4

I didn’t have a choice, so I told Teah what had transpired in the woods. However, I was wise enough to leave out the part about watching the Alpha change and swim in the nude. I knew that if she ever found out, she wouldn’t spare my life like the wolf had done.

I think the only thing that spared me any punishment was that I still was in bad shape. And I soon got worse. Looked like my leg wasn’t the only thing I’d messed up during my night adventure. The pond’s cold water, and all the hours I’d spent wearing my soaking-wet clothes, had affected me. That night I was burning in fever, and in the morning I was coughing and struggling to breathe.

I lost count of the days I spent lying on the straw mattress before the hearth, shaking and choking, moaning in pain every time I tried to move, because my chest and my leg hurt and burned.

Finally, Teah forced her rheumatic bones to crouch down by my side. I wasn’t fully awake, lost in that fevered tossing and turning that filled my head with hot clouds. Even so, the way she caressed my forehead worried me. I was surely dying for Teah to show any affection.

“Listen, Joy,” she whispered. “I need to go out. I’m giving you a soup that will help you sleep, and you won’t wake up until I’m back.”

I intended to nod, but I don’t know if I did.

And a moment later it was broad day, the fever had broken, I could breathe with ease and my leg felt ready to run uphill. I sat up on the straw mattress and felt the light weight of a delicate thin chain around my neck, from which a cold pendant hung. I grabbed it, looking down, but I couldn’t quite see it. So I brushed my messy hair to the side to take the necklace off.

“Joy?” Teah cried from the other side of the room. “Wait! Don’t take it off!”

I grabbed the pendant again, frowning, and felt it with my fingertips. It was a stone carved as a crescent moon.

“What stone is it?” I asked.

“Moonstone,” Teah replied in the most casual way, bringing a pot full of water to hang on the hearth.

“Moonstone?” I repeated, stunned.

Teah shrugged, grimacing as she faced me.

“You were dying, child. Nothing worked. So I ask the healer of the pack for help.”

I stared at her, eyes like grapefruits, and needed a moment to find my voice.

“So you hang a wolves’ stone from my neck?” I cried. “Knowing about my dirty blood? Were you trying to kill me?”

Teah patted my head with a mocking chuckle.

“It worked, didn’t it? You were so far gone, I had nothing to lose by trying. I’ll bring you some clothes while you wash yourself. You stink!”

I got up still grumbling and froze in surprise once again as soon as I looked out the window.

“It’s…!” I mumbled. “It’s all covered in snow! What day is it?”

“It’s January fifth,” Teah replied.

“What!? I was out for two months?”

“Why do you think I dared to try wolf medicine on you?” she asked, throwing an old dress to my face.

I looked again at the winter landscape, cloaked in pure white snow. January fifth!

“The Wolf Moon!” I cried. “It’s in two days!

“At least the fever didn’t make you forget the calendar. Happy birthday, by the way”

She rolled her eyes when I faced her, puzzled.

“You’re turning sixteen today, aren’t you? Come, wash and get dressed. You must get ready for tonight’s ceremony.”

“What for? Not like I’m taking part of it.”

“Not taking part doesn’t mean not going. We’re going together, to make sure they take your spoiled stepsister away.”

Her reply made me chuckle, and her smile added to the surprises of the day.

“If we’re lucky, they’ll pick her and her two friends, and your life will be a little easier.”

I shrugged, grabbing the pot with hot water from the hearth. She was right. My dear sister Lily and her two best friends were the main source of abuse and lies about me. And maybe if they left for the castle, in time the older villagers would die, and the younger ones would forget to hate me and attack me around the clock.

Teah tried to untangle the mess in my hair, until I grew tired of her pulling and yanking.

“Enough,” I grunted, rubbing my sore scalp. “Just cut it off.”

She leaned to look at me with a slight frown.

“That’s not a bad idea. It’ll be easier to hide if it’s short. I’ll go grab the scissors.”

I waited for her fidgeting with the crescent pendant, eyes on the fire before me.

“The wolf that came to see you the other day,” I said.

“You mean two months ago,” she corrected me, trimming down my hair with vigorous snips.

My hair was limp and silky, and had it been a different color, I would’ve regretted having it cut.

“Right, two months ago. Was it the Alpha?”

“Why would the lord of the Dale come asking about you? Like he didn’t have better things to do.”

Because he’d saved me from the lion? I shrugged.

“He said my woods.”

Teah let out another mocking chuckle.

“That means nothing. All the wolves consider the woods and the Dale as theirs. Because they are, just like ourselves. We would be all dead had they not saved us from the immortals.”