It was the Sunday before the full moon.
I was driving down a road to nowhere, lost in my head. I was thinking about tradition, about how everyone was together and there’d be food on the table, so much food that even a wolf pack wouldn’t be able to eat it all. Mom would be in the kitchen, her radio playing old music. She’d be singing, I knew, singing in a way that felt like heartbreak.
Ox and Joe would be outside manning the grill. The air would be cool, the leaves of October gold and red and green. They’d be standing side by side, their shoulders brushing.
Rico and Tanner and Chris were setting up the table and chairs in the grass. They were stronger now, the three of them, Rico having taken to the wolf as if he had always been that way. They were laughing over some little thing, and Rico was trying to be subtle about getting his scent on his friends but failing miserably. Tanner and Chris gave him crap for it, but they hugged him, their cheeks rubbing together.
Jessie was putting Mark and Gordo to work, handing them dishes to carry outside. Gordo was scowling, but he didn’t mean it. It’d been a long time since he had. There was a light in his eyes, something bright and fierce, a fire that had been rekindled after a cold darkness. He stopped just outside of the back door and looked at all the others. His stump itched, but it always did, and he’d learned to ignore it. Phantom limb syndrome was a bitch, and there were days when he’d almost forget that he didn’t have a hand. He’d adapted. And when he thought no one was watching, he’d allow himself to smile.
“Good, right?” Mark whispered in his ear.
“Yeah,” he said roughly. “It’s good.”
Robbie and Kelly came around the side of the house, their hands joined.
My breath caught in my throat.
“Hey,” Kelly said.
I couldn’t speak.
“Carter?” He sounded concerned. “Are you okay?”
I shook my head.
He glanced at Robbie before nodding toward the table. Robbie kissed him on the cheek and left us alone.
“What’s wrong?” Kelly said in a low voice, even though it didn’t matter. Everyone would be able to hear us. Even Jessie.
“I don’t know,” I said. My throat felt raw, my eyes burning.
“That’s okay. You don’t always have to know.” He shook his head. “Sometimes we can be sad without having a reason. It’s part of being human.”
“We’re not human,” I reminded him.
He rolled his eyes. “You know what I mean.”
And then I said, “I’m not really here.”
“Of course you are,” he said. “Where else would you be?”
“Far away.”
“Why?”
Mom came out of the kitchen. She glanced at us curiously, and when she smiled, it felt like the sun. She left us alone.
“Hey,” Kelly said, and I looked back at him. “Come on.” He grabbed me by the hand and began pulling me toward the woods.
The sounds of the others faded behind us. I looked up through the canopy of the trees to see blue, blue, blue, and though it was faint, I could see the moon, not quite full, but close.
“Do you remember when we were kids?” Kelly asked, looking back at me over his shoulder. “Halloween. You were… seven. I think. Seven or eight. And for some reason you’d gotten it in your head that we needed to go trick-or-treating outside of Caswell. One of the other kids had told you that there was better candy at human houses.”
I was startled into laughter. “I forgot about that.”
He smiled. “You were so convinced. You demanded that Dad take us to these houses. You said he’d been holding out on us.”
“He tried to tell me once that we couldn’t eat chocolate. That it was bad for us. Like dogs.”