I wake up to the smell of burnt hair.

  My eyes are open, I’m breathing, but my brain is just empty. I’m smelling singed hair, fur rather, there’s metal and blood in my mouth. I stare at a large dark burn mark a few feet away, and the ruined lump of pink flesh from my poor watermelon. It’s not until thunder rumbles overhead that it clicks.

  I think I just got struck by lightning.

  “Holy shit.” I sit up, head swimming with shock and nausea. How?! I’m not the tallest thing around; why would it strike me and not the Wizard’s house? Oh goddess, it’s my terrible luck. It literally strikes again. I wobble to my feet, and my muscles jerk and shiver on their own. And my fur is poofed out like I’m a blow-dried poodle. My brain still struggles to believe it. I really got struck by lightning.

  I shake my head and some of the nausea eases. I…I’m not in pain? I don’t think? Maybe I’m in shock. Oh man, I’m freaked out but also this is objectively the coolest thing that’s ever happened to me. Who else can say they’ve been struck by lightning?! When school starts back, my human friends are gonna freak.

  “Malia?” Fern’s howl breaks my day dream. “Malia, where are you?” She’s close—I gotta go.

  I hurry away from the Wizard’s house, trying not to look back at my scorched plants. The garden is ruined…tears prick my eyes. I worked so hard on them for months, and lightning took out everything in one strike. All the time, all the loving attention, gone in the blink of an eye. My tail droops, but I shake my head to clear it. I’ll cry about the plants later. Gotta focus on not getting caught outside our territory first. I run out of the garden, shaky and off balance. My fur crackles with static electricity with every step.

  I wait until I’m well within our territory to answer Fern. She howls back and after only a few minutes, she appears. My tail wags when she emerges from the bushes and hers mimics mine. Fern is my favorite cousin, but we’re very different. She’s taller than me in both forms, and now, as a wolf, her fur is a rich reddish-brown. Most of the pack shares her coat color, but mine is closer to light brown sugar than the red clay of the south. Rowan teases me for the difference, but Fern is always kind about the fact I don’t match the rest of them. Fern says my coat color will change when I’m fully integrated into the pack, but it hasn’t happened in five years. I’m not holding my breath.

  She touches my nose and then yelps. Oops—I shocked her.

  “I’ve been calling you for thirty minutes. What happened?” Fern sniffs me all over, which is more than a little embarrassing. She’s only a year older than me, but she acts like my mom sometimes. “Your fur is awful. Why are you all poofy?”

  “Listen! I got struck by lightning just now.”

  “What?” Fern’s pretty green eyes are wide with distress. “Are you serious?”

  “Extremely.” My tail is wagging a mile a minute. “How cool is that?”

  “It’s not cool! You have to go to the hospital!” Fern looks down and gasps. “Oh, Malia, your paw!”

  I look down too and my heart stutters. My front left paw, formerly a sandy brown, is jet black.

  “Well, that’s not good.”

  “Does it hurt?”

  I shake my head. I flex my paw to be sure, but it feels normal. But it’s completely black—my nails, my fur, my formerly brown paw pads. It looks like I dipped it in ink. Or burnt it to a crisp, which I guess lightning can do.

  “A side effect of having a cool story?”

  Fern makes an exasperated sound in her throat. “Come on. We gotta talk to Mom.” Fern turns and leads the way back to our cabin, her tail high and puffed out. I sigh. I really don’t want to tell Aunt Magnolia anything. I was excited before, but now I’m feeling a bit uneasy. What if my paw falls off? It’s my left one so it could be worse, but I still don’t want to be minus a hand! They already won’t let me hunt with them. At this rate, I’ll be on baby duty for the rest of my life.

  As we get closer to the meeting site, my fur smooths and the weird jumps in my muscles calm down. The scents of my family fill my nose, and I’m calmer. Maybe it’ll be okay. My paw really does feel fine. It’s probably a surface change, which means something changed in my human form. Oh, I bet I have one of those cool lightning tattoos! That’s so sick, I hope it’s on my back. I’m much happier as Fern leads me inside our family cabin.

  “Mom!” Fern calls. “Mom, we need you!”

  “It’s fine,” I try to tell Fern, but I hold in a groan when Aunt Magnolia answers.

  “I’m in the kitchen.”

  I sigh again and Fern gives me a stern look. Yeah, yeah, I know. I flatten my ears to my skull and Fern does too. We creep into the kitchen on our bellies.

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  Aunt Magnolia is in her human form. She’s a lighter-skinned, short, plump woman, but her constant severe expression cows even the most unruly babies. Today her hair is up in a tight bun, which means she’s in work mode. She normally wears her hair down, because it’ll come down after we change forms anyway. My aunt stirs a pot full of something that smells delicious, like stewed meat and carrots. My tail wags on its own. Fern gives me another dirty look and I fight for it to stop.

  Aunt Magnolia waves her hand. “You’re fine.” Fern and I stand, and Fern goes to her mother’s side.

  “Malia got hurt.”

  “I’m not hurt,” I correct her as Aunt Magnolia turns sharply. “I’m fine! I just got struck by lightning.”

  “What?” Aunt Magnolia rubs her temples, her eyebrows pinched together in annoyance. “Did you or did you not hear Grover call for you to come home over an hour ago?”

  I lower my gaze to the floor. “Yes, ma’am. I was on my way back, but—”

  “It doesn’t matter. Do you need to see to a doctor?”

  “No, I’m okay. I just have this weird mark on my paw.” I lift it to show my aunt, and I lift my head too. I blink at Aunt Magnolia’s expression. It’s not concerned like Fern’s, but open shock and dread. She quickly smooths her expression and takes my paw in her hand. She squeezes it tightly, but there’s no pain.

  “It doesn’t hurt?”

  “No.”

  For some reason, Aunt Magnolia looks even more frightened. Uh oh.

  “Malia, go change right now.”

  “Oh, umm, okay.” I take my paw out of her hand and head to one of the bedrooms, where we keep our clothes. What was that about? Aunt Magnolia is strict and sometimes mean, but she’s not usually…afraid. Maybe she’s worried about me being hurt? The thought stops me in my tracks and I blink moisture from my eyes. Maybe, after five years, she’s showing me more than ice.

  I close the door with my back foot and happily change to my human form. It’s nowhere near as violent as it is in movies. I was born a werewolf, so with a shake and full body shudder, I’m back. Easy and painless. The ones who were turned rather than born say it hurts, but only at first. You get used to it, like using a muscle over and over. My hearing and sense of smell dull immediately, and I have to blink a few times for my eyesight to sharpen and color floods into my world. It’s a tradeoff in either form, but I think of them both as me. If I need to run or dig up weeds, the wolf form is the way to go. If I need to tell the difference between blue and yellow or need some thumbs, human it is. Or when Aunt Magnolia tells me to change, that’s what I better do.

  I grab a clear plastic bin (on the bottom of the pile again, ugh) with my name on it and pop it open. It has underwear and pajamas in my size, as do all the bins for their respective owners. Aunt Magnolia may be cold, but she’s organized. No one lives at the cabin full time, but we use it for events or when we need somewhere to store our clothes. It’s like a family vacation home, except we only vacation in the forest.

  I’m pulling on my clothes when I remember why I’m changing before the full moon party in the first place. I turn my left hand back and forth, but it looks normal. Same light brown skin as always. No inky black. I press on my palm with my other thumb, but nothing unusual. I go to the bathroom and stare at my reflection. All normal there too—same round face, short curly hair, brown eyes. I turn and I’m disappointed there are no cool lightning tattoos on my shoulders. Man, of course I wouldn’t—

  I freeze. The bathroom mirror only shows waist up, so I can’t see my full body. But on my left side, a black mark curves just under my ribs. I back up, slowly, and the mark comes into view. It’s a perfect circle in black ink, a spokes on a wheel fanning outward, a flower bud in the middle. I’ve seen it before—the rune on the weird rock. Which I forgot existed until this second, and that I was definitely holding between my teeth when lightning tried to fry me like catfish.

  Uh oh.

  I touch the mark and shudder—it’s warm. Aww man, no lightning scars but a weird rock stenciled this symbol on me? Come on! The moon goddess must hate me for real because this mark isn’t even cute. I’ve always wanted a tattoo, but not this. My aunt is gonna kill me.

  “Malia?” Fern’s nails click on the hardwood behind me and she pokes her head into the bathroom. “You okay?”

  I point to the mark on my ribcage. “How bad do you think Aunt Magnolia’s gonna freak out?”

  Fern’s eyes widen. “Oh, you’re so dead.”

  I rest my forehead on the mirror. The coolness of the glass does nothing to lift my mood. “I can’t believe this. I’m having the worst day.”

  Fern’s cold nose presses against my side, making me jump. “What even is it? It’s warm, ugh! It smells like magic.”

  Oh. Oh no. I turn to Fern, my bones feeling like blocks of ice. “What if I told you I was at the Wizard’s house when I got struck?”

  “Please tell me you weren’t.” When I don’t answer, Fern groans and sinks to the floor. “Kudzu, I could kill you! You know we’re not supposed to be over there! I bet he zapped you for trespassing.”

  “He wasn’t even there,” I grumble, but what Fern says makes sense. That rock might have been some kind of Wizard security system. Just my luck.

  “Girls?” Aunt Magnolia’s voice makes us both freeze. Fern scrambles to her feet.

  “Do not tell Mom you were at the Wizard’s. But you should show her the mark in case it’s bad news.”

  I sigh and tug on my pajama shirt. “Let’s get it over with.”

  Fern and I go back to the kitchen. Aunt Magnolia’s done with our after-party dinner and sitting at the kitchen table. She grabs my left hand and inspects it, a deep frown on her face.

  “It’s fine,” I offer. Fern is glaring at me, so I sigh and lift my shirt. “But this is new.”

  Aunt Magnolia blinks at my mark, and then she screams.

  It’s more of a terrified squeal, but it’s enough to make me and Fern jump. Fern’s tail sticks straight out in alarm. That…isn’t a good sign.

  Aunt Magnolia ignores our shock and touches the mark. Her touch tickles my skin, but I don’t feel like laughing. “No, no it can’t be…”

  “What is it, Mom?” Fern asks into the heavy silence. Aunt Magnolia snatches her hand back and straightens. She looks at me and her deep brown eyes are the coldest I’ve ever seen them.

  “Malia, you sit right here. Fern, come with me.” Aunt Magnolia marches to the back of the house, but Fern stays with me, speechless.

  “I’ve never seen her this upset,” Fern murmurs. I start to answer, but Aunt Magnolia returns, this time as a wolf. Her reddish-brown fur is standing on end, almost like mine was after the strike.

  “Fern, now.” She storms outside, leaving the front door of the cabin wide open.

  Fern looks at me helplessly, then follows her mother outside. Aunt Magnolia starts howling, demanding everyone come home right now and that it’s an emergency.

  I look down at my new mark. It pulses gently under my fingertips. I have a feeling my bad luck has somehow gotten even worse.