His long voice weaves itself into your dream with a promise: I’ll come for you. I know you’re not who they think you are.

Your mind sharpens as you wake, the voice thinning to the howl of a lone wolf. Your mother is up, her steps in the other room as she checks the bolt on the door and then the scrape of metal against stone as she banks the fire. You sweat beneath your quilt.

In the morning, Ma braids your hair and sends you to the meadow to pick flowers. A bouquet for her shop front, and a bouquet for grandmother, whose severe nose and brow remind you of a father you barely knew.

“Don’t stray from the path. Don’t stay too long. And don’t let your guard down,” your Ma warns you. She’s been saying these things as long as you’ve been old enough to go to the meadow on your own. “Keep watch for the wolf. He eats little girls like you.” You flinch away from the words.

“Why can’t I help the men like Aleks does?” you ask. You used to make dolls out of sticks and clay with the neighbor’s boy, but now he follows his father to bring back lumber, meat, and pelts. You’re taller than Aleks, and you know the forest plants better than any of the boys.

But Ma only shakes her head. “Hurry along, and don’t keep your grandmother waiting.” She pins your red cloak closed and kisses your forehead.

You make a game of sprinting from tree to tree on the path, sometimes clambering up a trunk to scout the way ahead. Your grandmother used to meet you in the meadow and teach you all the plants’ names—soft blue harebells, cups of gold, teeth of purple lupine, blood-red paintbrush. She taught you how to spy the bird’s nests and the deer trails. So when you arrive at the meadow’s edge and see prints in the soft grass, you stop short.

One set is like yours, but a little smaller. Bare feet; a child’s? And the other set stands up the hair on your whole body—a triangular pad with four toes. The wolf.

You look about you in a daze, swallowing with a dry throat, skin abuzz. The birds are still singing though, no warning calls. You’re safe. You inspect the prints again and see it’s not one after the other, the wolf stalking the child. They walked side by side, disappearing at the edge of the woods.

“Fairy business!” Your grandmother exclaims when you tell her. “Under last night’s full moon.”

You think of your dream. Maybe another child answered the wolf’s call.

Before she sends you home, your grandmother adds, “Don’t tell your mother, you’ll only worry her.”

But you’ve never been one to do what you’re told.

• • • •

The next time your Ma sends you into the meadow, the story flies right off your tongue. “They were walking with the wolf. What if they belong to the lost child from the village across the river?” you ask.

Her face goes white. “I don’t want to hear of it.”

“But there was no blood, Ma. No sign they were injured. They could still be out there!”

The smack of her open palm against your cheek silences you. You blink away tears, though you’re more startled than hurt.

“I said no more.”

You clench the handle of your basket, heavy with a cake and a bottle of beer for your grandmother.

“Stay on the path. Don’t dilly-dally.” Ma belts your cloak roughly, pushing the air from your ribs, and pulls your hood low over your face. “Don’t go into the woods.”

Fury builds with each step you take toward the meadow. She’s never listened to you, but always to her fear.

When you reach the clearing where the flowers beckon, you take your shears and snip off your braids, shhhk, shhhk. And then you uncork grandmother’s beer and drink from it until you’re stumbling, flattening a patch of poppies. Covered in their glistening red petals and beads of golden pollen, you break your grandmother’s cake and eat it.

This is how the wolf finds you—half drunk and alight with bees, confused by the pollen and brew. Your slovenly mind has just come around to the fact that you’ll face a caning when his pointed muzzle emerges from the grasses.

You scramble half-upright, tangled in your red cloak. The wolf’s dark eye regards you, and you wait for the sly curl of his lip and fangs at your throat. But instead he yips, high and fast, and you know he is laughing at you.

“If you’re here to eat me, I’ll put up a fight!” You swing the shears in his direction, but he doesn’t flinch. He sits on his haunches and scratches an ear, then shakes his head.

I’m not here to eat you.

Hope bubbles through you. “Are you here to take me to the other child?”

His ear twitches. So you did hear my call.

“I know they were here with you, in the meadow.”

He ducks his head below his arm and chews at the fur of his belly, grooming himself. After a moment of this he looks back to you, still on the ground. I’m not here for you today.

You set your teeth. “Isn’t that what you do? Steal away little girls?” You rise indignantly to your feet. “Am I not good enough for you?”

The wolf stands, and you nearly fall again. He is almost as tall as you. His snout, held level, points to your breastbone. Is that what you are? he asks quietly.

The question holds you frozen like a doe. Can he smell it on you, this wanting to be something you’re not?

And then you do what many people, when faced with something terrifying, do—you run. All the way to grandmother’s house, where she appraises your shorn hair and unkempt cloak, the beer on your breath and crumbs on your face.

“Did he hurt you, girl?” she asks.

You shake your head, wondering what she thinks. You can’t stop trembling. Grandmother wraps you in a blanket and sets you to sleep in her bed, and it isn’t until hours later that you hear your Ma’s voice in the hall.

“. . . with a boy,” Grandmother whispers. You start when you realize this is what they feared.

“Have to marry her off soon, then,” your Ma replies.

You feign sleep, though your fingers tighten around the shears you kept close.

• • • •

After she weeps over your hair and scrubs the grass stains from your clothes, Ma keeps you on your toes and underfoot at all times. You bake cakes, collect wash, sweep the floor, mend clothes. You don’t leave the shop, giving coins instead to one of the village boys to deliver Grandmother her cakes. He’s asked to pick her a bouquet as well, but after he mistakes nightshade for clematis they don’t send him to the meadow anymore. As spring deepens, you imagine the flowers coming to their fullest and then languishing.

Meanwhile, Ma gossips with every wife who comes by about the men in the village—those hunters and tree-fellers. Whose boys are of age, are there any widowers, would any of them take a girl with no fortune to speak of? You keep your face splotched with flour and eggshell in case one of these men wanders by.

Each night as you lie in bed you think about the wolf’s question. Is that what you are? Sometimes you touch the aching flesh on your chest or feel your chin and upper lip as though they’ll begin to sprout dark hair like your legs. Whatever you are isn’t drawn by an arrow from your body. More and more you wish you’d been ready to listen to the wolf. You wait to hear his call, but a moon passes without his lonely howl.

One day after Ma sends you to wash up for dinner, you come to the table to find a strange man at Father’s seat. Ma clasps her hands as she waits to introduce you. Your heart thumps inside you like a rabbit’s.

“This is Pietr,” Ma says. Pietr is tall and lean, lines carved into his cheeks from age and harsh winters. He could be handsome, if you were the girl ready for marriage everyone thinks you are. His gaze unnerves you, though—more wolfish than the wolf’s ever was.

“Why don’t you serve our guest his plate?” Ma asks. You grimace and her smile turns cold. You sulk into the kitchen and find the portions pre-arranged—his the choicest breast, the heapingest pile of pole beans, the softest cut of bread. Ma’s and yours are split between the remainders. You want to spit on Pietr’s, but even the thought of him swallowing your saliva makes your stomach roll.

So you bring the plates out, Ma’s and Pietr’s first. Pietr’s strong hand catches yours as you set his plate down. You won’t meet his eyes and slip your hand free. He smells harsh as pine sap and strong as spoiled onions.

You gag in the kitchen, retrieving your own plate. Each step back to the table seems a meadow’s-length. Ma chatters on at Pietr and gestures at the bouquet her boy collected for the occasion. You drew him the flowers to pick this time. The lilies’ overripe odor rises through the other scents.

Ma calls your name and you take a deep breath before returning to the table. Pietr hasn’t waited for you to begin eating. His dirty nails tear into the meat, grease on his lips and chin.

“She can mend and clean. She keeps the house tidy while I’m in the shop; helps with the baking too . . .” as Ma lists off all the ways you’ll make a fine wife, you feel yourself shrinking. There’s no fire, but the room is unbearably warm.

Pietr’s voice cuts in. “And does she bleed?” he asks.

You stare at your Ma in horror. This doesn’t belong to anyone but you. Before she can respond, your arm shoots out as though of its own mind and you knock the water jug across the table, flooding the tablecloth and your plate. You catch it before it tumbles to the floor and shatters.

“I’ll get more,” you say, knowing that with Pietr here your Ma won’t follow you to the pump. Outside you gulp deep breaths, set the jug down, and run. The old familiar path to the meadow is less well-trod than before. Stickers catch your skirts and branches scratch your face. Somewhere behind you is the baying of a hound, men on a hunt. You’re nearly at the clearing when a body tackles you, shoving you unceremoniously to the dirt.

“Aleks!” you gasp. He gets off you quickly, his face alight with excitement and embarrassment.

“Your Ma said I needed to keep you safe.”

You pick yourself up, an oozing cut on your knee and a scrape on your face. “Well done.”

Twigs snap and a doe bursts from the brush, leaping right over you. Aleks pulls you aside as a pair of hounds crashes after her. “Come on,” he says, a hand still on your arm. He nods to the men at the hunt as he escorts you home, and you realize even a boy like Aleks sees you as quarry.

Your Ma takes one look at you and sends you to your room with no supper. “Pietr said he would come back,” she warns. “You’ll be on your best behavior.”

That night, the village feasts on venison. You smell the charred bones from your room. The night sky is clouded over. The moon hides her face.

• • • •

Your cheek stings where Ma has rubbed in starch to hide the scrapes. She bade Aleks gather enough water to fill the tub and scrubbed you pink and raw. You’ve heard the rumors from the shop. Pietr’s name in the mouths of customers, and yours. Another meal, this time a feast on each plate. You’re ready to refute his proposal, until you see the dress your Ma has spread out for you. Her own wedding dress.

“You told him yes?” You withdraw from her guiding hands on your shoulders, but she grips you harder.

“This is for your own good,” she hisses. “I told you not to stray from the path.”

“Ma, that isn’t what—” but she ignores your protests, dresses you like a doll with fixed limbs.

“Don’t cry, girl,” she says, almost soft. But when your pleading eyes meet hers, she shakes her head. “You’ll mess your face.”

The ceremony is planned for your own small yard, between the front path and the clothesline. The wash still hangs in the late evening sun, fluttering festively in the last rays.

You wait. Ma and Aleks and a small gathering of village women with sad bouquets fuss over you and the preparations. “So pretty,” they mutter. “You’ll be a good wife. He looks hard, but he can take care of a woman.” All their words make you shrink smaller and smaller.

“Where is he?” Ma hisses to Aleks, who takes off down the path to find your groom.

A wish sprouts in your chest. He won’t come. He’s the wolf in disguise. He’s lost in the woods. Any of a million possibilities that die with a collective hush from the women as Pietr arrives with the onset of night.

He wears simple clothes, clean ones at least. His craggy face doesn’t change when he takes you in. Ma leaves your side and lights the bonfire in the center of the yard.

There is an exchange of gifts before you may take hands. Your stiff fingers clutch a pocket watch that was your father’s. His gift to your mother on their wedding, and until you, the most valuable thing she could claim to own.

Pietr takes it from you, hefting it appraisingly and sliding it into a pocket. He offers a small wooden box that opens to present a crown of dried flowers. You recognize their shapes, and your grandmother’s handiwork—pink phlox, harebells, daisies white as snow—all from your favorite part of the meadow. Idly you wonder if he paid her for the work. Pietr sets the crown on your temple and nods.

“A lovely crown for a lovely girl,” he says.

Before your Ma can speak the words to give you away, Pietr removes one more thing from a satchel on his belt. It’s dark and musky, and as he drapes it across your open hands you realize it is the wolf’s tail.

“The gift of security,” Pietr says, adding under his breath, “No more straying from the path.”

Your vision narrows and just like before, you gasp in breaths, choking suddenly on the bonfire smoke and your own squeezing lungs. No other path, no escape from this life that isn’t you. Someone shrieks, and you pitch forward, clutching the wolf’s tail. The flames rush up to meet you.

But your Ma moves to catch you, and it’s the dress that ignites at the hem, not your skin. One of the women grabs your red cloak from the wash line and throws it to your Ma, who beats at the fire by your ankles. Aleks tosses an arc of water at the flames. Pietr stands unmoved, waiting for everyone to get on with it.

Your Ma clicks her tongue at the damage. “Are you hurt, child?” she asks.

You shake your head, tracing your fingers over the wolf’s tail. Oily hairs over thinner, finer ones.

“Just the dress,” Ma sighs. One more disappointment to add to all the others, you think.

“She won’t be needing it much longer.” Pietr steps forward to take your hands, but Ma shoulders him off, wrapping your red cloak around you.

“There you are,” she says. At her show of care, you begin crying. As she holds you, looking into your face as though she’s seeing you for the first time, something changes in her eyes. She turns to Pietr. “It’s a bad omen.” Murmurs of assent in the gathered crowd. “Perhaps we should wait another moon.”

The people of the village nod and begin to disperse. Pietr’s hands flex, and a vein in his temple emerges. “You promised her to me,” he says.

“But I haven’t given her up yet.” Ma takes your hands in hers, the wolf’s tail twining between you. “You should go,” she says, staring at Pietr but squeezing your hands. “While it’s still twilight. While you can still make your way by sight.”

She releases your hands and once again blocks you with her body. “Go now,” she says. “My child needs to recover from this.”

Pietr doesn’t move, but you do. Into the house, so he doesn’t catch on, and then through the back door. The moon peeks through the trees, and you’re a drop of blood in her eye, winding through the forest.

You touch the flowers at your crown—to grandmother’s? Only safe there for so long. Pietr will find you.

You wipe the powder from your face and make a decision. First the meadow.

It glows in the moonlight, grass lush and shining, flowers rampant. Some of their faces closed to the night, others alight. You kick off your shoes and move into the middle. Moths flutter through the grass at each step you take.

The thickest patch of flowers stands taller than you. With the wolf’s tail in your hands you throw your head back and give a howl of defiance, of regret, of mourning. A cry to say I’m still here. A question: Where are you?

Soon enough Pietr and a gang of men will come through the meadow searching for you. They’ll light the flowers into a blaze that nearly matches their fury at being deceived. But for now you hold the stems of sunflowers and summer lilacs, wild roses grasp your cloak and moonflower twines at your ankles. You ask the moonlight for a little magic. Wolf magic. Or whatever he saw in you.

A voice joins yours, deep where yours is high, haunting where yours soars. He comes to you through the clearing, petals catching in his fur and perfuming each step. Your wolf.

You find your hands empty and reach for him, twist your fingers in his fur. His eyes shine in the night, his tail whole and unsevered. The wolf’s breath is clean from spring water and gnawed bone. He waits as you lean your head against his shoulder and breathe.

“I’m ready,” you say.

He lowers himself to the ground so you can straddle his back. His coat so soft between your knees. When he stands, you tower over the tallest flowers, in full view of the moon. You lift your head and lean forward against his neck. “Let’s go.”