That Was My Boy

Story and Illustration by Phoebe Nerem

Mr. & Mrs. Charles Simmonds, Receive Friends, Friday Evening, October 6th, At 12 o’clock. When great dogs fight, the sky bellows. A royal invitation. Charming smile, glittering crown, lupine eyes, effulgent creature. Glint of teeth in the limelight. The moon looked larger when he was gone. Dragging heels, slumped shoulders. One of the best. Heart full of bright hopes. Dry blood under his fingernails. Snapped twigs, a stray claw. Dirt on the bearskin rug. A loving heart. The most noble.

That was my boy.

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episode one

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TWILIGHT

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There’s something sinister about the Silvermans.

This isn’t just because Dominic personally loathes the family, though his lifelong grudge does render him a bit biased. When recalling his own childhood his body shudders on instinct, immediately struck by the repugnant violence of Savannah Silverman’s two sons, Tommy and William. In Dominic’s nightmares, he is unwillingly reminded of the bitter October when he witnessed a murder for the first time. His mother, ever the optimist, all but coerced Dom into playing outside with Tommy and William when Savannah came to the estate to discuss business. Reluctantly Dominic obeyed but took his time meandering over to the edge of the woods where the brothers were playing. Their backs faced him, crouched over something small that he couldn’t quite see. Curiosity got the better of him and quickened his footsteps. The boys didn’t acknowledge him as he approached and instead hissed with secret laughter. Dom furrowed his brow and pushed himself between them to get a better look. He immediately regretted it.

“Look, Dommy,” William sneered, “it’s for you!”

At his feet laid the dying body of a rabbit, impaled by an arrow Dominic recognized; the initials S.S. were carved into the metallic arrowhead. Sickened enough by that familiarity alone, his petrified stare slid in horror to the rabbit’s face, whose eyes began to gloss over, whose whiskers stopped twitching. The color drained from Dominic’s face right before he became sick, the pounding in his ears drowning out the sound of Tommy and William’s boorish jeers.

Unfortunately for Dominic and the woodland creatures behind his home, this was the first of many times Tommy and William committed acts of destruction in his own backyard. A bird slain midair via slingshot. A frog squashed under a steel-toed boot. A two-man choir singing “Dummy Dommy” after he inevitably cried was the cherry atop the carrion. After witnessing that many innocent deaths, Dominic feigned indifference by the time he turned twelve. “What do you guys even get out of this, anyway?” He couldn’t bring himself to call ‘this’ what it was. Evil.

Tommy looked at him with genuine confusion, as if Dominic had asked why the sun sets in the west. William treated the question with a nonchalant coldness, a shrug. “They’re just animals.”

Unfortunately due to generational forces outside of Dominic’s control, he was forced to tolerate the family’s presence at every holiday, birthday, or soirée held at the Goldberg estate. After being widowed at just twenty-four, Savannah Silverman wasted no time replacing her husband at the dual head of Goldberg & Silverman Financial Services. She was an intimidating, calculating woman, according to Dominic. But if you asked either of his parents, they’d say she was charming. Alluring. Fetching. And wickedly smart.

“Not smart enough to keep your kids from becoming butchers,” Dominic muttered under his breath. At only thirteen, he didn’t yet have the sense to bite his tongue at one of his family’s many social gatherings, or at least he wasn’t aware of how sharp Savannah’s hearing was. She regarded him with an initial condescension before her expression settled into something sickly sweet. “They’re just being boys, Dommy.” She all but rolled her eyes before sashaying back into the swell of their party guests.

This particular party had a silver lining; a newly hired housekeeper’s son began to serve champagne and merlot in full flutes, maintaining perfect balance with the comically large tray in his hand. The boy caught Dom’s eye, and he could swear he saw a cunning glint in the boy’s grin moments before the tray tipped over.

A collective gasp from the nearby very important persons, a flushed apology from the servant boy. He threw one last pointed glance at Dom before rushing to the kitchens to grab rags. Dominic quickly took a hallway shortcut that led to the back of the kitchens, catching the boy as he arrived. It seemed neither of them knew how to approach the situation. A short preamble of silence broke with full-bellied laughter of the two, loud enough to be heard in the parlor. Dom slapped a hand to his mouth and hurriedly grabbed cleaning supplies to soak up the mess. The boy introduced himself as Vel. Dominic introduced himself as Dominic. Vel said, “I know who you are.”

If the Goldberg parents thought Savannah Silverman was charming. Alluring. Fetching. And wickedly smart, Dominic regarded Vel as the paragon of those traits. Dom knew his parents wouldn’t necessarily approve of how much time he spent with Vel; his mother worried he was too ‘soft,’ and his father wholeheartedly believed Tommy and William would be good influences for him. But Vel was… well, nice isn’t exactly the right word. Interesting is more apt. He listened thoughtfully when Dom would vent about his parents’ impossibly high expectations, his impossibly difficult algebra homework, and his impossibly aspirational dreams of becoming a writer. Dom shared his rough drafts with Vel, who in turn shared the booze he had scored from god knows where. Thus began Dominic’s vicehood.

Vel had introduced Dominic to his two friends, also children of other housekeepers, Channing and Lupe. Channing was a freckled and bespectacled boy with cunning wit, and Lupe a doe-eyed but clever tomboy with a taste for danger. When Dominic managed to sneak away from his eagle-eyed parents and tutors, he would spend most evenings in the cellar with his three new friends. Together they conducted seances to channel Joseph Silverman, tried unsuccessfully but dutifully to summon demons, and played spin the bottle. When Vel kissed Dominic for the first time at fifteen, Dom knew for a fact he was in love.

Now twenty-two, Dominic wasn’t sure what he considered to be love anymore. Vel was addictingly attractive but devastatingly distant. He would only meet up with Dominic in the evenings, and only on certain days of the month. When their friendship first began, Dominic wasn’t exactly forbidden from fraternizing with the housekeepers’ kids, but the disappointed frowns from his parents got the message across well enough. Vel must be looking out for him, making sure he’s not the source of Dom getting in trouble. That had to be it. Or so he told himself until now.

This was the second time in two months Vel had stood him up behind the gazebo during a Great Goldberg Gathering, as Vel liked to call them. He had been away from the crowd for a half hour; there was no way he would be able to get away with being absent any longer. Dom’s lip twitched in annoyance. Not even the chromatic twilight descending upon the lawn could quell his irritation.

Just as he pivoted on his heel to head back inside, a twig snapped behind him. Dominic was easily startled, but it wasn’t enough to interrupt the dreary evening he knew lay ahead of him. It was the disembodied howl from the woods that really caught his attention.

Dominic whipped around to face the source of the sound, but was, of course, met only with the dark, impenetrable woods. Coyotes, he reasoned, with just a touch of anxiety. It took only a brief moment for Dominic to catch sight of a shadow slinking against the house out of his periphery. Another twig snapped.

He’s a naturally curious person, but he’s not an idiot. Far be it from him to come face to face with a coyote wielding no weapon. Dominic ducked behind the house and let himself in from the back, the way he came from. He deadbolted the door just in case.

Vel was nowhere to be seen for the remainder of the night.

episode two

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SWEET DREAMS

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A baleful fog stretched eerily across the Goldberg property. The haze was thick and unyielding, obstructing the view of anything that may lie within. Silent, too; no chirping of birds or insects could be heard to determine what time of day it was. The sky reflected the fog like a lake reflects a mountain, and a nearly invisible horizon line weakly distinguished land and air. The fog was stagnant, stubborn, and the scene entirely still, frozen in time, or existing in a space where time does not.

A twig snaps and immediately the scene is ripped apart. Dominic lands on his back with a painful thud, only dirt and dead leaves there to break his fall. The tall, skinny trees framing the now darker sky spun as Dominic stared up at them, and with a sickening realization, he noticed there were no stars. He could see only by the grace of the impossibly behemothic moon, bright and swollen and hungry. As Dominic stared bluntly at the sky, the moon seemed to look back at him.

It was only when Dominic managed to sit up that he noticed how fast his heart was beating. He scrambled to his feet, finding his balance once and then losing it again when he looked up. The moon was gone. A twig snaps. Closer, now.

Dominic whirled around himself, trying his best to determine where the sound came from, to make sense of the lit woods in the absence of the moon and stars, to stay on his feet when gravity was so persuasive. A rustling of leaves was all it took for him to brace his back against a tree, his body unmoving and frigid.

A pair of yellow eyes blinked to his left. He made eye contact, breath caught in his throat, unable to process what he was looking at before another pair of eyes blinked to life on his right. His hands gripped the bark of the tree behind him, breaking off in soft, moist clumps. That was the only part of his body that seemed to be able to move. Dominic kept his gaze ahead of him, trying hard to get the eyes to look elsewhere. Across the tree, Dominic steadied himself against, a third pair of eyes came into focus. A pair that he recognized. All of the eyes then vanished.

“I know who you are,” Vel’s voice whispered from behind him. Before Dominic had the chance to take a breath, he was torn away from the tree and the voice by two blurry figures. They gripped his arm and yanked him backwards, and Dominic once again found himself in the fog of the Goldbergs’ backyard.

“Vel?” he called out in a panic, squinting against the fog. But Vel was nowhere to be seen. Instead, the two men who pulled him from the woods shoved Dominic behind them, away from Vel. Dominic recognized the back of their heads like he would the back of his own hand.

Tommy and William Silverman stood firmly against the fog, rifles pointed at the woods, cocked and ready to fire. Dom’s eyes widened to circles, panic sweeping through his bloodstream. “Guys,” he pleaded, pulling on the brothers’ clothing but never quite gripping them tight enough, “What’s happening? Where’s Vel?”

Tommy snickered but did not offer him a glance. He was a hunter poised, seasoned, and prepared, rifle steady against his embrace. William turned his head over his shoulder to look at Dominic and said, “Don’t worry, Dommy. We know you’re one of us.”

A shadow penetrated the fog at a distance, gone as quickly as it arrived. Dominic pushed through the Silverman brothers, stumbling over his own feet as he ran into the opaque haze. He heard William calling after him, but nothing could stop him from running towards the shadow. Dominic didn’t know how to stop, until a stray root from the edge of the wood interrupted his pursuit for him. Suddenly he was back on the floor of dead leaves, surrounded by the skinny, towering trees. Dominic had no chance to stand up before being surrounded on all sides by yellow eyes. They bore down on him but made no noise, waiting for something.

Dominic squeezed his own eyes shut and sunk his fingers into the cold, damp earth, trying desperately to ground himself. Approaching footsteps crunched the dead leaves and moved closer to him, but still he could not bring himself to open his eyes. The footfalls stopped right before his feet. “Dominic,” said Vel, “Just trust me.” And as soon as Dominic’s eyes flew open a strident gunshot ricocheted through the woods.

The sheets beneath his hands were damp and cold when Dominic awoke with a start. With turgid eyes crusted by sleep, he looked down at his white-knuckled hands, free of any dirt or grime, free of any evidence that he had ever left his bed.

episode three

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DISEMBODIED

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The more Dominic poked at his dinner with his fork, the more unsightly it became. The venison was cooked to perfection, slathered with a shimmering blackberry sauce, and garnished with fresh sprigs of thyme. To his parents and the Silvermans, who had finished their meals ten minutes ago, it was a culinary triumph, enabled by yesterday’s hunting trip. It was William who had fired the shot that killed the animal Dominic now had to swallow, somehow. Despite the aromatic scents of freshly cooked meat, the tart sweetness of blackberries, and the verdant touch of herbs, the dish looked more like a crime scene than anything else.

Dominic peeled his eyes off his plate and hoped nobody had noticed his disgust. His father Robert was recounting today’s disturbing news; the ongoing slaughter of the neighboring county’s livestock became more gruesome by the month. When Dominic looked at his mother Clarice, whose lips formed a tight, thin line, she seemed to be just as sickened by the conversation as he was.

“Bears,” Tommy said simply, mouth full of meat. Savannah shot him a look that forbade him from speaking with food in his mouth.

William nodded and took a sip of red wine from a crystalline glass. “We saw one yesterday on our way home. They’re bulking up for winter.”

Robert’s brows furrowed together with skepticism. “No, you didn’t read the article. This has been going on for months, and those poor animals weren’t even eaten. They were mutilated. Tons of ‘em.” He either didn’t notice the sharp glance from his wife, or he decided he didn’t care. “And, the farmer said the entire night was silent. If it was a bear, you’d hear the horses whinny, at least.”

A sharp exhale from Savannah cut the conversation down the middle. “Can we please not talk about this over dinner? You men can stomach anything, but Clarice and I would like to enjoy our meals.” For once, Dominic was glad for Savannah’s bluntness.

As if on cue Vel approached the table with Channing and Lupe to carry out their plates. Vel took Dominic’s plate first, as if to hide the fact that he had barely touched his dinner. Tucked into Dominic’s napkin was a note that said: Cellar. 1 hour. It took everything in Dom not to grin, even slightly. Vel might have a history of standing Dominic up at parties, but the latter was so enthralled by the housekeeper that his brief pain of rejection was swept aside to make room for an attraction he couldn’t admit was doomed.

Slightly tipsy off red wine, Dominic said his goodbyes to the Silvermans quickly before changing into more comfortable clothing in his room. He ran a comb through his hair. He straightened out his button-up shirt and tucked the left half into his pants. Vel once told him that he looked hot that way.

Dom was last to arrive at the cellar as the sun had begun to set. Vel, Channing, and Lupe were already engrossed in continuing the dinner table conversation on their own.

“As if one fucking bear could wipe out half a farm,” Channing said, rolling his eyes. In his lap, he cradled a bottle of burgundy liquid that Dominic recognized amidst the candlelight. Upon seeing Dominic, he handed the bottle to him without greeting.

He settled onto a purloined woolsack after taking a swig of the wine. The cellar was habitually lit by an abundance of candles and furnished with a hodgepodge of assorted chairs that the Goldbergs had intended to throw away. Over the years, Dom had managed to swipe furniture from the house to make the cellar more accommodating; a sheepskin rug, a vintage sofa, dowdy velvet chairs, etc. Vel sat across from Dominic on the sofa next to Lupe. He gave Dominic a sweet smile before his attention returned to Channing. Dominic wanted it for himself.

“Tommy’s an idiot,” Dom said without passion. The question remained, however— “What do you think did it, then?”

Lupe grinned with all of her teeth. “Could be Peter Stubbe.” Vel chuckled at this, settling back against the armrest with his chin cushioned by his palm. Dominic scanned their motley crew, unsure if he was supposed to know who that was. Their faces flickered with the candles, as if they had existed in between reality and fantasy. Different sides and angles lit up differently than others. The lack of an overhead light made it difficult to discern where their bodies began and ended.

Dominic took the bait with a sigh. “Who’s Peter Stubbe?”

Both Channing and Lupe immediately looked to Vel, who rolled his eyes at them before leaning forward against his knees. His eyes locked with Dominic’s, dancing with a certain mischief. “He was a werewolf.”

Now it was Dominic’s turn to scoff. He crossed his arms, squinting at Vel with a touch of challenging playfulness. “Sure. And I’m a ghost, actually.”

Lupe feigned an expression of condescending concern before saying, “No, Dominic. Ghosts aren’t real. Peter Stubbe was.”

“Okay. Enlighten me.”

Vel reached to grab a small candelabra from the end table beside the sofa, bringing it under his chin to illuminate his face from below. In a voice slightly deeper than usual, he began, “Bedburg, Germany, 1582. The Black Death haunted the people of Bedburg from a distance, but no plague could ever mimic the horror they were about to endure.”

Channing’s mouth formed an ‘o’ as he let out a quiet but ghostly ‘ooooo’. Dominic knocked his elbow against Channing’s arm, but it was Vel that held his attention.

“For far too long the good citizens of Bedburg had dealt with a mysterious massacre of their livestock. Dozens of cows laid on their sides, ripped apart, their insides outside; some of their hearts were still beating when they were found.”

Dominic scrunched his nose. “Gross, Vel.”

Vel carried on, “Most of the farmers reckoned it was the wolves from the woods. They even organized hunting parties to wipe them out, but still their farms were ravaged. Then, women and children began to go missing. Enter: Peter Stubbe.” Vel cocked an eyebrow at Dom, all too satisfied with reigniting their old tradition of telling scary stories in the cellar. “He was a faithful father and farmer, widowed, but pleasant enough. Normal, even. Or so they thought.”

The bottle of wine had made its way to Lupe, who gave it to Dominic on her way further into the cellar. Dominic glanced behind him to see where she was going, but she had already vanished into the darkness that the candles did not touch.

“After people had begun to go missing, they had begun to be found. In pieces. Arms, legs, severed heads, started turning up on people’s properties. The men of Bedburg tried to quell their terrified wives and children by continuing to hunt the nasty wolf that was surely behind all this carnage. For days, they hunted, and at last, they saw… not just any wolf. An enormous monster with giant, gnashing teeth, paws the size of a baby, claws that could rip anything apart.”

Vel smiled in satisfaction at Dominic’s look of entrancement, fueling the climax of the story. “After an exhilarating chase, the men finally had it cornered. But when they peered over the bush that the wolf had hid behind, all they saw was the naked, cowering body of Peter Stubbe.”

Dominic blinked, the fantasy of the story fading on him. “This actually happened? He was a real person?”

“Person?” Vel began, “Probably not. But real? Oh, yes. Turns out most monsters are. They’re just not who you would expect them to be. Anyways,” Vel set the candelabra back onto the end table, “at his trial, he said that the Devil had given him a magic belt of wolf fur that transformed him into—”

“—the likeness of a greedy, devouring wolf, strong and mighty, with eyes great and large, which in the night sparkled like brands of fire; a mouth great and wide, with most sharp and cruel teeth; a huge body and mighty paws.”

Dominic had jumped at Lupe’s disembodied voice from behind him as she emerged from the dark, all but hissing the prose with another bottle of wine in her hand. “Why the hell do you have that memorized?”

She let out a hearty laugh at Dominic, who in turn scowled and returned his attentiveness to Vel. Channing took the bottle from Lupe and took a large swig.

“Of course, they never found the belt,” Vel said, “but he still paid for his crimes. They strapped him to a big wheel and ripped his flesh right off of his body. Then, so he wouldn’t be able to crawl out of his grave, they took the blunt head of an ax and broke all of his bones. Then, they cut off his head and burned him at the stake.”

It was impossible for Dominic to hide the horror on his face. His wince turned into a frown when Vel beamed at him, obviously very proud of his storytelling abilities. “You guys are sick,” Dom said, before treating himself to a generous amount of wine.

Lupe shrugged. “Better than boring.”

The rest of the night was spent in a drunken haze. Channing told more ghost stories while Lupe picked apart the details via irrelevant questions, eventually irritating Channing to the point of stopping. Vel laughed alongside Dominic, sneaking in glances that made Dom’s heart flutter with anticipation. It was well after midnight when Channing and Lupe headed back into the house, leaving Dominic and Vel to blow out the candles in the cellar.

As they emerged from the earth, Vel caught Dominic by the arms and kissed him deeply. The shock of it froze Dom in place before he managed to lean into Vel. They pulled apart, and after getting a good look at Vel’s face in the moonlight, Dominic found that he couldn’t be upset at his absence at the party the other night. That being said, he still wanted to be noticed. “Why’d you stand me up at the party?”

The dark brown of Vel’s eyes shone, glossy and impossibly deep, the edges of his irises almost red beneath the night sky. His head tilted slightly to the side as he brought his hand up to Dom’s chin, using the pad of his thumb to brush over the stubble. “You’re still upset about that?”

“No,” Dominic said too quickly, not yet clocking that Vel avoided the question. “I mean, it was rude. But I’m not mad.”

Vel exhaled sharply through his nose. “Good,” he whispered, leaning in to kiss Dominic’s neck. “Because I can be ruder.”

That night, his teeth felt sharper than usual.

episode four

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POSESSED

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There weren’t many secrets Dominic actually managed to keep, but Vel was one of them. His love for Vel was another, an entity separate from their clandestine dalliance. This secret was kept locked in a mahogany desk drawer tarnished with smudges of black ink. If he was unable to see Vel after his tutoring, Dominic retreated to his room where he could spill out everything he wanted to say to Vel in private. The drawer was abound with thick, wax-sealed envelopes tied with twine, each of them titled after the last thing Vel had said to him. Handsome. Unbuttoned. Goodnight. Unending scribblings of prose Dominic had planned on burning one day instead seemed to pulse with yearning; he couldn’t bring himself to set anything but his own heart ablaze.

To the great cathedral of your soul, I am a parishioner

I spill my heart out so that it covers every pew

Turn on my heel and make eye contact with my executioner

I am scared of the whole world but I am more scared of you

Dominic was just as much a romantic as he was a writer, after all.

Of course, if Vel had even so much as glanced at one of these letters, Dominic would have to run away from home and never be seen again. Their relationship was not built on honesty or trust. Such virtues seemed trivial to Dominic, now, no matter how badly he craved them. Instead, Dominic could only give Vel little bits of him at a time. He wholeheartedly believed that without such discipline, Vel would run away himself. The enormity of Dominic’s feelings was repulsive.

As Dominic watched the spidery interlace of Vel’s eyelashes flutter through the moonlit drapes, he couldn’t help but think that if he died, right then and there, he would die happy. Everything he truly loved was right there, tangled up in linen sheets, breathing softly, warmly beside him. Dom’s breath caught in his throat when the corners of Vel’s lips curled upward. His eyes then opened just a sliver. “Are you watching me sleep?”

“I was hoping that it would inspire me to sleep.”

Vel rolled onto his back, rubbing the sleep from his eyes and looking up at Dominic. “More nightmares?”

Dominic sighed melodramatically and sat up against the bed’s headboard. “No, just thinking.”

“You do that too much.” Vel sat up beside him and stretched out his arms, the curve of sinewed muscle casting shadows along the length of his body. “It’s not healthy.”

Dominic rubbed his temple, as if that would shoo the intruding thoughts away. “I can’t help it.”

Vel regarded him thoughtfully. When Dom met his gaze, he felt helplessly locked into place, a fly falling for the beauty of the web. They stared at each other without a word for a moment. Vel’s expression was as unreadable as it always was. Dominic imagined administering a truth serum of some sort; he wanted to hear all of Vel’s loves, hopes, and fears tumble out of him with reckless abandon. He wanted to relate. He wanted to hear Vel admit that this was love.

Of course, the wedge driven between them was impossible to bridge. That was, at least, as long as they both lived at the Goldberg estate. The reason Dominic got out of bed every day was contingent upon the daydream of eloping becoming a reality. Instead, Vel continued to be the lamp to Dominic’s moth, an intransigent impossibility that could both warm him and ruin him. At this point, Dominic wasn’t sure there was much of a difference.

“Sometimes I wish I could possess you,” Vel said quietly, brushing a lock of hair from Dom’s face. The comment caught him entirely off guard as a rush of both ice and fire coursed through his veins. Dominic could feel his face flush from the intensity of the feeling, but he couldn’t bring himself to look away. “You already possess me.”

Vel smiled. “Not like that.”

A prick of disappointment punctured Dom’s gut. He thought he was being romantic. “Like what, then?”

Vel’s head lolled to the side as he brought his hand to Dominic’s bare shoulder, tracing his arm down to his elbow. “I want to get under your skin. I want to know the warmth of your blood. I want to uncover all the troubled thoughts in that pretty head of yours and smooth them over.”

Heat bloomed in Dominic’s chest, making it hard to breathe. “That sounds pretty nice, actually.”

Vel straightened himself ever so slightly, looking at Dominic with a ferocity he rarely saw from him. “What if I could?”

“Could, what?”

“Possess you.”

Dominic huffed in disbelief. The initial attraction of the concept had worn off by replacing the fantasy of it with whatever impermeable idea Vel was thinking of. “That’s rather intimate, Vel. What would you do with me?”

And when Vel used his index finger to tilt Dominic’s chin towards him, it was the first glimpse of true, unbridled honesty he had ever seen in his lover. Without any pretense of sarcasm, Vel said, “Set you free.”

episode five

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BLOODSTAINED

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Dominic was not a religious man. But even from a young age, he recognized something holy in the woods behind his house; the cathedral of trees, the choir of birds, the preaching of howling wind. In the winter months, he used to gaze out of a set of bay windows, intently watching for any movement in the yard or on the outskirts of the woods. When he was fourteen, snow fell thickly in fat flakes, covering everything that had a surface. In the midst of the whiteness he almost missed it.

A fawn with pink eyes took ginger steps through the opaque blanket of snow, radiant, interrupting the glittery landscape surrounding it. Dominic gazed in wonder at the creature, almost mistaking it for an apparition. After it slipped back into the thick of the woods, Dominic shoved on his snow boots and trudged towards where it had emerged. It was real. The cloven footprints in the snow confirmed it.

Dominic saw the fawn two more times that week before Tommy, William, and Savannah Silverman stayed over at the Goldbergs’ while their house was being remodeled. Dread puddled in the pit of his gut when Robert suggested he should learn how to hunt with the Silverman brothers. Despite the desperation in his protests, Robert weaponized his poor math grades against him: “Go outside, learn something, and maybe I won’t ground you.” With a mordant huff, Dominic obeyed.

For about an hour, the three boys saw nothing. The snow continued to fall gracefully, slowly. The woods were silent, the trees still. None of them spoke; apparently Tommy and William had a secret, silent code when it came to hunting; a secret Dominic was not let in on. The cold was biting, and Dominic was not prepared to be outside for so long. He could feel his fingers and toes go numb, his nose inflamed, his eyes beginning to glaze. Then, out of the corner of his eye, there was movement.

Tommy and William, facing opposite directions, seemed to not notice. They were crouched behind the thrush of a red twig dogwood, coated in so much snow that they might as well have been invisible. Both of them handled rifles with both hands. It wasn’t until Dominic turned his head that William spotted it too: the white fawn.

William knocked his knee against Tommy’s and made some sort of hand gesture. By the time Dominic had noticed them, it was too late. The trenchant crack of Tommy’s rifle being fired nearly knocked Dominic over before he clapped his hands to his frigid ears. Dom scrambled to his feet, a withering dismay clouding his vision. A single spot of red punctuated the otherwise white woods.

“What the fuck did you do?” Dominic whirled around to face Tommy. It was easier to be angry than devastated, easier, somehow, to direct vitriol to Tommy’s despicable face than to look into the unmoving eyes of something that was once beautiful. Tears pricked at Dominic’s eyes, but the rage within him burned them away.

Tommy smirked, bearing an unbothered expression that only further fueled Dominic’s ire. “I just caught dinner, dumbass.” He began to walk towards the fawn, bumping shoulders with Dominic.

He couldn’t take it. There was no room left in his body to mourn the small, innocent lives taken by the Silvermans. Dom caught Tommy by the shoulder and threw a sharp punch, his gloves buffering the impact of his knuckles against Tommy’s chin. Tommy was stunned, unblinking; Dominic forced his fist into Tommy’s gut before William managed to wretch him away.

These were the memories that kept Dominic up at night, nearly a decade later. Sometimes, when he closed his eyes, all he could see against the darkness was that tiny red spot. It was enough for tears to brim in his eyes. Dominic wiped them away with the back of his hand and sat up in his bed, sheets tangled in his legs after a restless night of trying to sleep. He knew his attempts at rest for the remainder of the night would be futile, so he slipped on a robe and glanced at the clock. Just after midnight.

By now, Dominic was an expert at sneaking out of the house. He knew his parents kept careful tabs on their liquor ever since they found out Dominic had been stealing them as a teenager, but he also knew that the house staff had a stash of their own. The autumn chill bit his cheeks as he stepped out of the house in only his pajamas, robe, and slippers. A cloud passed over the moon, eclipsed by its brightness. An involuntary shudder trickled down his spine when he looked up at it, struck by a strange sense of déjà vu. The moon was so full it looked swollen.

He shook off the feeling and lumbered through wet, dead leaves to get to the cellar. The handle was slick with something, but in the darkness he couldn’t tell what. Dew, probably. Though it felt slippery. He wiped his hands on the side of his robe without noticing the stain they left.

The further Dominic descended down the cellar stairs, the faster his heart pumped in his chest. He gritted his teeth against the anxiety that began to creep into tremulous fingers and carried on. His breath came to a halt after he caught sight of an orange glow emanating from the deepest part of the cellar. Dom always thought of himself as curious, but not stupid. This time, however, curiosity took him over in a terrifying trance. As Dominic approached he saw an array of candles lit across the floor, forming a perfect circle. A familiar figure stood at the center, facing away from him.

A small noise in Dominic’s throat betrayed his stealth. The figure whipped around, faster than it should have.

There stood Vel, gripping a torn, bloodstained shirt in his hand. Vel, looking ethereal in the candlelight, draped in shadow like a Caravaggio painting. Vel with wet, shiny blood dripping from his mouth. Vel with long, curved canines. Vel with yellow eyes.

“Dominic,” Vel said, “Just trust me.”

episode six

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THROUGH THE FOG

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And so he did.

He kept quiet as he watched Vel’s long, curved claws recede to their nail beds. He kept quiet as Vel revealed to him the gash across his stomach, and he kept quiet as he helped to bandage it. Through the fog clouding the edges of his vision, the yellow of Vel’s eyes eventually bled into their familiar brown. The cellar, once an arcadian refuge and the only place Dominic had ever felt seen, now seemed menacingly unfamiliar. The shadows that the candles casted on the walls felt less picturesque and instead tenebrism gone too far.

Vel didn’t speak at first, either. He bore a pensive look on his blood-stricken face, which has since dried in grotesque burgundy chunks on his cheeks, while Dom looped a bandage around his torso. It occurred to him that the blood-encrusted around the gash seemed a bit too dark, a bit too spindly, to have been a typical cut. That was one of the last items on his agenda, however.

At this point, the silence had become deafening. “Vel. I want answers.” Dominic hated the way his voice shook, how far away it sounded, but he couldn’t stop trembling. It was only when Vel responded that his muffled senses cleared at last.

“We don’t have time,” Vel said, staring blankly at the floor. He looked completely alien to Dominic. It felt like a betrayal. “They’re coming after me. They’ll suspect I’m here, or Lupe will tell them to save her own ass.”

“Lupe?” Dominic’s voice was barely raised above a whisper. “What does she have to do with this? What’s happening? Whose blood is on your face?”

Finally, Vel brought his eyes to meet Dom’s. The look of severity in them was striking, as were the rest of Vel’s features. Sharp, knife-like. Baleful. Pernicious. “I left her and Channing behind. They didn’t keep up. They always keep up.”

Frustrated with the lack of clarity Vel was able to provide, Dominic crouched in front of him and planted his hands on his shoulders. “Vel, I need you to tell me what’s going on. Right now.”

Vel’s eyes fluttered shut as he rubbed his face and neck, stress eating at him. “You’re not going to believe me, but you need to at least pretend to. For me.” He sighed before continuing, “The house staff of your estate are not who you think they are. But we need your help regardless.”

Dominic stared at Vel, not with astonishment anymore, but with an eagerness to understand. “You can tell me.”

“We’re werewolves, Dominic.” Vel said without skipping a beat. He stood abruptly, wincing from the stinging cut across his stomach. “The Silvermans are hunting us. They nicked me with one of their silver bullets tonight. I don’t know how much time I have. Which means we have to go. Now.”

And once again, Dominic did what he was told. He and Vel climbed out of the cellar and immediately bolted into the woods without so much as another word between the two of them. Dominic’s mind swam while he ran, numb to his feet freezing beneath his slippers and ignorant of the shallowness of his breath. There is no time to think, Dominic reminded himself. It was as much a comfort as it was an excuse. After nearly a decade of knowing each other, Dominic had finally witnessed a bold, naked truth about Vel. Up until this point, Dom had to solve riddles and draw fanciful conclusions as to every word written between the lines of what Vel actually revealed about himself. He finally got what he so desperately craved all these years. He now understood the relevance of his parents telling him to be careful for what he wished for.

As the two men entered the wood, stray branches and thorn bushes sliced at them. Vel was too fast for Dominic, but the latter was smart enough to keep his mouth shut. Somehow picking up on this, Vel slowed his pace and allowed Dom to catch up, grabbing his arm and ducking behind a large tree stump. Though Dominic could feel his own heart beat out of his chest, he noticed Vel’s heart rate was slow, steady, as if he had not broken a sweat. They were kneeling, but Vel’s body was taught and still like a predator waiting patiently to pounce. He paid Dominic no mind, scanning the woods thoroughly. Silence.

“Dom,” Vel whispered without looking at him, “I need you to tell me what you know about the Silvermans. Is there anything you know that could help us escape?”

Dominic’s heart dropped to the pit of his gut. Escape? He had to think quickly. “I know their regular hunting routes in these woods. I can show you.”

Vel finally met his eyes with a half-smile. “Thank God for you. We—”

But he was cut off by the snapping of a twig nearby, a rustling within the foliage. A dark figure came into sight from behind a tree, limping as it stumbled forward. The moon shone high and mighty. When the figure’s face tilted up at it, a flash of primal hunger swept through her body. Lupe.

As soon as Dominic recognized her, she immediately made eye contact with Vel. A wild fear danced in her eyes, exalting whatever animalistic instinct had taken her over. She took one step towards them but was interrupted by a concussive gunshot that cracked through the night, like a deer would a windshield. And, like a deer through a windshield, Lupe fell and hit the adamant earth, unblinking.

episode seven

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FAMILIAR COMFORTS

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There was no time to grieve. Dominic grabbed Vel by the wrist and ran further into the tall, skinny trees that loomed over them. Another gunshot rattled the night, but further this time. They were getting away.

Dom was not the expert of these woods that Tommy and William were, but he knew how to avoid their hunting paths. A shallow, vertical chip in otherwise untouched tree bark meant the route proceeded south. A horizontal chip indicated west. Vel followed Dom as he weaved in and out of the trees in a sort of stupor but maintained speed. This was abruptly halted when Vel tripped over something large and dark in their path. He caught himself before he fell, but what he tripped over nearly brought him to his knees. Dominic looked in horror at the stiff body of a wolf much larger than it should be lying among wet, dead leaves. Blood seeped out from under it, its mouth hung ajar to reveal impossibly long, curved canines.

“Channing,” Vel said, his voice barely above a whisper.

Dominic grabbed Vel’s wrist again. “We have to go.”

But when the two of them turned around, they were met by Tommy Silverman, donned in hunting gear and bearing a rifle Dominic immediately recognized from all those years ago. Hardly a familiar comfort.

“Dominic?”

It was the first time he had ever heard one of the Sillvermans call him by his full name. He wasn’t sure why, at this moment in time, that had stuck out to him. When he and Tommy got into a fight at age fourteen, Savannah reprimanded him while his eyes locked onto the taxidermy deer behind her. All he could think about was a nick in one of its glassy eyes, one small imperfection on an otherwise immortal creature. How it was hung up on a wall for everyone to see in passing, in their periphery. How nobody except for Dominic ever thought to look into its eyes and see the tiny scratch that tore away the illusion of, I am something that was once alive and now something that will never die.

Before he could react, Vel threw his arm around Dominic’s shoulders and slammed him against his chest. In his ear, Dominic could hear the thick, grating breathing of a dog. Vel’s fingernails lengthened and dug into Dominic’s arm and waist, sharp enough to draw blood.

“Shoot,” Vel hissed at Tommy, “and we both die as dogs.”

Tommy blinked, eyes wide in shock. The moment seemed frozen in time; the woods too silent, the three of them too still. Dominic forced himself to breathe.

“I’m sorry, Dom,” Vel murmured in his ear. “I didn’t want it to happen like this. I wanted time. I wanted us to be together forever.”

Something hardened in Dominic. His gut, his heart. His teeth ground into each other as he attempted, to the best of his ability, to make sense of the situation. Just when he began to grasp the reality before him, William appeared into view from the darkness. Dominic’s parents and Savannah Silverman in tow.

Dominic heard Vel inhale sharply one heartbeat before a set of fangs sank into his shoulder, tearing through skin, muscle, blood. The agony blinded him, his knees gave out. Vel held him up by his armpits, and when Dominic managed to open his eyes, he saw his lover as half man, half beast. Even the moon seemed to hold its breath.

Dominic’s parents gasped in horror. Savannah stood deadly still. Tommy was perplexed, his hands trembling against the rifle. William slowly stepped forward.

“Don’t worry, Dommy,” William said, carefully, slowly. Dominic saw stars on the edges of his vision, his blood felt as though it had been set aflame. Each and every one of his veins pulsed and struck his skin sharply, which stretched across bone and ligament and muscle, the pain pervasive. His breath came out wheezing, and even Vel couldn’t support his weight when he doubled over. William took another step forward, as cautious as a soldier in a minefield, and said, “We know you’re one of us.”

Dominic screamed, but it came out as more of a howl. He did his best to hold himself off the ground, each breath becoming more labored and painful. He could feel his senses becoming razor-sharp as the world around him lost color. He could feel Vel turning on his heel and running into the darkness on four paws. He could feel Vel’s body hit the ground at the same time he felt a bullet cut through the chill air. He could feel everything.

“Honey, what is that?”

At the sound of his mother’s voice, Dominic’s head jerked upward, though it sounded far away. Her mouth was hidden behind her hand, his father’s agape in terror. Savannah made her way over to Tommy cautiously, wrapping her hands around his rifle. Dominic stared down the barrel. His breathing came out more as growling.

The last thing he heard was his father's answer. “That was my boy.”