“Iʼm glad you like it.” He guided me over to the blanket, and then helped me take off the backpack I had been carrying.

“So, Iʼm curious, what did you bring?” he asked as he began lighting the candles.

“Oh, you know, frisbees, tennis balls, rawhides. Iʼm really excited. Iʼve never had a puppy before.”

The look of horror on Alexʼs face was priceless.

“A sweater, some flashlights, and my calculus book. I told my parents I was studying for tomorrowʼs test, and thatʼs what I plan on doing. Not all of us--” Alexʼs body convulsed violently causing a small shriek to escape my lips.

“Iʼm fine,” he said. I had trouble believing him since he wasnʼt quite through shaking yet. I read in Dr. Smithʼs book that postponing the change was possible, but it was both difficult and painful. If a Shifter waited too long to begin the process on his own, he would begin the Change involuntarily, which never went smoothly.

“Go. Change. Now.”

“No, I can wait a little longer. Iʼm fine. Really.”

He looked the exact opposite of fine. I could see muscles shifting beneath his skin. “This is insane. Youʼre hurting yourself for no good reason. Please, go change. Iʼll be right here when you get back.”

I donʼt know if it was my plea or the second convulsion that changed his mind. He stopped to kiss me one last time on his way back into the woods. “I donʼt want you to be scared of me.” How could I ever be scared of him? “I wonʼt be. Promise.”

“I love you.”

“I love you, too. Now, go make me a wolf.”

I waited until Alex was out of sight and then went over to the edge of the cliff. The setting sun cast long shadows down below, causing the gnarled old oak tree on the opposite shore to look like a Halloween decoration.

The oak tree that looked strangely familiar.

I walked several yards along the edge, trying see it from a different angle, but something wasnʼt right. I crouched down and looked sharply over the edge. Much as I suspected, the hill did not drop straight down into the water. A cliff actually jutted out over a little strip of rocky beach, littered with driftwood and fallen limbs. It was a strip of beach I knew very well. I had stood on it many nights since November.

Well, that was perplexing.

I sat down and surveyed the opposite shore, matching up details from my dreams with what was there as the suns rays faded out. There was no doubt. This was definitely the spot I had been dreaming about.

Six months ago I would have chalked it all up to coincidence and gone on without another thought. In my logical, Shifter-and-Seer-free world, dreams had no hidden agendas or underlying meanings. But now?

What did I believe now? I sat for a long time, buried deep in thought.

Alex was perfectly silent when he came up beside me. It was only the smell of Colonel Sanderʼs secret recipe that alerted me to his presence. His wolf form was even more majestic than I remembered. Every inch of him was sleek and lean. Dark fur surrounded his eyes, making them glow silver.

“Hey, you. Welcome back.” I reached out, but paused with my hand inches from him. “Is it going to be offensive if I pet you?”

Alex ducked his head and brought it back up so my out-stretched hand landed between his ears. I gave it a good pat or two before running my fingers down through the soft, thick fur of his neck.

“Do you want to hear something weird? Well, itʼs weird to me. You might just think that Iʼm stupid for getting so worked up about it.” I continued to stroke his fur as I babbled on. “Iʼve dreamt of this place. A lot. And in my dreams youʼre always over there,” I indicated the opposite shore with a wave of my arm, “and Iʼm on the beach down below. And even though itʼs obviously not very far across, we canʼt ever hear each other.” Alex stared at me with his silvery grey eyes. “Do you think thatʼs weird?”

Wolf stare.

Was he trying to tell me something with that stare?

“Ummm... tap your paw once for yes?”

That look was telling me something. Something that sounded an awful lot like, Youʼve got to be kidding me, but he tapped his paw once all the same.

“Yeah, I thought so too.” I draped my arm over his back and leaned against his neck. “Of course, Iʼm having this conversation with a wolf, so I guess weird is a relative term.”#

We stayed like that for a long time. Night settled over the lake, and the clear sky filled with a million stars. The full moon hung heavily over the nearby hills, lighting up my tiny piece of paradise.

Alex worried that I would be frightened of his wolf form, and maybe I should have been. He was, after all, a huge carnivorous animal with sharp claws, pointy teeth, and outweighed me by at least twenty-five pounds. The only thing I was feeling, though, was peacefulness. A small part of me still grieved over what happened with Charlie, and it probably always would, but I was happy with the choice I made. I was happy with Alex.

“I suppose we should really open that stupid calculus book at some point,” I finally said, not happy at the prospect of leaving the perfect moment we created. Alex whined, obviously feeling the same way, but got to his feet. As I walked over to the blanket he followed obediently. I resisted the urge to tell him to sit or heel.

We actually did study for a while. I would read aloud from the book and my notes and try to talk my way through an example problem. Alex would shake his head at me when I got something wrong, a trick he could have shown me earlier.

I donʼt know how we got distracted. I think I made some disparaging remark about a dogʼs ability to do math when he disagreed with the way I was finding the derivative of f using tangent lines and Alex had responded by tackling me. Before long the night air was filled with my shrieks and Alexʼs snarls as he stood over me, licking my very ticklish neck. I let out a yelp as his nose nudged down the top of my shirt. “Stop that,” I gasped, weakly pushing against his chest. “Your nose is cold.”

I was trying to determine where exactly a wolf might be ticklish when I felt Alexʼs muscles tense under my hands. His head snapped up and a growl reverberated in his throat. As he stared off into the distance, he flattened his ears back. The hairs on the back of his neck stood on end.

When I began to push my way up, Alex barked at me. The sound of it drove me back to the ground and kicked my heart rate up another notch. It was a bark of warning, one that I could feel in my bones, but it wasnʼt nearly as disturbing as the chorus of snarls that came from behind my head.