City Wolf

It is the werewolf’s first time living on her own. When her kind comes of age, they venture out into the world in order to find a mate. It has always been this way. But the werewolf does not feel at home in the city. She misses the forest and her sister and the familiar routines of her old life, and as a result she has still not unpacked her cardboard boxes of belongings. Over time she assigns them other uses: There is chair box, table box, box beside the door on which she rests her purse and her keys. The rest remain piled around her—like a fortress, she thinks, and in this way she creates for herself a kind of comfort.

*

The werewolf has been scheduling men from the app back-to-back every night—even on the days leading up to the full moon, though she knows she shouldn’t. The very nice man in the baby blue button-down notices her fingernails elongating at dinner, cracking their red polish, but he is too nice to comment. Another doesn’t like the extra hair on the backs of her hands. He is not so kind. I have eaten men like you as a snack, she wants to say, an appetizer—but then their food arrives.

*

The werewolf leaves the very nice man’s apartment after their second date to take the train to the nearest clump of wilderness. She feels safe again among the trees, beneath the full moon. In the morning she uncurls from the ground, puts on her pants and her shirt, and walks back to the train station. A less-nice man whistles at her from the window of an apartment building, notices her rumpled clothes, asks her where she’s been all night. If only he knew.

*

Once a month the werewolf’s sister calls. The werewolf saves up all of her bits of news for these calls, writing them down in a small black notebook with a red ribbon bookmark that she keeps in the pocket of her jeans. A man was playing guitar in the park. The sky was purple when I walked home from the restaurant. Her sister asks what the city is like, her voice perpetually filled with wonder. She asks if the buildings in the city are taller than the trees of their youth. The werewolf gazes through the narrow windows of the studio apartment while she sits on her chair box. There is no comparison, after all; the city is simply another world. Do you love it? the sister asks. The werewolf continues to stare through the blurry glass, at loss for words. The way she feels for the city is not love or hate. It is some third emotion, which is neither, both, and everything in between.

*

The werewolf has almost given up on the app’s potential to grant a mate until the very nice man invites her to a double-feature horror night at the movie theater. At first she is shocked by the film’s title; she thinks he has uncovered her secret. Once she stealthily confirms he is still unaware of her condition, she finds she is tentatively excited to see herself portrayed on-screen. After the opening credits she cannot help looking around at the sold-out seats, the audience already laughing along with the protagonist. When the werewolf rips out someone’s throat, the very nice man claps his hands in the seat beside her and cheers. In a way, it’s like he’s cheering for her, she thinks, and she feels happy. He leans over and says, This is my favorite movie. She watches him watch the werewolf on the screen and thinks, What if. She thinks, Maybe.

*

In a spontaneous burst of optimism stemming from her budding relationship, the werewolf resolves to paint the walls of the studio apartment a deep emerald green. It’s only when she finishes that she looks around and realizes she’s painted the forest of her youth. She feels so homesick that she has no energy left to unpack, which she’d previously been considering. Instead she pushes two chair boxes together to make a couch box and mopes for the rest of the night.

*

At the park one afternoon, the very nice man tries to give the werewolf a silver necklace that she can’t wear. He gets angry because she won’t touch it, and she doesn’t know how to explain that it would burn her if she did. The very nice man tries to clasp it around her neck, but the silver glances her bare skin, leaving red welts in its wake. She screams from the pain and strangers turn to stare. He leaves her alone on the bench, the necklace still on the ground where he threw it. Maybe we don’t need mates at all, she thinks angrily to herself, watching a dog play alone in the fountain with no owner or collar in sight. The dog trots up, shaking water from its fur, sniffs the necklace curiously, then gives the werewolf a doleful look and scampers away.

*

The next time her sister calls, the werewolf says nothing of her failure. We tell each other everything, don’t we, the sister proclaims proudly, and the werewolf winces. The good things, she thinks fervently. Every good thing.

*

The werewolf goes dancing to take her mind off things, but she mixes up the moon phases and ends up transforming in a nightclub bathroom. She ruins her new skirt, the zipper’s teeth yanking apart like a monster unhinging its jaw. Dim purple lights move across her furry legs. She sits on the toilet and scrunches her furry knees into her furry face as women knock on the door all night long, their bladders full. If I open the door, I’ll eat you, she thinks, despondent. She’d only wanted to dance.

*

The werewolf takes a job at a diner a few blocks away from the studio apartment, a small place made of mirrors and windows. The work has its ups and downs, but the other waitresses are very kind about covering her full-moon shifts; they don’t ask too many questions. And she comes to love the moment she brings people their food. The way their eyes invariably light up when they see her coming with a tray. A little boy at my table was crying, she writes in her notebook, but I brought him scrambled eggs and he stopped.

*

Walking home from work one afternoon, the werewolf spots a wicker chair in a secondhand shop window. The chair is not particularly beautiful or unique, but gazing through the glass she is struck with the idea that she could call it her own. That evening she sets her new chair on the floor within her fortress of boxes and begins to imagine that she might one day dismantle the cardboard walls that she has built. That perhaps that day could be tomorrow, even.

*

A few months later, her sister comes to visit. It strikes the werewolf anew how small she is; she wants to shield her sister from the very gaze of every passerby. She wants to put her sister in her pocket, next to the small black notebook with the red ribbon bookmark. Her sister gazes in wonderment at the buildings, which she had always returned to on the phone—yes, much taller than the trees, as it turns out. They lose themselves together on the subways, shiny metal cars that whir back and forth but stop often. I could run faster than this on a full moon, the sister stage-whispers, and together they laugh and laugh.

*

The werewolf takes her sister to a show. They stand united in the hazy white light and sing and scream and sing. When they leave the theater it is only just beginning to rain, a gentle patter at first, pinprick drops just thick enough to slick their skins—like tiny diamonds in the air reflecting all the city lights. The drizzle turns quickly to a deluge as they pelt along the sidewalk together. It is as if someone very far above them has turned the handle of a faucet. Now they are darting around the other people like static obstacles in their path, laughing as they move, outstripping the taxicabs, just two girls howling together up at a new moon. The werewolf looks over at her sister, her coat flying back loose from her shoulders like a pair of wings, her face upturned to a sky sparkling with stars, and she thinks, Maybe I have found a home here, in the city, after all. Maybe she could too.

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