My Dearest Katharine,

I do not know why I write to thee again now, for I know thou art still gone. Yet I do so, for I hope it will help me feel human. That is the reason I still sketch thy and Marie’s faces in the dust each morning—so I don’t forget who I am.

I am not sure how many years have passed since I wrote thee last, for I do not age anymore, and time feels uncertain to me now. I have lived alone in the hills for all these years, as far from humans as possible. I forage for food, and have sworn off all acts of violence—even hunting game—and try to force myself not to dream of dismembering Father Miguel. I lock myself up on nights of the full moon so I do not go looking for him, and I do nothing that would give the wolf any freedom. I will not risk losing control ever again—not after what I did to thee.

I travel into the nearest town only once a month, during the new moon—for the wolf is weakest and easiest to keep at bay when the moon is absent from the night’s sky. If only I could find a moonstone to help control the beast at all times. I long to have a life again. A family. I hate to be alone; the seclusion drives me mad. Alas, I cannot risk being close to anyone.

I fear I will never know love again….

Katharine,

A fortnight has passed since my last note, and everything has changed—because of thee, my beloved sister.

Often, when I make my monthly trip into town, I see a woman in the marketplace. She is a slave, with a particularly cruel master, yet she carries herself as if she were a queen, or perhaps a priestess. She has long, dark curling hair that reminds me of thee, yet her eyes are the most peculiar violet color. I know, for she is the only person in town who dares to look me in the eyes. Everyone else skirts around my disheveled form and treats me as though I have some terrible plague—which, in a way, I do. Whenever this woman looks at me from over her master’s wares, it seems as though she knows who I am—what I am.

Today, when I was in the market purchasing my month’s supplies, this strange woman walked up to me. She whispered, “I know what you need,” and pressed a black stone into my hand. She closed my fingers over it with her own. Her touch was warm and made me sigh, for it had been so long since anyone had touched me.

I then recoiled from her, afraid the emotion her touch had triggered would cause the wolf inside of me to react. Only, the warm pulse emanating from the stone in my hand seemed to push the wolf away.

“What is this?” I asked.

“A moonstone,” she said.

I gasped. “How did you know?”

“The spirits speak to me,” she said. “Katharine told me what you needed.”

I could not help the tears that flooded into my eyes, for I knew she spoke the truth.

“There is an Urbat pack that lives just beyond Gevaudan,” she said. “Take this moonstone to the alpha, and he will grant you admission into their ranks.”

“So this is not for me?” I did not know if I would be able to ever let the moonstone go. It pulsed with a hope that I had not felt in years.

The woman’s master approached us, shouting at her to get back to work.

“I have more stones, back at my master’s home. I have blessed them myself,” she whispered. “My master plans to sell me at market in a month’s time. I will not be back here until then. Return and free me on the night of the next new moon, and the stones will be yours.”

Oh, Katharine, can I believe that thou art the one who sent this woman to me? That thou truly told her what I need? That thou hast not forsaken me?

I will go straightaway to find this pack of Urbat wolf-men and seek their help. Perhaps I will not be alone forever.

I have found a family, Katharine.

At least I hope that shall be the case, if I can bring the rest of the stones to them.

I thought the pack was going to cast me out at first, or kill me for my trespass. The alpha, an ancient Urbat named Conall, had no interest in my offer of the moonstone. If it had not been for his grandson, Sirhan—who looks to be a young man but is more than a century and a half old, as he tells me—I would most likely not be alive now. Sirhan is the one who understood the value of the stone and spoke on my behalf. Handing over the moonstone to the pack elders was the hardest thing I have done since I left home all those years ago. I feel a void and cold, without it in my pocket at all times. I do not know how I will bide my time until I can get a new one.

Sirhan will travel with me to procure the rest of the stones from the slave woman. If I can bring them back to the pack, they will accept me as one of their own. With the moonstones, perhaps I can reclaim a life not haunted by the demon-wolf inside my head.

I can live once more….