to the barren slopes above the tree line of the valley. The moon fumed and boiled. She was a passenger in another’s body, a body that seethed with profound vitality. The moon’s yellow glow stirred her blood and she raced down the slope and into the trees. She smelled the land, tasted it on her lolling tongue, drawing in the scent of every green deer spoor, every droplet of coyote musk, every spackling of piss on rock or shrub. She smelled fresh blood and meat-blacked bone. There were many, many bones scattered across the mountainside. Generational heaps of them—ribs, thighs, horns, skulls. These graveyards were secret places, scattered for miles across deep, hidden caches and among the high rocks.
Lorna stroked Miranda’s belly. Miranda’s excess had melted away in recent days. She was lean from day-long hikes and skipped meals and her scent was different, almost gamey, her hair lank and coarse. She was restless and she whined in her sleep. She bit too hard when they made love.
Miranda took Lorna’s hand and said, “What is it?”
“I’m afraid you’re going to leave.”
“Oh, where the fuck is this coming from?”
“Something’s different. Something’s changed. You weren’t honest about where you found the coat. The skin.”
Miranda chuckled without humor. “Let sleeping dogs lie.”
“I’m not in the mood for cute,” Lorna said.
“My sweet one. I left out the part that might…frighten you. You’re skittish enough.”
“I’m also not in the mood for Twenty Questions. What did you mean earlier—the old man showed you?”
“Old man Haugstad told me where to look, what I needed to do.”
“In a dream.”
“Not in a dream. The day I discovered the blind, a coyote skulked out of the bushes and led me along the path. It was the size of a mastiff, blizzard white on the muzzle and crisscrossed with scars.”
“I don’t understand,” Lorna said, but was afraid she might.
“We’re here for a reason. Can’t you feel the power all around us? After I lost Jack, after I finally accepted he was gone, I pretty much decided to off myself. If I hadn’t met you at that party I probably would’ve died within a few days. I’d picked out the pills, the clothes I intended to wear, knew exactly where it was going to happen. When was the only question.”
Lorna began to cry.
“I won’t leave you. But it’s possible you might decide not to come with me.” Miranda rolled to her opposite side and said nothing more. Lorna slowly drifted to sleep. She woke later while it was still dark. Miranda’s side of the bed was a cold blank space. Her clothes were still piled on the floor. In a moment of sublimely morbid intuition, Lorna clicked on a flashlight and checked the spare bedroom where Miranda had taken to hanging the fur cloak from a hook on the door. Of course the cloak was missing.
She gathered her robe tightly, sparing a moment to reflect upon her resemblance to the doomed heroines on any number of lurid gothic horror novel covers and went outdoors into the freezing night. Her teeth chattered and her fear became indistinguishable from the chill. She poked around the cabin, occasionally calling her lover’s name, although in a soft tone, afraid to attract the attention of the wolves, the coyotes, or whatever else might roam the forest at night.
Eventually she approached the woodshed and saw the door was cracked open by several inches. She stepped inside. Miranda crouched on the dirt floor. The flashlight was weak and its flickering cone only hinted and suggested. The pelt covered Miranda, concealed her so she was scarcely more than a lump. She whined and shuddered and took notice of the pallid light, and as she stirred, Lorna was convinced that the pelt was not a loose cloak, not an ill-fitted garment, but something else entirely for the manner in which it flexed with each twitch and shiver of Miranda’s musculature.
The flashlight glass cracked and imploded. The shed lay in utter darkness except for a thin sliver of moonlight that burned yellow in Miranda’s eyes. Lorna’s mouth was dry. She said, “Sweetheart?”
Miranda said in a voice rusty and drugged, “Why don’t you…go on to bed. I’ll be along. I’ll come see you real soon.” She stood, a ponderous yet lithe, uncoiling motion, and her head scraped the low ceiling.
Lorna got out fast and stumbled toward the cabin. She didn’t look over her shoulder even though she felt hot breath on the back of her neck.
* * *
They didn’t speak of the incident.