Outside the Alice Kroll Retirement Home, I tilted my head and squeezed the first drops into my nose. Then the Home’s doors, painted something like vanilla cake batter, disappeared. I’d tried other things over the years—tequila, lemon juice, tabasco, vinegar—but gin still seemed to work the best. The nose napalm let me stand the smell of the place. It reeked, like meat-rot and sweaty clothes, and I didn’t bet that would improve anytime soon.

The opposite.

I punched the buzzer, nearly pissing with nervousness. What if in my first solo run I got caught? It always took a moment for the lock to unclick and the door to whirr open. I appreciated the time to rub my eyes.

Karen Bell, the Home’s director, stepped into the doorway. She wore a hunter-green suit, which, like a lot of her outfits, swelled around her chest and hips. A pitying expression spread across her face. “Mr. Cardoza—”

“It’s just Jimmy.”

“I’m so sorry—”

“I know. Thanks.”

“We all feel it’s so wonderful that you’ll be taking over for ... that you’ll be taking over these visits.”

“Is she ready?”

Bell grimaced. “Of course. Lucia? Lucia, your grandson is here.”

I tried to slide through the doors, pulling up my bandana, but Bell stalled me with a palm. She nodded at the fabric around my neck. “What are you doing?”

I paused with the bandana millimeters from my nostrils. “COVID. Just doing what they say on the news. Did you see Seattle? China?”

Bell glanced at the bandana again, but then backed from the entrance. “We don’t have any cases in the county, maybe not the state, and certainly not here ... Anyway, here’s Lucia.”

Grams, my dad’s mother, twitched as an attendant wheeled her through the doorway. It was going to be one of her bad days, I could tell already, even if I barely knew her, had avoided visiting since the Alzheimer’s had finally forced Dad to put her here. My nose had stopped burning and my eyes had stopped watering, but my stomach began to fill with something nasty.

Life sucks, Dad had once told me, after a long day at the fertilizer lab. Buy a filter.

And don’t count on traffic always stopping at red lights—I suppose he should have added that one too.

Hours later, a fallen tree blocked the ruts leading to our campsite. I parked the Buick and moved the log, sweating. Afterwards, snow fell into the headlights as we crept deeper into the forest, reminding me that here in the magical Great Plains winter was just picking up steam and wouldn’t wind down for months.

When I’d retrieved the sleeping bag from the trunk, Grams leaned on her window, black and grey hair mashed against the glass. The last of the sunlight caught saliva sliding down the pane. I could almost taste it.

Quickly, I spread the bag beneath a big pine and grabbed Grams. I carried her to the tree, like Dad had said—between yelling at me during the last few years for not helping more—and laid her on her side. With tremors in my fingers, I began to unfasten the buttons on the back of her gown.

With the undressing done, I folded her clothes and piled them next to the chain I’d unloaded earlier. With a step back into the campsite’s center, I started pulling off my own clothes in the bitter air.

*     *     *
A month later, as I pulled into the garage, I eyed some of my camping gear. I used to be a trail rat, hiked all the time, was even making plans for a trip to Lake Superior, to Isle Royale, a basically people-less park where real live wolf packs still ran around. But then I’d gotten the call about the car accident. Instead of the trip, I moved into Mom and Dad’s big house and took on care of Grams. Her monthly, overnight trips from the Home. Nights under the full moon.

But that day when I tried to pick up Grams, Director Bell stood in my way. She didn’t wear a mask, if a few of the residents now had them dangling from earlobes.

“Mr. Cardoza, it’s less than thirty out. Don’t you think Lucia would enjoy a jacket if she must go outside?”

“We’re just going to the car. I’ve got heat.”

Bell maintained her position. I wrapped my coat around Grams, which she immediately drooled on. Bell took Grams by the cheeks and looked into her eyes, but before I could say anything, let go.

In the parking lot, a tall nurse with curled hair finished locking an old Camaro. She froze.

“Hi,” I said.

She didn’t say anything.

“Hi,” I repeated.

Without a word, she hurried inside.

Later that night, I returned to our campsite from pissing and found a dog—someone’s dog, it had a ragged collar—sniffing at Grams. She lay on her werewolf back, legs split wide, paws hovering, while the dog panted at her crotch.

After I tore out the regular dog’s guts and nearly ripped its head from its body, I tossed it into the creek. Its torso, so much smaller than our werewolf bodies, plopped into the water and its skull thudded against a stone. When I got back to Grams, she rolled from side to side, her snout smashing into the snow, whining.

“You ...” I growled, but stopped. Instead, I slunk across the clearing and curled into a ball.

*     *     *
A month later, headed into the Home, Bell stopped me again. A surgical mask hung from her ears.

“Can’t I come in?” I said, pulling up my own mask. Bell waved me in sharply.

Inside, my eyes ran to the attendant who joined us. Even in her head scarf, goggles, and mask, her clipboard-holding hands dressed in gloves, I could tell it was the tall nurse.

“Lucia,” Bell said, “is in no condition to be taken out, Mr. Cardoza.”

My chest tightened. “Did she test positive? Does she have—”

Bell gave me the ugliest of expressions. “Lucia is fine. Everyone here is fine. And lower your voice. Don’t you think TV and Facebook scare these people enough?”

“Then what’s the problem?” I glanced away from Bell, instead nodding jerkily to the nurse. “Lucia Cardoza. Please?”

The nurse’s eyes narrowed, but then, for whatever miracle, she headed off.

Bell huffed. “Your grandmother may be healthy, but she’s not well. And your father may have had his traditions, but it’s freezing rain out there. Pick another day, won’t you? Why does it have to be today? Your father would at least have brought an umbrella. And he showed up more than—”

“He’s dead.”

Bell reached for the crucifix at her neck as the nurse returned with Grams. I grabbed the wheelchair, slowing only to snatch an umbrella leaning against the entrance.

When I got home the next day, my roommate already had his PlayStation controller in hand, orange-red hair puffed up. He dragged on his bowl before calling out to me. “Hey, some older chick stopped by last night. From your grandma’s nursing home. Wanted to know where you were.”

My chest constricted. Again.

At Alice Kroll the next day, Bell agreed to talk, though she made us sit in the lobby. I explained that I, like Dad, took Grams for a long car ride each month before finding a place to stay. I even told Bell the story Grams had told me before her mind went bad. Grams had been born before most people owned cars, at least where our family lived, and her dad was one of the first in the neighborhood to get one, a sleek silver Ford. My great-grandfather had taken Grams and her mom and sister out in the car only now and then—the Ford was for him, he’d said—but when he did, he’d take them for long drives, far enough that they’d need to eat in a restaurant and even sometimes stay in a motel. I hadn’t remembered the story in a long time, but I said that I, we, thought that the once-a-month ride and the new place to sleep might give Grams some comfort, still.

Whether Bell bought it or not, she smiled. She even assured me that should financing become an issue, she’d personally sit down with me and figure out what could be done. Grams’ best interests, after all, were all of our best interests. She rose but paused.

“Think that works?” she said, pointing at my mask.

“It’s got to, right? They closed the schools, did you hear?”

“Hmmph,” she grunted and walked away.

*     *     *
A long month later, spring coming on for real, I watched Grams in the moonlight. She always moved better, seemed better, as a werewolf. In that moment, I felt really guilty about the chain. If she ran off, or if I had to chase something ... Dad had said the chain was a terrible compromise.

Grams got hold of something, pouncing and biting, and as I looked over—

—I saw something moving in the trees just beyond our clearing.

I jumped up. They found you, you fuck-up! But my muscles moved for me, low and fast.

The intruder halted between two trees.

It was wolf.

Black and silver, more Grams’ size than mine, it must have stalked us.

And it isn’t just a wolf.

It was one of us. Another werewolf.

I’d never seen one outside my family—honestly, sometimes, I hadn’t believed Dad and Mom about there being others.

The other werewolf stared at me, but shifted to Grams, who looked up, chain rattling. The other wolf stiffened. It swung back fast, gaze drilling into mine.

Though my sense of smell was blunted by years of gin, Adderall, and everything else I’d shoved up my snout, I suddenly recognized a few scents. First, the black and silver werewolf was female; second, it was horrified. The aromas reminded me of lessons from Mom and Dad. Ugly ones.

The new werewolf darted its gaze to something behind me and suddenly dashed away. I wanted to run after her, to tackle her, to ask her questions, but the rattle of the chain held me. My anger and fear faded though. It was okay, because of what I’d just seen.

It had to be that euphoria that kept me from wondering what had caused the black and silver werewolf to run off. It had to be that same dope of possibility that caused me to miss the night’s other intruder entirely.

*     *     *
Bell called me on the phone the next morning, not minutes after I’d dropped off Grams. In the background, it sounded like attendants moved in rapid, freaked-out paces. A patient screamed.

As Bell started talking, my lingering elation drained away.

“Don’t ever think of taking her out of here again.”

“Is she sick? Are people getting si—?"

“Hail Mary, full of grace. Dear Lord, I do not know what you are, or what you are doing to your grandmother, but I was there last night. I saw you. God will see to you, you ... thing. I’ll see to that. For now, though, I’ll protect Lucia and God will help me. And you will not come here.”

More shouts sounded from the background. My mind raced. Shamed, I thought about Dad.

“Director Bell, I’m not sure what you’re—”

“Don’t you speak to me. Go talk to God. Talk to God, if he’ll listen to you.”

*     *     *
Within a day, the Alice Kroll Retirement Home went into lockdown. A day later, despite the mayor’s protests, my distribution center shut down too. I spent my nights on Uber Eats delivery runs, so distracted, leaving packages at the wrong doors. The days I spent refreshing the news, especially the local papers. My phone sat next to me. After half a week, I resolved to call the Home, to try to talk to Bell.

Before I could, my phone buzzed, the ID reading “Grams.”

I steeled myself: Bell had finally decided on a plan.

But it wasn’t Bell who spoke.

It was Grams.

“Javier,” she whispered, calling me by my father’s name. “Javier, are you there?”

I stood. “It’s me, Grams. It’s Jimmy, your grandson. Are you okay? I—”

“Jimmy,” she said, then paused. It was one of her clear days, had to be, one of the ones that just popped up out of nowhere. “Of course, Jimmy, mi nieto.” Her hushed voice quickened. “Jimmy, I need to tell you something.”

“About Bell? Is she—”

“Hush. I was just thinking of your padre, of what I told him. Did he tell you?”

“What?”

“We were wolves first, Jimmy, did you know that? We were always wolves first.”

I felt myself freak. “Grams, stop! Someone will—”

“Be quiet. It’s fine. But listen, things are bad here and I want to leave. I want to be with the wolves. We can do that, you know? Being people, that happened a long time ago. We had to, but we’re wolves first, so we can join them, I know we can. And I don’t want to be here, Jimmy. I don’t want to die here. I want to be with the wolves.”

My mouth went slack.

“Jimmy, did your father tell you? Did he?”

Dad had not.

A new voice shouted from the background. Bell. The connection closed with a pop. A minute later the phone buzzed again. I held it as if it were radioactive. After the third buzz, the ID again reading “Grams,” I accepted.

“Jimmy,” the new voice said, female and younger. “Jimmy Cardoza, you there?”

I said nothing.

“I’m Simone. A nurse. I saw you. I saw you in the woods.”

“Saw?”

“Yes. Listen, we’ve got to talk. I heard Bell talking about you and your grandmother, not to anyone, she talks to herself ... Anyway, she knows, you idiot. How could ... Anyway, she hasn’t told anyone, but she’s working up to something. Will you meet me? Will you?”

“Yes,” I said. I couldn’t feel my body. “Yes.”

*     *     *
Simone, the tall nurse, and I met for a beer outside the town’s hipster bar, where the axes were for throwing, not woodcutting. Cool and windy, we had our drinks outside, as the new regulations required. Simone was a traveling nurse who’d been on the move from Seattle since the pandemic’s beginning. She’d made her way as far east as Alice Kroll on six-week contracts, filling hot-spot gaps as regulars stopped showing up or got sick. She’d also been choosing her assignments deliberately, looking to study COVID as she prepared to become a medical researcher someday.

What she told me about Alice Kroll, though, proved much more personal. I’d been banned. At least, that’s what I heard. What she really said was that I’d been banned, as had anyone, from removing Grams or any of the residents from the Home. Bell had told the staff that no one could leave the grounds now, even if their families wished. Though only a few cases had popped up within the Home, they couldn’t endanger the residents by exposing them to inadequate care outside. The only specific mention of Lucia Cardoza came at the end, when Bell mentioned quietly, as if deeply saddened, that Lucia had an unstable grandson, maybe an agitator. She’d hired security, for the residents she said, to keep them safe.

“She can’t keep people there,” I said. “It’s not a prison. And what the fuck is an ‘agitator’? I’m no—"

Simone splashed beer on me.

“What the ...” I started but halted because of Simone’s absolute stillness.

“Once a month?” she said, barely hushing her snarl. “Once a month? Every month?”

Shame filled my forehead. I scrambled for memories of Dad and the flush worsened, recalling him heading out for mini-visits at least every other week. “You were there? At the campsite?”

Simone nodded. “Smelled Bell across the clearing. How did you not?”

“I ...” I started to say, thinking to explain what I’d done to my nostrils just to keep going to work, to the Home. “I suck.”

Simone went quiet for a moment. “Well?”

“Well, what?”

“What are we going to do?” We’ve got to plan something quickly—this moon cycle is the shortest of the year. But we shouldn’t do it here. You coming?”

I drove, following Simone’s Camaro, and thought about the call with Grams. I crashed that call together with other memories, new thoughts starting to form.

At Simone’s apartment complex, I let my thoughts alone for a while. What I learned instead was that maybe we didn’t really wait. It was much different than the other girls I’d been with, our muscles, as they moved, feeling more like fighting bands of bridge cable infused with blood. After, long after, holding her, I returned to my new thoughts.

We’re wolves first.

I whispered to Simone and she whispered back. The why of starting to walk upright in human skin was obvious; the how now fascinated us, based on Grams’ words. We tried to transform right there, without the full moon. Simone said she thought she felt something, but she remained in human skin. I tried and definitely felt something but didn’t transform either. Still, what we felt fascinated us.

When I told Simone my plan, she hesitated. The first part was dead clear to both of us, the only wonder being how far we’d be willing to take it. The second part, though, Simone remained unconvinced of right through the rise of the next full moon. Even on our way, I wasn’t sure she’d go along with it. For that part, though, I thought Grams might help.

*     *     *
Glass shattered. After we burst through the windows, our claws scraped tile floors reeking of bleach. Plastic draped over furniture and taped around doorways fluttered as we ran past. People screamed.

There hadn’t been protests or riots in South Dakota, definitely not our town, but when the hollers went up inside Alice Kroll, staff and security leaping into chase, I imagined it might have been similar. A security guard in a gas mask tried to block our path. For all his gusto, his mace shot wide and his taser shot low as Simone pounced on a desk and I sped around behind him. He couldn’t decide which of us to attack, swinging this way and that until he screeched at the Achilles tendon I ripped out. We darted to Grams’ room, finding a nurse backing out of it, just a little thing in a face shield, screaming and tripping before scrambling in the other direction.

Inside, Bell stood with one hand making the sign of the cross with her crucifix while the other pointed a small pistol. As I slowed to stalk into the room, I wondered if she’d loaded it with silver. I doubted she need it, assuming lead smashing through our ribcages and organs would do the trick, but I wondered. Across the room, Grams stood on all fours on the bed, digging knots into her sheets. She lashed a paw at her window, not strong enough to break it, but able to make deep scratches, the kind that said that with enough time she might make it out.

Before Bell could decide to fire or flee, I cut her off. For the first time, she also wore a mask: a baby-blue number stamped with orange and white Corgis. I paused as Simone slipped in, pivoted, and blocked the doorway. When Bell stayed put, I dropped low and advanced, pushing her into the bed where she buckled and dropped to her knees.

“Do it. Do it, Jimmy.” Her two clutched weapons went limp. “Do it if you’re going to, because I can’t let you go either.”

When I stayed still, she started to raise the little pistol.

I lunged to the side, offline from the gun, and then into Bell.

My jaws found the pistol and her hand. When I bit, she exhaled hard enough to flare the top of her mask from the bridge of her nose, eyes growing to bulbs. I crunched the bones and nerves of her wrist, though released before severing them completely. Bell sucked in breath, wetting a Corgi before fainting. I bounded onto the bed.

I nudged Grams to the side and then unwrapped all my limbs at once. The glass gave way easily, shattering into stars. Suddenly the gardens and the dark plains were there, smelling in the breeze, and as we ran, I spit away Bell’s flesh.

I wasn’t even disgusted by it; I was too excited.

*     *     *
We traveled at night in Simone’s Camaro, holding up during the day in badlands motels. The motels catered to folks who wanted to stay off the grid and the food proved surprisingly good. Never go to chain restaurants when rolling across America; you’ll get a better deal and better meal at local places. The trip took a day longer than normal, using backroads and detours to avoid cops, but soon enough we hit Minnesota and soon after that the lakeshore.

Simone was sure someone was coming—the law, maybe even the Feds—hunting us for attempted murder, assault, kidnapping, inciting terror, and probably even breaking quarantine. She watched the mirrors intensely when not searching the paper maps we used, cell phones left behind. I wasn’t so sure. I’d Googled the local papers from a motel-lobby computer. Wild Animals Attack Nursing Home: Staff Fear Rabies + COVID. Maybe a fake story while DHS armored up and sent helicopters? Maybe, but I just wasn’t as worried as Simone. Instead, I focused on us three, the plan, and excitement, which only peaked when we saw the first boat splashing out towards Isle Royale.

The big steel ferries out of Copper Harbor and Grand Portage had shut down for the pandemic, but the Park remained open, if mostly un-Rangered. Private charter planes and boats had filled the ferries’ gap, sauntering back and forth across the cold lake and landing at Windigo and Rock Harbor, the only serviceable ports on the wild island. We couldn’t afford the seaplanes, so we hired an old woman with pirate tattoos we found in a bar, a captain who said fewer words to us than the number of bills we piled in her hand.

We rode on the stern’s bench, Simone holding Grams on one side while I held the other. Four hours into the five-hour trip, Simone remained quiet, staring at our wake in the setting sun. Grams, who’d we’d dressed in hiking gear better suited to someone six decades younger, appeared as nothing more than hair and a nose peeking out of a hoodie. I had to keep silencing her low mumbles and growls, especially when the captain looked back from the wheel and then to the shotgun by her seat.

When we reached Windigo’s dock, a portly ranger, maybe in her early twenties, a college kid probably grateful for a job, came out to meet us. Her uniform, including her hat, sunglasses, mask, and gloves, hid everything about her. She waited to talk to us until a second boat unloaded, a group of thin and tattooed guys and girls with dreaded hair and hefty packs jumping onto the dock. They got really quiet at the sight of the ranger’s NPS badge. Trail rats—I smiled and scoffed, Simone throwing me a look.

One of the trail junkies offered a question: “Hey, how do we fight wolves? You know ... if they attack?”

The ranger shook her featureless hat, glasses, and mask. “They keep to the center of the Isle. They might see you, but you won’t see them.”

As the trail rats messed with each other, the ranger explained that since we’d chosen to stay the night we were on our own and better have prepared. She hopped onto the second boat and departed, the trail junkies snaking up the path to the Visitor Center, likely for one last fill of drinkable water. We headed in the opposite direction, straight for the island’s center, Simone on one side of Grams, me on the other.

Hours later, miles of slow progress over rocks covered in moss, fallen branches, and acre upon acre of brush, the sun disappeared below the treetops. Quickly, maybe more quickly than ever before, we shifted forms in the twilight, following Grams’ lead and barely having time to hide our clothes and packs in a recess under some small boulders. Meanwhile, a fat, rainbow-ringed moon rose in the sky.

Even after the shift, our progress remained hard. Grams padded forward, totally able to walk on her own, but she often strayed from a straight line. We urged her to the middle of the rocky backbone running the Isle’s center. It rapidly got darker—and louder, wildlife of all kinds screeching awake. As time passed, the occasional breeze, the purity of it, nearly buckled me. How powerful would it have been if I hadn’t spent all those years trying to numb my nose into nothingness? Even Simone’s senses seemed to startle her, evident in the sudden ticks of her snout. We eventually fatigued, except Grams, who, despite her off-course wandering, showed no sign of tiring. Her resolve picked us all up.

When we came to a ridge and a vast deadfall, a giant spider’s web of brown and black branches sagging away from the rocky crest, Grams stumbled. She yelped as she rolled, crushing sticks and breaking boughs. With one frantic glance, Simone and I bounded down after, having to fight to keep from falling.

When we reach the deadfall’s pit, Grams rolled on her back, paws in the air.

Then she erupted with the loudest howl I’d ever heard.

We cautiously moved towards her, testing each step. I arrived first, nuzzling Grams’ shoulder, urging her to roll upright. She growled, hackles risen, but got to her feet, seeming okay. I went to guide her towards a climbable path, but froze, suddenly feeling Simone having not caught up.

I swished around and found Simone yards away, pointing the way we’d come. And up. When I saw what she did, chills and heat filled me at the same time.

On the ridge above the deadfall, its dark fur nearly the same color as the forest’s shadows, stood a wolf, a large male. And with movements so quiet I wasn’t sure I actually heard them, other wolves joined.

The wild wolves stared down at us. We, the werewolves, stared back. Even Grams, cursed gods knew how, fell silent, but just as I attempted to bow my head to the large wolf—still not quite as large as Grams, Simone, or me—Grams ended her silence. She unleashed another earsplitting howl, so violent and ringing I had to turn my head. In the same moment, the night and the deadfall suddenly erupted with shadows surging downwards.

Fur, claws, teeth, and glimmering eyes mixed in the moonlight as the pit exploded with battle. Vision split into flashes while my hide was flayed. I spun and bit, then flipped around and slashed some more, thrashing at several attackers at once. Whenever I pushed one of the little killers back, another attacked from the opposite side. Enraged, snarling, I twisted and twisted, fighting the moving darkness. Simone did the same, gnashing in the fray. Even Grams threw herself into the fight, rolling over and around with sometimes two of the wolves at a time, as spry as any of us, as wild and fierce—the woman I’d heard on the phone, saying she wanted to be with the wolves, not die in the Home.

Finally, the large wolf dove from his outcrop, aimed right at me. He was slower than I expected and much too light to attack me on his own, but still powerful. He got a good bite on my shoulder before rebounding and leaping again. This time, I caught him in midair and tossed him hard against a fallen trunk. The cracking that followed could have been his ribs or the dead tree, but either way, after a second of frenzied rolling, he rose, limped two steps, and bounded up the ridge. Simone pulled to my side, snarling. Within seconds, the other shadowy wolves followed, vaulting up the deadfall like salmon traversing a waterfall.

But rather than flee, they all turned and sat on the ridge, a dozen beastly forms staring back down at us.

Simone and I, both panting hard, snarled at them, even lunged up a few strides. But they stayed fixed and didn’t make a sound.

Eventually, while Simone still snapped at the wolves, blood flying from her jaws, I stopped. And looked around, for Grams.

When I found her, I felt like the wolves had ripped me open, that I bled my life into the night with no way to stop it.

On her back, hide shredded, throat torn to pieces, Grams lay still. Ragged fur and torn muscles revealed no breath being taken, only the sputter of blood onto the deadfall.

A cry, a true human shriek, threatened to release from my still-incensed lungs. But I heard movement from above: the large wolf, slowly, padded a bit downwards.

I couldn’t help myself; I leapt at him, mouth open and growling.

He pulled back, but another wolf, a large female, tried to descend from my right. She too came slowly and not aggressively, not like before. Simone drove her back before I could unleash.

The female leapt back to her perch, and Simone and I both quieted. But not one second later two more of the wolves tried to creep down the deadfall. They too came with bodies lowered and tails tucked, submissive and non-threatening. Simone and I drove them off, the one I tagged whimpering.

But just like the large male and female, the two new invaders just clambered back to the rim of the deadfall and sat, eyes on us, quiet.

Then six of the other wolves descended. They came in hushed, paw over paw strides, creeping more than stalking, easing towards the deadfall’s pit.

Simone and I tried to stop as many of them as we could, but the rest of the pack, another half-dozen, dropped into the pit beyond our reach.

And during one of my rotating, growling attacks, I saw where they were going.

What they were doing.

I snapped of a sharp bark in Simone’s direction. She looked at me, semi-crazed. She nipped at a nearby wolf, who jumped back, but then she stilled, eyes growing large.

The wolves we’d not held off had gathered in the deadfall’s center—around Grams’ body. Three, including the large male, sat near her corpse, snouts hung over Grams’ body as they whimpered and howled in low and almost matching tones, like a harmony.

Others dug.

Paws moving in quick but not hurried draws, several of the wolves, the large female included, pulled out streams of dirt from the deadfall’s bottom, where the branches were thin, the earth almost bare. Slowly, reverently, they dug a grave.

Simone whined a cry my way, whipping her snout from the singing wolves to the digging ones to those crouched in a circle around us. I eyed them and sniffed, but I didn’t catch any of the fight in them as before, no scents of hot aggression. Instead, I caught smells cool and sad and—in some way I bet I’d never be able to explain to a human—tribal.

With a short snout nod to Simone, I moved towards the digging wolves.

And joined them.

Simone, moments later, added herself to those standing watch, eventually matching the sounds of their guttural hymns.

When we completed the deed, I just sat. A few of the wild wolves walked back and forth at my sides, rubbing flanks and occasionally licking my snout. They did the same to Simone, who eventually joined them in nuzzling the fresh mound we’d built. All the wolves gave the grave a quick snout touch, even the big male. It looked at me after, while all the rest sat, even Simone.

With wobbling strides, I put my snout in the earth and said goodbye to Grams.

We stayed with the wild wolves for weeks after that. We learned from them, we shared with them, communicating in as basic of ways as possible, learning to speak on their terms, without words. Eventually Simone and I agreed we had to leave; we could visit with them, learn more from them, but we didn’t feel we belonged. Maybe in the future, maybe not, but we said our animal goodbyes and left.

We found the boulders where we’d hidden our packs and clothes, arriving just before an Autumn sunrise. It wasn’t a full moon, not close, and we shifted when we wanted to shift, without the moon’s say-so. In human form, we trekked to the docks, talking quietly, Simone finishing my thoughts.

The wolves, the Isle’s wolves, were not all wolves, any more than we were all of what our kind had to offer, or any people or family or town. Many other packs roamed out there, including those not yet formed. Maybe we’d pick up Simone’s old path, head east as the pandemic wormed its way to its eventual end. Because it would end someday, Simone was sure of that, just as I was sure that afterward the world would be different, or at least would be ripe to be different. And in that ripeness, it would be fruit for new worms—or other things, better things. It simply depended which arrived first, and with the deepest hunger.