The Were

      Jane wanted to feel her blood responding to the shifting powers of the planet below her and the skies above her.    The signs were present, as they had been for her mother and the grandmother’s before her. The Change must be coming, she thought, for her to wake before twilight.
         Stretching her long body out beneath the covers, Jane ran her hands through her hair, taking care to run bare fingers over the naked nape of her neck, then along the tips of her teeth.  Peering about the darkened room she could see nothing different. 
         Was it possible that she would not make the change? 
At 15 years old, she was nearly an adult.  Older than her mother and sisters had been when they had come of age and their genetic gifts had awakened. 
Slipping from bed, she stood in front of the window, tilted her chin to the ceiling, closed her eyes and took a cleansing breath.  She began Earth Down position, pointing her palms toward the floor.  Sweeping her arms to the right, she circled slowly to Moon Up.  “Let me grow, let me become protector and provider” she breathed.

As she moved through her Twilight Awakening steps, beads of sweat began to form on the bridge of Jane’s nose.  She resisted the urge to swipe them away and moved her torso and arms into Touch the Earth, Turn Asunder. 
Twilight Awakening always made Jane think of Suzanne, and the hours spent together, as Suzanne taught her the Awakening moves.  The loamy spicy scent of her mother’s sweat had clung to the air as they practiced. 
As her work out intensified, Jane heard her mother’s voice in her head “Jane, count the beats of your heart.  Feel the blood feeding your muscles.  Focus on how far each tendon and muscle will stretch, one day they will stretch much, much farther.”
Of course, the manipulators had designed waking exercises to bring those of the blood to better physical awareness.  Jane could feel her long lean muscles stretching and her heart pounded a strong rhythm, but though she woke early, feeling the call in her pulse, her stretches were no different.  Her body was the same.
         Perhaps she would be anomaly.  Throwback to the old ones who could not protect and provide, whose strength lay in the knowledge and finite supplies they had brought from Earth.
         Jane completed her exercise, finally wiping the sweat from her nose.  This would be a muggy evening, if the moist air flowing in through her window was any indication.  Smith’s home in the center of the settlement would be even worse.  Unchanged as he was, his protected location didn’t allow for a nice evening breeze, like the homes of the Were.  For being unchanged and male, Smith was still one of the most interesting adults in the settlement.  He was definitely more interesting than her teachers at school, who had begun to watch her closely, and seemed surprised at the high percentages she continually scored on exams. The work wasn’t challenging, Jane could understand why so many Were daughters traditionally left school at the 6th grade level.
Looking in her mirror, chin to shoulder, Jane tried to view the back of her neck, running her fingers again over the nape. No tuft of downy hair could be seen or felt. “When will it be my turn?” she asked the empty room.  “I thought I was sure to change before Savior day.”
Jane made the bed and began to gather her day clothes, pulling a white tunic and well worn suede leggings from her drawers.  From under the bed she grabbed her walking boots. 

Savior day was less than a week away.  Odds were, she wouldn’t need a new grey hiss skin tunic to symbolize her transformation.  Odds were, she would be wearing her same old, everyday, unchanged clothes. Just like the herd.  Imagine what mother would say, if she heard me in here pitying myself, she thought.
Outside of the cottage, just under the eaves trough, Jane found the rain barrel and dipped her index finger into the cold water.  Pulling it out, she shook the cold water from her finger and inspected it.  Her flat pink nail, with no sign of dark claw or keratin, was tinged purple.  “No need to worry over maintaining hot cisterns my ass,” she said, slinging her wash rag into the cold water with her other hand and watching as the rag sank into the murky water.   
She pulled her night dress roughly over her head and hung it on a small metal hook attached to the cottage wall, along with her terry cloth.  “I will never see why we have to live so rough.  Never” she said,

Suddenly, she snatched the rag from the barrel and squeezed out the excess water, allowing the stream to fall on the ground at her feet.  Unwrapping her little bar of lavender soap from its linen, Jane put her nose to it and sniffed appreciatively before beginning to rub the little bar, more of a sliver, into her wash rag.  As the suds built, she inhaled.  The scent of lavender surrounded her.  “Do you have any idea how wonderful you would smell in a warm bath?” She asked the little sliver, cupping it in her palm. 

When it failed to respond, she carefully wrapped the soap back up and set it with her clean clothes.  Soon she was covered in goosebumps from scrubbing at her skin with the cold wash rag.  Finally, with a hiss, she dipped her head in the rain barrel soaking her head before she bent low and began to wash her long auburn hair. 

Careful to keep the soap from her eyes, she peeked at the ground, to be certain her hair did not drag in the mud puddle forming at her feet. A pupa the size of her little toe, it’s pale pink skin glistening, crawled to the edge of the puddle.  Jane stepped back, letting the little two footed worm drink, but staying far from its stinger. It was unusual to see the little creatures so far from the water, though their cot was just a short lope away from the river. 

Jane tip toed to the hook and pulled her terry cloth from it.  She patted her hair, and quickly wiped her body down with the dry material before hanging it again. Finding her day clothes, she slipped them on, but carried her socks and walking boots as she hurried through the grass.  The path into town was just around the corner, and if she hustled, she wouldn’t be late.  Likely Smith was preparing a nice lunch, no sense putting dry socks over wet feet.
+Meet Suzanne

         In the cottage, in her bedroom, curled in her furs, Jane’s mother was thinking about her children.  Five of her children had been girls, kept on and trained as fitted a protector.  The oldest of them, Mary, had turned at the young age of 11, taking charge of the young Werewomen, and taking to the wilderness around the city walls with a vengeance fit for an Alpha.  At the age of 16, she had born twin girl children of her own, both showing signs of being as predatory as their mother. 

Suzanne stretched.  Her long, slender limbs sent her bed fur slipping to the floor.  Turning onto her back, she spread her fingers wide and with effort, as the radius and ulna in her forlimb were nearly fused, brought her palm to her face.  Spreading wide the digits she inspected her finger tips.  Each was tipped with a blunt, black, keratinic claw.  Under the digits, directly beneath the metacarpal joints, a thickened pad of skin, ringed with dried blood, stood out from the finger.  Suzanne scraped at it with her clawed thumb.  Flakes of blood fell onto her bare chest.

Three of the girls, now living among their pack peers, had all changed by the age of thirteen and were now proving themselves to be strong huntress’s and leaders, protecting the town folk and the settlement, they fought back the wilderness that threatened to consume the town and brought edible game to the herd. 

The last two of Suzanne’s children had been boys, properly fostered out as soon as they were weaned.  Jane was the fifth of the seven children, Suzanne’s last girl child.  Fifteen and unchanged. 

Suzanne thought of the calm way Jane took to her studies.  Even without an innate sense of inner fury, Jane always fared well.  Her patience and persistence often paid off.  In training, her sisters would rush and flush the game, while Jane would roost someplace and wait quietly for the game to come to her.  Though her sister’s came home with more game strung and trussed over their shoulders, Jane’s catch had nary a ruffled feather or scale, and was gutted without a bit of offal left within.  If precision counted in the fight against the wilderness, Jane’s attention to detail would be much prized, but where was her Change?  Suzanne could see no overt signs that her youngest child would quicken, becoming predator, protector and provider to her people. No female of her line in remembered history had failed to turn. 

Suzanne slipped from bed, plucked her bloodied leathers from the floor and put them on.  Neglecting to fully lace them, she shook out her long mane of hair and flung it over a shoulder, before heading out the cot door, toward the river.  A cold rinse was certainly in order, she thought, licking her thumb and wiping at the gory flakes stuck to her chest.
         After a good rinsing, she would go to speak with her Beta, Ellen.

~~~~Jane arrived at Smith’s cot damp and shoeless.  Though she didn’t ask, he handed her a wash rag, hand towel and hair brush.  He laughed at Jane’s exaggerated moue and gestured toward his lavatory.  “Get on in there,” he played her game, feigning displeasure.
He heard water running in the bathroom.  Sometimes it seemed to him Jane would use any tactic to access his hot water tanks.  “You ought to take a hot bath sometime,” he shouted, “like you did when you were little.  I still have some of your favorite scented soap you know.”  From the bathroom, he heard a subdued, “Yeah right,” and smiled as he heard the bathroom cupboard creak open, and slam shut a moment later.  Of course she would check.

Smith had become accustomed to listening to Jane’s concerns regarding her changing.  It seemed they could not have a meal, walk, or swim without first having an in depth discussion of her change.
Today, she sat at his table, absently fingering the nape of her neck.  He tugged a drawer open, and pulled out his best chopping knife, wondering if she was aware of her worried little tell.
He tried to pay attention to her words, though Jane had arrived and begun the same conversation they had been holding for months.  Smith had realized that the more they talked, the more little details he found himself divulging, regarding his own knowledge of the change.  He wasn’t sure if Jane realized just how well versed he was in regards to knowledge of the change.  He couldn’t help it.  She was distressed.  He didn’t like to see her worried, it was so unlike her natural playful nature.
“Not everyone turns you know.” Smith said, “Not everyone was intended to change.  The Landers never intended for us all to become, you know.”  His thin fingers waved out the window, down the path back to the Were’s little houses, before beginning to tear up the pile of lettuce leaf in front of him.

         Jane lifted her lips in the merest of smiles, “not everyone was born to my bloodline” she said. 

         “Even so, the majority of us were intended to remain unchanged, though we carry the genes, and they allow us a certain fierceness and determination, they do not manifest into full wereism at puberty.”  He began to chop up crispy tubers, tossing them into the lettuce, “why am I telling you this, you know this already.”

         “Because I’m not changing!  Because I’m not changing and I’m of the deep blood.  My line is supposed to be dependable, we are the last defense and I am supposed to change.” Jane’s eyes were wide, “I HAVE to change!”

         “Don’t panic.  You’ll change.  Give me your platter” He said, using the distraction to allow Jane to calm down.  She had never become this agitated before.  “If you are so concerned, let’s go to the medic and get you an evaluation, a little check up if you will.  There are things they can look at in your blood. Things that even your own mother, wise as she is, cannot evaluate on her own.” 

         Jane rolled her eyes in dismay, “Do you never learn?  You are so unchanged, as if my mother would ever let me be evaluated.  Look,” she said, with her fingernail, Jane traced a line on Smith’s tabletop and meeting Smith’s eyes she waved a finger over one side of the imaginary line. “Here is you,” she tapped a nail on the other side, “and here the Were are.  The Were don’t need testing or evaluations or, oh anything the people of the herd need.”

         Smith heard her disparaging tone, so reminiscent of her mother.  Grabbing a broom, he swept two or three small pillars’ out the door.  “These things are terrible this year,” he said, giving himself a moment to consider her actions.  “Jane, if this is so, then times have changed far more than our predecessors ever intended.  Predators were to be the exception, the pinnacle of the manipulation, created as the ultimate defense, but even they were intended to remain ‘human’” Smith dropped a crisp salad in front of Jane, directly over her invisible line.  “Eat now, worry later.  The Council has called session this afternoon and I for one would like to worry about that for the moment.  Perhaps it will take your mind off the Changing.”

~~~~~~~~Smith knew something was up when he took his seat in the packed audience and got a look at the Senators in attendance.  They had taken their seats on the dias, they looked smug, and someone was in Matilda’s usual seat.  He didn’t see the Were woman in the audience chamber. 

Jane had not yet noticed the interloper.  As usual, she was the only Were daughter present at the meeting.  Even little Were girls, well behind the 6th grade didn’t attend Council Meetings.  She waved at several students from school, and though she was not surprised when Eloise did not acknowledge her, she began to feel concerned when not even her friend Daily waved back.  “Smith, what’s wrong with them?” Jane indicated the girls with her eyes, “I think they’re pretending they can’t see me.” 

Looking back, over his shoulder, Smith noted that while the girls ignored Jane, a large group of boys had begun snickering, whispering to one another and watching Jane as he led her to their seats.  Seeking to keep Jane from noticing their behavior, he asked “Look at the dias Jane, does anything seem awry to you?” Smith met the eyes of the boy who seemed to be leading the group, placed a clearly protective hand on her shoulder and guided her to a seat at the far side of the chamber. The snickering ceased.  As they settled in, Jane whispered to Smith, “What is she doing up there?  She’s not changed!”

Lead Senator Kevin French stood and banged his gavel. “I would like to bring this meeting of the Hame General Public Council to order.” He said, his baritone voice carried to the back of the room. “I am certain you are wondering who this lovely lady is,” Senator French smiled and gestured to the woman in Matilda’s chair. “The council has elected a new Representative of the Were.  Please welcome Tammy Moon, she will be taking the place of Matilda, who has been unable to attend regular sessions for quite some time now.”  Tammy smiled wanly at the crowd.

A quiet murmer began in the audience.  Senetor French began sorting papers, preparing to bring the session to order.

Smith stood, arm raised in a request for the Council’s attention.  He met the Lead Senators eyes, and the Senator smiled.  At French’s nod, Smith spoke, “When was this decision made?” he asked, attempting to mask his shock.  “It is not apparent to me that the Were’s best interest is being represented.” To remove the place of a predatory Were from the Council was to say that the Were itself had nothing to say.

“It was decided in Executive session, which, for the record, Matilda was again unable to attend.  You are all aware of the issues raised when working with a blooded Were on Council.  Their very nature makes them undependable.  We realize that the life of a Predator does not allow the Werewolves to live within a schedule.  Hence they are hardly able to manage the position of Representative Senator. 

“Have we changed so much?”  Smith said, “that we would remove such a vital part of our people from our Democracy?  This doesn’t feel right, the Were should have a say in the operation of Hame, after all they are the reason we are able to survive here at all.” 
There were no murmers of assent from the crowd.  His words had not provoked the people’s support.  Smith took his seat.

The Senetor looked as though he had expected Smith’s comment, and closed the door on the trap, “Do you see any active members of the Were represented here today Mr. Smith?”  French spread his arms wide, “I would very much like to hear the Were’s opinion on the Council’s decision.  Perhaps they would like to make themselves available?”

Jane didn’t have to look around the chamber to know that no Changed Were women were present.  Women like her mother didn’t feel that being part of Council affected their way of life.  They were there to protect and provide and they did so.  Council meetings and discussions weren’t of interest to them.  Jane touched the back of her neck self-consciously. Smith’s open concern made Jane wonder if perhaps her mother, and the rest of the Were women had miscalculated something important.

“If no one else has anything to add…”  French waited a moment.  No one stood to raise a hand, “Well then, Council has decided to accept a woman of the Were, who has not Changed, in the place of an active Were-member.  She will hold the interest of the Were at heart, while remaining dependable and capable of being a Representative.”

Smith remained silent and subdued throughout the remainder of the meeting. He did not speak to Jane as they exited the Council Hall, but took her hand in his and left without faring well to the council, or the people Jane had considered Smith’s own friends.

Within two minutes of the gavel banging the meeting to a close, Smith and Jane were nearly half of the way back to his house.  She could see that he was lost in his own thoughts, and called his name twice before he slowed and met her eyes. 

“Talk to me.  I need to hear your thoughts.” Jane said, squeezing his hand for emphasis. 

“My thoughts huh?  Well, you’re the only one.”  Smith released her hand, and continued along the path. 

“What are you thinking?” Jane hustled to keep up with his long stride.

In his heart he heard what he couldn’t say to her, Today, I think the Were lost something that I one day hope to teach  you to see, and if you don’t change, I will be free to do just that.  But, if your every waking dream comes true, I will lose you to the Were, lose you to their inability to see beyond the moment.  But when he spoke, the words came from his head “Jane, I’m thinking the Were lost something today, something like respect, but not the kind that leaves you chomping on each other’s throats.” 

“I felt it too Smith. They don’t think we are like them anymore. He said Tammy was ‘capable’ that’s like saying Matilda isn’t, even though she has good reason, being heat secluded.” 

Smith’s cheeks were red.  Jane wasn’t sure if he was finally tired out from the march home, or if she had embarrassed him, but what she had said was true.  Matilda had born twins, three times in a row.  She was a good Were for the council because her pregnancies meant she was always close to home, and bored enough to attend a Council meeting, but the pregnancies had taken their toll on Matilda.  Leaving her no option but to go into seclusion, far from the settlement where she wasn’t tempted to bring more littles into the world.  Once she settled, she may or may not get her fill of the wilderness long enough to spend another two or three years sitting on the Council.  Who knew?  It was the way of the Were.

“Suzanne,” Said Ellen, “Mrs. French left me a list of supply needs for the settlement two days ago.  I told her we would get to it within the week, and another list was brought to me this morning.”

           Ellen stood stiffly, her shoulders rigid.  Her lips slightly open and her eyes locked on Suzanne.  She was short for a Werewoman, appearing oddly child-like, dressed in multiple layered leathers.  Her flyaway dark blond hair was tied in a leather snood which hung below the nape of her neck.  You want to fight me, but you’re too afraid yet, Suzanne thought.  She always knew.

         “Suzanne?”

         “I’m aware of the head-woman’s continued demands, but I have no  plan to explain Wilderness to Mrs. French.”

         Keeping eye contact, Ellen stepped closer to Suzanne.  “Then you won’t explain how far we have to go for flyer meat?  She has included this on her lists.  On the last hunt, we lost an adolescent daughter to an adult red trail if you remember. 
Suzanne remembered the lost girl.  An adult red trail had pulled her from her perch in a tangle bush, where she watched over a flyer nest, waiting for the flyer to return.  While her net was found washed in her own blood, her body was not found.

Ellen had moved in, her chest met Suzanne’s shoulder, “We must go back, to when the Were took charge of defense, when no head-woman would think to give the Beta of the Were a chore list.” Ellen’s hissed the last words into Suzanne’s ear. 

         The urge to push back at Ellen was strong, how easy it would be to knock the fierce little Were down a peg by asserting her dominance.  Instead, Suzanne sat down cross legged, and beckoned at her second to do the same.  When they were both seated, Suzanne stayed quiet, her thoughts chaotic.  If I let her speak, she will believe her own conclusions, more than if I explain them to her before she has come to them on her own.

         It was a moment before Ellen spoke, “Something is different in the wilderness.  The girls smell it, feel it, Why?”

         “Our habits have changed, Ellen.  The Were is protector and provider, the periphery, with the settlement and the herd-folk at the center.  We were created to protect the people, or die in the process of trying.”

         “You don’t know the first thing about death!  The townsfolk don’t know either!  They send our daughters out hunting for their favorite dinner, they are not greatful for the sacrifice.  Like my Beth.”

         “Ellen, this is not personal.  Try to see beyond the herd.  Look at who our people are.  When we were girls, our mothers hunted the diggers.  Now we only find signs of them in the deep Wilderness.  Our grandmothers hunted the big flyers, and none have been seen in our generation.  Even the red-trail, which according to records were rarely seen,”

         “Except during the floods, right after landing, when they took half the town.” Ellen interrupted.

         “We rarely find them now.  They hide from us.  They’re true predators and they won’t try to take a pack of Were.  They know they’re outmatched. 

         “But Suzanne, don’t you feel it?  The need to move.  The Were who are expecting feel it strongest, but you must feel it too?  We should follow the river and find where it meets the sea.  The old records show that there is an ironwood forest there.  That means game.  Many of us are willing to settle there, create a camp.  The town will be safe.  There are no predators and certainly nothing left to hurt them here.  The herd even goes down to the river alone now.  Suzanne, they don’t need us.”

         The Were had researched the idea, begun to plan.  Suzanne was surprised they were as far into it as Ellen’s speech indicated.  “What will they eat?” she asked, wondering if her daughters were involved. 

         “They’ll plant bigger gardens.  Maybe they’ll become a little bit less lazy, pen up their domestic animals and take care of them, instead of letting them run wild and get taken by hiss, or whatever all else.

Suzanne looked at her Beta.  They had been girls together.  She could remember Ellen’s face when they were five years old.  Screwed up, lip lifted as though she were changed and aware.  And the yips both their mothers made to bring them home before dark.  “Ellen, no one can leave the settlement.  Without the Were, the territory would be unprotected, and the Wilderness would creep back in, bit by bit, until the whole of the settlement succumbed.  I will speak with Matilda.  There is a council meeting today, perhaps I can catch her.  I have never brought a concern to her for the council.  You are right to suggest it Ellen.”

         “I didn’t” said her Beta.  “I don’t believe the herd will listen to any of us.  They don’t treat us as defenders any longer, but as servents, and sports.  Suza,” Ellen used the girl-hood name of her alpha, “this isn’t landing-time.  The herd IS changed.  They are all adjusted to Hame.  They’ll survive.  If you are acting on your belief that the Were and the Herd are one people, you should watch a daughter die, mourn her with your people.  You won’t find a single member of the herd there.”  Ellen stood, and dropped the head-woman’s list to the ground by her friend.  “Better yet, go talk to the daughter they tore apart and left for dead.  I’m sure Mary would be glad to see her mother.” 

         When Ellen threw herself to her hands and loped away at full speed, taking her fighting scent away with her, Suzanne stood straight, threw her head back and howled.  No one replied.
         

~~~~~“Smith, slow down, we’ll get you home too soon and I won’t have a moment with you before you get to chopping and cooking up dinner” Jane raised her eyebrows, “What’s got you in such a hurry anyway?”

Smith continued his hurried pace, “I have something of a special dinner planned.  I should have mentioned this earlier.”  He glanced at Jane with a worried, wrinkled brow, “I have a guest coming.”

“Well that’s great!” said Jane, who was hurrying along side him, while looking down at her walking boots, the toes of which had begun to buckle.  “Who’s coming?  Are you making up the dandelion salad?  It wouldn’t take me much to bring in a Gamebird for you, we have plenty of time to bake one…”

Smith stopped.  Jane pounded along, thinking of the best spot to snare a quick gamebird.  When she realized Smith was no longer a step ahead, she stopped, turned, and looked behind her.  Smith stood a few yards behind her, biting his lip. 

“What?” she asked.

“Jane, I’m planning an intimate, dinner tonight,” He looked guiltily at the girl, “With a friend.  I meant to mention it to you.  No, I should have mentioned it to you, it’s just that this came up quite suddenly you know and then with this horrible council meeting I….”

“Oh,” interrupted  Jane, “I’m sorry, and I see.” She whispered, “That sounds nice.  I didn’t mean to invite myself, it’s just that we usually….It IS council night” Jane kicked at the dust in the road, hiding her disappointment, finally her curiosity kicked in.  “Smith, who are you having over for dinner?” Her quizzical stare made the hair on the back of his neck stand up.

“Jane, don’t be upset.”  He reached for her sleeve, intending to catch her arm and tug her close enough that he could tousle her hair, as he had done since she was a little.  But she side-stepped him. 
         
“You don’t have to tell me if you don’t want me to know.” She said, backing slowly away from him, toward the thicket which ran along the path from the meeting house.  “You can have intimate time with anyone you like you know.  I understand that humans have urges.  I get that, you know.”  Jane blushed furiously, “not that I’ve ever, you know, answered such urges.  Oh gads, you know what I mean….” Her cheeks were as red as apberries.

Smith swallowed.  Suddenly, Jane suddenly looked very grown up to his eyes.  Her tunic was a little short, and in her leggings, her long legs swept from her well worn walking boots, up to the torso of a young lady.  Looking at her face, his memory swept back in time to a little girl with freckles on her determined little nose, insisting she was old enough for a real hunt, with her big sisters, only her mother wouldn’t let her go. 

Jane wasn’t a baby any longer.  Her eyes, wide and dark lashed, flashed at him.  He held a hand out to her, “Jane, don’t be mad. I can’t always be waiting for her.  At some point, I would like a bit of a life of my own.”

Jane backed into the thicket.  The prickers left long scratches across her legs as she moved away from Smith.  “I know.  I am Were.  Of course I understand. A man can never truly love a women of the Were.”  He could tell she struggled to keep her voice from cracking.  “My mother has always told me that.  Always, even when I made her let me come to see you.  Especially then she told me the truth. Smith,” said Jane, “I am a woman of the Were, I always will be, even if my change doesn’t come, even then I will be a werewolf.” 

As Jane backed into the thicket, no tears leaked from her green-gold eyes. 

Smith watched her.  Each of her movements was smooth and calculated.  Predatory movements.  The thorny underbrush left long scratches on her lean arms as she disappeared from sight, finally bolting into the wilderness beyond without a sound.  No branches broke under her feet, no dried foliage rustled as she ran from him.  Jane was just… gone. 
“I’m sorry.” he said, to the empty space around himself. “I thought the daughter that didn’t change, would be mine for true.”  Images of Susan’s wild features, and the ferocity of her young daughters, came to mind.  “I’m sorry.”  He whispered once more to the empty woods around him, before he found the road again, and began to walk home.

~~~Herrody sat across the table from Smith.  He watched her pick at her salad, neatly eating first the tomatoes, then the carrots, then the lettuce, skipping the spicey tubers. 
She was a pretty woman.  Her hair was a dark honey blond, and her eyes were brown.  Not one member of her blood line had borne Were in remembered history.  Even those who had borne the children of fostered boys. 

“I’m so glad you came tonight,” said Smith.

“I was surprised you asked.”  Herrody looked up, catching his glance for just a moment, “and glad.  This is really the first time I’ve left the children since Samual passed to Earth.” 

“It can’t be easy for you with Samual gone.  I’d like for us to be friends.  To get to know one another.”

“Smith, pardon my saying, but you haven’t exactly shown a lot of interest in women from town before.  I don’t understand why you asked me here to dinner.  Me, with a daughter of my own and two fosters from the Were.  I’m not exactly a first choice date, if this was intended to be a date.”  Herrody stabbed at a lettuce leaf twice before setting her fork down and meeting Smith’s eyes.

Smith reached across the table and put his hand on the back of hers.  “Herrody, you are a beautiful and vital woman.  I admire you.  I would like get to know you.  I am happy to do that at any pace you like, if you are willing.”  For an instant as he looked at Herrody, Suzanne entered his mind.  Her feral eyes, wide with lust and her hair, untamed and flowing over her shoulders as she looked down at him.  Smith sat back in his chair and focused on the young woman in front of him.  “I would like to see you again, if you would like to see me again of course?”

“I am quite busy this week, and I’m taking the children to the bogs, to fish for toadies, at the week’s end.” Herrody began with satisfation, toadie hunting, while popular with children, was not a sport for grown men.

“I would love to come and help,” Smith interrupted.

“You want to come fishing for toadies with me and the children?”  Herrody asked, her eyebrows raised. 

Smith nodded. 

Shaking her head, she smiled “I would be glad of the help, especially if you lend a hand with the de-legging.” 

“It’s a deal then, I will meet you at your cot a little after sun-up.” Said Smith.

Herrody had risen from the table.  “Thank you for the meal, I had best be getting back.  I imagine the children are refusing to go to bed about now, I have an auntie watching them, but...” 

Smith felt his heart warm at the concern Herrody had for her younglings.  As she looked across the table at the dinner mess and moved to begin cleaning up, he stopped her hand, stepping around the table to take it in his.  “Of course, you should get back to them. I’ll do the cleaning up.”  Her eyes were really quite pretty he thought, as they focused on him.  He took her other hand, and they stood in his kitchen looking at one another.

         “Smith,” Herrody began, “I’m not sure I’m the kind of woman you want.  I know you are often with that young Were girl…”
“That’s Jane, she’s my…friend.”  Smith continued to hold Herrody’s hands, though he felt her reluctance.

“My friends,” continued Herrody, “they say that you’ve always liked Were women better than town women.  You’ve never shown any interest in them…”

“I’m interested in you, now.  And I would like to see you tomorrow. And I would like to go toadie hunting with you and the children at week’s end.”

Herrody sighed in resignation, she tilted in to kiss his cheek in the manner of traditional parting, but Smith turned, catching her lips with his.  When he opened his eyes, Herrody was wide eyed and blushing.  He released her hands, and she ran out the door.  Smith leaned out the door frame, “Tomorrow then,” he shouted down the path.  He heard her booted feet pounding the dirt path, away from his cot, a muffled “okay then.”  and she was gone.

As he cleaned the dinner dishes, Smith thought about what his life would be like as Herrody’s spouse.  He had watched her family for several years. He remembered Samual’s funeral.  Herrody and the children mourned, but were not surprised by the death.  Samual’s long term ailment had taken its toll on all of them.  He watched as she and the children picked up the slack of an ailing, and finally absent father.  The boys, just 5 and 7, obviously adored their mother and their little sister, who was just 3 turns old.  There was a possibility that the boys would be re-fostered should she be unable to provide for them.  Smith had been wondering what life would be like with Herrody and the children since he realized she was available. 

She was pretty.  He thought of the kiss he had stolen.  She was shy maybe, tentative even.  He wondered what it would be like to be with a woman like that.  He wondered about it even as he pulled his covers over his shoulders and fell asleep that night.

~~~~~~~“Smith, wake up.  Smith.”

awakened, instantly aroused.  He blinked and tried to focus on the dark room around him.  Dawn was long off.  Reaching out, he did not find what he expected, the bed was empty but for him.

“Where is Jane?”  Suzanne’s voice was husky. 

Smith sat up in bed. “We went to council, and she went home.”  He couldn’t see her in the room, but continued to reach out for her. “That was early this afternoon.” He reached around on his bed side stand for his flint knapper and candle.  After a scrape or two, the wick caught, and the room was filled with soft candle light.

Suzanne was perched at the end of his bed, staring directly at him.  He placed the candle on the nightstand and focused on her.  Her black hair, interspersed with red through the nape of her neck, was loose.  Her lips looked swollen, ripe.  She had been hunting.  He tensed, counting days in his head.  Her visits were generally on schedule and she was a week early.  A little unusual but not completely unheard of. 

Suzanne crawled up the bed and straddled him, bending close to his face she said, “She never came home.”

“Perhaps she was a little upset with me.”  He said.

Suzanne pressed her lips just to the side of his and breathed in. He stared, wide eyed at her.  Her eyes flashed and she ran her tongue tip over his lips.  He tilted his head back in anticipation and felt her reach beneath the covers, settling her hands on either side of his rib cage.  Again, she caught his mouth with hers.  He reached up, and wrapping his arms around her, he slid his hand to the nape of her neck, running his fingers gently through the hair there. 

Suddenly, she dug her nails into his chest, and he felt a pop as her teeth bit into his lip.  He tasted blood, tightened his grip on her mane, and used all of the strength in his arms to pull her tight to him.  “What Suzanne?” he breathed.  “What is it?”  He asked, though he knew full well she had scented Herrody on his lips.
She lifted her face from his lips.  Her own lip was smeared with his blood, and her yellow eyes glowed. He watched as before his eyes, she changed. 

Above him her forehead wrinkled.  Her warm breath brushed his face, and he could see that her incisors were lobed, with three cusps each, leading to a single root.  Her incisors appeared to expand, increasing  in size as they neared the canines.  He felt her body rumble, and realized she was growling deep in her chest.  The cusps of her upper and lower eye teeth came together with the cusps of her lower teeth, snapping together much like a pair of scissors.  With a start, Smith realized that Suzanne’s teeth had always been this fierce, it was the lift of her lip, and the set of her jaw and brow line which now exposed them.

In awe, he held her tight and watched as she struggled with her own nature.  As fascinated as he was with her change, having never personally viewed the phenomena, he found himself with the urge to calm her.  His memories of her relaxed and lazy at his side came to mind, and he began whispering in a low tone, as one would to a child, “hush, hush Suzanne.  I’m here, Smith is here.” Even more surprising, he heard himself whisper, “I love you.”

Finally, Suzanne lost the fight.  With incredible strength she tore herself from Smith’s arms.  He wheezed and caught at his breath.  She had nearly knocked the wind from him.  She loped away from the bed, in a low stance.  Her eyes were wide and fixed upon him, as she lifted the shutter latch.  Backing away from the window, she began a light trot, her fingertips barely seeming to push off from the floor as she leapt up out of the window.

~~~~~After leaving Smith, Jane headed for the river.  She felt an urge to think, and running always helped her think.  Her feet pounded the ground, and she felt her pulse increase.  Running was kind of like Twilight Awakening, and Jane felt her mind clear.

She knew her father loved her.  Just because Smith desired a life different from the one they led, that didn’t mean he would stop loving her.  In fact, she knew that most Were girls had no idea who their mother’s paramours were, let alone who their father must be. 
Jane recalled the night she had first followed Suzanne to Smith’s cottage.  Her mother was in estrus.  Their cot reeked of it.  Most mother’s would leave the cot for a few days, leaving the babies to their older sisters, and running wild, or so their daughter’s suspected, but Suzanne didn’t.  She had just Melody and Jane left in the cot.  Melody was 13, well changed and ready to depart.  It was Jane, 6 and unchanged who watched as her mother tore about the house, re-ordering cupboards and scrubbing at floorboards on her hands and knees.  When she finally left the house, Jane followed her.

Suzanne went to the river to bathe and rinse her wild hair.  The cold water was always invigorating.  She sat in the humid air and combed her hair out with her fingers, before twining the pieces from her bangs to her crown into multiple braids, which she wound around into a top knot.  Then, she went down the trail into town, where Jane watched as her mother leapt into the open window of Smith’s house. 

The process happened again, once per month, for four months straight.  Then her mother avoided the path to Smith’s house.  She went the long way around the village to meet up with (The lady who essentially orders meat from the Were.)

Jane could remember her sister Melody, and the smile she wore when mother headed down the long trail.  “She thinks she’s something special, coming away from estrus without carrying.”  Melody always liked to appear mature and knowledgeable about Were habits.

Jane reached the river, and began to walk up the bank, toward her favorite thinking place.

She hadn’t known what exactly Melody meant by carrying, until the next turn, when Suzanne once again began heading down the trail to Smith’s house.  By now, Jane had discovered that Smith was a librarian.  His town job was to organize the books and written materials, brought by the settlers, and to keep them safe.  She had also learned that Suzanne spent her estrus nights with Smith, returning early in the morning, often with a brace of small game, as though she had been hunting all night.  The fourth month came and Suzanne did not return down the short path.  “She’s carrying, said Melody,” her tone smug.  And indeed, their mother began to swell, and just 5 months later, Suzanne had brought forth a baby boy.

The thinking spot consisted of a gnarled tree, which was covered in tangle vine.  The long vines drooped down over the boughs, creating a small hiding place.  Jane had cleared the lower limbs out years ago, and now, she parted the vines and crawled in.  The evening sun shone through the vines and the air glittered.  Suzanne rubbed her eyes and thought of her little brother.  She had never seen a baby so young, and had marveled over him.

Suzanne had nursed the infant, and changed him, but didn’t dandle or tickle him as Jane had seen her do with other girl Were babies.  At the time, it had occurred to Jane that she had never seen a Were mother, carrying a male baby about, showing him off, as they did their female offspring.  When she questioned Suzanne, her mother shrugged, and said, “There’s no sense becoming overly attached to what you can’t keep.”  Jane loved on her brother anyway, and his peals of laughter had filled their cot.  Suzanne weaned him early, denying him the breast when he was just six months old. 
Touching her hand to her neck, Jane recalled the painful sore and hoarse throat she had developed after begging Suzanne to keep the baby boy. 

Her cries and screams had echoed through the woods around their cot, as Suzanne packed up the baby and took it to town the short way.  “I’m taking him to the head-woman, he’ll have a nice foster by the end of the day, and we can go back to normal.”

As it turned out, the baby did have a nice foster by the end of the day, but things were never the same.  Melody left that night, packing up her leathers and linens and heading for the Edge, where she would meet up with her age-mates.

With just the two of them in the house, Jane insisted on meeting her mother’s paramour and threatened to go to him on her own if Suzanne refused to allow it.  Having a father meant having a family outside of the Were.  Jane, afraid of becoming an outcast, like Tammy Moon, disliked by the Were, distrusted by the herd, should she not change. Became determined to meet the man she realized must be her father.  Smith the librarian seemed like a lonely man who needed a family as much as Jane herself.  It was an unusual request.  No other Were girls searched out their fathers, but Suzanne agreed and warned the librarian that his child would be coming to search him out.
 
Pulling her arms inside her tunic for warmth, Jane curled up on a bed of tangle vine and dried grasses.  She remembered the feel of holding her brother in her arms and wondered what kind of mother she would make.  If I don’t change, I may never have a baby of my own.  She could not imagine herself as a town’s woman. And what kind of decent man would want a not-Were, who doesn’t want to wait on him hand and foot, for a wife? She wondered. Her eyes closed and she fell into a fitful sleep.   

Jane awoke to the sound of voices.  Rising to her knees, she pushed away the twining vines, which were obscuring her view.  There were people, gathered around a camp fire on the river’s edge, not far from the copse of grass she had curled up in.  Thinking they must be Were, Jane crawled from the reeds and crept towards them with caution.  No sense ruffling feathers and being forced to bare throat if she didn’t need to.

As she drew close, she saw that two boys sat side by side  A girl around the same age was slumped over, covered by a woven blanket.  She was snoring.  They appeared confident and unafraid, though they carried no weapons.  Jane wondered at that, as she crept closer, to observe.  It was unusual for townies to come to the river at night.

The boy, a young man really, appeared to be a bit influenced.  Jane sniffed, yes, that was fermented tuber she smelled in the air.  He was probably more than a bit under the influence, and the sleeping girl was most likely passed out.

Another boy-man sat next to him, stoking the coals by poking a twig at the fire.  His voice carried up the river bed and Jane heard him as clearly as if he were speaking into her ear.  “I’m telling you, just wait.  When the time is right, she’ll have you, even if she doesn’t want you, and the ride will be worth the wait then, I promise.”  His voice was deeper.  He sounded mature, Jane thought she recognized him as one of the men who worked at the iron wood mill. 
“I don’t think so,” slurred the younger boy.  “She hates me. I knew she was the girl for me back in grade 5.  When I seen her at the river today, I tried to talk to her, but she wouldn’t look twice at me. She hates me.  I know it, she hates me.”

Jane had begun to feel sorry for the young man, but his next comment caused her to re-evaluate the feeling.

“Course, she’s Were, and you gotta know they’re all wanton.  They hate you even when they love you, and they’ll tear your heart apart and abandon your sons to the red-trails if and when it suits them.
His older companion slapped him on the back, “Tha’s right, they’re not real women.  You gotta enjoy them when they’re open to it, but keep something like Ava here,” he waved a hand at the snoring girl on the blanket, and Jane noticed that the girl had shifted, throwing her blanket off.  Her skirt had shimmied up, exposing her bare damp bottom.  “See, Ava here is up for a good time all year round.  She’s not on no schedule, and she ain’t got nothing to hide.”  Both men chuckled at the joke.