My sister and I were always polar opposites. I was of the opinion it was due to our family positions: she was given leniency as the baby, and I the usual pressure as the only son of second-generation Chinese immigrants. My theory is that this leniency made her more free to explore a wide variety of philosophical teachings. Poppy’s theory was that I had a stick up my ass.

Before her and my father moved after the divorce, Poppy was around all the time. And I liked having her around, even though I acted otherwise. She would barge into my bedroom with a tin of freshly baked muffins and I would ignore her. She would put one on my desk, right on top of homework, smearing the clean paper with baked goods grease. Then she’d sit down on my bed and tell me about her day, talking about cooking and her weird art club friends and saying I needed to get more decorations (“It’s like you live in a hotel”) And sometimes she’d talk about what she learned that week, strange ways of seeing the world that piqued her interest. Magic, god, auras, psychics and palm readers. I always told her that I believed in science and facts, in very haughty tones. The world was the way it was because I thought it was that way. The first disturbance was the whole zombie apocalypse thing.

The second disturbance was Savannah transforming into a wolf.

I admit, I was surprised.

Savannah scratches her enormous ear with a huge paw. Then she transforms back to a human and does weird jazz hands.

“Ta-da,” she says.

“I see,” I say. She starts laughing.

“‘I see’ he said! Like Dad when I came out to him. ‘I see’! This guy’s a riot. You can keep him, Nils.”

“Why me?” Nils snaps from his corner.

“You’re the one who ran off to save him before we even made a plan,” Jacob says.

“Shut it, Powers,” Nils grumbles. He sees me staring at him and his icy blue eyes glare back. 

“I’m going to voice a theory based on new information-you would be the black wolf that rescued me yesterday.” Nils rolls his eyes and claps sarcastically. The baby giggles and begins to clap along and a genuine smile happens on his face for a second before he’s back to being surly.

“You’ve got it!” Nicole cheers. “Savannah, Nils, and I are, well, werewolves! Gracie too, though she still only turns on full moons.”

“Is it a full moon right now?” I ask, my mind speeding to move ‘werewolves’ out of the box labeled ‘Poppy’s stuff’ to ‘scientific anomalies’.

“Nope! We only turn on a monthly basis when we don’t have control over it,” Nicole explains. “We’re sentient and fully aware in wolf forms-same brains and all. So you don’t have to worry about us attacking you or anything. We’re not a threat.”

“Unless you want to be,” I say. Jacob whistles.

“That’s cool,” he says.

“Let’s just cut the bullshit, we can give him trivia material later,” Savannah says briskly. “Do you still want to travel with us? Or is your brain broken?” The group is surprised when I chuckle.

“You’re far too late for that,” I say, and Nils laughs. We’re the only two laughing, and I continue to laugh until Savannah holds out a hand to shake like Nicole had the day before. I do so.

“You're being trusted with this information,” she says in a low voice for me only. It feels like she’s going to break my wrist. “This isn't exactly common knowledge. The second you use it against us, you’ll have me to deal with. Are we clear?”

“We are clear,” I tell her, and we really are.