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The forest is sunlight-dappled and sings in a hum. It smells of sweet leaves rotting.
Sherlock steps into undergrowth. Adolescent confidence—he is brave and reckless. He remembers his mother’s warning:
Don’t go too far, and never go through.
Curiosity is heavy, impatience too much.
---
It’s just the woods, it’s only deciduous. Sherlock stops at a stream. Mud-kneed now, he stares at the water. Tadpoles are gathered, aquiver. Sherlock’s thinking, watching, when the birds stop singing. The wind stills, forest gone quiet.
“What are you doing here?” asks a voice.
Sherlock looks up. He is being watched—a straw-haired boy with ocean eyes. His trousers are torn. He’s not wearing shoes.
“None of your business,” Sherlock says.
“This is my wood. Everything that happens here is my business.”
Sherlock stands. He squints. The boy seems to be moving—changing, but staying still.
“Who are you?” Sherlock asks.
“John.”
The boy steps closer. He moves strangely, like he wants to use four limbs.
“There’s a family of frogs in this stream,” he says.
“I know. You scared them off.”
John’s face falls, picks itself up. Sherlock walks away.
“Where are you going?” John asks. He follows like a stray, a few steps behind. “You shouldn’t take this shortcut.”
Sherlock scoffs. “That’s a siren song.”
John smiles, stays close.
---
The sunlight turns gold, turns orange. The woods are bigger than Sherlock thought. He twig-snaps through grass, dust-kicks dirt clouds.
“Where’s the road?” he asks.
“I’ve never used it.”
“Then how did you get in?”
John shrugs. He walks in the peripheral, all slinking and sneak.
“Why are you hiding?” Sherlock asks.
“I’m not.”
“You are.”
John is furry-faced in the corner of Sherlock’s eye. He has a tail. Canine ears. Sherlock turns, and he is a boy again.
“Are you human?”
“I’m John.”
Sherlock looks away, and John turns wolf in a blink. Another, and he’s back.
Sherlock sighs. “Don’t hide.”
---
The sun is setting, and still, they walk. Leaves brittle and slip underfoot.
“Careful,” says John, when Sherlock falls forward. He pulls him to stand—hand small and warm. He doesn’t let go. Sherlock blushes.
“How do you know where we’re going?” he asks, deflecting.
John looks at the sky.
“Sunset, Polaris. Don’t you know the stars?”
“No,” Sherlock says. “But I’ll learn.”
---
An hour’s walk and they find the road.
“Will you come back?” John asks. He scratches one ear with a paw.
Sherlock stares at streetlamps, filtered through forest.
“I shouldn’t have come to begin with.”
“And yet.”
“Tomorrow?”
John looks at the moon. It’s waxing, soon full.
“I can’t. I’m all wolf then.”
“Two days.”
John laughs. “The weekend is fine, find me, and you’re mine.”
Cheek-kiss, and smile, and shift. John lowers to the ground, now furred. He bounds ahead four-footed, and Sherlock follows the road.
---