To Wish Upon a Wolf

By Krysta Tawlks

I grip Flor’s clammy arms and hoist her onto my back. Crouching low, I pass rows of straw cottages and head for the gloomy thicket. Flor presses a feverish cheek against the nape of my neck and sighs, her breath sweetened with nopal. Mamá must have coaxed some fried cactus down her throat for dinner. I hope it sticks this time.

“Why are we sneaking, Carmela?” she whispers. Her shivering arms tighten around my neck.

I yank the rebozo off my head and toss it back. “Use this to keep warm.”

Flor wheezes. “Ay, Carmela. Tú no eres Mamá.”

“Tonight, I am.” I speak sternly, like Mamá would.

“You didn’t answer my question.” She grunts. With one hand, she drapes the rebozo around herself. “Doesn’t matter. I know where you’re taking us.”

I’m not surprised. It should be obvious. We’re passing wild brush and moonlit trees, heading for the crooked bend in the creek. There’s only one reason anyone treads this far so late at night. When they’re desperate for a miracle—and I’m desperate.

None of Mamá’s remedies can break Flor’s fever or fatten her sunken cheeks. Steaming cups of aniseed tea and boiled cinnamon bark do little to calm her stomach.

We need more. We need a miracle. A wish.

“I’m not scared,” Flor says.

Is she talking about the creeping midnight shadows or the illness gnawing at her body? Possibly both.

Or maybe she’s talking about the beast I’m hunting. The beast who’ll grant our wish.

“The Sueños boys say La Loba is just a shadow on a mountain,” she says. “A fairytale.”

La Loba, the wolf. The healer. Legend says I should sneak up while she’s asleep, catch her by the tail, and demand a wish.

And hope to Dios we don’t get eaten.

“If she’s just a fairytale,” I say, “then why do hunters chase her—and creatures like her—for wishes?”

Or kill them for sport.

Flor laughs until she coughs. “Are you a hunter now? I didn’t notice before.”

I flex my jaw. I’m not the strongest in the village, but I can sneak across fields in one breath. I can catch a sleeping wolf by the tail.

Hopefully.

My toes graze the muddy banks of the creek, and I slow my steps. The crooked bend is only a few more paces. Then up the rise…

“What’s that?” Flor hisses.

I crouch behind a crop of sage and peer between the fronds. Ahead, two teenage boys scramble up crags and boulders—one with a hunting rifle in the crook of his arm.

“Are they… the Sueños boys?” Flor gasps.

The boys hover just shy of a grove of trees. One of them raises his rifle.

I spring to my feet. What are they doing?

A shattering boom cracks the silence, followed by a rumbling echo.

Dios mio! Did they just shoot La Loba?

“No!” I shriek. “No!”

I charge up the incline, my feet slipping on gravel. I find the boys looking beyond the trees. One is cradling a smoking barrel.

“What did you do?” I roar, loud as an angry mother—with Flor hunched over my shoulders, I might look like one too. Maybe that’s why they dash toward the village like a pair of spooked coyotes.

Rounding the trees, I stop just shy of a clearing. I hear deep, laboring breaths, and my pulse flutters. Flor tightens the noose around my neck. My foot grazes a twig, and the breathing stops.

She knows we’re here.

I gulp down a breath, push my way into the clearing, and find… a woman.

She’s crouching near the weeds, trembling with her chin low to the ground. A simple frock hangs loose on her shoulders.

“Señora, did you see… was there a wolf here?” I inch forward. Then I notice the pool of blood. “Señora, are you okay?”

I set Flor down and rush to her side. The woman’s skin is hot and sticky. She groans, clinging to the dark spot at her waist.

Did those boys shoot a woman?

“Señora.” I nudge her gently. “I’ll get help.”

“No.” The woman yanks my arm, her voice cracking. “Stay here.”

I waver, not sure if I should grant a dying woman’s request or run for help.

“You have a wish,” she says. “You want to heal your sister, don’t you?”

Flor and I exchange glances. This is La Loba? In human form?

No one has seen her this way—only glimpses of wolf tracks in the dirt, blending to human. She must have shifted to a woman only moments ago, after the boys fled.

La Loba’s mouth twitches. “I know the little one’s dying. I can heal her.”

Hope stirs inside me. “Really? You can?” I grip her bowed shoulder. “Gracias, Señora!”

She raises a blood-stained hand, silencing me. “You should know, mija,” she says, “magic is not a gift. It’s a trade.”

A chill creeps in. I forgot about this part. “What do you want?”

She grimaces. “Hunters have murdered my kin. I’m the last of my kind.” A flash of emerald lights her eyes. “Take a spark of my magic… and become like me.”

“No!” Flor cries. “You can’t do that, Carmela.”

“She must,” La Loba whispers, “if she wants to heal you.” She wipes her bloody hand on her skirt and reaches for me, her palms now glowing green. “If you want to save your sister, you must save my kind. These are the terms.”

I ignore my sinking gut and Flor’s whimpering as I grab La Loba’s hand. A pop of magic breaks against my skin and seeps into my veins. Then, like a storm rising from the dust, magic whips around me. Consumes me.

“Keep it secret,” La Loba calls above the winds. “For as long as you can.”

A shadow grows in my mind—a hulking creature, a wolf the size of a mountain. She stares at me with emerald eyes, bright like fire.

Eyes like mine.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Krysta Tawlks has written various projects over the years, which has ranged from picture books to young adult fantasy trilogies. When she’s not lost in her imagination, she teaches English skills to language learners. Her writing is inspired by real life people and stories—family, friends, UFO documentaries… and her doting husband.

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