The Hunt

A young woman stumbles down a rocky incline in the woods, scraping her leg raw, the gash exposing raw pink tissue but barely any blood. Wide-eyed, startled in spurts, appears in danger to any nearby wilderness witness. She hears voices loud enough that the source can be directly in front of her, but she knows almost exactly how far they are and which direction they’re coming from. She knows when the group separates and when they come together, footsteps stomping & fading in sporadic rhythms. Despite the cacophony in her head, and the natural (and only source of) light engulfed by the horizon, her vision sharpens, senses heighten. She has plenty of time to climb a tree for a bird’s eye view, guided by twilight & protected by the moon – a cursed servant of the moon, like her grandmother & great-grandmother.

The young woman’s mother would tell her stories about her own mother before she disappeared for good. Stories that she and her friends in the town would make up about the young woman’s grandmother and the women that kept her company. “Luna’s Loony Ladies” worshipped the full moon with simultaneous cycles and blood on their clothes. They had a solution for everything- distilled, bottled, and stored for sale at the one apothecary in town that they all ran together like some matriarchal commune.

​“What type of witchcraft do you think they do?”

​“I don’t think they actually practice any magic, probably just rub their period blood all over their faces while they’re eating each other out.”

​“I bet they do that after they sacrifice virgins.”

​“Pshh, if that were true, they would’ve kidnapped you long ago!”

​“Look at you, talking like some pre-pubescent stud!”

​“I don’t know… she has never - and will never - discuss it with me…”

​“You think she’s ashamed of what you might think of what she really does?”

​“Who knows with that woman, I’ve never seen her express anything to me other than annoyance.”

They were never close, the young woman’s mother always felt some subliminal, psychic estrangement; the intuition of the older generation forming a shadow over the younger. It wasn’t until she began performing her own involuntary blood sacrifices to the moon that the young woman’s grandmother began outwardly expressing contempt. Despite living together until the young woman’s grandmother died, their cycles never synced. The young woman’s grandmother and her ladies can be separated by mountains & oceans & time zones, and their cycles would still, and would always be, in sync.

The young woman’s mother felt zero allegiance. She turned to her friends for company - the crueler their insults toward her own flesh & blood, the closer she felt to them. Her mother had her coven, and she had hers. They would continue their wild tales of the moon coven, sometimes switching to spying on townspeople that made it known how they felt about these women when the storytelling got boring and repetitive. The young woman’s daughter felt a comfort keeping tabs on strangers, disappearances happened enough to notice, but not enough to think that it would ever happen to you.

Yet despite this, the young woman’s mom was integrated into her own mother’s world as an inactive participant, always expected to be an extra set of hands when needed but otherwise disregarded enough to blend in the background. Bonding was just business, but when the young woman’s mother was younger, it was easier to treat it like pretend time, like she and her own mother were a duo on a sitcom, playing “Mommy’s Little Helper.” Even if it wasn’t the type of fun she was used to having with her own friends, she would admit it only to herself that her heart softened during these occasions. The young woman’s grandmother taught her daughter how to survive, even if the only reason the woman took the girl anywhere was in the forest, to study leaf, bark, & petal patterns; what plants help which ailments; how to use the bigger muscles in your legs vs. your arms to climb a tree; what to do when you’re chased by a wild animal. The latter lesson began at aged 9 or 10, mostly just agility drills and running on different types of ground. The young woman’s mother loathed the exertion but more feared her company’s scorn. It's for your own good, we come from animals, and lazy animals die in the wild. One day, days or weeks before the young woman’s mother began to bleed, her mother proposed that they up the stakes, tempting the young girl by offering knowledge & initiation to what she and her “loony ladies” did in the shadows of her girlhood.

The older woman insisted that this be done within three days of the full moon; the two headed into the trees at dusk, marking a trail to the starting position deep into the wood. When the young woman’s mother asked the young woman’s grandmother why they stopped marking the trail, the latter replied, “because instinct goes beyond the sight of a marker.” Most predators see better in the dark, and the moon can sometimes illuminate a miracle – a guide that penetrates the limits of human language to help her mortal seers see their purpose. “The moon has power over all the water on Earth, including in our bodies – the blood, sweat, and tears. Follow her rhythms and you’ll know what to do.”

The older gave the younger a few minutes’ head start and a simple instruction: follow your nose, follow her rhythms.

The young woman’s mother was fast, but didn’t know where to run; all stumble & tripping with zero rhythm to step into. No significant scent to recognize, either – if there was one, her mother didn’t tell her. She heard a faint howl and for a second did not put it past her own mother to allow her daughter to really be chased by something that can tear her to bloody shreds. The moon was full enough to prevent extra struggle in the shadows, presenting a sturdy trunk with thick branches that the girl can use momentum on to swing her body up higher & higher into the leaves. She slowed her breathing down, as if her monster could sense her pulse like a scent. She hid for what felt like hours before nearly falling asleep (and therefore down onto the ground, open and visible to all), pinching the inside of her wrist to stay awake until she heard her mother’s voice calling her name. The young woman’s mother didn’t realize she was afraid of heights – she climbed more than her share of trees until now – until she attempted to meet her mother on the ground and her legs froze on the ledge.

“My mother wasn’t one, either,” the young woman’s grandmother said. “She tried to get the town to destroy me when I was a little older than you are now.”

“Did you already know I wouldn’t be one?”

“I was hoping it wasn’t true.”

The young woman hears the steps moving further and further away until the sounds blend with the cars on the road. The sun vanished hours ago, bashful moon under curtains of clouds, fireflies guiding her way. She figures her tattered skirt & sweater carefully thrown around to create the stage of an attack was enough to throw off the hunting party. She steps off a middle branch strong enough to hold her body and high enough to curtain her appearance, landing in a crouch. Despite her nakedness, she isn’t cold in the presence of the first frost. The thin layer of surrounding white powder melts on impact, effervescent static charged from her heat. Her skin shines as blue as her eyes glow yellow under the reveal of her ancestral cosmic deity. It starts from the spine and spreads outward – shoulders broadening, coat thickening, a sharpening… of smell, sight, hearing, clawing, chewing… a dulling… of pain, fear, care, humanity…