The last picture in Hannah’s mind of her family, in the days when it was whole and healthy and altogether normal, was the afternoon they left for Mazaska Park. They packed themselves into a merry minivan of skinny-limbed, big-eared Cobham folk and drove off, only to have to drive right back again when Andrew casually observed they’d forgotten the sleeping bags.

They always forgot something. There were just too many of them.

Tom and Andrew were the oldest. Andrew was the taller, more serious-looking one, with hair that was chestnut colored and a little bit tufty. Tom stood about two inches shorter than his twin, and his hair was darker, and Hannah found it much harder to take him seriously, because he just had the wrong kind of face for it.

Hannah, who had just turned eight, was next in line. She had large brown eyes and long tangly hair the same color as Andrew’s, which she usually kept tucked back in a ponytail so she wouldn’t have to think about it. She had a thousand ideas in her head about this camping trip: roasting s’mores over an open fire, running through the woods, sneaking up on her brothers in the middle of the night and convincing them the campsite was haunted. The Cobhams hadn’t been anywhere interesting since Moe was born, and Hannah was determined to make the most of this time.

Moe was her youngest brother, two years younger than Gulliver, who was four. On the long ride to Mazaska Park, their car seats had been pushed up near the front, where they had fallen asleep in minutes, their faces squashed up against the windows. Hannah sat happily sandwiched between Tom and Andrew in the dark, warm back-of-the-back. A cozy, quiet refuge away from the babies and grown-ups.

In the car, Hannah and her siblings played Sweet and Sour and wrote Mad Libs and held their breaths every time they drove through a tunnel. Then night fell, and they took turns making up ghost stories, which mostly resulted in fits of muffled giggling that eventually lapsed into a drowsy, comfortable silence. Hannah lay back, watching the pinpricks of stars that became clearer and clearer with every mile that took them away from Milwaukee, and the moon that was midway through waxing.

That was how Hannah wished she could remember her family, later. Sleepily gliding through the night, warm and comfortable, cocooned together inside the surefire safety of the minivan.

***

It happened a few days later, when they were playing hide-and-seek.

Hannah, Andrew, and Tom had wedged themselves into a rusty old wheelbarrow they’d discovered behind an oak tree near their campsite. There wasn’t technically enough room inside for three, but they made it work by having Hannah sit halfway on Andrew’s lap and halfway on Tom’s. It wasn’t very comfortable, but they liked each other enough not to mind. While they waited, they passed around Tom’s metal water bottle, which he’d filled with hot chocolate from that evening’s campfire.

“I think we won,” said Tom, after a few minutes. “Should we go back, d’you think?”

“No way,” said Hannah. “They have to think we’ve disappeared. They have to worry for at least a little bit.”

So they sat for a few minutes. Together they listened to the faraway cadence of their parents’ voices, the chorus of crickets, the steady pace of their own breathing. There was another sound, too – a low, mournful sound that Hannah couldn’t identify. It didn’t bother her very much. It made the shelter of the wheelbarrow feel cozier, safer, somehow.

Andrew seemed to have noticed the noise too, because he shifted uncomfortably from beneath her. “It’s been long enough. You know Mom. She’ll think we were eaten by bears or something.”

“I like bears,” Hannah protested, but Andrew wasn’t moved. He pulled himself upward, shunting Hannah’s weight onto Tom, who winced and clambered onto the grass. Hannah fell forward onto her knees, and she was just getting up when she heard the strange noise again. It was lower than before.

And it was closer. A lot closer.

Hannah turned, and her heart stopped.

There was a thing crouched at the foot of the oak tree. It had a tail – that was the first thing she noticed – a sparse, scrubby tail whipping back and forth with the summer breeze, despite the utter stillness of the rest of its body. Its eyes gave off a funny, translucent glow, and its mouth was open: Hannah could see its teeth, bone gray and glinting in the moonlight. They were almost as long as her little finger, and sharp as a dagger.

“It’s a wolf,” Hannah whispered.

The wolf turned at the sound. For a split second, it locked eyes with her. Its gaze was cold and jaundiced yellow. There was no emotion Hannah recognized behind its dilated pupils.

She knew that wolves weren’t supposed to be dangerous. Not so long as you left them alone. But…

There was, she realized, something wrong with it.

The thing to do now, she knew, was to move slowly and hope that it went back to wherever it had come from. But her limbs seemed to be locked; her breath had caught in her chest. From the corner of her eye, she could make out the shadowed forms of Tom and Andrew, equally helpless on either side of her. Hannah could do nothing but watch as the wolf’s eyes flickered between the three of them.

As if it were trying to make up its mind.

“Do you think…” muttered Hannah. “Should we run?”

Tom and Andrew looked uncertainly at each other. In the time that it took for their eyes to meet, the wolf moved.

Its golden eyes took aim – it jumped –

There was no time to react. One of Hannah’s feet stumbled into other as the wolf sprang towards her, drool gleaming down its muzzle, teeth flashing –

She screamed –

It buried its teeth in her left calf.

A searing pain shot into her skin and prickled like flame-tipped needles where the wolf’s teeth had entered her skin. For a few seconds, the world went dark and wavy –

– and then there was Tom, with nothing but his water bottle to use as a weapon, bashing at the place where those lethal-looking fangs still held fast to Hannah’s skin. The wolf began to roar in protest – Hannah shoved at it, even while its teeth dug deeper into her leg – it made a scraping, snarling noise – it bit her a second time, harder; so hard that it took her breath away –

“GET HELP!” shouted Tom, who seemed far from her, even though he was right there. Andrew blinked as if concussed; he sprinted towards the campsite, shouting for their parents, for other campers, for someone, anyone –

Tom kept slamming the water bottle into the wolf’s head, and Hannah tried to help, though she was now in too much pain to do anything but push at it slightly. They were both crying now –Hannah hadn’t even realized she’d started – but the wolf looked weaker – it slumped – and somehow – through sheer fury; terror; fear? – in one final, breath-sapping shove – they succeeded together in throwing the wolf off her.

It went for Tom then, and for a moment Hannah was convinced it was going to bite his leg off. But their efforts seemed to have weakened it – or perhaps it had been sick to begin with – because it fell, yowling in fury. When Tom smacked its head once more with the water bottle, it lay still.

Hannah stared at it, tears of pain running down her cheeks.

“It’s not dead,” said Tom shakily.

“No. It’s not.”

Hannah noticed that her teeth had begun to chatter. She was freezing, despite the sweatshirt she was wearing. She would have wrapped her arms around her knees, but she didn’t want to move.

“Tom – my leg – it hurts,” she said, because she wasn’t sure how much longer she would be able to explain.

Tom crawled over to the place where she had stretched her leg out, surrounded by a growing stream of dark blood. Covering his hands with the sleeves of his hoodie, Tom pulled up the fabric of her jeans. Hannah took one glance and nearly vomited.

The things those teeth had done to her skin – the gashes that those knife-bright points had made – Hannah hadn’t known that wounds like that were possible. She could see the pale outline of her calf bone beneath a jagged flap of skin. She remembered hearing somewhere that the worst injuries hurt the least at first; she wondered who had thought up such a lie. Nothing had ever hurt so much in her life.

She looked away, because she had to.

“They’re coming,” said Tom breathlessly. “Mom and Dad. Andrew’s gone to get them. You’ll probably need stitches – you’ll need to go to the emergency room.”

“Yeah,” said Hannah, feeling slightly more hopeful. “Like – like that time when you got bit by that bat. When you had to have those shots. But I don’t know if – I don’t know whether – Tom, I feel really weird –”

Her teeth were chattering harder now. She could see herself shaking, but she couldn’t feel it. She closed her eyes, because everything was spinning.

She didn’t know how long she sat like that for. The next thing she heard was pounding feet and panting breaths; a cry, and then a sigh of relief. She opened her eyes and made out the glow of a lantern, illuminating her parents, who ran to her and Tom, their faces pale in the moonlight.

“Tom,” barked her father. “The wolf. It’s over here?”

“Yeah,” said Tom. “It bit Hannah. But I knocked it out.”

Hannah’s father moved over to the wolf, glanced down at it, and gave her mother a small, curt nod. There were a few seconds of silence. Then her mother gave a small moan and collapsed onto her knees.

Hannah had never heard her make a sound like that before.

“Stitches,” said Tom helpfully. “I think she needs stitches.”

“I’m cold,” Hannah whispered.

“Tom!” said their father. “Tom, this is incredibly important. It bit her? It didn’t just scratch her?”

“Yeah. On the leg. Twice.”

“Okay. Okay.” Her father was talking at a strange, feverish pace. “And you? Did it bite you?”

“Almost. But it didn’t.”

“Good. Stay right there. Don’t move.”

Hannah put her head in her mother’s lap. She listened as her father got out his cell phone, dialed, and spoke in that same choppy way into the receiver. A couple of times, his voice went muffled, and Hannah knew he was cupping his hand over the phone, trying to prevent the rest of them from overhearing.

“Yes,” said her father at the end. “Thanks. Thank you so much.”

Hannah peered upwards and saw him turning to her mother. “They said… they’ll be here in twenty minutes. They can stop the bleeding in the ambulance. They were confident about that. But as for the bites…”

“They must be able to do something,” said her mother. “It’s only been a few minutes. Surely that can’t be enough time to—”

“They said the blood starts to absorb the poison within seconds. They’ll try – they promised they’ll do everything they can, but –”

Her mother’s lap suddenly went a little shaky. “She’s going to be fine,” she hissed. “Of course they’d tell us to expect the worst. I’m sure it’s policy –”

“I’m going to call the park police,” said Hannah’s father. “That thing. Something needs to be done.”

“Yes,” said her mother. “Yes. And we’ll wait here, and we’ll – I guess we’ll –”

“I’m freezing,” murmured Hannah.

A few minutes later, the ambulance came, and they lifted her away.

It was there, asleep on the stretcher, her hand clasped in her mother’s, that the poison made a home in Hannah’s blood, and she first began to change.