Before I can reach out and touch his fur, Jasper turns and leaps again, penetrating the tree line and almost instantly vanishing, his fur and the shadows as dark as each other.
“What do I do now?” I ask no one in particular, maybe hoping my wolf is going to reappear and tell me what the hell I’m supposed to do. “If I chase after him I’ll just end up back here again.”
A weight slams into my back, knocking me forward. I hit the earth with an “Oomf!” and before I can gather my wits, whoever knocked me down flips me over onto my back and presses my shoulders into the earth. A stone digs into my ribs as I stare up at Jasper, his hair hanging over his eyes, his lips parted just enough to show his teeth, and his freckles…I’m always surprised by his freckles.
He presses his lips to mine, kissing me intensely with passion but also anger. This kiss tastes sour.
When he pulls back he eyes me darkly. “There,” he says. “Is that what you wanted?”
The ground falls away from beneath me and somehow, even though I was pressed to the earth, I’m suddenly tumbling through the air, like I’ve fallen from a great height. Jasper doesn’t come with me. He and the trees stay where they are, growing smaller every second I plummet away.
Mountains sprout below me, growing sideways as I flail my arms and legs through the air. Snow-covered peaks surround me, pointing to the now dusky sky, a reddish hue tinting the smattering of clouds. I open my mouth to scream but no sound comes out as the ground comes rushing toward me.
My fall is cushioned by a thick layer of snow. I hit the powder hard, but sink into it, and arrive back on land uninjured. Standing as icy wind whips at my face, I look around to catch my bearings.
It’s snowing something ridiculous but through the blizzard I can make out the lights of a chalet at the top of the tallest mountain. It will be a long climb but at least if I head up there I can get out of this storm.
I begin my ascent, struggling to make much headway in the crazy deep snow. With each step forward I feel like I’m sinking back another three. Scrambling, I manage to claw my way to a level plateau and stop when I notice something, a word, scrawled in the snow in what looks like blood—the wordTRAITOR.
It’s the same handwriting as whoever graffitied my parents’ garage door. But how did they get out here and where did they get enough blood to write the letters so big?
Somewhere behind me, in the depths of the valley below, comes the cry of the howling wolf. I turn and without thinking, I follow the sound.
The descent is easier, or at least faster, than climbing in the opposite direction. I manage to make my way with seeming ease and in no time I’m wandering along a stony path with more mountains rising on either side of me. A familiar-looking shelter comes into view—Agatha’s cottage. When I reach the door I bang on it, hoping to find the wolf who’s been calling to me, or Agatha or anyone who can let me in from the cold.
The door swings open and Omar steps into the doorway. Behind him it’s daytime, and where the inside of the shack should be, the desert stretches out toward a hazy horizon.
“Hey cuz, thought you’d never make it.”
“Omar, what is this? Are you—are you really here?”
“Here enough. Quick, this way. It’s about to start.”
“What’s about to start?”
He nods at the nighttime sky behind me, and I peer through the continuing blizzard, so cold and inhospitable compared to the warmth and light of the desert. From behind the ridge of a mountain the blood moon rises, crimson red and so large it covers almost a third of the sky.
“Am I going to change?” I ask, half to Omar and half to myself, fearful of the last time I saw a blood moon, afraid my teeth are about to become fangs and my fingers claws.
“Change?” Omar says. “Change is inevitable.”
He slips a solid hand into mine as a wind vortex spirals through the valley picking up snow and rocks in a tornado that’s hurtling toward us, then he pulls me through the door.
Together we run through the desert, the sun hot on my back. Rocks whiz by, after a while replaced with tents until we’ve somehow arrived in the depths of the Sanc. We slow as we approach Yoki’s tent, only something tells me to stop. The shelter is giving off a weird vibe. Dark smoke wisps from the entryway. Omar’s hand slips from mine and he looks back in confusion.
“Come on,” he says. “It’s just through here.”
“What’s through there?”
He smiles. “The answer to your question. Come on.”
With a gesture for me to follow he slips through the entrance. I take a step forward, then I hear a voice nearby.
“Psst, Max.” Off to my right Jasper is leaning from the flap of a different yurt. “This way.”
“Jasper, what’s going on?”
“I’ve been looking everywhere for you. This way.”
