"At night when I try and sleep, I can't stop thinking about all the bad things I've done.  I wonder if there is any way to be forgiven.  I was taught to believe in God and Jesus, but I have trouble thinking of them as real.  They're like the President.  He's just an image on the TV screen, not a real person.  Like, at any moment someone could tell you he's made up like Santa Claus.  God's like that to me.  I know I should think of him as being there—being there for me, but It's easier to believe he isn't.  Because if he is real, how does any of this make sense?

"And even if he is, will sorrys or prayers ever make up for what I've done.

"I guess that in the end, I'm not looking for anyone's forgiveness.  Having someone tell me everything is okay, will make nothing okay.  What I want...

"What I want is to reach back into the past and stop those things.  I want to do it with my own hands—feel it with my own skin.  Actually touch them and know that these things have been undone.  After that, it wouldn't matter what happened to me.  But I can't do that, can I?

"It's like this one time when I was young.  I was playing with a necklace my mom had given me and it broke.  The glass beads spilled out on the driveway and some of them shattered and exploded as they hit the ground.  The end of the thin, useless string was in my hand and I couldn't hold back even one of the beads.  Watching my present fall apart in front of me, I wanted to throw up.  My only thought was a wish to rewind time and undo it.  It's like that.  I know you'll say it was an accident like all the other things were accidents.  But does that change anything?  They all still happened.

"I have a demon in my head I can't control.  It wants me to do things, and for a while, I was so mad at everything I listened.  But I've been fighting it.  I don't want to hear what it has to say anymore.  I want to be good.  I need to control it so no one else dies."

R.J. sat with his chin in his hand.  She was right: he would have told her it had been an accident.  But that wasn't what was on the forefront of his mind.  His thoughts were locked onto the image of reaching back in time and physically seizing your mistakes.  He could see a dozen milliseconds, where he could have done something differently and Jamie would still be alive.  If only he didn't go on that date.  If only he had listened to Horus and put a second person on watch that night.  If only he had put an end to Jamie's clandestine conversations when he first learned of them.  If only—if only—if only.  It was a tide of regrets washing over him every time he closed his eyes.

And if he let it, that tide would become a flood—a deluge, as he wound back through time to all those moments in his life when he should have done something differently.

There was a long silence and he realized that she wasn't going to speak again unless he said something first.  "It's not like you ever thought about doing those things.  You say you have a demon—we all do.  There is something within all of us that guides us toward evil.  Just like there is something that guides us toward good."

"No, that's not what I mean," Amy said.  "There is a demon in here with me."

"Are you talking about the wolf?"

"No.  But they're connected.  I'm not sure how.  It was urging me to change that night.  And I didn't stop it."

"Do you think it's something you can control?  The change, I mean."

She thought about it.  Amy was cross-legged on the bed, or at least she had been when R.J. had walked into the OC.  They never talked face-to-face.  They didn't meet at the window in Horus's office and R.J. didn't watch her through the one-way glass.  They spoke using the enclosure's intercom, as though over a telephone.  They never discussed why this arrangement felt so natural.  Perhaps each of them was happy to talk without being looked at.

"If I could control it.  I would never do it again.  I would never let that part of me out—ever."

"Aren't you the least bit curious about what you're capable of?"

"What I'm capable of is what scares me."

R.J. could tell she was moving.  There was a faint Doppler quality to her voice.  He guessed she had started pacing.  She did that sometimes.  It was hard to tell. Without shoes, her feet were silent on the floor.

"How many more days?"  At some point, she always got around to asking this.

He didn't have to think to pull up the answer.  "Five."

"Or less."  The words were taught, as though her jaw was clenched tight against the thought of it.

"Possibly less," R.J. reluctantly agreed.  After last time, they were no longer sure.  He pictured the lunar calendar in his head.  It was a special month.  "On Tuesday, there is going to be another eclipse."  The thought slipped through his lips.

From the speakers, there was a sharp intake of breath.  "What?"  Amy's question was soft and tremulous.

"A lunar eclipse.  There was one in June also.  Don't be frightened.  Nothing bad happened last time.  You slept through it."

"No..."  Her voice was just a thin note like the sound of the wind.

"Amy?  What is it?  What's wrong?"

"Nothing.  I don't want to talk anymore."

***

The sky had an indigo shimmer to its blue.  A shadowy aurora traced a path across the heavens.  There was a fading echo of the call of birds but not a single wing was in flight.  Wind scattered crystals, sharp and frozen, against her cheeks.

Amy stood on the hill looking down into the wooded valley.  Nothing had changed since the last time she had been there.  Although, it looked like a place she hadn't seen since she was a small girl.  The valley wasn't so deep.  The forest did not spread out so far or so wide.  She could even make out the grove in its heart—a white coin sitting in the center of the snarl of black interlacing branches like a hole in the universe.

She didn't need to look up to know that the sun was darkening. 

But now she knew better.  It was the moon.  The moon was her sun.  The night was her day.  And the shadow wasn't hiding it; it was concentrating it—focusing its power into an intense ring.

There was no call this time.  Ylva didn't summon her.  She didn't need to.  Amy knew the woman would be waiting for her.

The eclipse had drawn them both back here.  Amy had released her from this woodland and they became two spirits trapped in one room—in one body. 

The forest hadn't been visited since that night.  instead, her dreams took her to lonely places in the desert and endless hard, cold, gray rooms.  

 The woods welcomed her and her heart responded with an eager pulse.  Her bare feet took their first steps down the slope.  The inevitability of her path gave her a sensation of déjà vu.  Anticipation made her muscles tight.  She longed to run again, but as much as she wanted to let herself fly through the trees, Amy was in no hurry to reach the circle.  The dread of facing Ylva stalked her thoughts and she could smell her own fear rising off her body.

The canopy of twisted branches made the sky a mosaic of white and blue glass.  The trees were the pillars of a temple.  The forest was a holy place.  At its center was the alter.  And she felt like she was heading there to be sacrificed by its priestess.  Last time Ylva got out.  What would happen this time?  Would Amy emerge at all?  Wasn't this what it was all about: who would be in control?  And every day Ylva's strength grew.

The trees began to thin as the clearing approached.  Amy dropped onto all fours and entered it in her strongest form.  She would not disappear without a fight.

"It is good to see you finally embracing your true self."

Ylva stood on the other side of the glade.  She had a bored expression like she had been waiting a long time.  A noble beauty radiated from her like an angelic aura.  The gauntness was gone from her face.  Her limbs had gained muscle.  The corpse-like thinness was gone.

Amy's steps faltered.

"Look at what I have become."  The woman answered the apprehension she had read from Amy's face or from her mind.  "You have fed me well."  She showed off her body to Amy.  The wind picked up her white hair and stoked it like a flame.  "But our work has just begun."

"It's over."  Amy tried to sound forceful but terror had seeped into her veins.  It leaked its thin poison through her and let in the bitter cold to calcify her bones.

"Oh my stupid girl, it will never be over."  Ylva began to move around the circle.  Amy kept her distance, retreating counter-clockwise away from her.

"I will not be used by you anymore," she snarled.

"Used?"  Ylva chuckled amused by this line of argument.  Every nuance of her face and hands drew a clear picture of the intention of her words, like an actor playing to the back of the auditorium.  "I have only helped you."

"Jamie is dead because of you."

"He's dead because he was weak.  And who killed him?  I didn't do it.  That was all you."

"No."

"You tore him apart and feasted on his bones because you wanted to."     

"I never wanted to."

"You once told me you would never lie to me."  Ylva's tone rose like a sharp howl but then quieted again to a soft purr.  "Mind you, I'm not judging.  It is the natural order of things.  You were born to eat the feeble and the unworthy.  To consume it all.  Once you fully accept who you are, you will feast upon the whole world.  Once you accept your power, the world will fall down on its knees before you and grovel for a quick death."

Amy bared her teeth and growled.  She stopped moving and let Ylva come—her panic fueling her anger.  The stench of hate radiated from her and filled the whole valley.  She wanted to tear into the meat on Ylva's bones.

The woman threw back her head and a laugh sprang up into the sky like a flock of carrion birds.  "Do you really think you can best me, pup."

Her hand swept the glade and a circle of fire surged up to trap them.  It was no longer a ceremonial flame.  It was a battle ring.  This was it.  If she struck first perhaps there was a chance.

Amy sprang, her muscles acting on instinct as she aimed for the woman's throat.  A hand lashed out and swept her from the air.  Her body tumbled like a discarded toy into the center of the circle.  Her bowed back plowed a channel through the snow as she skidded to a painful stop.

"You cannot hurt me?  You don't even understand what I am."

Amy scrambled to her feet and fled as Ylva advanced on her.  Agony throbbed down her snout and along her neck.  The icy hand had left a dizzying sting that buried far beneath her skin.  Her legs took unsteady steps backward.  Her eyes never left the predatory figure that was stalking her.

"You can do me no harm, child.  I am time bent back upon itself.  I am fate.  I am what you will become."

Amy tucked her tail in.  The flames at her back seared her flesh and the smell of singed fur sparked into the air.  There was nowhere left to go and Ylva was closing in. 

Looking down at Amy, her teeth bared in a ferocious smile.  "There is nothing you can do to me.  We are joined together.  We are one."

Amy cast about for some route of escape.  Her eyes darted across the glade and up to the sun.  The glowing eye of fire stared down at her, thrumming out its power.  The flames at her back were nothing compared to its heat.  It burned her with raw energy.

Ylva was in arm's reach.  Amy reared up and stood on her two feet.  The radiation from the eclipse charred her.  She could feel her skin dry and harden, but it didn't hurt.  She tingled with vitality.  Instead of destroying her, it was fueling her.  Stoking her fury and her hate.  Giving her strength.

The branches swayed around her, groaning off their winter slumber.  They sang to Amy.  It was a silent, secret song meant only for her ears.

Accept your power, the woman had told her.

Amy had been wrong.  This wasn't Ylva's temple, it was hers.  Its power was her power.

"I might not be able to hurt you, but this ends now."  She clenched her fists and let her rage fill the ring.  The flames jetted up creating a wall of hellfire around them. 

How am I doing this?  The thought whispered in the back of her mind as excitement and euphoria entwined in her bloodstream and rushed through her veins.

"You will not come back with me.  I am banishing you here."  Amy's voice was a nervous shriek.  Am I really doing this?  "You want to share my fate.  But you taught me to never share."

The blaze cast malevolent shadows that twisted the woman's face into a mask of pain and anger.   "You need me.  You will come back to me."  She spat the words as the brightness of the flames became blinding and the forest vanished from Amy's sight.

Light changed to darkness as she woke in the cell.  The gray walls felt familiar and homey after the forest.  She stood up and shook as though brushing a heavy rain from her fur.  She sat back, exhausted.

"I'm hungry," she said loudly to the hidden ears on the other side of the walls.  Amy squeezed the stiffness out of her fingers.  "I want something to eat."