The New Moon Mate

top, and the headlights slid off the office

ot put it away. "You were there," I

es

t prop

and there was a smudge of dirt along his jaw. "I was in the field behind the old mill road. It was a new moon. I

s not a

s said. "H

my legs were not interested in hold

brother, and he was not winning.

lki

id. "Not out loud. In the h

in for dinner until the day she died, and Owen had used it to tell me jokes across a crowded yard when

re they

ine to listen to." His jaw tightened. "But I heard the end of it. Your brothe

t na

hs," Elias said. "I did not come here to make trouble for you. I cam

, and my voice came out f

eyes were amber

wooden thing with a cracked face that Harold won in a raffle in 1962, and it ticks

lying,"

am

Owen worked for Dal

people," Elias said. "Tha

st the sky with its little red light on top, and the sky had begun to go gray in the east. In four hours the co-op would open an

is in the exact place Owen's was. And you have a round burn at the base of

had stood up, and he was holding the

to explain to you, and I am doing a poor job, because I have

t to the

he field, and when I found your brother he was already down, and the other wolf had gone. I stayed with him. I put my hands on him

was ver

ld, and when the sun came up I had his scars on my body and I did not know w

he river, and about Harlan saying the injuries were too much for an open coffin, and about Dale standing at the back of the church wi

l was close

kno

an said it was a rogue, and the C

Elias sa

put both my hands on

s that it happened at the new moon, and I was changed, and he was not. Whatever was done to hi

not an

said. "It

g breath. "C

left shoulder, and there it was in the lamplight, the curved pale scar I had kn

before, and my wolf pressed forward and made a sound I had never heard her make. Elias went rigi

in," he said. His v

I said. "What

gone to something like a jar of honey with the light behind it. "You know what it is," he said. "Your wolf k

" I

sking you f

ng to stand in a co-op office at five in the morning and be

him as fast as it came. "Believe me, I did not plan this either. I

. "That is a stra

the diesel from the co-op. And then one day in July I caught something else. Something that made my wolf lie down in the grass and re

ruck on the highway, and the grain elevator humm

u to leave

would

s. Somewhere that is not here

and he pulled the coat tighter around himself, and he w

it the way a man says a thing he cannot believe. I have thought

thinking," I said.

e office with the lamp low and my hand still warm from his shoul

ater asleep at the desk

e," she said. "Di

alking t

Dale called the house at six. The hunters are coming tomorrow instead o

neck cracke

in the co-op yard." June looked at me over the pot. "Wren,

eg where Owen's coat used

aid. "It