I’ve always been unlucky.

  If I don’t bring an umbrella, you can bet it’s gonna rain. I never turn the house key to my uncle’s place the right way, though I’ve lived there for five years. I’ve never once won a pack card game, despite it being statistically nigh impossible. And, as I trot toward the Wizard’s house and thunder rumbles ominously overhead, it doesn’t look like my bad luck is gonna change.

  I hurry down the well-worn trail, nose in the air to catch any scents of my family. I’m supposed to be patrolling our territory to make sure intruders aren’t coming in (they never have and what am I supposed to do if I find anyone anyway?), but really I’m going off our land and into the Wizard’s. They’d hate it if they knew. Uncle Alder’s told me a million times that “things are different here than your pack up north. We have to adhere to our territory.” Yeah, well, I don’t think a Wizard who is either dead or has long abandoned his shack is gonna care if I tend to his garden.

  My ears prick as someone howls. I pause and turn toward our cabin so I can hear better. It’s the faint voice of Aunt Magnolia.

  “Rowan? Grover? Where are you?”

  I wait, hope in my heart, for her to say “Malia.” But there’s just the warm summer wind and the hum of insects after her call.

  “I’m almost done with my patrol, Maggie,” Uncle Grover calls. “Rowan?”

  “I’m uh…almost done too,” Rowan answers. Liar! He sounds like he just woke up from a nap. “What about Kudzu? She’s supposed to be getting zapped by the Wizard.”

  I wrinkle my nose. As happy as I am that at least Rowan remembers my existence, the nickname bothers me. He started calling me that because everyone in the pack has a plant-based name and I don’t, but Kudzu sucks! The annoying weed that everyone hates? Come on. No one else sees it that way, though, so I just don’t say anything.

  I backtrack away from the Wizard’s before I answer. “I’m on my way to the border now.”

  “Hurry up, all of you.” Aunt Magnolia sounds frazzled. Tonight is the Full Moon party, and she always gets worked up about everything being perfect. I have no idea why. In my old pack, we just sang songs to thank the moon goddess, and then the adults got drunk on moonshine and the kids played games. They’re so serious about it here, though. “Rowan, do not go near the Bonecrusher.”

  I snort. Our territory spans acres upon acres of woodland, but there’s a sharp cut off in the west. Allegedly, a monster called the Bonecrusher lives in solitude there, and she kills anyone who steps onto her property and uses their bones for her tea. Sounds like a pup-tale if I’ve ever heard one, but my family is weirdly serious about it. They’re serious about the dead Wizard too, so I think they’re just paranoid.

  “I know.” Even I can hear the annoyance in his tone.

  “Excuse me?”

  “I-I said yes ma’am.”

  I grin to myself as I resume the trek to the Wizard’s house. My older cousin may be a dickhead, but at least his mom can still make him behave. No one treats the second-in-command with anything less than utmost respect, not even her son.

  I return to the trail. My steps are slower, and my ears swivel repeatedly, catching the sound of my family howling at each other. I listen for “Malia,” but it never comes. You’d think a pack of werewolves would be close knit, but this pack is all tension and rigid rules. Well, they’re closer to each other than me. I’m just an outsider my uncle took in out of the goodness of his heart, as he likes to remind me every chance he gets. I’m not included in the prep work, the ceremonial singing to the goddess, or the hunt, despite my twelve-year-old cousin being allowed last month. I’m fifteen! I can chase a deer just fine! Not that I want to kill anything with my teeth anyway, but it hurts not to be included. After the meeting tonight, they’ll go off together and I’ll be left babysitting the youngest members of the pack.

  The narrative has been taken without permission. Report any sightings.

  But that’s fine. Everyone in a pack has their role—that’s what Dad used to say. Someone has to watch the babies. Might as well be me. I lift my chin and resume my trot, trying to ignore the ominous thunder and the chatter of my family talking without me.

  The Wizard’s house comes into view. I lower myself to my belly, ears straining for sound, nose in the air. It’s always been abandoned every time I’ve visited (and that’s been a lot), but I don’t want to get on a magic user’s bad side. Werewolves aren’t magic resistant and I don’t want to be fried by a fireball or something.

  But I don’t hear anything. No footsteps, no movement, no breathing of anything more than squirrels and rabbits. My ears take in the wind and distant thunder, but that’s it. My nose catches the sweet smell of flowers, no wizards. I should wait, but that’s good enough. I might not be magic resistant, but I’m pretty fast. If he decides to come back from the dead, I can outrun him for sure.

  I skirt the edge of the house just in case. I slink around back, and relax when the carefully maintained garden comes into view. I bury my nose into the nearest sunflower, only slightly embarrassed when my tail wags all on its own.

  Rowan thinks gardening is stupid and ruins any gardens I try to start at home. Even my favorite cousin, Fern, doesn’t understand why I like it so much. And maybe it is dumb; werewolves don’t eat a lot of veggies, and I can’t even see the flowers’ vibrant colors through grayscale wolf eyes. But there’s something really special about nurturing something small and helpless until it’s thriving and beautiful. When I first found the Wizard’s house, dilapidated and abandoned, his garden was still struggling without him. Choked with weeds, half the plants wilted and roots rotten, but still alive. I know it’s not my garden, but I hate to see it go to ruin. So I’ve been taking care of it. If the Wizard ever comes back, maybe he’ll be happy that I helped him out. Maybe he’ll even give me a reward! Or just let me keep coming to maintain it.

  Either way, today I have to pull weeds. It’s been raining a lot lately, and the weeds are loving it. But today they must die (and maybe I’ll relocate them to a faraway patch of earth because I feel bad).

  I happily dig up weeds for an hour as the sun sinks lower into the sky. Summer thunder rolls in and out, and the air smells like rain. It’s hot, but the work distracts me and my quick claws make easy work of the weeds. Soon, all the roots of the sunflowers, hydrangeas, and mums are weed-free.

  “Storm’s coming,” the faint voice of Uncle Grover calls as I’m digging weeds out of the squash patch. “Kids, come home.”

  My stomach swoops with a pitiful combination of hope and disappointment. I know he means his kids, maybe even Uncle Alder’s kids too, but I want to pretend I’m included. I almost answer, but whoops, I’m at the Wizard’s. They’ll catch me if I call out my location. I’ll just hurry and run back. Nightfall, and the Full Moon meeting, isn’t for a few hours anyway.

  I inspect the lone watermelon (bugs got to it, ugh) and cucumbers, and one more time for the flowers. Everything is neat and vibrant. Thriving. Happy. I puff out my chest with pride.

  “Come home,” Aunt Magnolia howls in the distance. “Now.”

  I look to the garden gate, but then glance behind me, at an abandoned section of earth. It’s closer to the house and in shadow so I haven’t been there yet. But in the fall, I’d love to plant some carrots…maybe it won’t hurt to till the soil in preparation. I’ve got time. They won’t notice if I’m a little late anyway.

  The sky darkens as I dig a neat row for future carrots. I need to hurry, sunset is close and I don’t want to be too far away when it’s dark—

  My claw catches on something hard and I yelp. What the…I poke my nose into the hole and it touches something smooth and cool. Metal? I dig a bit deeper and expose a charcoal gray, oblong rock the length of my human palm. I think it’s a rock? But the surface is impossibly smooth and shiny for having been buried in the earth. I scoop it out with my paw and turn it over. It has a strange symbol on the back, like a wheel with wavy spokes stretching out to the edges of the rock. There’s a cluster of tiny dots in the middle of the spokes, forming a circle. A flower bud, maybe. A box encloses the wheel, but the box is doubled-lined and intricately woven together. A rune of some kind? It’s carefully carved; someone had to spend hours chiseling this with so much detail. The symbol is a deep, obsidian black.

  “What do we have here?” A wizard treasure?! Could I sell it? The pack would be happy with some extra money. We could build another cabin in the woods so we don’t have to walk so far to change clothes and get snacks. I pick it up with my mouth and hold it up to the sky to get a better look. I tilt my head in confusion. Despite the rock being buried, and in the shadow of the house, it’s warm against my teeth.

  Thunder blasts overhead. I almost swallow the rock in surprise. I catch it on my back teeth and I’m about to spit it out when bright, blinding light flashes over my vision. A terrible noise crashes over my head, like a tree splintering as it falls to the ground, and a flash of pain rockets from the stone in my mouth to my head to my shoulders and stomach and down to my tail and paws.

  And everything goes dark.