Page 22 of A Wolf in the Garden

What the fuck happened with that antler?

This can’t be some sort of normal burn; I’m probably going to keel over and die from some sort of ridiculous magic.

Why the fuck is this happening to me?

I pull into the entrance of Lost Moon and hesitate, only just now registering that I’m still soaking wet, my hair and bikini dripping, my towel thrown on the passenger seat in the mad panic. A group of patrons walk out of the vineyard’s archway and into the gravel parking lot, one of the women stumbling in her heels, having clearly enjoyed her wine tastings a little too much, and I make a split decision to park here for a moment, if only to gather my thoughts. Surely if there is some sort of demon thing after me, it’s not going to attack in a busy parking lot, not after non-humans have spent the past two years reassuring the human population that they are safe to be around and that life can continue on as normal. I kill the engine and grab my towel, hastily scrubbing myself before laying it over my lap and reaching for my phone. I can’t walk through the vineyard — my new workplace — like this, not with my nipples sticking out in hard peaks behind the triangles of my bikini top, and my whole body shaking from the cold. Better to warn Van and meet him… at his house, I guess.

I intend to call Van, but change my mind at the last moment, and instead bring up my search engine and type ingreen eyed deer burning antlers. I don’t know what I expect or hope to find, but as the search results load I scan the first page, and my stomach drops at the third result down.

Three People Saw a Green-Eyed Deer, Now They Are All Missing

I click on the article, which brings me to a news publication from somewhere within the US. I skim it quickly, noting the details of the three people; two women and a man, all three having reported waking on the day of the Unravelling to find they had‘pointed ears like an elf.’

“Oh fuck!Shit!” I cry.

Samantha Blackmore was the first to disappear; one year to the day after the Unravelling. She’d told her husband, Bronson Blackmore, that she had spotted a deer in their local park with “great big antlers with leaves all over it. Later that day, she returned to her car and had been burned by ‘a flaming green stick.’”

The next morning she left for work, and never returned home. Despite an extensive search of the local area, no trace of her has been found. “It is as if she disappeared into thin air,” Bronson tells us, “or perhaps the First Realm.” He has not given up hope that she is still alive somewhere, taken by the green-eyed creature that burned her.

The stories of the other two victims are eerily similar…

I drop my phone on the seat beside me, hunching over to vomit into the towel on my lap. I puke again and again, until there’s nothing left but bile that I dry heave. My head is pounding with a headache, and I groan, catching a glimpse of the burst blood vessels around my eyes in the rearview mirror. I’m shaking even more now as I remove the towel, looking for a place to put it, before gingerly dropping it onto the passenger floor with a grimace.

Those victims were all like me. I have no doubt they were taken by something, just as that poor woman’s husband suspects.I’m going to be dead by tomorrow morning.

I pick up my phone again, managing to swipe it open with trembling fingers and hit the call button next to Van’s name. I put it on speaker, and leave it sitting on the passenger seat, hoping like hell that Van answers the call.

“Ellie?”

I’ve never been so relieved to hear someone’s voice in all my life. “Van!” My voice is weak, my throat hoarse, and I wonder how much of the desperation he can hear in my tone.

Evidently, a lot.“Ellie!What’s wrong?”

“Everything. I… I’m in the parking lot of Lost Moon; are you here? Or at your house, or —”

“I’m at home. Can you drive down here? Are you okay to do that? You’re okay?”

“Yes. No. I’m okay right now, but not really.”

“You can drive? You know where to go?”

“I know it. You showed me last time.” I’m already turning the ignition, reversing out of the park I’m in, spinning the wheel until I can take the small driveway off the main entrance signposted asPrivate Residence, Do Not Enter. My car bumps down the gravel drive, just as Van steps outside his front door, his phone still to his ear. “I see you,” he says. “I’m hanging up now, okay?”

I pull up in front of him, and he sprints around the car faster than I can even track, yanking open the door. I see the moment the stench of vomit hits his nose; he rears back just a little, though he hides it quick enough. “You’re sick? Why are you in a bikini? You’re shaking.”

“I’m not sick. I mean, I threw up but… here,” I swipe open my phone again, shoving it towards him with a trembling hand. “Read that.” When he doesn’t take it, I wave it more. “Read it,please. It’s easier than me explaining what just happened.”

His frown is so pronounced that his brows are two angry slashes on his face, but he takes the phone, and I watch his expression morph as he starts to read, shifting between anger, surprise, confusion — he glances up at me, as if seeing me for the first time, and in a particularly slow moment for me I wonderwhy, until he leans forward and swipes my bedraggled hair back from my ear, his hand blazing warm as it traces the pointed tip. He doesn’t swear, but he clenches his jaw so much I wonder briefly if he’ll crack his teeth, and then he’s back to reading again, eyes just a little bit wider as he finishes the rest of the article, the stuff I didn’t even get to.

He reaches out again, his grip firm but gentle as he takes my arm, turning it so that my burnt palm is on display. “Fuck,” he whispers, and I don’t miss the small tremble in his touch as he brushes his fingers at the very edge of the burn. “Fuck, Ellie. They’vemarkedyou.”

The way he emphasises the word makes me pause. “Like a brand?”

A growl, the sound terrifyingly aggressive, rips from his throat, his face contorting for the briefest moment beyond its usual human-esque limits. “Yes.”

“So… I’m going to end up just likethose people?” The panic rises in my voice, and I take in a gulping breath as Van stares at me, face still contorted in a snarl.

“No. No one is going to come near you. If they do, I will tear their fucking throats out.”

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