Diana decided to avoid the main road and drove along the sparsely populated roads next to the forest. It was completely dark now, and aside from the headlights, there was nothing to light the way. That actually worked in our favor: if things got out of control, no random onlooker would see what was happening inside the car.
I stared into the darkness outside, trying to make out the landscape for some distraction, but all I could see was a dark veil with the occasional tree branch. My vision sharpened again, but not enough to discern finer details. Only thanks to the pristine white snow—which under the cover of night looked indigo—I could make out the trees, set in a checkerboard pattern. It created the illusion that the snow spread evenly for hundreds of meters, and unlike the locals, it had nothing to hide—come and see. Everything laid bare.
A deceptive safety, designed to lure an unsuspecting traveler into its territory and lead them inward. To throw them off course and leave them to fate, testing whether luck would be enough to get out alive. If a person didn't get completely lost, there was always the risk of encountering a mythical creature. Now I understood that for certain. How many unfortunate souls had gone missing after meeting someone like me? Official statistics probably didn't exist. Although maybe Kostya kept count. I wondered if my father ever killed people while turning into a wolf—and if he did, how he continued living with it.
I shuddered at my own thoughts, imagining the bewildered eyes of a lost stranger. What if someone wandered into the forest on a full moon? How would the wolf behave, the one that replaced my rational self, when confronted alone with a traveler? I knew too little about the future. I had no confidence that a werewolf would not harm an ordinary person. And could anyone give me that confidence?
"You've gotten really quiet," Diana broke the silence in the car. I rubbed my temples tiredly and turned to my friend.
"Sorry. I keep thinking about what might happen if I break. If I can't hold back and let the beast loose. Back at your house, I only partially gave in to Kaandor's will. You saw what came of it."
"Are you worried that if you fully transform, you won't be able to control yourself?"
I nodded.
"Kostya talks about the need to transform so often, but in practice, so little becomes clear."
"Want to share?" Smirnova asked evenly, as if she had never imagined I could harm anyone.
"I don't even know," I started biting my lip unconsciously, searching for the right words. "Probably yes, more than no. You know that feeling when speaking your fears aloud makes them start coming true? And there's no going back. On the other hand, I don't really have anyone to talk to about it, except Kostya. I see Denis so rarely, though his explanations always make more sense. It's like he lives in complete balance with his inner nature, perfectly suited to it, like a custom-tailored coat."
"Does Konstantin already know about your fears?"
I shook my head.
"Don't you think Kostya is exactly the person who could understand you like no one else? Dispel your doubts, calm you down. He's your father and would surely do anything to help you."
A smirk stretched across my lips. I doubted anyone could truly understand me, considering all the changes Kaandor had gone through due to Dr. Smirnov's intervention at my mother's behest. No one, not even I, could know for sure how my spirit-wolf differed from the others. Could it ever become what it was originally meant to be? I wanted to know, but no one could give guarantees, and that made it even harder to accept. Kaandor had always been different around me, silent with some companions on some days, warning of danger on others. He was playful and cheerful, yet teased when it wasn't appropriate. I had never tried sitting down to talk with him face to face, and perhaps that was what I should have done earlier. Now, trying to maintain balance on a razor's edge, it was too late.
It's a shame that good ideas always come too late.
"Since that Halloween night, none of my conversations with Kostya have calmed me. Every time the topic comes up, we start arguing."
"At least your father tried," Diana said with a hint of sadness, and it seemed to me that Smirnova deeply missed conversations with her own father. I could only guess at the family issues hidden under the roof of the old house-museum. One thing I was certain of: Vladimir was strict with his household, and Diana was afraid to speak even a single word—let alone contradict him. Gentle and sensitive, she possessed an underrated twenty-first-century gift: to see the pain in people's hearts and sweeten it with a spoonful of honey, just to make it hurt less, if only temporarily.
"And I understand that. Truly, I do. It's just that for him, this whole werewolf thing is a phase long past. A mundane inconvenience he has long since accepted and learned to live with. Nothing is new to him. Everything has its recipe, its recommendation. Filtered, emotionless. Listening to him, it seems nothing could be simpler or more normal, yet inside me everything tears apart at the thought of revealing a new side of my inner self. This side feels like a time bomb implanted deep under the skin, and you had no idea. There's a bitter taste of deception in it."
"Maybe that's exactly what worries you?"
"What 'that'?" The car climbed the entrance ramp to the highway.
"That your parents hid the family secret from you."
Yes, there was no doubt. I was angrier at Maria than at Kostya for this very reason. Yet it wasn't only the withholding of truth that repelled me whenever I genuinely wanted to sit down and talk to my family. I searched for a reason and could not find it within myself. My inner voice babbled so quietly and incoherently it sounded more like white noise than a complete thought. Alongside the words grew an unpleasant sensation. I closed my eyes and tried to imagine it. In my mind, a vague image appeared: countless thin lines, twisting, striving toward the center of the canvas. The longer I watched the movement, the more clearly I discerned in the shifting lines the slender bodies of young snakes. In search of warmth, they coiled into clusters, creating intricate connections within, until it became impossible to tell where one began and another ended.