Prologue

I used to be handsome.

The damn witch set me up. She told me that all the riches and beautiful women in the world would be mine, if I let her spend the night in my mansion.

I had accepted, and told her to wait a moment so I could have the maid prepare a room for her. She said she would wait outside, though I insisted she come in, out of the cold and rain.

So, she waited under the portico on the porch – it was a beautiful plantation mansion that had been restored to its former beauty – while I ran around looking for Meredith.

I must have taken too long, because by the time I found Meredith, she wasn't a middle-aged white woman, anymore. She was a Swiffer duster. My mother – a rather large woman, herself – had become a wardrobe. My father, because of his career as a chef, was then the great oven in the kitchen. As for my older brother, who was majoring in psychology, he transformed into one of the huge bookshelves in the library.

I soon realized that I had begun to change. My blond hair was turning a mousy brown and was growing longer by the second. My hands and feet transformed into paws, and my teeth became sharp.

I fell onto all fours and raced to a mirror. I looked in the mirror, and instead of seeing a boy, I saw a wolf.

I meant to scream, but instead I howled, and heard a cackling coming from the chimney.

The witch fell from the chimney into the fireplace and pointed a bony finger at me. "You have until the first day of your twenty-first December to find someone to accept you, to love you. If you don't, you'll die alone, and you'll be stuck like this for the rest of your life. Oh, and always make sure you're home before night falls. We wouldn't want anyone to see you like, well…you know." She smirked.

In a puff of purple smoke, she was gone, and my search for someone had begun.