Red Moon Rising

1. shadow

Chapter Song: You're a Wolf - Sea Wolf

XX

Tyler is fucking fast. Every now and then I glimpse a flash of his eyes through the bushes as they catch the light of the big red moon. He knows I'm following him and keeps a space of thick underbrush between us, dodging behind trees to try to lose me. But I've done this before, and he doesn't know these woods like I do.

For a moment, he dashes out of sight and I feel my heart lurch at the sudden loss of contact. I pause and listen. The trees are silent tonight like never before—no birds, no skittering mice, no wind. I catch his clumsy, frantic footsteps easily and bolt in his direction, understanding suddenly where he's going. It's his first time this deep in the territory, and he doesn't know he's driving himself toward a cliff. I slow in the hopes that he'll ease up and realize that he's reached the jagged shoreline before he plunges off the edge. I won't be able to save him from the water below. It wouldn't be the first time someone went off the edge during a full moon, but I promised Tyler's parents that I would bring him back safely, and I don't intend to offer them their son's shattered body instead.

I turn to reach the shoreline before he does, and I break through the trees to where the red glow of the moon cuts sharp shadows along the cliffs. For as long as I can remember, I've never seen Lake Superior so still. The sky is empty and quiet, and the water looks like fire and death. I've never seen a moon so red despite such a clear sky. The full moon always makes my skin crawl, but not like this one. It isn't just me, either; I can sense Tyler's restless gait as he stumbles to a halt a few hundred feet ahead of me, where the cliffs begin to slope and roll down to the water's edge. He's panting hard, his ears flattening in terror as he sees me. I wish that I could speak to him, but he wouldn't understand. He's all animal now, all fur and fear. Tyler bares his teeth but doesn't move. He's just a kid, and as fast as he may be, he isn't used to running like this for so long. It's been two hours since he shifted, and I'm sure he's exhausted. Hell, I'm exhausted.

Above us, the edge of the earth's shadow has just begun to graze the moon. The place where red and black collide looks like a blaze in the sky, and it makes a shiver roll up my spine. Tyler whimpers and looks up; even as an animal, he understand what's hurting him. I remember how much it hurts in the beginning, and I wish I could comfort him. But he's as alone as we all were at the start. Tyler doesn't move, but he's quivering as if pushed by the wind, though the air is deadly calm. And then he begins to crumple, and before long he's just a pile of shaking fur on the day-warmed rocks.

I crouch and feel the nauseous shiver of the transition until my hands are pressing against stone and my knees scrape up dark red moss, jaw aching as sharp teeth recede and fade. The eclipse will last three hours, and in Tyler's state he's no threat to me in my human form. I'm used to walking barefoot over pine needles and lake rock, and the wind-cut ledges of the shoreline don't hurt my feet like they used to as I make my way to the little black wolf.

"Tyler," I whisper, his whimpers cutting hard into my chest. He snaps at my hand when I reach for him, but then another tremor racks his body and he doesn't try to resist when I smooth the bristled fur along his neck. "I'm right here with you, bud. It's going to be okay."

Because of the eclipse, the poor kid will go through two transitions in one night. Sunrise and sunset are quick and violent, but an eclipse is always a drawn out affair, a slow and brutal cracking of bone and refiguring of unwilling anatomy. It doesn't matter how many times I've shifted myself—it always makes me a little sick to watch it happen to someone else. At thirty minutes into the eclipse he has one hand and the lower part of a human jaw, which his top teeth cut into mercilessly. Soon he has Tyler's eyes, and his growl begins to take on the pitch of a nine year old boy. I glance up at the moon to find only a sliver left. Tonight's full eclipse will last six minutes and thirty-two seconds. It will have to be enough. As the last shadow of the earth slips over the moon, all that remains is a rust brown shadow in the sky. Tyler drags in a breath and lets out a scream.

"Tyler!" I take him by the shoulders and drag him to me despite his kicking and frantic attempts to bite my hand. "Tyler, it's okay, I've got you, it's okay." He stills at my voice and looks up in terror before shoving his head into my neck and wrapping his arms around me like a monkey.

"Layla," he sobs, though his words are so muffled by his tears I can barely make it out. "Layla." He peels himself away from me suddenly and falls to his knees, vomiting the peas and meatloaf his mom had served us for dinner.

"Tyler, I need you to listen to me, okay? I know it hurts right now but I need you to listen."

Tyler wipes his mouth with the back of his hand and turns to me, his shoulders shaking and his face looking a little green. "Layla, I don't want to go back."

"I know, but it's going to happen. I'm so sorry, buddy. But it's going to be over soon, and when you wake up you'll feel better. Are you ready to listen?" He nods and curls himself against me, his naked body looking scrawny and breakable in the rust-red light. "I want you to try what we practiced. I know it really hurts, but you can't fight it. Just let it happen and breath like I showed you."

"Watermelon," he says, and he has the faintest smile.

"Exactly, just breath like the shape of a watermelon, and count each time you reach the top and bottom."

"I don't want to go back," he says again, and I hold his head of sweaty curls and kiss his forehead.

"I'm going to be here with you the whole time, even though you won't know me. I promise I won't let anything happen to you." I hug him one more time as I feel his shoulders tighten with the first wrack of pain. A sliver of fiery moon has begun to burn again, and Tyler screws his eyes shut. "It's not going to hurt like this forever. I was twelve when I learned to control it, and you're a lot smarter than me so I bet it won't take you that long."

"That's...three more years," Tyler sobs. A broken screech cuts through his voice and I take a step away. My presence will only frighten his wolf and make it harder for him to remember his breathing. When he was younger, he'd ride out the transition with the other little ones in the safety of the lodge. But he's getting too big for that now, and last full moon he attacked another kid and nearly bit his ear off. I tried to convince the elders to keep him inside during the eclipse, but they didn't want any other injures, and I can't argue with that. I just wish his first time transitioning on the outside wasn't during an eclipse.

As soon as the moon has broken past the earth's shadow, Tyler scrambles up on all fours and flashes his teeth at me before slinking into the undergrowth. I sink back into wolf form and trot after him. With this nose, the smell of puke clinging to his fur leaves a vivid trail to track. He's running straight for the border, but hours of running and shifting have slowed him down considerably, and before long I'm paced evenly alongside him. I charge him, pushing his path to arc away from the border and back toward the heart of our territory. That is my most important job, to not let him pass the boundaries of our pack land and wriggle through the barbed wire fence into open season. The full moon brings rifles and leghold traps—or worse, wire cages. They know that wolves who are still animal enough to stumble across the pack boundary are just kids, and they don't care. They would turn Tyler into a hat as a Christmas gift, and they would think it was fucking funny.

Tyler is still pushing for the border until I lunge in front of him, snapping my teeth until he scatters back the way he came, kicking pine needles and rocky earth into my face. I follow him back into our territory, feeling like I'm being watched, as I always do when I turn my back to the border. The moon is sinking low now, and before long it will be faded by sunrise and Tyler will come back to himself. I'll be there when he does. We're barely keeping a light jog now, and I'm careful not to get too close so Tyler doesn't overrun himself.

It's only because I've slowed down now that I notice the way the moon glints strangely off pine-needle covered rocks. When I take another step to follow Tyler, my eyes are caught by the quick flash of a curved metal surface, and I trip over myself in an attempt to avoid crushing my ankle in a set of jagged metal hidden beneath a spray of pine needles. It's a leg hold trap—the kind of trap that's only good for immobilizing prey until a bullet can finish the job.

XX

Sooo in honor of the lunar eclipse tonight I'm posting the first chapter! Let me know what you think!

So jealous of you lucky folks who get to see the full eclipse – I'll only see part of it. Have a great week everyone!