Chapter 23: The Morning After

We ran at dawn.

Nobody told us to, and nobody tried to stop us.

We came down off the high meadow in the grey light, past the pack at the tree line with their lanterns burnt low.

At the edge of the north pasture Clara stopped.

"Now," she said.

"Now?" I said.

"I want to see it. Please."

I shifted first.

It was nothing like the cellar.

There was no pain and no fear, only a long clean pull.

Then I was on four legs on the cold grass, with the whole valley open around me in smells.

Clara went next.

She was slower, because she had never done it, and she stumbled once as the change took her.

Then a copper wolf stood in the grass beside me, thin and long-legged, with green eyes.

She looked at her own paws.

Then she looked at me, and she barked.

It was pure delight, a high ringing bark that went across the pasture and bounced back off the ridge.

Behind us, Rowan was already running.

She was brown and black, and she tore past us in a flat sprint, then wheeled and came back with her tongue out.

Race, said every line of her body.

We raced.

I won't pretend it was fair.

I was faster, Clara couldn't keep her feet under her for the first half mile, and Rowan cheated at the fence.

But Clara ran.

She ran with her ears back and her whole body stretched out, all the way up the north ridge.

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