The widower's wife wanted to die under moonlight in her natural form then be cremated before the townspeople could see the truth. The old man obliged, carrying her body toward the river and mountain. He watched her frail, sickly limbs transform one final time into their full power, skin melting, bones cracking, teeth and snout spreading. She was too weak to be dangerous. In the years of full moons they'd shared, he never asked questions about where she went and she never apologized. The scent of forgiveness was always strong on him and sated her hunger the way no flesh ever could. Her final howl wasn't to other wolves or to warn the land of her presence, but so her husband could have one final memory until they met again. He watched the flames until their tips curled into roses and he realized the fire was empty.

*

A year later a young woman ran through the forest to avoid her captor. Whenever she tried to scream, her voice caught in her throat like a rock. She stumbled over a sharp set of teeth sitting among the summer leaves. Her captor clasped her neck and straddled her chest, his erection piercing her cleavage. Suddenly, the full moon became terrifying and so did she. Her fangs and nails sharpened into salvation, fur as tough as she had always wanted to be. His body slid off hers like rain. She'd devour him down to his screams. It wasn't the taste of blood that fed her, but the fact that he'd assumed her fear and pain.

*

The woman renamed herself Slate because hers was clean. She joined a wolfpack, nursing the young and lying with the alpha. One morning, on her way back to her pack, Slate noticed the widower laying a bouquet of baby's breath where she'd been reborn. Near the teeth, river, and mountain. He spoke about how moles kept burrowing into the strawberry garden, how he'd found enough threads of hair around the house to braid a bracelet for himself. How the snow and coal of her hair matched the curves of the mountains, which he still thought about moving to. This could only be a lover, Slate knew. She leaned behind a fir tree, savoring each word's sadness. The morning was still cold, smoke coming off the river in whispers, wren and thrush birds weaving the sky with song, everything shaded in arctic, bark digging between her toes. She'd forgotten what home sounded like until she heard the widower's voice.

*

On each full moon she hunted in places reeking of men's sins. A priest reading the crimes of a woman about to be burned at the stake. A farmer who accused his wife of adultery and beat her to satisfy his paranoia. A group of drunken libertines laughing about their time in a whorehouse. A teenage boy who took his sister's scarf and gave it to his lover. The siblings rolled around near the brush outside their house. The boy straddled his sister and pinned her hands above her head. Slate scratched the girl's chest in order to shove the boy off and relieve him of his arms. The children's screams warned the town of the wolf's presence and made Slate's rage grow stronger. None of it helped; only deepened the wound.

*

Every morning Slate watched the widower fix two plates of breakfast and talk to an empty chair. Fried egg, blood sausage, toast, and roasted tomatoes. Had that been his wife's favorite meal? Afterwards he went out back to his garden to turn the soil. She could smell the carrots forming in the earth, the stems branching from their seed, juice filling the strawberries. Seeing his peace brought out her own, made her wish that she could be tended the way the garden could. The scent of forgiveness was always by the widower's side, where she wanted to be.

*

Women in town noticed that all the attacks were near the forest and that the widower was the only man unscathed. Gossip spread about the circumstances surrounding his wife's disappearance. When their fear inflated to conviction, they armed themselves with night, pitchforks, and bibles to go kill the man. Their sons and husbands stayed behind for safety, while the new priest sent the women off with a prayer and holy water. Upon seeing the silent, benign cottage, they were beyond words, pouring tar on the porch and setting the man's home ablaze.

Slate smelled the fire next to her forgiveness and raced through the woods. As she roared the mob apart, holy water and silver stung her body, but it didn't matter. It felt good to be punished, to be seen for what she'd become. Still, she had to save the old man. The flames whipped at her mane as she jumped through the door and found him at peace in bed, as if he'd been waiting to surrender to fire and moonlight.

*

They rode into the mountains, where the widower tended to Slate's wounds. Something about the spicy-musk of her shoulders reminded him of his wife. When Slate was better, they built a house overlooking the forests on either side of the mountain. Sometimes they talked about the small, dark lives that nature hid, theirs and other people's. The moon still called to her as the widower knew it would. When Slate left the mountains, he didn't ask where she went and there were no apologies when she returned.


.