I ask.
The werewolf nods. The grizzly cannot harm you now. The blood dripping from his hind leg is his own, but I think the blood on his muzzle is bear blood.
I’m not sure what to say. “Thank you,” I say finally.
The werewolf curls his lip back in what I can only describe as a grin. That’s the first time I’ve heard you say that all night. Happy Thanksgiving, Billy.
I choke out a laugh that is almost a sob. “You too, Uncle Randall.”
Together, we stagger towards the highway, as the sun begins to rise.
Amy Clare Fontaine is a wildlife biologist and a wildly imaginative author of fiction, poetry, and games. Her short stories have been published in Daily Science Fiction, Zooscape, and Cosmic Roots and Eldritch Shores. Fox Spirit: A Two-Tailed Adventure, her interactive novel from Choice of Games, won the Leo Literary Award for Novels of 2020. She is currently working on another Choice of Games novel about magical equines. Discover more at www.amyclarefontaine.com.