In Sheep’s Clothing by S. C. Mills
3300 words, ~14 minutes reading time
Issue 7 (Spring 2025)
On the night it had been foretold, when the blood moon hung full in the sky and the first leaves of autumn kissed the earth, a werewolf visited the church of the goddess of the moon. Of course, Ash hadn’t yet heard of the prophecy himself, and certainly nobody else noticed it coming true, because obviously, he went in his human form. He wasn’t born yesterday. Ma and Pa had taught him secrecy since his first transformation as a teenager.
So on the night it had been foretold, a very normal shepherd boy visited the church of the goddess of the moon. Ash had no intention of causing a stir. He was new in town, and he heard this was a good way to make friends. At dusk, he followed the trail of people headed uphill and through the woods outside town. He wasn’t accustomed to being out so late without his fur coat, and the wind cut right through his thin wool shirt, so he arrived at the church shivering.
But oh, that teaspoon of suffering made the church into an oasis.
The sanctuary was unwalled and open to the cool night air, but a hearthfire glowed in the center. Smoke curled up through a hole in the thatched roof. With his arms wrapped around his chest, Ash picked his way across the raised stone floor, dodging piles of carpets, cushions, and blankets, drawn to the fire like... well, like a human. Maybe he’d blend in here just fine. The villagers were too absorbed in their conversations to notice a stranger, but they made ample space for him in the warm center of the room. His shoulders relaxed and his shivering ceased.
“Excuse me,” called a familiar voice. “Are you—”
He whirled around, stumbling over a pillow, to find a welcome surprise: his childhood friend, a farmers’ daughter from near his home village, who had moved away a few years ago. They’d grown up seeing each other at harvest and solstice festivals, and playing make-believe together whenever his parents visited her moms. He’d missed her after she left. Now, Ash’s eyes traced down her waist-length hair, pin-straight and black as midnight, to linger on her delicate wrists beneath the billowing sleeves of her priestess’s silver-silk kaftan. She’d grown up. And out. And—
Ma would’ve smacked him. He was staring, slack-jawed. But then again, so was she. Her gaze lingered on his broad chest before snapping back up to his face.
“Oh, I thought you were Ashleigh,” she said, brow furrowed. “Someone I used to know. Maybe you’re her brother?”
That was one of the reasons he’d moved: a fresh start.
“I’m surprised you recognize me. I look so different now.” He ran a hand over his shorn curls, suddenly nervous again. “And I go by Ash now. Just Ash. Pleasure to see you again, Shenai.”
“Oh! Ash! I see.” Understanding bloomed on Shenai’s face. She smiled, her lips as striking and scarlet as the blood moon above. “Welcome, and please, settle in.” She gestured at a cushion. “I have to work, but can we catch up afterwards?” At his nod, she hurried away.
Grinning, Ash joined a family of seven snuggled close around a teapot. They reminded him, with a bittersweet pleasure, of his own big family. They pressed a warm mug into his hands and offered him a sheepskin to keep himself toasty warm. Yes, he found himself saying, he was the new apprentice at the weavers’, and yes, he knew Shenai from back home, and no, he’d never been to services here before.
To begin the ceremony, the high priestess—a prophet, they said—led them in prayer. They were collectively grateful for warm fires, for family and friends on cold nights, and for the protection of the moon goddess from what moved under darkness.
Ash liked all of that well enough. Not that he needed any protection at night.
He liked the next part even more—music. He raised his husky voice along with the others in songs about reflecting one’s true self to the world and embracing one’s inner shadow. During the brief sermon on related subjects, he kept peeking over at Shenai. Maybe he caught her sneaking glances here and there, too. The thought made his chest tingle and his fingers itch with impatience for the ceremony’s end.
“Finally, a warning for new friends,” said the high priestess. “Be wary of any canines you might encounter tonight.”
The high priestess locked eyes with Ash. His blood ran cold, even under his borrowed sheepskin.
“Two years ago, the moon goddess sent me a prophecy,” she said.
Two years ago, Ash had told his parents he wanted to find an apprenticeship in a bigger town. Living in an area dense with ordinary humans meant a heightened risk of discovery, but he wanted to try it anyway. He wanted to find community.
“She impressed upon me that one day, on a blood moon in autumn like this one, a werewolf would come to the church of the moon.” The high priestess scanned the room’s perimeter, peering beyond the dark night with squinted eyes. “She told me I should prepare my congregation, because if our hearts weren’t kind and true, if we weren’t our best selves...” She drew herself to her full height. “She said the arrival of that monster would tear our community apart, change it forever, or even cause it to perish for good.”
Ash’s teacup slipped from his hand and shattered on the stone floor.
After the ceremony, Ash rushed to explain that too much tea made him shaky, but Shenai only laughed and put a broom into his grateful hands. While they cleaned up together, he meant to ask her about that prophecy, but they had so much else to discuss: his family, her family, all the trouble they’d gotten into together as kids, all the news from their tiny village. Time flew by until the entire sanctuary was neat and clean.
“We’ll wash those by daylight, when we can see.” Shenai took a bin of unbroken mugs from his hands, her fingers brushing his, and shoved them into a cabinet. They were quiet for the first time, neither moving to leave.
“Do you, um, want to go on a walk?” Ash’s mouth filled the silence without his permission. “The moon’s beautiful tonight.” He held his breath, hopeful.
Shenai hesitated. Ash kicked himself. He’d forgotten.
“Unless you need to get to bed,” he offered, giving her an easy out. Just like Pa had taught him. “Or maybe you’re scared of running into a werewolf.” His mouth was still going off without permission, but Ma always said if he ever fell in love with a human, he’d have to tell them eventually. From the sound of that prophecy, though, it seemed best to test the waters first.
“We don’t stand on early bedtimes here.” Shenai took a step toward Ash, her slim fingers plucking at the edges of her long sleeves. “But that prophecy does scare me. Can’t imagine a monster would bring a good change, you know?”
“Ha.” Ash coughed, throat suddenly dry. “Yeah.”
“And that was the least bad outcome.”
“Right.” He drew his lips back in a grimace. “That is sort of what she said. I just hope we’re prepared. When, you know, that eventually happens. Someday.”
“I hope so, too.” Shenai’s forehead wrinkled. “But you were a shepherd, right? Surely you know how to defend yourself from wolves.”
For a moment, Ash was afraid she knew and was mocking him. But her soft gray eyes were wide and dancing in the light of the dying hearth, and she was tilting her head, looking at him through thick, curling lashes—
“Oh, I can keep you safe from any kind of wolf.” Ash offered her his arm, and she took it with a smile.
Over the next twenty-eight days, Ash came to understand why his family had chosen a rural life, surrounded by lots of sheep and few people. With each passing night, his urge grew stronger to let free the other half of himself, the wilder half, that wanted to race through the woods around the church, and lap ice-cold water straight from the river where he and Shenai took evening walks.
The prophecy held him back. What if his new friends found out and hated him?
“Everybody here loves you,” said Shenai one night, unprompted. “Everybody thinks you’re so kind, hardworking, good with kids.” She stopped walking and laid her palm on Ash’s chest, where his heart was pounding away. The reflection of a half-waned moon glimmered in her eyes.
“Everyone does seem like welcoming, open-minded people,” he said. At least, so long as they thought he was human. “But do you think all that about me?”
She smiled and nodded once, quick as lightning, and looked away.
Faced with a growing pile of evidence—not least of which, the teasing of his new friends—Ash was forced to accept Shenai might still like him. Maybe she even liked him more, now.
So he gathered his courage, and he tested the waters again on another walk, during the new moon, when it would be easiest to run away and hide. If it came to that.
“That prophecy confused me. You know, the one about a werewolf.” He cleared his throat to hide the tremble in his jaw. “Change is supposed to be good, right? The moon is always changing.”
“It always stays the same, too. The same craters, the same mountains.” Shenai tilted her head back and forth, then froze. “Wait, are you planning to change again?”
Ash’s mouth ran dry. She knew. She had to know. “Change how?” he croaked.
“Moving on to a bigger city, maybe?” She shrugged. “For another new job?”
“Oh, no.” Relief flooded his body, which had been strung tight as warp threads. Fur had been prickling up at his neck already; he’d nearly transformed and sprinted away. “No, of course not. I love it here. I love the community, and I love—” He hesitated. No, not yet. She’d hear that word differently, now. “—the job I have here. Weaving on the big loom fills my whole mind and body. I don’t even know time’s passing.”
“Like meditation,” she murmured, her voice soft and reverent, and Ash loved that she understood. But there was a question lingering in her expression too, like his answer hadn’t satisfied her. The quiet pressure of a still night, swollen with unspoken questions, forced him to fill the air.
“It’s sort of like sitting to meditate, but not exactly,” he said. “There’s motion. You don’t go anywhere, but there’s still change. Good change, from raw wool to warm clothes. You have something useful at the end.”
“I don’t think it would work like that for me.” Shenai shook her head.
“Let me show you.” Maybe he could convince her to fear change a little less, at least in this small way. “During the day, when we can see, and on something simpler than the big loom. On our next day off?”
Within the week, they met in a tea shop for a late breakfast and knitting lessons. Ash brought yarn from his family’s sheep, which he had spun and dyed. Shenai brought herself, but she left her usual careful attention and focus somewhere else. She seemed distracted, even troubled. She was unraveling her gauge square for the third time, having miscounted stitches yet again, when she cut into his lesson with an abrupt question.
“You know, I never saw any sheepdogs back home,” she said. “Didn’t your family keep any?”
“Um, no.” Ash lost focus too for a second, almost dropping a stitch by the thumb gusset. “Why do you ask? Do you like dogs?”
“Love them. They’re sweet, and they keep away scary...” She glanced around the crowded shop, then lowered her voice. “You know. Predators.”
“Oh. Right.” Ash gulped. His needles clicked faster. The tinkle of voices and cups around them seemed suddenly too loud. Only lifelong practice kept his hands moving smoothly.
Shenai dropped her mess of needles and yarn. “Thank you for showing me this part of you, Ash, but I can’t talk and knit at the same time.” She folded her hands and took a deep breath. “Really, I’ve been wondering. How did you keep sheep safe without dogs?”
Now Ash did drop a stitch. Instead of answering, he focused on picking it up again. He pretended not to notice Shenai’s calculating stare. Damn her for being so observant. And clever, too. And—
“I like you, Ash, I do.” Shenai fiddled with her empty teacup. “But why won’t you open up to me? I can tell there’s something big you aren’t telling me.”
Now was the moment. Ash could practically hear Ma telling him to risk it for love—and Pa, telling about how his old flame, before he’d met Ma, had him run out of town. Ash squinted at his knitting, searching for his courage.
Shenai liked dogs. That was good. But she’d also called werewolves “monsters,” and she was scared of change, or at least of him changing. And of “predators,” whatever that meant. As if humans weren’t predators themselves.
Liking dogs just wasn’t enough to make up for all that.
The silence dragged on, and this time, his mouth kept not filling it.
“Guess that’s my answer.” Shenai stood to leave. “If you change your mind, you know where to find me.”
On the next full moon, Ash found himself back at the church. Not to see Shenai. If he took her finished mittens—dove gray, like her eyes—and slipped them to her before the service, that was only because they wouldn’t fit him anyway. And if she took them without looking at him, well... at least she took them.
Even the ceremony was ruined now. He wondered the entire time if everyone would still calmly sit and share their evening with him, if they knew.
But when the high priestess delivered her awful warning about a werewolf again, and Shenai kept not even glancing at him, he decided this was intolerable. He’d come to the church on the blood moon, yet nothing had changed. Nobody had been torn apart. The church was alive and well, and packed with happy, healthy people. That prophecy was obviously false. Let them run him out of town if they believed in that nonsense.
He stood up. Every face in the room turned to him, but all he could see was Shenai’s warm gray eyes, fixed on him at last. And those blood-moon red lips, smiling.
Oh, goddess. She’d already figured it out. Courage surged in his chest.
“You all know me,” Ash said, his voice clear and strong. “You like me. I know you do. You’ve welcomed me here. No reason to get scared of me now.”
Under the full moon, transforming was as easy as sliding on his favorite slippers, perfectly molded to him. Fur the color of soot and silver raced across his body. He dropped to all fours, stable as earth, light as air, and fully himself before the goddess, Shenai, and everybody.
Gasps and shrieks echoed around the room. People fell over themselves to get away from him. He didn’t care. Shenai—only Shenai—stepped forward.
Ash picked his way between pillows and teacups to meet her, trying not to pant with anxiety. Or worse, wag his tail with joy.
Shenai slipped off her new mitten and reached out a shaking hand. Her bravery, despite her fear, made his heart ache. He nuzzled into her palm, and her cool fingers glided through his fur, caressing behind his ears. He shivered at her touch.
“Who needs sheepdogs?” Her laughter was high and brimming with pleasure, and the sanctuary’s windchimes echoed her.
“Doggy!” A toddler broke free from her parents and raced to Ash. He sat still, teeth hidden, while she patted his fur with a sticky hand. She looked back to her parents. “Good doggy.”
“Hmph. Not the change I was expecting.” The high priestess looked around. Smiles, approving nods, and even a few chuckles were spreading through the congregation. “But I suppose werewolves revere the moon, too. Perhaps I misunderstood what change could mean.”
Or perhaps, Ash thought, the hearts of her congregation were kind and true.
He held his human body in his mind’s eye, a form that had solidified as he’d grown into adulthood: a broad-shouldered man with steady brown eyes and short black curls. His body shifted, and he was again standing a head higher than Shenai. Her hand stayed with him, tracing along his bearded jaw.
“I’m glad you told me,” she whispered, like no one else was there.
