Chapter 1

“Jonas, you had two already,” Eliza says, arms crossed, her small face stubborn.

“So? You had jam.”

“Jam doesn’t count.”

I step between them, sliding the plate to the center of the table. “Share it. Break it in half. Or I’ll eat it myself and you’ll both have to dream about honey.”

They grumble, but they do it. That’s the thing about my kids—they listen, even when they don’t want to. Jonas breaks the bread with careful precision, making sure both pieces are equal. Eliza watches him like a hawk, then grins when she picks the slightly bigger half.

“Mom,” Jonas says, not looking up, “what happens when the moon is full?”

My heart stalls for a beat. I keep my voice steady. “Same thing that happens every night, sweetheart. It gets bright outside, and the owls hunt a little better.”

“No, I mean—” He stops, chewing his lip. He’s thirteen, old enough to know when I’m dodging, young enough to still want a straight answer. “I mean, is it true that wolves howl at it? And that they come closer?”

Eliza looks up, eyes wide. “Wolves? Real wolves?”

“Not real,” I say quickly. “Stories. People used to think wolves were drawn to the moon, but really they just like to sing at the sky because it’s so bright.”

Jonas doesn’t buy it. I see the doubt flicker in his eyes—those wide, questioning eyes that see too much. He’s always been like that, even as a baby. He’d stare at shadows like he was reading a book. Sometimes I catch him drawing them, the shapes between light and dark, and they don’t look like anything I’d recognize.

“Can we sing our moon song, Mama?” Eliza asks, already climbing onto my lap. She smells like bread and sleep and the lavender soap I made last spring.

“Of course, little star.”

I start humming, the tune my own mother used to sing, though she never taught me the words. I made up my own over the years. Eliza joins in, her voice high and clear, and after a moment, Jonas adds his, lower, rougher. We sing about the moon watching over us, about the silver light that keeps the dark at bay. It’s a lie wrapped in melody, but it’s a beautiful lie, and for now, it works.

I carry Eliza to bed, tuck her in with her stuffed rabbit. She’s asleep before I close the door. Jonas is still awake, sitting cross-legged on his mattress, a sketchbook open on his knee.

“What are you drawing?” I ask, sitting beside him.

He turns the page toward me. It’s a tree, but the branches twist into shapes that look almost like faces. And at the bottom, a figure—small, maybe a child—standing beneath it, surrounded by lines that could be wind or maybe something else.

“It’s from a dream,” he says quietly. “The one I keep having. There’s a man in a bright vest, and he’s holding something heavy. And there’s a sound, like music, but it’s wrong. Like someone broke the notes.”

I feel cold settle in my chest. “What else?”

“The moon is there. Bigger than it should be. And the wolves—they’re not howling. They’re waiting.”

I take his hand. It’s warm, small in mine. “Listen to me. Dreams are just dreams. They mix up what you saw during the day, or what you ate, or what you’re worried about. They’re not real.”

“Then why do they feel more real than this?” He gestures around the room—the wooden walls, the single window, the pile of laundry I haven’t folded.

I don’t have an answer. So I do what I always do: I pull him close, hold him until his breathing slows. “Even in the darkest night, the moon watches over us,” I whisper into his hair. “And I’m right here. No wolf is getting past me.”

He laughs a little, the tension breaking. “You’d fight a wolf, Mom?”

“I’d fight a hundred wolves. I’d fight the whole forest. Don’t test me.”

He smiles, and it’s genuine, and I let myself believe it too. I kiss his forehead, turn off the lamp, and close the door behind me.

The cabin is quiet. The fire crackles in the stove, casting orange light across the room. I sit at the table, hands wrapped around a cup of cold tea, and stare at the window. The moon is higher now, brighter. I can see the pine needles glinting like tiny knives.

I think about the man in the bright vest from Jonas’s dream. I think about the sound of broken music. And I think about the wolves—not the real ones, but the ones I’ve been running from my whole life. The fear that lives in my ribcage. The memory of a door I had to close, a life I had to leave, a promise I made that I would never let my children feel unsafe.

I won’t. I’ll keep them safe if it means standing at the edge of the forest every night until I’m old and gray. I’ll sing the moon song until my voice gives out. I’ll draw circles of salt and hang charms from the rafters, even if I don’t believe in any of it.

Because that’s what mothers do. We become the walls, the roof, the lock on the door. We become the thing that stands between our children and the dark.

A sound cuts through my thoughts. A scrape, maybe, or a footstep. Outside, just beyond the window.

I freeze. The fire pops. The wind whispers.

And then I hear it: a low, steady howl, rising from the trees.

Not a dog. Not a coyote. Something older, something that knows the moon’s name.

I don’t move. I don’t breathe. I just listen, counting the seconds until it stops.

It doesn’t stop. It’s joined by another, closer, then a third. A chorus of wolves, singing to the full moon, and I can feel it in my bones—the same way I feel a storm coming.

Tomorrow is the full moon.

And somewhere out there, something is waiting.