First, there are low whispers across church pews; then, half sentences quietly murmured, mouths closing at my approach, silence in response to my questions. I stop looking for Dunia, knocking on her door. One day, I see her thin frame looking out from the rear window of the small house where she has lived with her great aunt since her mother died (or as my sister Carlina would say since her mother was taken, never to be back) two seasons ago. Before I can wave, she covers her face with her hands, fades out in the silver penumbra of the room.

“She’s seized,” says Carlina with a knowing smile, “it won’t be much longer now.” Carlina is heavy with child, married at grapes’ harvest last year, her beauty washed-out by hard labor and the pain of unwanted attentions. Yet she fulfills her role, talks of a woman’s duties, of the seizure who takes those who try different paths. The church gossips say otherwise, say Dunia was seized by the beasts in the woods through her own sinful nature. Her grandmother scowls and answers that she’s sick, just a fever ready to turn. She goes out for medicinal herbs, though her search seems fruitless, unconvinced. “Secrets fester,” the women chant quietly, “fever dreams ride in riddles.” A riddle without a solution is all I can see.

That last summer we were out all day, working the harvest dawn to sunset, then roaming free at the peak of the season, the small apples drying in the heat under thatched roofs, the village still in the long days of rest before the grapes start singing their soft song from the vines. How many did we steal for the pleasure of doing something forbidden, crouching down in the ditches to suck them, our faces pinched at their sourness, the juice gushing down our chins as we laughed? It was at least a full moon until harvest, the days stretching endless just for us as our elders stayed in, away from the beating sun. Towards the end of midsummer high Dunia got quieter, her nervous hands moving in patterns I could not recognize. There was a wildness in the way she ran down the hill to the old cemetery that I couldn’t explain with her wanting to see her mother’s grave. There was something, something else calling her. But what it was I couldn’t hear or get her to tell me. She would sit by the empty grave, her hands moving continually, her head nodding to a rhythm I could not recognize.

Then she was gone. “Taken ill,” said her grandmother, “come back again.” Day after day, the small woman’s words didn’t change, her scowl deeper each time, her black kerchief tighter around her ageless face. The last time I went, the door didn’t open, though I saw her moving in the smoky kitchen. No sign of Dunia, no word. I checked all our secret spots for a message, a word. I found none. Only that one time, there was her silvery shape retreating from the windowpane, distorted by the blown glass.

That was the last summer before we came of age, as Dunia and I were born under the same harvest moon. We’d be crowned with vine leaves at grapes’ harvest at mid-Autumn, taste the new wine and sing to our lives to begin. All along the summer we had made plans for that day, planning the words we would say to tie ourselves to each other, the way our vows could not be undone once pronounced at the height of the harvest festival. Forever tied, yet never brides: forever free. Yet when the day came, I was crowned alone. The words we had prepared stuck in my throat. Without her, my courage was gone, but it was even more than that: it all seemed to turn into a misty dream, children’s fancy that held no meaning in the new adult life just disclosing ahead. The two of us leaving the village, finding new paths for ourselves. Surely, I had grown now, I knew better. I drank the new wine, danced to the harvest, and the strong arms around my waist kept me steady. I said yes, as I was expected to. He was happy, strong, full of songs and promises. Dunia’s small frame seemed to shrink in a distant past, a half-forgotten memory that I was ready to discard.

After mid-Autumn, I started readying my dowry chest, putting the last touches to the fine linens stacked deep in my trunk since my birth: white sheets stitched in red and black thread with the lore of the village. Beasts in the wild, leaves, great nets of entangled vines to match the binds of the bride, to preserve her and keep her safe. I had long since stopped looking for Dunia. Days went by in a calm I’d rarely felt, my young man singing for me in the evening, my path narrow and chosen. Then one day at sunset, I saw her run through the low field. It was her; I could have recognized her red dress and that tangle of hair anywhere. A long shiver went through my entire body, a sensation almost forgotten of wanting her close, with her fast breath beating on mine as we plopped down after a long run through the woods. Danger entwined with something that I could not define but that I longed for with all of myself. Was it really her, though? Her gait was tilted, her figure wiry, distorted, as if through a glass. The last rays of the setting sun through the clouds tinged her naked arms and feet a strange, shiny gray. She wore no shawl, no kerchief, while November bit with its frosted fangs the naked skin under my woolen cap. When she turned for a moment, her face was no longer her own. I doubted, didn’t follow, and just like that she was gone.

By January deep, they caught a small wolf in one of the traps at the edge of the woods. Unruly and filled with tricks, out of all the forest creatures the wolves are our main enemy, though the traps rarely hold any prey, and the coops keep thinning. This cub contorted in pain. Her angular muzzle was twisted when she spoke with human voice: “Come to me.” I thought she was talking to me, me alone. My young man cut her tail, pinned it to his belt. The entrails were burned by the forest as a warning. I ran to the small pile of ashes the next evening, when no one was looking for me, and dug out her skull. Nearly consumed, it shone with the gray light of the crescent moon. At its touch, a deep shiver went through me, touching the innermost parts of my body. I ran back to hide it inside my trunk, like a secret jewel beneath my bride’s garments, deep in its inner folds.

Now the wedding finery is ready. At spring equinox I will be a new bride, crowned in apple blossoms, the red and black vines on my veil marking my path. At night I dream of wolf babies wailing, their cut tails hanging from the hunters’ belts, their mouths full of blood. When I wake, my hands are tinged in red. One night I climb up the narrow stairs to the attic, where a few of last year’s apples are still waiting, still wilting, brown and dry. There’s a scurrying as if of mice, a face in the corner: tight angles, non-human, a silver tint to her brow. A thump and she’s gone through the low window. A ripple of red fabric is all I can see in the distance, crossing the naked fields. The small body of a rabbit, covered in blood and half chewed, remains behind. I hide it in a crevice, pick one of the apples from its hangings. It tastes sweet and old, filled with secrets. It crinkles at my bite, then melts like ashes on my tongue. The next night I go back to the crevice. The apples are singing in unison, they whisper secrets to me like old women do at church, across the pews. Their crinkled faces know what is right, what is to be done. I stop my ears with my reddened hands. When I come down and look at myself in my half-cracked mirror, there’s blood on my face, a tangy taste in my mouth.

Then there’s fever, and dreams, a song of low winds and wildness beating down in my pulses. My young man stops calling, his songs by the path are for somebody else. My sister has come and taken my mirror. They leave me some food, but I can’t bring myself to eat it. I contort in pain, my frame twisting. One rare day of sun, I see my reflection: my face is all angles, hideous, distorted. My hands are not mine any longer. Secrets festers, fever dreams ride in riddles. I dig through my trunk, adorn myself with my veil, hold up the small skull of the wolf as a sign of my change. I dance in a twirl of white laces and vines.

Nights go by: my swollen belly holds a storm of unraveling organs, there are rotten leaves and limbs on the wooden planks. Wolf babies screaming, seeking my help. Fever dreams, riding riddles. Carlina takes to leaving small creatures for me to feed on: critters, quivering rodents. I fear their touch, yet my hunger cannot be calmed by regular food. My hair is matted, thick, my teeth are sharp. My sister no longer comes through the door. The one who was promised to me now sings for another, but I rejoice in the knowledge of the small secret hidden deep within the white folds of my dowry sheets, at the bottom of my trunk. My senses are sharper, a new world of smells unfolds beyond my room. I hear the patter of soft feet among the graves, in the small cemetery by the forest. I listen to her pause, step closer to the one stone she most loved, run away in a rustling of leaves. I smell the scent of her silver fur, long for it.

I wait in pain, I wait in sorrow. The old apples sing their twisted song in my ears. I feel my own bones cracking and twisting underneath my graying skin. I listen to my sister sending people away, saying I’m seized. I no longer care or remember her name. Across the pews, women whisper of sinful escapes. Wedding bells ring, not for me. When they stop, through the pain, I can finally breathe. The shell has broken, the mirror cracked. I’m woman no longer, yet I still am. Then she is here, in the light of the new day. Dunia holds my hands: Dunia, my D., what she was and what she has become. Wolf-woman creature still wrapped up in red, narrow feet strong on the path, deep-set eyes that promise the unknown. As she whispers our secrets, the song of the apples quiets down. I marvel in her novel beauty, I see that as my own. Our faces touch softly.

Away from our deep forest lair, Dunia hunts with wolf-women at night: she comes back at dawn, her narrow face caked in blood, hair filled with wild leaves and branches, in her hands fine fair linens and flesh. Her breath has the tang of forgotten paths, green secrets and the faint scent of blood. She hugs me tight and for a moment I forget the change. Then the feral odor of her silvery body makes me remember. I look at the thick cords underneath my own wrists, feel my pulse fasten: in this last fever dream, my old pain fades all out. When we kiss, I know we’ll be free. Her mouth on mine tastes of old apples and leaves, of blood and new truths. I wait in power for the change to be over, ready to step out and follow my D. through the thick forest growth. The new summer is coming, the night hunt is yet to begin.