The moving truck’s diesel growl faded into the salty Nantucket air, replaced by the hiss of waves against the breakwater. The breeze here was different from Indiana’s flatland winds—sharper, briny, and carrying a faint sweetness that stuck to your clothes and hair like it meant to claim you.
My parents called it a fresh start.
I called it banishment.
They’d sold the Columbus, Indiana house without ceremony—didn’t even let me pack my own things. When I’d come home from my last day at the institution, my room was already stripped bare, the walls naked. Now, they’d bought an oceanfront palace worth more than entire neighborhoods back home. Forty-two rooms, marble floors, glass walls opening to the Atlantic. Not because they loved the ocean—they didn’t care about that. No, this house was about distance. Distance from neighbors who whispered. Distance from the story of their son. Distance from the memory of court dates, medical holds, and the months they’d spent pretending I didn’t exist.
The werewolf in me didn’t mind the move—salt air was better than stale hospital disinfectant. But the human part of me… the human part had learned not to expect home from them. Not anymore.
The ferry ride over had been silent. My parents stood at the rail in their perfectly tailored coats, pointing out the island’s lighthouses like tourists in a coffee-table book, their voices light, practiced. I stayed below, leaning against the car deck’s cold metal wall, letting the thrum of the engines buzz in my chest.
It had been months since I’d seen this much open sky. The wolf in me liked it—the expanse, the smell of wind over saltwater. My parents? They liked the exclusivity. Nantucket wasn’t just an island; it was an escape hatch they could brag about.
When we docked, they didn’t look back to see if I followed.
The mansion looked like it had been grown from the bones of the coastline—white walls, black trim, every line crisp and deliberate. A driveway of crushed shells crunched under the tires as the moving crew unloaded box after box. Inside, the air was cool, faintly perfumed with something floral and expensive. Gleaming brass fixtures. Chandeliers. Floors polished so smooth I could see my reflection.
“This is where we live now,” my mother said, sweeping a hand at the grand foyer like she was revealing a stage.
“We” was a generous term. The way she looked at me, I could’ve been the hired help.
“Don’t scratch the floors,” she added, her voice low and sharp. “Or break anything. You have a history.”
I just stared at her for a moment, then walked deeper into the house without answering. She hated that—when I didn’t rise to her bait.
The next morning, over breakfast, I found out about the school.
“You’ll be going to Cape Cod Regional Technical High,” my father said, flipping a page in his paper. “It’s on the mainland. Ferry leaves at six-thirty. Don’t miss it.”
I looked up from my untouched toast. “Why not Nantucket High? Isn’t that the normal—”
“You need a life lesson,” he interrupted, folding the paper neatly. “You’ve spent too much time… indulged. At Tech, you’ll learn skills. You’ll meet ordinary people. It will be good for you.”
My mother sipped her coffee without looking up. “Humility,” she murmured. “It might even stick this time.”
I let the words hang there. They wanted me to protest, to give them something to crush. I didn’t. I just took another slow bite of toast and kept my gaze locked on my father until he shifted uncomfortably.
That evening, I stood at my bedroom window, looking across the dark water toward the mainland. Tomorrow, I’d take the ferry alone, join the commuter crowd, and walk into a school where no one knew my name or my past.
In Indiana, people had called me freak, monster, worse. Here? Here I was just another face. A blank slate.
But the wolf in me knew better. It could feel something out there, in those unfamiliar streets—a pull, a scent it couldn’t name yet.
Somewhere on that mainland, there was another one. He didn’t know it yet. Neither did I.