Evie
Constantine clings to the walls of the Great Hall like a gecko.
Even for me, the end of the Iron Moon is hard. It means losing the lightness and connection to the world that comes with being wild. Ears clogged, eyes unfocused, nose dulled, limbs sluggish, head heavy, and torso unbalanced on top of long legs, it’s like walking on stilts through mud.
“That wasn’t three days,” he’d said as he’d struggled into his clothes. It never feels like it since there is no schedule and time is defined by the length of a hunt or measures of a howl. Especially now when the canopy is so thick that the sunlight that struggles through in mottled specks seems barely brighter than moonlight.
After checking on preparations for the Iron Moon Table, that one time when the whole Pack comes together with thumbs and words, I head outside. Constantine’s made it no farther than the corner of the Great Hall. He leans against a log end, watching Silver.
She sits in front of the three birches that burned the night the Shifters came to the Great Hall. The bark bubbled brown around the edge of blackened wood, but I would not have them cut down until spring came and we would know whether they survived. They did and put out bright-green leaves and stand here scarred and resilient, just like the Great North.
“Gehyrað,” Silver says. “Listen.”
I turn the gray weathered Adirondack chair to the corner to watch.
The pups who’d been running around Silver stop, their heads bending from side to side, questioning. One of the First Shoes has frozen her bare foot behind her head as she tries to scratch behind her jaw. Another, curled next to his packmate on the grass, stops his gentle gnawing on the other’s little, hairless, shell-like ear. There’s always a certain amount of backsliding after the Iron Moon.
“Gehyrað,” Silver says again, this time cupping her hand behind her ear.
A few adults have gathered around too. Some who know what she’s asking but who know better than to say anything and two who have not been raised Pack.
Thea pushes back the black cascade of hair from her ear to listen, revealing a pup clinging to her shoulder for balance, its bony, hyperactive tail wagging furiously. Even Tiberius with his freakish senses shakes his head, no.
“Gehyrað æfter stilnes,” Silver says, prodding them. “Listen to the silence.”
I lean back into the chair. I remember playing this game with Sigeberg. No one got it then either.
“Water,” rasps Constantine. His voice quavers in the way of someone reluctant to give up the silence of the wild.
“Gea, Constantine,” Silver says. “Listen if you like. There are no Pack secrets.”
He totters toward the edge of the porch, grabbing on to the peeled trunk that serves as one of the roof supports. Leaning against it, he sinks down, sitting with his knees bent, his bare feet near mine.
“First the water quiets. Then birds molt and become vulnerable and secretive and the noise of spring is followed by the Silence of Summer.
“Do we have time for the story, Alpha?” she asks. “I’ll make it short.”
I nod and settle into the corner of the Adirondack chair, one foot curled up against the strut, the other near Constantine.
“Wulfas,” she says and picks Nils up. “On ðære wald stearc and grim, alifde ðæt ðæt unasecgende sceolon.
“In the forest strong and fierce are lives that must be lived unspoken.”
Constantine sucks in a deep breath; he stretches out his arms behind him. Hidden by the chair, one hand sneaks around behind my foot, its rough warmth circling the back of my heel, the tendon there, the hard bone at the side, and the soft spot below where the blood runs quick and at the surface.
As with most our stories, the one Silver tells involves the heroism of wolves and the unredeemable shittiness of gods.
“The responsibility for the flow of days was given to two gods: Sol, the goddess of the sun, and Mani, the god of the moon. Like most gods, they were lazy and selfish and thought nothing about their responsibilities and everything about their own power and pleasure. But if Bragi indulges in too much drink, a writer’s words come slowly. If Njord lounges by the beach, a traveler is stranded on her voyage. It was different when Sol and Mani dithered around, because then the earth’s seasons stopped and life withered.
“The humans were terrified. They indulged in thoughts and prayers, which did exactly nothing.
“Wolves need the Iron Moon to knit the Pack together. To run the territory. To keep the land in balance. While Mani masturbated on the mountain top, there was no crescent moon, no quarter moon, no new moon, and no Iron Moon. While Sol slept, the sands of the desert turned to glass and the trees of the Ironwood withered.
“The Alpha of the Ironwood didn’t think and she didn’t pray. Instead, she called for her fastest hunters and sent them to chase the laggard gods.
“As soon as Sol and Mani saw wolves coming, they got off their asses and ran. The cycles of the earth started again. Life began and ended. The moon waxed and waned, and wolves could be wild together. For millennia, these wolves did what wolves have always done—kept the balance of life.
“At first Sol and Mani called those wolves Hati and Sköll—Hater and Betrayer—because like the spoiled children they were, they resented being forced to work.
“The wolves of the Ironwood, however, called them by their real names, Háte and Ceald, meaning… Aella?”
Aella looks abashed, caught with her hand up as she rubbed her ear against her shoulder. “I was just—”
“Your hand was raised,” Silver says. “So what do Háte and Ceald mean?”
She hesitates, looking around her. “Hot and cold?”
“Gea, Aella,” Silver says. Tiberius reaches out his curved fingers toward the girl’s scalp. She moves her head under his nails, thumping her foot on the ground.
Silver pulls at her smile and begins again. “One night, Ceald could not move anymore. She was after all a wolf, not some mythical creature. Mani was just that, and being deathless and omnipotent, he escaped, happy with his freedom, far from the wolf who had chased him so long. He went back to his old ways, masturbating on mountaintops, spilling more stars in the sky. He drank mead. He played several rounds of Halatafl, Kvatrutafl, and Hnefatafl, even though one round is dull as dirt with only a single player. He kicked comets, and before the first comet found its orbit, he was bored.
“He returned to Ceald, who had changed into skin. ‘What do you want, god?’ she said, still panting from the millennia spent keeping him on course.
“‘Aren’t you going to chase me?’
“‘Now you want me to chase you?’ She looked at him disdainfully.
“‘Isn’t that your job?’ he asked, peeved that she’d dared look at him disdainfully. He was Mani, the bright and shining moon, seeder of stars and kicker of comets.
“‘No, it’s your job,’ she said, kneading her knotted calf. ‘I should not have to hunt you across the skies to make you do it. My duty is to make sure the world lives and dies and lives again in time. To make sure that my Pack has an Iron Moon so that they can be wild and together.’
“Mani saw the knotted muscle under Ceald’s fingers. He saw a rim of sweat on her dark brow. He saw the depth of her purpose and her love for something that was not herself, and he reached out his hand to his ancient enemy. Under his cool fingers, the knot unknotted. His hand moved up, bringing peace to the still-vibrating length of her bare leg. Then he touched her hip and Ceald felt something beyond peace and reached for him, taking the sharp cold of his body into her own.
“Háte saw his packmate with her god lover and herded Sol, keeping her in place for the longest day, so that Mani and Ceald would have time.
“In time, Mani became one of the few gods who understood that the world did not revolve around him. From then on, he revolved around the world, no longer chased by Ceald but accompanied by her. Hand in hand or hand on ruff. Later, when Háte put off his wild form to take Sol’s burning body, too searing for anyone except Heat itself, Mani and Ceald held on to the sky for the longest night.
“After that long day of the summer solstice comes the Silence of Summer, the quiet time while earth’s children busy themselves for the coming season of death. After the long night of the winter solstice comes the Silence of Winter, when earth’s children rest in preparation for the coming season of life.”
Aella squints up at the sky and the sun.
“Are they fucking now?”
“Not until the solstice. Remember, what is important is not the wolf or the god or when they are fucking. What we should take away from this story is that wolves have responsibility not only to themselves and their pack but to the entire balance of life.”
Tara calls, announcing the beginning of the Iron Moon Table.
“Coming,” I say, my tendon tightening under Constantine’s hand. He pulls his hand away and flattens it against his chest.