Giles was a mama’s boy and no one thought he would amount to much, either. He didn’t have many interests and seemed content to just watch the world go by, most of the time, or get absorbed in mundane things that just looked idiotic to his father and many of his minders. As he got older, he grew to love nature, and at a certain age started taking long walks in the woods. Nobody minded, really, but they did feel annoyed by his self-possession and lack of interest in “normal” things, nonetheless.
It was about the age of thirteen that he was bitten. He was on a walk deep in the forest, farther than he normally went, and he was mapping the area for himself in his own code, marking and naming the trees, rock formations, and other notable details of the wood. It was getting late, he realized from the height of the sun, although he did have to remind himself what month it was and whether it was late or early, when he saw the wolf. He just turned a corner and looked up from his map and it was standing in the path, growling at him. Knowing that wolves were often not alone, he glanced in a few directions to gage his safety. Running was a bad idea, he knew that. Also, where would he go?
He tried to maintain eye contact and was surprised to feel a warm shot of sensation running along his spine, like a message or a communiqué. It told him to relax and let it happen. That’s what he remembered, “Relax and let it happen.” It was a fully formed thought that entered his mind like a statement. Giles remembered his shoulders dropping, the fear not leaving him, but settling into a comfortable place, and the wolf walked up to him and bit him on the leg. Giles cried out in pain, but the wolf wasn’t devouring him or trying to kill him. It just stood over him, the rank fur, the intense eyes, the strong breath from its nose and mouth, panting. Then its ears pricked up and it ran away.
Giles cleaned the wound in a stream he limped to and tied his shirt around it. When he finally limped out of the wood, he was freezing from being half-naked, the sun was fully down and a small search party was making its way to the wood. They cried out as he emerged, and carried him back to the village. Giles was swooning, and it only got stronger, worse, the more he was fed and warmed by fires and given water to drink.
Melinda, the spinster who had always smiled at him with kind eyes, was nearby. He could hear his father cursing his name, and his mother saying that she knew he was stupid, but this was the last straw. When Melinda saw Giles stir, she moved to him quietly and gently asked him questions. “Did it speak to you?” Giles looked at her, backlit by the fire, so kind and warm and intelligent. “Did it warn you first? It did me.” Even though he was swooning with strange sensations, he couldn’t believe what she was saying. He hadn’t spoken yet, had he? Was he speaking in his sleep? “Was I talking in my sleep?” he managed to make out in desperate curiosity. “No, child. I saw the mark.”
Melinda pulled the blanket aside to show his leg, which was wounded, but scarring in a strange way, there were wiry hairs, and it didn’t look bloody. “The change will be hard, but once you are through it, I’ll run with you. It might be best if you come to live with me.” Giles tried to speak, to make sense of what he was hearing. “I’ll tell your parents I need a worker to live with me and help with the chickens. I suspect they will be relieved to get you off of their hands. It costs a lot to feed a boy. They’ll see you are fine, it won’t feel like they are selling you off to parts unknown.” She smoothed the hair from his forehead, he felt a wave of nausea and heat coming through him. Melinda was already moving a bucket to his bedside. “It’s going to be strange and scary, but when you are on the other side, just remember that I’ll be there.”
The images he saw in his mind were frightening and intense, running through the woods, ripping animals to shreds with his mouth, and the moon - the great, big moon shining down from above. He needed to be closer to the moon, he ran up the slope, scrambling up the rocks to a promontory, there it was clear, there he could see the big sky and the big mother moon shining down upon him and he threw back his head and howled and howled and howled.
October 3, 2022