CHAPTER 48
In an instant his arms grow feathers and pop out of their joints at obtuse angles. They bend in the shape of an eagle wing and sprout feathers all over. His face elongates and his nose and mouth combine, protruding into a yellow beak. His eyes roll back. As he blinks, his human eyelids transform into leathery, yellow eagle's eyelids. His mortal speech is replaced with an eagle's piercing screech. He releases a long, drawn-out eagle's cry. He drops the lance when his hands turn entirely into wings, but he catches it with a newly formed eagle's claw.
"I cannot believe my eyes," Paw says, falling to his knees. "You have unlocked the lance's magic. My brother must have known you could. Why else would it have meant so much to him?"
Onendah latches on to the lance with his other foot and flaps his mighty wings. He circles around the couple, trailing a sacred aura of sunlight.
He releases an eagle cry that frightens Anoki and excites Kiowa.
As he hovers above them, Kiowa looks down at his father's symbol and knows instantly what he wants to be. He points to the glowing wolf and feels a rush of anticipation when Anoki nods. He passionately kisses her for the last time as a man.
"What I sacrifice now, I sacrifice for you!"
He reaches up with an open hand. With his other hand, he touches his wolf cap, tilts his head back, and howls. Onendah drops the lance in his hand.
The second his fingers make contact with the lance, the power overwhelms him and surges up his arm. A deep burning sensation washes over him. He is paralyzed by a tingling wave of indescribable feelings over his body .
"He holds the sun!" Anoki cries out.
At first he feels fire, but then everything goes cool as ice. He feels a wind as strong as a hurricane blow his skin apart, but it doesn't hurt, not even when his bones pop. Instead, every nerve opens up and fires the greatest feelings he's ever felt all at once. Now he is connected to everything wild and disconnected from everything human.
This is what it feels like to hold the sun and lightning at the same time.
He smiles at Anoki as two wolf ears protrude atop his head, nestled among his black hair. A thick mane bursts from his chest. His hearing increases. The acuteness is so clear, he can hear the crickets stepping on the ground. He can hear Paw's racing heart. Anoki screams. He covers his ears because it feels like his head is going to explode.
His eyelids close over brown eyes, then retract over yellow irises. Colors fade. Now the world is black-and-white. He can see deeper into the forest. He can see more stars than his human eyes could ever see. The only color that remains in his vision is in the things that move. His eyes shift to Anoki. He can feel, see, and hear her pulsating jugular veins rushing blood into deep pink veins that spread throughout her face like vines.
Though Anoki sees Kiowa's eyes turn yellow and fangs explode out of his elongating snout, she doesn't turn away. Every physical sense she has tells her to run – every sense except her heart. The love and courage contained within those chambers welds her firmly toward her decision to be with Kiowa.
"I will pay any price!"
His sense of smell changes again. The potency of the pine forest, the flowers and animals, can be easily detected. He can smell Anoki like she has somehow crawled up his nose and danced all around. He can smell Paw, Makes Trouble, Anoki's brother, and distantly, Kida. Fur bristles up his contorting snout and covers his face, chest, and stomach.
He reaches for his mouth and tries to speak to Anoki, but he can't. His teeth seem to break apart and extend. His tongue grows long and retracts in and out on its own, bringing new scents. Scents he can't discern. It overwhelms him. Panicked by the transformation, he extends his hands. His fingernails grow and transform into long claws that immediately curl under his popping fingers and change into the shape of a paw. He hunches over and feels his legs snap as they arch and then straighten into hindquarters. Oddly, his bottom half seems to grow indefinitely, until finally stopping. It jostles back and forth as though it has a mind of its own. He looks back at his tail and feels a deep rumble in his diaphragm that reverberates off his lungs. He tilts his head back, drops his ears, and releases a long, deep howl.
"I am scared." Anoki weeps.
Kiowa stops howling and looks at her with words in his eyes, but he can no longer communicate with her.
"Does it hurt?" she asks.
Kiowa shakes his head.
With that last hurdle removed, she touches his side and tilts her head back, releasing a soft and delicate howl as she gently presses her fingers to the lance.
She feels the same energy overwhelm her. Every sensation comes more alive. She feels her lips part and a pressure in her nose, like she has to sneeze, but instead of sneezing, her snout grows and grows until it doesn't. All at once, white fangs push through the roof of her mouth and her front teeth file down to pointed peaks. Two pointed ears lift off her hair. She looks away from Kiowa, not wanting him to see her hideous features. As she blinks, her beautiful brown eyes transform like snowflakes. A drop of blue expands from her pupil and continues through her brown iris until her eyes are as blue as topaz. She blinks rapidly, seeing things she has never seen before. She sees a family of owls, a bat chasing insects, thousands of stars she didn't even know existed. She can even see craters on the moon. She can hear Kiowa's voice, but she can't understand his words.
"Stop resisting the magic," he tells her.
She doesn't even realize that she's fighting the transformation, but now that she realizes it's taking her longer than Kiowa, she submits. An eerie feeling comes over her as white fur follicles sprout up her face and down her arms. She feels her torso shrink and her breasts flatten out. Her lower body collapses inside her dress. Soon she feels something shaking between her legs.
"Anoki, are you hurt?" Kiowa asks.
She shakes back and forth, feeling more alive than she's ever felt before. Her sense of smell and taste are so vastly different from her human senses. She struggles to decipher all of the intensities.
"Tell me that you are well."
Anoki slowly turns and faces her husband.
Her piercing blue eyes lock with his yellow eyes, and though they say nothing to each other with words, their minds are connected in a way that they can practically read each other's thoughts.
"My love for you is stronger than an animal," she says as she stands on all fours and slips out of her white deerskin dress.
Kiowa tilts his head back and howls loud and hard. Anoki joins in with him, and all who came to witness the wedding now tilt their heads and howl with the couple.
When Onendah sees the transformation is complete, he looks to the wolves and speaks in a way that fascinates Anoki. Though his beak hardly breaks open, his voice is clearly heard.
"Speak with humility. Feel with infinity. You will find in this world a new happiness. With this joy will come new struggles: Some will be good; some will be bad. Like a seed, your love will grow."
"My prayer has been answered. Thank you, Naukolahe!"
"We will live as wolves the rest of our days?" Anoki asks, feeling pangs of regret.
"Only if you do not change back to human form by the harvest moon. Then will you be as wolves for all time. I encourage you to change back, but the choice is yours. Always remember where you came from. That is the only way to know where you are going. Time will heal the tribes' wounds, and it would be a great tragedy to lose my human children."
Charlie stands and flaps his wings like the great white eagle Onendah. He pretends to speak from high above the campfire circle.
"Suddenly Paw, Makes Trouble, and Walpi sprint out of the forest and transform into…guess what?"
"What?" Kevin asks, biting down on his fingernails.
"They all turned into wolves. Paw turned into a black one. Dark as night he was. Makes Trouble transformed into an auburn wolf. He looked just like autumn. Walpi turned into a golden wolf with black stripes down his back." Charlie describes the pack.
The boys gasp.
"They're werewolves?" Zack whimpers, looking side to side, as though the wolves could be anywhere.
"No…no…they turned into real wolves!"
"So wait. When they turn into wolves they can only turn human on a harvest moon?" John asks, with a perplexed look on his face.
"Legend has it that they have to turn into humans on the harvest moon," Charlie answers, pointing up to the harvest moon. "Then they have to decide by morning if they are going to be wolf or human until the next harvest moon. Don't forget, though, this story is about a wolf hunter."
"Eh?" Kevin squints his face so tight, he looks like he's licked a lemon.
"Yeah, when I started I asked you boys if you wanted to hear a story about a wolf hunter."
"But that was before we knew the wolves were skinwalkers," John protests.
"JUST LET HIM TELL THE STORY!" Luther shouts, slapping his hands together.
"Boys…shush up. Now, listen here. Do any of you know how a mountain is formed?" Charlie asks, sitting back down on the log, the flames reflecting in his lenses. The boys are immediately silenced, eager to know how the saga will continue.
"No!?" Zack answers, rubbing his chin with his fingers.
"It has to start out as a small pebble, doncha know. With a little time and patience, the stone gets a little bigger and a little bigger until one day—"
"It's a mountain," Kevin interrupts, leaping off his log and throwing his hands high.
"That's right. And so it was with the great wolf hunter, W.H."
A word from the author: Now we are wolves! Welcome to the pack! MERRY CHRISTMAS AUTOGRAPHED BOOK GIVE AWAY! GO TO INSTAGRAM: HARVESTMOONOFFICIAL AND SEARCH FOR THE BOOK GIVE AWAY POST. I'M ABOUT TO POST IT NOW.