26th Winter: Fire, Mariticide, Survival
What are we, but the sum of our loss?
The snow bit into Ylva as she rolled into the drift. Everything was wrong. Her husband was dead, there was blood dashed across the purity of the land she had once called home, and her dogs were nowhere to be seen. As the roar of fire whipped her auburn hair about her ruddy, cold-blasted cheeks, she rose up out of the chill and glanced over her shoulder, her pupils just pinpricks in the lit brown of her eyes.
She rolled over and rested back on her forearms as she let out a sound that was half cry of pain, half cough. Her home… The house she had built with her own hands… The dogs she had raised to aid them… The life they made was going up with the smoke and the heat and the ache.
Tear tracks cut clean lines down Ylva’s face, making her look like a startled marionette.
“Hyst,” she breathed tonelessly. “Hysteron.” The name didn’t mean anything anymore.
She heard a barely audible crunch in the snow behind her and she unconsciously turned, hope springing to life in her breast only to die as she saw that a curious wolf had stepped out of the woods on the edge of her property. Her heart started to beat and roll like a snare drum; the sound almost drowning out the thrum of distant flames like an undertow.
The top of the wolf’s shoulder was nearly a foot above her head where she was sitting, and it was so close she could have reached out and buried her smarting palms in its blackened heather fur. It wasn’t looking at her though. It was staring at the inferno, its pale eyes filled with equal parts predator light and fire as if mirrors had been placed behind its gray irises.
She held her breath. Losing interest, the wolf went to turn and leave, but paused when its eyes fell on her. Idiot! You could have moved! It hadn’t even noticed you, Ylva thought critically. She would have gone as blue as her jacket too, from holding her breath for so long, if she hadn’t taken that moment to let it out in a trail of steam. The wolf sniffed, its nose wiggling almost imperceptibly. Then it turned its head back toward the remains of her house. It let out a heavy breath like a sigh and turned to Ylva once more. The woman reached out a bloodied hand, but hesitated when she saw the splash of russet on the back of her hand. Shit.
The wolf sniffed again, licking its chops. There was a low whine that came from the barrel of its chest, a whine of hunger.
Ylva put her hand into the snow, slowly working her fingers to clean it of her and her husband’s blood. Then she put weight back on her arms and slowly shuffled her feet, slowly sidled backward. She had in her mind the image of herself putting distance between her body and the wolf, getting up to run, running, sprinting, screaming, pushing into her barn, grabbing up her rifle, shooting the wolf in hot pursuit, weeping… but for every inch she scooched back in the snow, the wolf inched towards her just… as… slowly…
Her heart slowed to a dull thud-thud-thud-thud between her ears and she grit her teeth in a grimace. “Don’t,” she whispered to the animal in a shaking warning. “You’re alone… I will tear you apart.” They were probably the most sincere words she had ever spoken in her life.
The wolf blink, its tongue lolling as it dipped its head down, eyes level with hers.
Then it asked, “Who’d ya piss off?”
~~~
27th Summer: Homage, Laziness, Names
We’re all heroes to someone with time.
Ylva ran the weighted net ends into a wench and began to crank, bringing up a haul of fish that would feed her for more than a week. There was a grin on her face, sweat pouring off her tanned skin. She finished dragging it onto the bank and wiped at her eyes as she bent and gripped one wriggling trout from the meshing. She let out a whoop and tossed the arched trout back into the lake where it disappeared with a silvery splash. “Here’s your damn tribute!” she shouted. Then she screamed, “Fuck you, Nature! I AM WOMAN!” She laughed aloud as she looked over her haul, tossing back the small and the infirm.
“That was irreverent as hell,” a black wolf commented from the petty shade of an aspen.
Ylva put her hands to her hips, still squinting against the sun and smiling as she looked out at her new domain. “No disrespect, but… I’m fucking hungry. Someone ate the last of the elk yesterday.” She glanced over her shoulder at that, an accusing edge to her otherwise playful expression. “You say I’m irreverent? Well, you are a freeloader.”
The panting wolf closed its trap and laid on its side in response. Letting out a huff that disturbed the cool dirt it was lounging in, it mumbled, “Shoulda bagged two elk, eh?”
“Kiss my ass,” she snapped back. “You left the ice box open.”
“Shouldn’t leave eggs all in one basket.”
“You ate the heart before I even had it out of the cavity.”
“Better warm.”
“You fell asleep on watch.”
“I’m a light sleeper. Woulda heard anything coming, yeah?”
Ylva rolled her eyes. “You deflect blame like no one else.”
“Maybe everyone else oughta git good at the blame game.”
“Hungry?”
The wolf scrambled to its paws, kicking up dust and forest substrate. It trotted over and looked down at the net, ears forward, eyes wide, drool spooling from its cracked maw. “Tony Chachere’s,” it stated as it looked up at Ylva, a look of placation on its pulled face.
The woman chuckled under her breath as she gathered the ends of the net and pulled the heavy teardrop over her shoulder with both hands. “Back to the cabin then.” The wolf took off ahead of her up the path and she followed, barefooted, through the thicket. “Take your time! You don’t want another busted foot…”
It came running back in a few moments, a stone in its mouth. It spit out the river rock and pranced away from her as she shooed it away with a foot, grinning. It came back with a stick and laid it down at her feet, backing up all the while to keep from getting trampled as she stomped at it. Then it tried to shoulder her and Ylva stopped laughing. “Stop trying to trip me! Don’t make me say your name,” she warned.
The heather wolf stood back, its blue eyes squinted. “Don’t make me say yours.”
She pursed her lips and shifted the sack of fish to her other shoulder. “Come on. Let’s get home before the moon comes up.” The wolf bristled, but shook it off and followed after her.
~~~
27th Autumn: Issue, Threat, Separation
We’re bodies trying to eclipse each other.
“What are we doing about the dogs?” the puma asked, mindlessly licked between the pads of its webbed paw. “It’s getting colder.”
Tam let out a breath and put his glasses on top of his midnight hair. “No dogs.”
The mountain lion paused, then it’s tail twitched. Yellow irises panned over to the man. “Excuse me? How the hell are we going to survive? How are we going to get to Margot in the Spring? Is this about your dumb pride again? There are more important things at stake.”
He rubbed the bridge of his nose. “Can you not?”
The puma narrowed its eyes and stood up, dark liquid fur rippling over quivering muscle. Its tail swept to-and-fro behind its imposing silhouette. It sauntered over and butted a head against Tam’s shoulder. Tam pushed its big head away and stood up, letting his book fall from his lap. “No dogs.” The puma’s platter-sized paw hit him in the lower back, making him stumble forward. He reeled around, blue eyes blazing, but he was met with bared teeth and quiet fury, not even a growl of caution. The big cat stood up on its hind legs and placed its paws on Tam’s shoulders, meeting him nose to nose. Tam struggled to support the lion’s weight. The man’s upper lip twitched as he fought against the impulse to snarl. Instead, he said coolly, “Face me, Ylva.”
The puma roared at him in anguish as its eyes rolled back its head. Drama Queen, Tam thought as the lion canted back and collapsed to the ground, its shape giving way to the naked female form beneath. Ylva raised up just enough to put a hand to her head, then her face pinched into rage and she turned her gaze on Tam who was busy undressing. When she saw him, her expression melted. Human embarrassment, fascination, attraction—all the things shucked off whenever she wasn’t herself—came flooding back and she crossed her arms over her chest and curled in on herself.
Staring at the wooden floor of their little cabin in the middle of nowhere, she fought the warmth in her cheeks. She hadn’t seen him in person in over a month. As they grew closer, the time between changes shortened more and more until they overlapped. To contrast, the more a rift grew between them, the longer the time between mutual changes. She looked up from where she was crouched and Tam was watching her as he undressed. His face was like carved stone, his hair wild and unkempt. There was hunger in his blue eyes. Hunger and sadness. He didn’t normally look that way. Normally there was never a single moment he didn’t have a smirk on his face, a joke on his tongue, a quip leaping off his thin smile, his lashes squinted up in laughter.
She had never acted on it, not ever, but she was certain she loved him somehow.
Tam finished peeling off his socks and sighed. “Yeah, get a good fucking eye full.” Then his face crunched in on itself and all his bones broke and the sinew that held the fibers of himself together snapped as if a great cosmic beast had passed through a spider’s web, and that web was him. The wolf got up and shook its whole body from tip of nose to tip of tail. It gave Ylva a guarded look before saying, “Look, Miss Tagalong, I’m a loner. I don’t want dogs. They’re scared of me… and they’ll probably be afraid of you too. I don’t want your heart to get broken over that.” It padded over and sat next to her, its heat making her reach an arm around and hug it close to her. The wolf looked down at her and sniffed her hair. “Dinner?”
~~~
27th Winter: Cold, Cold, Cold
We are what we eat: everything.
Tam hugged himself as he violently shook. He was sideways on the bed, his head stuck to the pillow, sweat frozen over. The puma eyed him from across the room. Twitch. Twitch. He hated it the most. He hated the cold next, and that was something. He hated everything else to some lesser degree after the two. His nerves were shot, he was starving. The puma had just finished off a thin hare in front of him. He had grit his teeth, pride not letting him utter her name. She wouldn’t get the satisfaction of seeing him submit to fur and food.
She had been the one to utter his name the last time. She had been the one to get angry.
Dogs, dogs, dogs. Tam’s teeth squeaked as his jaw clenched violently. Supplies, supplies, supplies. Told you so, told you so, told you so. He’d never hear the end of it if he said her name now. If he gave in, there would be a bitter, caustic reunion followed by blinding pain and then where would he be?
Warm?
Fuck.
He slowly got the shakes under control and let out a calming breath. He swallowed noisily, and said, “Hey… Hey…” in a warbling, harsh voice. The puma didn’t look at him, only blinked slowly. Twitch. Twitch. Twitch. He frowned at it. “Listen, I’m sorry about the dogs… Let’s…” Bloodshot eyes darted downward to the floor, passed over the cougar, fixed on the frosted over window. He hated the cold. “Let’s get some puppies in the spring.”
Twitch. The puma stood up, leaped from the dresser, making the armoire shake as the cat silently touched down on the floor, and padded over to his bedside. There it sat, head level with its own shoulders, eyeing him with gold, curious, disk-like black pupils that darted over his face.
“I’m being serious, Ylva” he whispered, his eyes closing for a moment.
The panther rubbed against his cheek, a rumbling purr deep in its chest. The purring was only interrupted once as it said quietly, “You’re one of the most stubborn people I know.”
“Yeah… I know,” Tam said, opening his eyes. Ylva was there, crouched down in front of him. Her rusty brows were pulled together in a concerned frown, but there was a smile of forgiveness on her lips and no hint of ire. She cracked his hair from the pillow and pulled him up. Shivering herself, she threw one of his arms over her shoulder and pulled him to the door. He tried to pull from her, but she held his arm in a vice-like grip. She threw open the door and the dead stillness outside took his breath away. Then his eyes fell on the dark shape on the porch. Lit by moonlight, the blood at the cow’s torn throat looked like dull ruby spilling out of a series of crevices. He had never been so happy to see a moose in all his life. Then he splintered apart.
Tongue swinging, the wolf barked in triumph and attached like a leech to one of the cow’s hind haunches. Ripping and tearing, flinging warm, steaming gore in all directions, the canine dug into his reward for resigning.
Ylva leaned in the doorway, a smile on her lips. Then she shivered and went back inside, pulling on layer after layer before laying in bed. An hour later, the wolf, belly full to the point of discomfort, stumbled into the bedroom and curled up next to her to keep her warm.
~~~
28th Spring: Huskies, Trauma, Dependence
Hate begets hate. Regret often begets love.
Tam stared into the eyes of the panting puppy and hissed, “Sit!”
The puppy’s tail wagged. Drool dripped from its open maw.
“Sit, Beowulf!”
The puppy’s tail wagged again, harder, like a propeller.
“For fucksake,” Tam growled under his breath.
Beowulf sat down, cocking his head to the side.
“Oh!” Tam jumped up with his fists in the air. “Oh! Good boy!” He handed the puppy a small sliver of dried chicken and rubbed on the juvenile’s mane. “Tha’s a good, good boy! Yes he is! Who’s my alpha male?! Who’s my big ol’ alpha male?! You are! You are the baddest ass in all—”
“That’s not Beowulf,” the puma said slowly from the shed full of four snoring Husky youths. “That’s Starkiss. And she’s your second musher.”
Tam blinked at “Beowulf”. He looked over the puppy’s black and while markings, pink gums, and miss-matched back paws. The puppy licked his face. “You sure?” the man mumbled. “I coulda sworn…”
“Do you see a weiner? She might be alpha, Babe, but she’s no male.”
“Sled dogs have a lotta fur,” Tam grumbled defensively.
“So do you,” the puma purred.
“You saying I should get harnessed-up too?”
The puma closed its eyes and decided not to grace him with a reply.
“Everyone’s a critic, Starkiss,” Tam said.
The puppy-girl barked in agreement, spraying him with spittle.
Daily training over with, they rounded up the pups, watered the bowls, and turned on the barn’s new heater-box.
“You should stay with them tonight,” the puma advised. “They need to know you’re in charge, but they won’t respect you if you stay in the house.”
“They’re still so little,” Tam said. “Will they really remember if I stayed with them or not?”
“Would you?” the big cat asked indifferently, then huffed and yawned, baring huge meat-gouging teeth as its tongue curled up like an electrocuted snake. It looked up at him and sat on its haunches; its whiskers pointed toward him in interest. “You’re good with them, but they need to see the other side of you too… They’ll trust you more. I know that for sure. They know you.”
“But they like you. You’re covered in love when I’m not yelling at them.”
“They already know I’m the mom. They need a dad.”
The notion made him stop walking toward their thawing cabin and he asked, “You’re dead set on nailing me down, ain’tcha?”
“Only if you’ll let me.”
Tam considered the other beside him. He considered its gold eyes for a long time. There was more than the question about their natures between them. There was also a question of trust. There was also a question about the truth. “I’ll do it, but only if you tell me about Hysteron and the blood you whisper about in your sleep.”
Tam had thought that would be the end of the conversation.
But the puma said, “Say my name… and I’ll tell you everything.”
Inside, a man set out clothing for a woman and doffed his own clothing. He didn’t know how long they had, but if the universe would just let them see eye to eye for a moment before the change claimed him, he might be satisfied… even if the truth made him see his other half in a new light.
“Tell me about the night I met you, Ylva.”
She didn’t dress. She closed the distance between them inch by inch and when her breast touched his, he collapsed around her, tucking his chin into her neck and breathing in her woodsmoke-smelling hair.
“He’s gone,” she said breathily. “I should have left, but I wasn’t what I am now. I wasn’t strong. But I did start the fire… I just didn’t know what I would lose… and I lost so much. Too much. My home, my clothes, my pictures, my mother’s ashes… and my dogs.” Her voice hitched on the last of her words. It was a long time before she continued.
“I didn’t know about people like us,” Ylva said. “Didn’t think they existed. Who would? I don’t know if you changed me by coming into my life… or just helped me to change.” Tam waited, soaking in the moment they were the same, like two antler knives fitted flush in a drawer, hilt-to-hilt, bone-to-bone.
“It helped that he beat me,” she whispered. “It helped…”
“I’m glad you’re alive. I… lost myself before I found you,” he confessed.
“You mean…” She drew back from him to meet his eyes. “How long were you like that before you found me?”
Tam couldn’t remember.
“You… are the only one… who has ever heard my voice,” he said.
Her hands knotted into his hair, drawing his face to hers.
“I can’t remember a time that I wasn’t on four legs… before you.”
She pressed her lips to his and, for a moment, the world fell away.
Then there was a mountain lion in his lap and cruel reality returned.
~~~
28th Autumn: Settlement, Fish, Silence
Existence is messy and patience is kind.
The puma waited for its fish. When the wolf appeared, it perked up its sandy head.
The wolf barked.
The puma purred.
Five Huskies dragged two trail-mangled nets to the trough by the barn to be sorted through by mouth.
The puma growled something.
The wolf cocked its head, tongue splayed.
The young dogs looked at each other quizzically.
The puma finally speared one of the fish with a scoop of a platter-sized paw, and blinked slowly. Then, it sauntered away from the pack with the trout in its teeth.
The wolf picked up one paw, as if to follow the big cat, but then turned back to the crew and snapped orders with cutting teeth.
The wolf knew the puma could wait.
Winter would not.
The changes between them had become irregular and unpredictable since their confessions. But then, their natural cycles had synchronized.
Both of them remembered each other’s names, but their mechanics no longer worked. The spell that had sewn them to one another was assuredly broken.
So, they waited.
A full moon would come soon and transformation was guaranteed.
Maybe they would both change and the curse would be over.
They led the dogs and hunted their meals.
Still, they waited.
The final thaw was coming soon and, after that, there wouldn’t be another until next Spring.
They might see next Spring if they were together.
But wolves and pumas don’t speak the other’s language.
The true gap between them now was only time and unreason, bent by the passing of the season, led by their noses and their bodies’ treasons.
The wolf and the puma had been reduced to their essences.
But their essence was a partnership that could wait, and would wait.
At long last, I have a pack, the wolf thought, saving a piece for his mate.
The puma was not so sensitive to the gravity of their bond. As it sought out the company of the wolf and its dogs later on, it thought, If there is another fish, I might let the wolf live.
Of course, there was another fish.
They both worked diligently.
They both loved silently.
And, when the last thaw finally came, Ylva and Tam changed for the last time.
ns 15.158.61.37da2
