Page 9 of Untamed

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Willa - 18 years old

My lips purse, a soft circle, a pout that lets the air flow from my lungs perfectly. My breath puffs out, and the seeds of the dandelion fly away from my face. I watch the soft white fluff dance softly and let my lips curl into a smile.

"It's the little things," I quote Mama softly. The grass trembles in front of my nose.

My eyes close slightly as I look through my eyelashes at the sun-kissed fields. The soft yellow flowers dot the fields everywhere. I stop blowing air at the soft white puffball and let my breathing slow. It's harder to control, lying on my stomach. My chest is pressed into the earth, the long weeds tickling my bare legs.

The peace of this place almost lets me forget the itching sensation in my legs. Almost.

The itch travels like a horsefly crawling over my skin, up to my calf to the back of my knee, before sinking into the back of my thigh with a sharp bite. If it were a fly or a bee or spider, I would shoo it away, but it's not a living creature making my skin crawl. It's my she-wolf.

Excitement and nervousness thrum through me. I'm almost eighteen, and for season after season, I've felt these sensations.

Father doesn't know. Mama and I have kept it a secret. He thinks that I don't have a wolf, but I do. For nearly a year, I've kept her locked inside my body, but soon she'll be free. I'll have to let her come. I can't hold off natureforever.

She's a wary thing, like me. Mama was afraid, at first, when I told her that I felt the funny crawling sensations. She told me that the first shift was always so hard, that it comes on fast and leaves you hurting, confused,weak.

When she told me that, I could see the pain in her eyes. Mama told me that I'd only be weak for a moment. She paused before she explained it to me. That word, Father uses it all the time;weak.

I knew she remembered her own first shift, her acceptance of the she-wolf that she lost later. It still hurts her, but she won't tell me what happened to her wolf. She just tells me to always listen to my she-wolf when she comes, to let the instincts guide me.

In the chest, by the big bed, we have a dictionary. Father brought it back from one of his trading trips a couple of years ago, complaining that even for a female, I'm stupid. He threw it at Mama and smirked when I caught it just before it hit her in the face.

I love the dictionary. There are words in there that I've never heard said out loud. When Mama told me about my first shift, I picked a new word instead of 'weak';vulnerable.

I won't be vulnerable. A rumble starts in my belly at the thought of being that way, but I just breathe in the scent of earth and spring, soothing the beast itching in my skin.

I will shift only when I'm ready. When I'm strong. When I'm notvulnerable.

Then, I will kill Father and take Mama away from here.

"Willa!"

I rise silently, retracing my footsteps, toes dancing lightly over the ground. My eyes sharpen, instinct fueling my quick-as-a-silverfish responses to the forest as I race home. At one point, I climb swiftly into a tree, knowing that the ground is swampy in this area, more wet than dry, usually. One sturdy branch runs parallel to the ground, wider than my thigh but not my waist. I use it as my bridge.

Faster and faster until I reach the point ofcessation. Another word I learned from the dictionary. Simply, it means 'stop,' or 'halt.' I named this thin line of cedar trees at the edge of our cabin's clearing the Point of Cessation because, past these trees, I can be detected by my Father if he's home.

The cedars have a strong aroma all year round. Needles litter the forest floor under the canopy.

It took me a long time to realize that the scents of the cabin, of my mother, of me, are contained by this line of trees as if the stench of cedar forms an invisible barrier. On one side, us, on the other, the forest.

I scan the cabin. A thin stream of grey smoke curls from our firepit where Mama and I were drying carcasses this morning. No fire is lit inside the house. It's far too hot for that, and our tallow candles haven't had time to set yet. So, up with the sun, down with the night.

It makes my skin itch again. My she-wolf wants to run at night, and sometimes I do, but I don't want to leave Mama in the cabin by herself.

My she-wolf growls softly, making my body tremble. The pack of goods, the thick leather boots, the harness for the wolf are all tossed carelessly near the door. Father is home.

I exhale softly in trepidation and step over the Point of Cessation.

"Willa!" Mama calls for me again. I hear Father's low voice.

I walk briskly to the door and push it open. "I'm here, Mama," I call out, pretending that I don't see Father.

If he knew that my she-wolf was lurking just under my skin, then he would be enraged at the disrespect, but he'soblivious,unaware,uninformed.

"Hello, Willa," he snaps out.

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