The big kids tell us small kids about the werewolves of Camp Emerald Lake. About how it’s super easy to turn into one. All it takes is meeting it in your dreams. Over the first week of camp, it’s all anyone can talk about—in the mess hall, during swim lessons, while on flora and fauna photo hunts, when constructing pinecone bird feeders to send home to our folks. I hate all the talk. Only because I don’t understand the fuss. But the girls from my cabin ask the big kids what attracts a werewolf. And Nancy, whose dad is a Marine, which we decide gives her inherited authority, says we need to leave raw meat under our cabin stairs.

So, Bonnie and Katrina and Meg steal hamburger patties from the mess hall freezer. And even though Nancy never advised it, Bonnie decides it can’t hurt if we eat some too. Marry us to the meat. We divvy up portions and pop them in our mouths, and I can’t help but feel it tastes like the end of a AA battery (though, don’t ask me why I know that). It’s Katrina who has the nightmare first. Because that’s what it ends up being. In it, the full moon swelled like a spider’s egg sac in a starless sky. There was a baying too, somehow both far away and under her skin. It gurgled at times, full of woebegone guts and melancholy blood.

None of us believe her the morning she tells us, but she says, come and see. And we gather around her in the corner of the cabin like she’s a toasty fire. She pulls up her nightgown. And between her legs is a poof of brown, bushy hair. It’s not real, one of the girls says. Katrina shouts that it’s as real as church, and she lets us take turns patting it. It reminds me of Brillo. Maybe not as rough, but still strong enough to scrub a plate. After that, all the girls are desperate to be werewolves, so the big kids tell us it has to be a fresh kill this time. Bonnie says her brothers are manly men with pickups and callouses, and they taught her how to chop wood with a small axe and use the sun as a compass and set traps for God’s small creatures.

So, she shows us how to do that last one with a few simple supplies: some yarn, a forked stick, a wicker basket from the arts and crafts center. And her trap is the real deal, 100 per cent fool proof, because we catch us a baby bunny. Nose wriggling. Eyes alive with the fear of death. But now that we have the bunny nobody wants to kill it until Megs grabs it by the ears and swings it against a tree. It’s brutal, but fast. We cut its throat with a Swiss army knife and take turns sucking its blood. We giggle because it looks like we’re wearing lipstick. We get real silly and blush our cheeks with it too, and for some of us it’s the first time we’ve worn makeup.

That night, we’re skeptical because we know the big kids like to mess with us small kids, but when we go to bed we do so with our fingers crossed. Whispering lispy prayers to the star dust. When we wake up in the morning, it’s worked. We all have our very own tufts. And on each of our beds are dark stains in the most beautiful of patterns. Like the ink blots the doctor showed me in his office those days after mom passed. Luna moths. Galaxies gobbling other galaxies. Pelvic bones exploding like rotten fruit. He showed me the patterns because I didn’t want to talk. And when I did talk, all I did was scream. But I don’t want to scream anymore. Not when I can howl. That’s what we do when the moon’s as swollen as our moms’ bellies were with us. And if you go out into the darkness, you’ll see us there—not as girls, but as silhouettes against a perfect moon—with mouths open, ready to take a bite.

L. Soviero was born and raised in Queens, New York but has made her way around the world, currently laying her hat in Melbourne. She has been nominated for Best Small Fictions on multiple occasions and a Best of the Net, and has been longlisted for the Wigleaf Top 50. Her story “Lucy Ignores Death” was spotlighted in the 2021 Best Small Fictions anthology. Her recent or forthcoming work can be found in Cloves Literary, Janus Literary, and Emerge Literary Journal. A more comprehensive list of publications can be found at lsoviero.com.