“Come on Levi,” his abuela said, walking up the trail. Her feet were steady, even as she leaned on her cane.

“Coming, Abuela,” Levi said. He felt low to the ground and small, like a child. But, when he spoke, his voice sounded like that of a grown man. Truth was, he was going slow on purpose. He wanted to be behind her, so that if she fell he could catch her.

This trail was steep, too steep for a woman as old as she was. The trees stood impossibly tall, reaching up so high that the sky wasn’t visible through their canopy. A low layer of cool fog lingered in the woods, peaceful and still, rather than ominous. A ground squirrel dashed up a tree, and the fog swirled at his passing.

“Where are we going Abuela?” Levi asked, his light-up sneakers flashing with reds and blues.

“To the mountaintop of course,” she laughed. She laughed so, so rarely, always seeming so disappointed, so sad, so melancholy.

“Well,” Levi hummed, hopping onto a rock next to the dirt, then back down, “Why are we going up there?”

“You and your questions,” she sighed. “You’ve got a million of them.”

“A million and three,” Levi corrected. He lit up when she laughed again. He was always chasing the laugh, the smile, that meant she was proud of him. He saw his father’s smile in hers, and that was enough.

“Well, to answer that one,” she said, “we’re going up there to see the truth.”

“Which truth?”

Abuela shook her head and Levi pouted, following along obediently. The path had to wind up the mountainside, up and up and up. It was fairly well cleared of brush, thankfully, though it was awfully rocky in a few spots.

Levi paused to gasp in wonder, pointing at the side of a tree.

“What is that?”

He was pointing at a yellow something on the bark, glistening and slimy. He immediately poked it. It wriggled angrily at him, and Levi took a stumbling step back.

“That is a banana slug, Niño. They like how wet it is out here.”

“Weird!” Levi giggled. He dragged out the word for an extra few syllables, then poked it again. It wriggled with distaste and proceeded slowly up the tree trunk. “Weird and awesome.”

Abuela reached back and ruffled his hair, the fluffy red-brown mat of curls that hung into his eyes. Untamed, like a lion’s mane.

They hiked for a long time, though Levi couldn’t say how long. When they reached the top of the path, Levi was exhausted and panting. Abuela, despite her age, seemed no worse for wear.

When she handed him a water bottle, Levi didn’t question where she’d gotten it from. He just pushed it to his lips and took greedy gulps of it until the water ran down his chin, soaking into his Rocko’s Modern Life t-shirt. When he had mostly drained it, he gave the bottle back to Abuela and looked around.

They stood at the top of a low, flat-topped mountain. Ahead of him, a town stretched out to the Pacific, lights flickering in the sea of calm cool fog that ran over everything. The treetops of evergreens swayed in the breeze, adding to the waves that blurred together towards the horizon. The moon almost seemed to bob on the horizon, like a ping pong ball in a bathtub. A little stream bubbled on the side of the hill, fed by a spring, a slow and lazy flow that sped up as it went down the mountainside.

Crickets chirped in the grass around him, and, on the wind, he could smell salt and moss and the earthy clay of the forest. He took a deep, greedy inhale, closing his eyes.

When he opened them again, he was in a different place, a different time, a different set of sneakers.

His shoes were muddy already, comfortably broken in. He followed a man who was his father but was not his father. They were scaling a low, 20-foot cliff face. It was damp, but handholds were generous, and following the form of his father up the rockface was easy enough.

He remembered this trip. This was the Costa Rica trip. Every now and then, his father would swoop in and pretend to care about him, pretend that he was a good father, and take him on a trip to some exotic place he was going anyways. Anything to keep his mom mollified. He didn’t like the idea of alimony payments.

Costa Rica... That would make him 13 now. He heaved himself over the edge of the cliff, throwing his leg up then standing all the way atop the giant rock. His father had salt and pepper hair and a thin-trimmed beard. He wore khaki shorts over powerful sun-kissed legs. Arthur always felt knobby in comparison to the big man, whose broad chest and forward-thrust chin made him look like a figure from an adventure movie.

His father laughed, sprinted forward, and leapt off the rockface.

Arthur gasped and took a few steps forward, peering over the side. There was a loud splash, then a cheer, as his father landed in the swimming hole below. The locals seemed to find them an amusing oddity. Arthur couldn’t really blame them. He felt odd, felt out of place. They were used to ecotourists like his father, but the man was eccentric even by their standards.

“Artie!” the man called.

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Arthur hated that nickname. He felt his cheeks and the tips of his ears flush.

“Artie come on! Jump down!”

Arthur didn’t like heights very much. He felt woozy just looking over the edge of the cliff. The slickness of the stone didn’t help. He tried to remain optimistic, like his mother taught him to. It’s only 20 feet. That’s survivable even if you land on a hard surface. So, if he hit the water, he should be fine. How hard could it be?

“Come on,” his father pestered. Arthur’s head spun with vertigo as he looked over the ledge. He took a few steps back. The natives booed him from below. His father said nothing. His face took on that blank look, that one that he remembered from when he was younger. Not even enough emotion to be disappointed in him. Just... blank. Empty. Looking through him with a detached feeling of nothingness.

Something flared to life in Arthur’s stomach, the anger that only his father could bring out in him, that searing, competitive urge.

“You don’t want me,” Arthur whispered. “You don’t even want to look at me.”

He wanted to scream the words.

Instead, he jumped off the cliff and into the pale blue water below.

He fell into the water with a splash, and the crowd cheered, and his father smiled at him and meant it for just a few, precious moments.

The water from the water bottle had run off his chin, soaked into his shirt, and was now making him shiver.

“You should be wearing a sweater,” Abuela said with disapproval. “It’s too chilly here.”

“You said,” Levi hummed, perching himself on a small tree stump, “that the truth is up here?”

Abuela nodded.

“In a fashion,” she said, walking over to stand by his shoulder. He got the feeling that she was leaning on that cane more for show than out of need of its support.

“The truth about what?” Levi had asked the words, despite knowing the answer.

His abuela sighed and walked to the little creek.

“Come here, Levi,” Abuela said.

Levi stood and did as he was told without even thinking about it. He knew the consequences she could dish out if he didn’t listen, if he upset her.

He had borne the bruises for many years of his life. The ugly, purple welts, on the back of his head, on his hands and arms and back. He wondered why he still loved her, how he still loved her. He wondered why his dad had never put a stop to it, never mentioned it. He wondered if his father even cared about him at all.

She knelt by the water and patted the grass next to her. He sat down obediently, looking at his reflection. The ripples in the water distorted his face in funny ways, and he smiled down at the child’s face that looked up at him. He had been a cute kid, he thought.

“There is hope for you yet, Levi,” she said, cradling him by the back of the neck. She spun him gently, making him look up at her with his back to the water.

“In the name of God, be reborn and be whole,” she whispered to him. Tears streamed down her cheeks and Levi felt confused, confused and lost. He didn’t want to watch his grandmother cry. He hated her. He loved her.

He wanted her to stop crying.

Was this his fault?

It felt like everything was his fault.

She dunked him into the water. It was frigid cold, and immediately sent a shock through his system. Levi sputtered, hands reaching out to grab his grandmother’s arms. He tried to haul himself out of the water, but she held him down, his child’s body unable to fight its way free of her.

He looked up at her with wide eyes, gargling, thrashing, trying to break free as the icy tendrils of water reached inside of him and wrapped around his heart. He coughed the water up and more rushed in to fill the space. Bubbles clouded his vision, looking up at her face, at the moon looming behind her.

His fingernails bit into her skin and her blood, dark and clean and sweet, drooled into the water. He breathed it in with the flood, and the world became blackness, and abyss, and he fell forever.

Arthur burst free from the swimming hole. The air sat heavy and humid on him, the jungle oppressive in its grip. He swam to the edge of the water and pulled himself free, startled to find himself utterly, completely, totally alone in the wilderness.

He looked down at his clothes, and found them to be soaked through with viscous, red liquid, rather than water. A look back at the swimming hole showed it to be filled with blood. He quickly averted his eyes, because there was a stone in the middle of the water now. He could have hit it, could have died.

Its shape was oddly familiar.

Too familiar.

The outline of broad shoulders. The salt and pepper hair.

Arthur sat at the pool’s edge and curled up defensively, glaring at the jungle as the sky darkened and darkened before his eyes, as if the whole of the day was passing in instants rather than hours. All the while, he did everything he could not to look at that rock, sticking out of the pool.

It was only a rock.

He knew what was coming, even before he saw blue eyes loom in the shadows.

Levi stepped out of the jungle, brushing foliage out of his way. His body felt too large, feet falling softly on the moist, wet earth. The moss felt nice on the pads of his feet. He fell low, pressing his hands to the ground and finding it comfortable. He splayed his too-large hands in the clay as he stalked along the jungle floor.

In the clearing he saw a boy. A boy he knew. He could smell him on the air, the familiar scent of pine and creek water and that tinge of sadness that was always so hidden but so easy to find if one bothered to look.

He crept forward.

The boy scooted back. He sat in front of the pool of blood, shuddering, shaking with fear. His paws were tiny things, fragile, breakable. His claws were sharp, and bloody, and his ears had fallen back. He had done something horrible, and the guilt threatened to consume him.

No, said the beast. No pup, don’t be sad. It is okay. I am here now. I will hold you.

Levi crawled forward slowly, so as not to frighten the child. The boy looked up sharply and let out a warning snarl, fur bristling on his neck. Even this small, his teeth were sharp and vicious, lips pulled back, crimson smeared across them.

The boy sat, guarding his father’s body. Arthur was covered in the man's blood. It drenched his body, his scrawny little arms, his teeth, his muzzle. Levi circled around, trying to ease his way closer.

It is okay boy. You don’t need to protect him from me. I am not here for him.

I am here... for you.

The boy thrashed as Levi scooped him into his arms. He sunk his teeth into the muscle of his forearm, into the sea of pale blond fur, dug his claws into the exposed flesh of his chest. Levi did not drop him. He did not even flinch.

Slowly, the little Lycan began to relax in his arms. He pulled his teeth free, and then his claws.

The boy began to cry and shake and sob against him. An earthquake of miserable flesh and fur and regret.

I will make it better, said the beast softly. I will make you whole.