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There was a house on the top of the hill.

The word ‘house’, however, was probably an understatement. Even from his seat in the approaching cart, Graham already thought the building was possibly one of the biggest he’d ever come across. It loomed over the valley with a somewhat sinister aura, even though there wasn’t anything particularly dark or frightening about it.

From the distance, it mostly looked like someone had taken a normal house and attached several rooms to it, adding a second and a third floor at some point. Those additional floors seemed to have been erected from one of the corners of the house. As a result, they now had some resemblance to a tower. This is your typical sorcerer’s house, Graham found himself thinking. The kind you’d hear about in tales for children.

There was something a bit different about it, although the wolf had a hard time trying to figure it out. His first thought when laying his eyes on the building hadn’t been ‘magic’, but ‘creepy’. He assumed both things often intertwined, but now he was intrigued.

“I’m not taking you any closer,” the grumpy-looking armadillo driving the cart said then, pushing those thoughts away from his mind. “If you want to get to the house before the sun sets, then you’d better start walking now.”

Graham considered the meandering path that climbed up the hill, leading to the house. It was probably just a twenty-minute walk. There was no reason to be so negative about it, but he’d already noticed his driver, much like the other townsfolk he’d asked about it, felt tense when it came to that sorcerer’s house. Now that he was finally close to it, Graham could begin to understand why.

“I’ll just do that, then,” the wolf answered. He stepped off the cart and gave the armadillo a few copper coins that he’d kept for the occasion. “Thanks for the ride.”

The armadillo put the coins in one of his pockets, shot an incredulous glance at Graham as if he thought the wolf was completely mad and then turned the cart to retrace the road. Its creaking silhouette soon became a tiny figure lost in the vast fields of dark grass. Graham watched him leave, unbothered. He couldn’t judge the armadillo for being so frayed near a sorcerer.

If he’d known he’d just travelled with a werewolf on his cart, he’d probably had a heart attack.

Graham adjusted the bag hanging from his shoulder and began his slow ascension towards the house. The day had been warm, so even though the night was approaching quickly, it was still a pleasant walk. There was fortunately no moon that night, or else the wolf would have had to reach his destination a bit quicker. But obviously, he’d picked that night to visit the sorcerer for a reason.

In spite of his wild instincts getting the best of him from time to time, Graham was no fool.

He was surprised to find out that the house was even bigger than he’d expected once he stood in front of the big door. The wolf knocked on it, a bit hesitantly at first. He had no reason to be coy – it was the sorcerer who had first approached him, delivering a letter in which he talked about his ‘condition’ and promising to ‘deal’ with it ‘properly’ – but the intimidating aura of the house was certainly affecting him as well.

It took almost a minute for anyone to answer his call and, by then, Graham was wondering if he’d gotten the right directions. The wood creaked and moved just a few inches, an inquisitive pink eye taking a quick look at him through the thin crack. Then, the door opened all the way and revealed a slightly anxious raven who seemed to have been expecting him.

“Good evening, sir,” he greeted Graham. “I, er… I’m pleased to have you here.”

“The pleasure is all mine,” the wolf answered with a warm smile.

Despite his jittery demeanor, the raven was the first individual he’d encountered in the region who’d given him something close to a few welcoming words. What made it even more impressive was that the bird probably knew all about his condition.

“Follow me,” he asked before Graham had time to ask about that. “I’ll take you to my Master.”

Oh, so he’s just an assistant, the wolf thought, a bit disappointed. However, he was quick to enter the huge building and close the door behind him. It was warmer inside, but seeing that winter would be approaching soon, Graham considered that a good sign. He still wasn’t entirely sure for how long he’d have to stay in that place, but he favored higher temperatures. Plus, judging by the number of rooms he’d seen from outside, he’d have plenty of room for himself.

He followed the raven through a long corridor. The bird would glance at him from time to time, still as nervous as when he’d opened the door. At first, Graham thought the sorcerer’s assistant must have been scared of being in the presence of a werewolf – and understandably so – but as they moved through the house, he began to think his anxiousness came from an entirely different source. It was just a feeling, and he had no idea why the raven would be nervous on his behalf if not for his more animalistic side, but Graham couldn’t shake it off for as long as he followed the bird.

They finally reached a big living room lit by a welcoming fire. Probably why the house is so warm, Graham found himself thinking. Good. There was nothing he liked more than a big, comfy fire when the weather was cold outside.

There was a hedgehog sitting in a big armchair when the two of them arrived. Judging by the confident smirk on their face and the glass of dark wine they balanced on one of his hand, Graham assumed he was now facing the actual owner of the house and the sorcerer he’d come looking for. The flames from the fireplace nearby cast orange and yellow lights on their bright red fur. Pointy quills poured down their back like a waterfall, but they might be less hard than they looked like, Graham thought, or else they would have pierced through the expensive-looking couch.

“You must be Graham,” the hedgehog said as they both entered the room. They raised their glass of wine and took a short sip. “I wasn’t expecting you to arrive this late. I was starting to believe you might be having second thoughts about our meeting.”

“Nothing of the sort,” the wolf replied, leaving his bag on the floor. Before he continued speaking, the solicitous raven pushed another armchair near the fire, right in front of the hedgehog. “Thanks.”

He took a seat and let out a long sigh. It’d been a long day.

“I just encountered a few problems trying to reach your cast… I mean, house,” Graham said. “Mostly, I’d thought procuring a ride would be easier, but there weren’t many people willing to come this far.”

The hedgehog chuckled softly.

“Well, you can’t blame the townsfolk,” they said with a shrug. “They’re simply afraid of the unknown. I’m pretty sure that’s an attitude you’ve had to deal with in the past. Right?”

Graham nodded. So they were addressing the elephant in the room already. He had expected his host to avoid the issue for much longer.

“Your name was… Simon Rickson, if I recall correctly.”

“That’s right, yes.”

“So is it true? What you said in your letter, I mean.” Graham tried not to sound too hopeful. If the hedgehog was lying about being able to help with his transformations, then he didn’t want to make things easier for them. “Do you have a cure?”

Simon’s eyes moved to the cup they were holding. Graham hadn’t noticed until then, but their left eye was blue and the right one was green. Perhaps that was to blame for the eerie vibe the hedgehog projected. They seemed to be glowing a bit, too.

“I couldn’t explain things properly in my letter,” they apologized. “And I might have led you to believe things that aren’t exactly true. So, unfortunately, I’m afraid the answer is ‘no’. I don’t think I can cure you.”

Graham took the blow, but waited patiently. That sentence felt like it was probably about to be followed by a big, encouraging ‘but’.

“But,” Simon clarified, “there is something I can do to make things easier for you. We can deal with your condition, so to speak, without removing it. Does that sound better to you?”

“Barely,” Graham admitted. “I’ll be blunt, Dr. Rickson – you’re not the first one who’s promised to help and failed in delivering. You’ll understand if my hopes remain low at this point.”

“Oh, I guarantee things won’t be the same with me,” the hedgehog replied, their grin getting slightly wider. Graham thought he could see a pair of particularly sharp fangs poking out, but he reckoned it must have been a trick of the light. “I wouldn’t have sent that letter to you if I wasn’t one hundred percent confident that what I’m offering is real help. I may not be able to promise you’ll stop turning into a beast under the light of the full moon, but I can tell you this – I’ll easily prevent said beast from even lifting a single claw.”

Graham raised an eyebrow. That was an obscure way to build a sentence.

“Other than killing me as I transform, I can’t think of any way to fulfill that promise,” he ended up saying.

This time, Simon laughed a bit louder.

“Alright. Let’s go through the methods you’ve already tried,” the hedgehog offered. “I assume chains have already been discarded.”

“Broke them too many times. Even thick chains and shackles shatter like china when I’m out of control.”

“I see. What about sedatives? Or… tranquilizers?”

“They don’t have a real effect when I’m transformed,” Graham explained. “And believe me, it’s been tried. I once contacted a renowned physician who gave me one of the most potent drugs there is. It didn’t work, but I had a solid headache for two weeks.”

“I’m no physician,” Simon clarified. “My field of interest is archaeology and it’s taught me one thing.”

“Which is…?”

“Patience. We need time to see a bigger picture, to capture every single detail and make sense of the senseless. It’s taken me time to get where I am, now – I used to be a real newbie back then. But now I see the process was all part of who I became.” Simon made a short pause. “Perhaps that’s what you need as well. Time to become what you must be.”

Graham remained silent. If that was all the sorcerer had to say, then he could have skipped the visit.

“That said, I think these kinds of things can be speeded up sometimes,” Simon added with a chuckle. “Aedus, can you bring the…? Oh, you already did. Good.”

Graham turned his head to see what the hedgehog meant. The raven had brought a small coffee table into the room before disappearing just as fast as he had entered. A big, round crystal ball was the only thing that rested on the table.

“Please, don’t tell me divination is your second field of interest,” Graham begged. “I’ve taken a long trip to come here, you know.”

“And I guarantee I won’t let you down,” the hedgehog promised. The glow of their eyes caught Graham’s attention again. “Do you trust me?”

The wolf felt strangely compelled to say ‘yes’. Instead, he shook his head and tried to come up with a more restrained answer.

“Just give me something first,” he asked.

Simon nodded as if they’d been expecting that answer. They turned to the crystal ball and placed both paws on it.

“That’s easy enough. I just need you to stare into this crystal ball for me. Can you do that, Graham?”

Skeptical, the wolf turned to look at the ridiculous contraption. He’d met lots of frauds in his journeys, but he’d never delved into divination. Graham highly doubted the answer to his pleas lay there, but at this point, he was willing to give a try. At least, he thought, that way he’d have a fun anecdote to tell and the trip wouldn’t have been entirely in vain.

“Okay. What am I supposed to see in here?” he asked.

“Oh, you’re not supposed to see anything. You’re supposed to project something into it.”

Graham remained quiet. What those words meant exactly, he had no idea. He focused on the crystal ball. The only sound that reached his ears other than his slightly rushed breathing was the fire burning by his side. The warmth and the touch of his seat were really comfortable, especially after such a long trip to the sorcerer’s house. He tried to relax a little.

Perhaps the sorcerer had an ace up their sleeve.

“Does the crystal ball remind you of anything?” Simon asked.

Graham narrowed his yellow eyes. The glass was almost perfectly clear, but not quite. It had a silvery undertone to it, just like…

“… the full moon,” he answered, unconvinced.

Simon nodded.

“Exactly. And what happens when you look at the full moon, I wonder?”

“I transform,” Graham scoffed. He couldn’t see the point in those questions.

“I already know that. I want to know about the details. Tell me how it feels and how it happens, step by step.”

Graham hesitated.

“I’ve never talked about it out loud,” he said in a thin voice.

“Hmm. Well, I did say things weren’t going to be the same with me.”

It took the wolf a few seconds to collect his thoughts.

“The first thing I feel is the anticipation,” he explained, his pupils fixed on the crystal ball. “I know what will happen as soon as I see it. A shiver goes down my spine before the first stage of the transformation hits, just because I know it’s going to happen.”

“Interesting. Please, continue.”

“Then I start feeling tingly all over. My fur grows longer. Thick. My skin expands as my body… swells.” Graham blinked a few times. His gaze felt strangely pulled by the object in front of him. “That’s usually the last thing I feel before blacking out, but whenever I wake up next morning, I remember everything. I remember the rush of power. My instincts getting all loose and unpredictable. The hunger. The dominance.”

The wolf’s last word ended in a subtle growl. He barely noticed, but a part of him wondered if he was getting too into it as he described it. The crystal ball’s smooth surface offered a somewhat distinct reflection of his face, but it didn’t look quite the same at the moment. For some reason, it looked…

“… wilder,” he mumbled.

“I beg your pardon?”

“I get… wilder.”

“Aha.” Simon’s voice had dropped a few tones, or so Graham thought. It felt slightly ominous. Commanding. “Are you seeing something in the crystal ball, Graham?”

“… yeah. I think.”

“What is it?”

It took the wolf a few seconds to give a proper answer. The differences between what he assumed his face was supposed to look like and the reflection he was staring at were subtle and difficult to describe.

“I’m seeing myself. As I transform.”

“And what do you think you’re feeling right now? In your reflection, I mean.”

The question was tricky. Graham had to think about it once again, but when he gave an answer, a subtle grin spread on his face.

“The rush of power. My body’s beginning to change.”

“How is it changing?”

“Getting stronger. Bigger. My muscles grow. My strength doubles. I’m… I’m becoming a beast.”

“And you like that, don’t you?”

That question poured into Graham’s ears like syrup.

His first impulse had been to answer ‘no’. Of course he didn’t like that. There was a clear reason why he’d taken the time to visit that sorcerer – to stop his transformations from happening. However, after fighting the intense, unavoidable changes for so long, it only felt natural to expect some kind of permission to lay down his weapons and cease the struggle.

The hedgehog’s voice offered him just that. A chance to give in.

“Yes.”

The wolf outside the crystal ball was too busy thinking about that to notice it was the wolf inside the crystal ball that had answered the question.

“What happens to your mind when you transform, Graham?”

“It gets…” The wolf struggled to find the words. Those pupils in the reflection were getting more animalistic. Guided by pure impulse. “It gets simpler. I…”

“Yes?”

“I don’t think too much. Simple.” He didn’t notice he’d insisted on the same idea. His reflection grinned back at him. “I just want to roam free. I just want to hunt. I just want to…”

“Follow,” the hedgehog interrupted him. “Isn’t that right?”

What? No, that isn’t right, the wolf found himself thinking. He opened his mouth to argue, but Simon hadn’t stopped making their point.

“You follow your primal instincts. You simply do what your body tells you to do. Your mind completely shuts down. Isn’t that right?”

After a few seconds trying to understand those words, Graham found himself nodding. Yes. That made more sense.

“Focus on the crystal ball, Graham. How are you feeling inside it?”

Graham made an effort to stare even deeper. His vision was slightly blurry, but the picture inside the perfect sphere was crystal clear. He looked back at himself, no light behind his pupils, no fight left inside. A big, stupid grin on his face. Welcoming change, giving up struggling. Not having to resist it made things so easy.

“Good,” he mumbled, his tongue slow and heavy. “Simple.”

“You seem to like that word a lot, hmm? Simple. Is that what you are when you transform?”

Graham nodded.

“Is that what you are right now?”

Graham nodded.

“Are you feeling good and simple and contained inside the crystal ball?”

Graham nodded. This time, when his head dipped down, his chin found a comfortable spot on his chest and rested there. His shoulders were slouching and his body was slumping forward, his vacant gaze glassing over as his pupils kept staring deep into his own. So good.

“Since your mind is so simple right now, let me explain something to you,” Simon offered. “When you’re contained inside the crystal ball, you’re transformed. You’re simple. When you’re simple, your mind shuts down. When your mind shuts down, it follows your instincts. If you were free, your body would dictate your instincts, but since you’re contained inside the crystal ball, your body has no way to do that. Do you understand?”

Graham tried to answer with a ‘yes’, but his tongue was lolling out and only a soft whimper escaped his throat.

“Very good. Since you have no instincts to act on, you’re open to suggestions. You’re willing to follow instructions. That makes sense.”

It wasn’t a question, but Graham found himself nodding again. Yes. The logic behind those words was perfect and, even if it weren’t, he had no way to prove it or even know what ‘logic’ was anyway.

“And your werewolf form will be contained inside the crystal ball even when you’re not staring into it. You know that. Do you know why?”

Graham tried to think of an answer, but the effort was too much for the brainless reflection in front of him. He gave up.

“Because you said so yourself. The crystal ball reminds you of the full moon. Now, the full moon will remind you of the crystal ball just as easily. You’ll be unable to escape its magnetic pull. You’ll be contained whenever you transform. Unable to break free. Wild. Strong. But simple. No thoughts. No instincts. Just instructions.”

The fire and the room and the couch and everything else was so distant now. Graham didn’t even know where he was. The only thing he knew for certain was that he was listening to those silky words and letting his mind be pulled by them, like a puppet who had no way of knowing what lay beyond the puppeteer’s hand. A simple, happy puppet.

“Look into the crystal ball, Graham.”

The wolf did as he was told. His tired eyes focused on his reflection again. He was getting used to it looking back at him. It had been different at some point, but now they were both the same.

“There’s someone else on that reflection, right?”

Graham made an effort to focus on the picture. Yes. Someone else was looming over his shoulder as he stared mindlessly. He couldn’t really made sense of the colors and outlines the crystal ball mirrored, but he thought he saw a lot of red, somehow. A red waterfall that fell behind two white, sharp crescent moons. Two other spheres, green and blue. Their glow made Graham’s head spin even further, reality fading like ashes in the wind.

“You’re contained, Graham. You’re simple. You’re obedient.”

Those words dropped like a stamp on his brain, becoming reality. Graham was obedient. Graham was simple. Graham was contained inside the crystal ball.

So even when he felt the slight pressure on his neck, the piercing pain sprouting like a flower on his skin and sinking deep into his flesh, the only reaction his body rewarded him with was an almost inaudible moan. When the suction began and he felt some of his hot blood pouring out, red-furred arms wrapping around his heavy, motionless frame, Graham just remained there. Sitting. Trapped.

Unable to even lift a single claw.

Staring into his own empty eyes as he was slowly but steadily emptied himself.

Those arms around his torso moved and the hands feeling his body made sure to check how big he’d become – until then, Graham hadn’t even noticed he’d transformed, but that didn’t matter. In fact, the werewolf wasn’t even entirely sure he knew what ‘transforming’ meant at the time. He was strong and simple and happy and mindless. The suction in his neck increased.

Another silent moan. Black dots filled the corners of his vision.

“We’ll have to try it again in two weeks, of course,” that sweet, sweet voice whispered in his ear. “But I’m pretty sure the results we’ll get will be just as promising, thrall.”

Hearing those words must have meant the suction was over, but Graham still felt like he was falling, dropping deeper into unconsciousness. When he finally blacked out, he had the very distant, mistaken feeling that he must have been outside, staring into the full moon, about to start his transformation. But there was no anticipation this time.

Instead, as he sank swiftly into the deep shadows of a bloodless sleep, he was claimed by the surprising strength of Simon’s arms. The hedgehog kept him in place and prevented him from dropping from the couch to the floor.

They would make good use of their newfound prey for moons to come.