The Last Rose by Leah Cypess

Author:Leah Cypess [Cypess, Leah]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Random House Children's Books
Published: 2023-12-05T00:00:00+00:00

When I woke, I was still a hound. I stretched, yawned widely, then rolled over onto my back and spent a few seconds scratching my head with my front paws.

I had discovered something interesting during my nap: dogs dream. In the dream I had been running with a pack, hunting something large and dangerous, paws digging into the snow. There was a primal cruelty running through me, the knowledge that our prey would not escape, that the pounding of our paws was bringing us closer, that we would bring it down. Its panic was sweet, its heavy, frantic breathing a song.

So dogs don’t dream very imaginatively. Still, I woke feeling like I should be running, my muscles still twitching and my mouth watering.

I did not feel at all like I wanted to be a human girl. The kitchen was small and confining and far too warm. Though it did smell like something appetizing…

I rolled back over, shook myself, and scratched industriously below my ear with one of my back paws. Late-afternoon sunlight slanted through the windows, making dust motes dance in front of my eyes. My grandmother was at the stove, stirring a pot of porridge. I got to my feet and padded over.

“I’d imagine you missed breakfast,” she said, not looking up from her stirring. “There’s a bowl and spoon on the table. Change into a form in which you can use them.”

I growled low—too low for her to hear—and went reluctantly to the table. I could smell traces of my father’s scent from this morning, but nothing fresher than that. He hadn’t come back.

I shook my fur out. I felt perfectly content, at home in my skin; there was nothing on my mind but food and the Hunt. And my pack. If I changed back to human, a mass of confusing emotions would crash down on me…emotions that I remembered but didn’t fully understand, except that I knew they weren’t good.

Why would I plunge myself back into that morass when I could stay in my current form? The form I had always been meant to have.

My stomach grumbled. The porridge smelled delicious, and I was hungry.

“Go on,” Grandma said. “You’ve been away from the Beast for hours now. His power over you will have faded.”

Her voice was nonchalant, but I could smell her tension. She wanted me to change, and she was afraid that I couldn’t.

Or that I wouldn’t.

In the end, it wasn’t the porridge that made up my mind. It was that I had a lot of questions, and no way to ask them as a hound.

I braced for failure as I reached for my human self. But the tingling went through me immediately, the familiar half-pain as my limbs stretched and altered. I reached for another part of me, a part that had been hidden away in an inaccessible place, and traded it for the self I was currently showing the world.

My grandmother kept her back to me, which I appreciated; even though the change always brought me back fully clothed, there was something about it that felt private.

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