Page 42 of In This Iron Ground
It is a full moon night. The moonlight is soft and silver. You are in an open field, and everything glows around you. The silky grass comes up to your waist, swaying in the breeze like the waves of the sea. You stroke your hand across it slowly, its greens and its silvers, the soft strands of it against your palm.
You take a deep breath. Deep, deep. You let it out slowly. Your lungs fill with the scent of the night. The rich earth, the fresh air, the smell of the forest. You take another deep breath. You let it out slowly. With each breath, you can feel yourself filling with moonlight. It is casting its kind glow on all the shadows inside. You take another deep breath. You let it out slowly.
You walk forwards. The grass and dirt are soft beneath your bare feet. You wade through the grass. Everything is calm but filled with life. With the tranquil energy of the moonlight. You look around. This place is yours. You belong to it as it belongs to you. You are safe here.
You take another deep breath. You let it out slowly.
As you look around you realize—you are part of this land. You are the moonlight that streams down. You are the grass that sways. You are the leaves that murmur. You are the earth and you are the air. You are no more and no less than it.
You have been filling yourself up with problems and fears. WithI shouldsandshouldn’ts.But here, you see how simple it really is. You are the force of the raging river, the might of a mountain, the strength of a tree. You do not expect more or less from them than what they are. Their existence is enough. So is yours.
You are a creature of the moonlight. You are a creature of the earth.
You let yourself be with that feeling. With that knowledge. That power. That at the most fundamental of levels, you are the same as the earth around you. You are another creature, free to live in balance with itself and the world. You have no duty here. You are not that important. You are important enough to let yourself live. Let yourself be.
You take another deep breath. You let it out slowly.
You fill yourself with moonlight. With the calm it brings. The peace. All the pieces of you that have been rattled through the day are settled at night.
You take a deep breath. You let it out slowly.
You feel the moonlight. You are what it is.
You take a deep breath.
You let it out slowly.
**********
The full moon fell on the second Saturday after his first night at the Salgados’. Damien had been tracking the moon for months, so it wasn’t a surprise, but this time he felt it ramp up as the energy of the house magnetized. All of the Salgado children became both more playful and irritable. Even Mia would sometimes become more easily exasperated, although this never escalated into screaming or hitting. It was a clean, organic energy that filled the house, like the tense, electric calm before summer rain.
Despite the contagious energy in the house, Damien couldn’t help but be nervous at the notion of being left behind all alone that night. The assumption that he couldn’t join the run, however, was broken as Mia very casually told him about the night’s plan. A run through the forest, the werewolves in wolf form except the twins, who weren’t old enough to fully shift.
“But I’m human,” Damien had replied dumbly.
“Don’t worry, one of us will stay with you. Mostly Hakan, I would guess.”
“But…” Damien had shaken his head, “I’m going to slow you down.”
“The run isn’t about speed, Damien. It’s about pack.”
That hadn’t made sense either. Damien wasn’t pack. But he wasn’t going to turn down the invitation to run, either.
The round moon was pregnant with dripping light. Everybody gathered in the garden, including Nadie, who was still visiting. They each stripped their clothes off, setting the pieces in a neat, practiced row on the porch. Everybody’s moonlit nakedness didn’t seem strange at all. It was as natural as the bare trees and animals of the forest.
Then, they began to shift. They looked up at the moon and closed their eyes. A moment. Two. And then their bodies began to transform. Their eye sockets, the bridges of their noses, their jaws. The widths of their necks, their shoulders, the runs of their backs. Tails uncurled as fur sprouted. They didn’t seem to be in pain, but the change was kind of horrific. Damien was absolutely fascinated.
“That wassocool!” He didn’t know which wolf to look at. Mia was the tallest one, her colouring a deep, earth brown tipped with black. Cameron was broad, fur grey with streaks of black. The three siblings were smaller but still significantly larger than normal wolves. Koko ran around Damien, brown fur bouncing. Nadie, a darker shade than most of them, ran after her. Hakan’s grey form watched for a second before galloping at Damien, who yelped before laughing as Hakan’s massive head nudged him playfully.
“Wow, you’re like a big puppy in this form, huh?” Damien joked. Hakan nudged him again, harder this time. Damien stumbled, laughing. “Okay, okay! No puppy jokes!” he lied.
Hakan’s wet nose poked Damien in the stomach, jumping around him so that Damien spun as he tried to retaliate. He’d never seen Hakan this playful.
Mia barked, and all the werewolves turned to attention. There was a moment of tense excitement. Mia stood, enormous and beautiful in the moonlight. Then, she gave a short howl and bolted into the trees. Everybody followed except Hakan, who nudged Damien forwards into a trot. He kept pace with Damien as they joined the forest whilst Cameron guided the twins deep into the trees.
It was a suspension of reality. There were no worries, no expectations, no judgments. There was the breath of the pack, the feel of the air, the scent of the forest. There was Hakan, always there, his rudder through howling air. Damien never tripped, let alone fell, steadfastly following the northern light of Hakan’s wolf form. Damien felt like he was expanding, his atoms joining that of the rich earth, the old bark, the newborn leaves, the moonlight.
He ran.
