Artie and the Wolf Moon

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Artie and the Wolf Moon by Olivia Stephens

It's early September in Oregon. At Rosedale Middle School, Artie Irvin has her headphones turned up to 11 while developing some photographs. It’s the end of the day but her teacher lets her stay behind to finish and tidy up, which also helps her to avoid the usual school jerks. Well, it does until Artie is vibing with her music on the way home when the bullies say some pretty dumb and racist stuff. Artie is smart and quick and she takes a picture with her camera of “local wildlife” aka the girl-bully, when her mom, a park ranger, pulls up in her marked car and Artie dives in. 

At home, Artie’s mom, Loretta, unpacks the groceries and hands her daughter a couple packs of film. Yesss! As they have dinner, rare steaks, Artie suggests she go outside that night for some full moon pictures, but Loretta says she can’t because of work early the next day and Artie isn’t allowed to go out in the woods herself. Artie’s not happy to wait until Saturday. 

Later that night, Artie can’t sleep, her camera is calling to her. She grabs her gear, tells her dad’s photo she’ll only be gone an hour, and sneaks out, music filling her ears. She finds the perfect spot on a hillside clearing but after a little while, Artie hears a crack, spots a wolf in her camera lens, and knows the cue to head back when she sees it. Unfortunately she leaves her headphones on the ground as she books it home. Double-unfortunately, there is a wolf on her back yard patio snuffling in a box. Best call mom!

The wolf has found a purple bathrobe and is having a good ole snuffle when Loretta’s phone rings inside the house. The wolf looks up at the sound, then starts walking toward it, turning into Artie’s mom and putting the bathrobe on. What?! Artie steps out, giving her mom a shock. While Loretta tries to question Artie as to why she’s outside on a school night, the better question is posed by Artie - why were you a wolf? Time for cookies and a conversation. 

So, Loretta is a born werewolf, it’s a family trait. Artie might be, but her dad, Kelly, was human, so it’s not a sure thing as none of the usual signs have happened, but Artie could be a late bloomer. While Artie is getting all excited about her mom being a wolf, Loretta throws figurative cold water over her explaining that there are scarier things in the world than werewolves. Artie is sent to bed then because it’s late with promises they’ll talk more and her questions will be answered. 

September slides into October which slides into November and Artie doesn’t get any answers and life is the same.  Until, that is, at school when a classmate asks what’s being served for lunch and Artie sniffs the air and knows they are having spaghetti and breadsticks, but the breadsticks are burning in the oven. WOAH. Then, on the way home, the bullies are back. They push Artie around and open her camera exposing the film then drop it and break it on purpose. Her eyes go red and she scarily shouts GO AWAY!, and the bullies can’t escape fast enough! Suddenly something wracks Artie’s body. 

When Loretta gets home, things are amiss. Artie is home, but her stuff, including the outfit she had on at school that day, is on the hallway floor. Out back, a very happy wolf is running about in full view of the neighbors. Artie, get inside, now! Inside, Artie changes back but is reluctant to tell her mom the circumstances of her change because she'd rather get some wolf training. Loretta agrees they’ll start that night. 

Loretta explains being a werewolf isn’t like the movies, you change at will, not based on the moon. First you need to tap into your instincts, a place between human and wolf, then you sink into the change. It doesn’t work. Again, and again, and again. They’re both getting frustrated and call it a night. 

Getting ready for bed, Loretta spots a picture of Kelly on Artie’s dresser. Artie takes the opportunity to ask for more information about him. Artie’s dad was a photographer, too, and Artie’s equipment is all his. They met when he was on a two-week assignment in the Washington woods in Artie’s mom's hometown of Pineville. The town had a strict 10pm curfew for visitors, and of course her dad disregarded that, which is when he saw the wolves out in the woods. He tried to back away, but when one changed to human, Loretta, and tackled him before he could escape - the whole werewolf thing was outed. A few nervous flutters, promises not to say anything, and draws on his asthma inhaler later, Kelly calmed down about being in a town with 200 werewolves. Loretta was assigned as his chaperone for his visit and one thing led to another. Kelly’s goofiness and zest for life broke down Loretta’s small town ennui and tough werewolf exterior. 

In December, Artie and Loretta head to Willow Ridge, a werewolf town like Pineville started by an old friend, Mac, because Loretta needs help teaching Artie to be a wolf. Mac greets them and tells them Eve, his wife, and their kids are setting up for a full moon party that night. With a loud AWOOOOOO, Mac calls his family and Artie meets Eve and their kids Quintin, Nina, Anita, Maya, and Terrence. Artie is invited for a run, but she’s nervous because she’s not good at shifting, so they stay human. As she’s running, her eyes glow red. 

They stop at a waterfall and Maya asks if Artie can howl yet. Mac is going to teach her, and his kids, in case there is ever a need to call for help. Loretta and Eve can hear Mac all the way back at the house as they’re enjoying a drink and relaxing on the patio. Artie’s howl is very impressive, but now, it's time to shift. Mac tries to talk Artie through the shift and her emotions when it happened the first time, but she doesn’t want to think about the bullies breaking her father’s camera. Mac tells her it’s okay, she can just have fun, and Artie runs with the wolves as a human. 

That night, Willow Ridge has a huge street party with food vendors, music, face painting, and string lights everywhere. Artie is hanging out with Maya, they’ve just gone past the soup made of lies and regrets, when Artie spots a freaky mural. Before Maya can explain, Loretta gathers them for the fireworks display. Everyone starts to shift but Maya just wants to hang with Artie.

Later in the night, Artie asks her mom about the freaky drawings she saw around town. Loretta explains they are drawings of vampires. At the dinner table, Mac unrolls a tapestry showing The Story of the Mother Werewolf. 

A woman fled into the woods with her three children to escape their chains. They ran for days through storms and freezing temperatures. They nearly starved until a wolf approached with her cub. The woman saw herself in the wolf, a mother, so was not afraid. The wolf led the woman and her children to food and shelter from an incoming storm. The mother and her children bonded with the wolves, and the wolf gave the woman and her children the gift of transformation. After the storm, the clouds cleared to reveal the full moon, and they celebrated family, both born and found, at the full moon, and that's why they celebrate the full moon still. When Artie asks about vampires, she learns that they are born of death and only want destruction. They have no home, but travel to feed off the vulnerable. 

After the story of Mother Werewolf, Loretta pulls out an old picture of her, Mac, Eve and Kelly. Mac wasn’t Kelly’s biggest fan at first, he came to Pineville when a vampire was spotted in the woods and he didn’t understand why Kelly was there. Mac was also the first person to know Loretta and Kelly were secretly dating. Loretta started taking courses to become a Park Ranger so she could sneak out to see Kelly. Then, one day, six months after a boy in town went missing, he came back. It was during the full moon celebration and, as instructed, he smashed the power sending everything into darkness. 

Loretta was eating burgers with Kelly, away from the chaos, when the vampires hit the town, but she and Kelly didn’t miss it entirely. Vampires attack the children first, and while some tried to keep the children safe, others went on the hunt for the Vampires. When Loretta returned, she told Kelly to leave, it wasn’t safe for a human, but he didn’t and managed to punch a vampire attacking Mac in the face. During a fight, Loretta got hurt by a vampire saving Kelly, and Loretta’s family laid into Kelly for distracting Loretta. 

Loretta’s family wanted them to break up, but they secretly wrote to each other and would meet in the city when Loretta had her classes. It was over a year before Kelly came back to Pineville, and in all that time, he tried to think how he could make amends. Kelly came up with a security lighting system complete with solar panels and remote control. It didn’t go well, so Loretta ran away and married Kelly that night. After the story, Mac apologizes for his part in trying to keep Loretta and Kelly apart, he knows Kelly was a good man. 

In January, in the National Park, Loretta is helping Artie with her howls. Aside from freaking out another ranger who calls in the wolf “sighting,” it’s going okay. One evening Artie is putting together a photo collage when Loretta finds some undeveloped film Kelly took. Artie will try and develop them. 

At school the bullies are at it again, but being an apex predator, Artie is over their moronic efforts for attention. When one steals her math book questioning the “spells” inside it, he runs straight into Mac, and then Artie’s red eyes send the jerks running. Mac and his family are here for dinner and have a surprise! They got Kelly’s camera fixed! It’s a wonderful evening of good food and good company. In her room with Maya, Artie plays some of her dad’s music and she talks about how she feels close to him through it and photography. Maya listens and then Artie tells Maya she like-likes her. Maya also like-likes Artie and they kiss. 

One evening, Artie heads back to school to develop some photos while her mom heads to the grocery store. Artie has her music turned up so doesn’t hear a girl come in. There is a school board meeting, her dad is on the board so she’s just killing time. She introduces herself as Cat and they look at pictures and chat. Cat has traveled a lot with her mom, all over the world. As Artie leaves, they exchange numbers, and Artie tells her mom on the drive home about her new friend. 

Artie and Cat text back and forth and Artie sneaks out to go meet her, and she meets Cat’s friends. This continues into February and it’s wearing Artie down because it’s always at night. Cat is not particularly nice in the texts claiming Artie acts like a baby around her friends or always flakes. Eventually Loretta confronts Artie because she’s been falling asleep in school. Artie dismisses it as not a big deal but Loretta wants to ✨communicate✨. Artie accuses her mom of not being so great at that, what with all the secrets, but she’s trying to do better. They agree to drop things for now because Artie is burned out on all the Wolf stuff.

At Willow Ridge, Artie gets confrontational with Maya. They’ve not seen much of each other lately. Maya points out Artie’s been acting differently, including not wearing her camera because, Artie says, it’s “dorky looking.” They walk to a clearing where Maya explains vampires are buried wrapped in silver chains. They do this because when a vampire is killed all their past victims rise from the grave. When Artie stands on the ground, she says it feels like it’s moving and then a SHRIEKK pierces through the ground. They run back to the house.

Maya’s Aunt Valerie has come to visit from the city for the twins’ eighteenth birthday. Valerie is described as bougie because she likes living in the city and embracing her human side. As they’re celebrating, a text from Cat comes in but Artie ignores it. After the adults have gone to bed, the youths are awake and wired on sugar. The twins' birthday present, a truck, is sitting all pretty and lonely in the driveway. They pile in and speed off to the city. 

They stop for burgers and while everyone is inside, Artie is alone outside by the door texting. A boy comes over, one of Cat’s friends that recognizes Artie from a show she snuck out to with Cat. The boy’s eyes then go weird and his nails grow long and sharp, but as he reaches for Artie, a cup of fries hits him in the head. Maya pulls Artie away screaming he’s a vampire! As the vampire tries to attack again, Artie kicks him. He’s a persistent little bugger, but the werewolves pile into the truck and speed off home. 

Mac is, understandably, not happy. Loretta is, understandably, terrified she’ll lose her daughter like she lost Kelly. Mac reassures her they are safe in Willow Ridge but Loretta drags Artie home and starts packing. They’re moving, goodness knows where, but they’re moving now. Artie doesn’t want to go and she doesn’t want to abandon her family. This breaks Loretta. On Artie’s phone, Cat has been texting, again being a jerk to Artie but this time, Artie tells her she can’t anymore and ends it. 

The next morning, Loretta is still unsure if they’re leaving or not. Wolves are born protectors but that also makes them a target for vampires. Loretta tells Artie about the first couple of years with Kelly, how they tried to disappear, doing nature photography and wedding photos to pay the bills, until one day Loretta couldn’t shift - she was pregnant. So they settled down in Oklahoma in a fixer-upper, Kelly fortifying the house in creative ways. The vampires, however, had been watching the whole time. Vampires don’t have any real scent so it’s difficult to sense them, but Loretta felt something and her dreams became warnings. When she woke in the middle of the night, they looked outside to see vampires knocking down the electricity pole. With a couple of hours of power with the generator, they packed to leave. They were in the car when the vampires broke in. They zoomed off but the vampires grabbed Kelly, who was driving, and dragged him from the car. Kelly tried to fight them off and shouted for Loretta to keep driving. The vampires tried to chase down the car, but Kelly threw himself at them. The last Loretta saw of Kelly was him standing between the car and the vampires, barbed wire bat raised. 

Loretta drove all the way back to her family. She delivered Artie just inside the gates of Pineville, her family hearing her screams of heartache and pain of labor. Loretta took time to recover physically, but she knew she no longer wanted any part of the werewolves or vampires. That’s when she got their home, her job, and started their new life. Artie’s instant take from the heart-wrenching story is that her dad could still be alive, that she won’t give up on him like her mom did (this is HARSH). 

In April, at the end of a school day, Artie heads to the darkroom to finally try and develop the pictures from her dad’s last couple rolls of film while her mom has a meeting with her teachers. The Principal wants to talk about Artie behind her back, sorry, as adults (eyeroll), so Artie heads to the darkroom to work on the film. Loretta is being told Artie is disengaged, falling asleep and is hostile toward other students, though nothing is being said about the obvious bullying. Loretta defends Artie, she’s changing and learning and figuring things out just like the other students. Disrespectfully the Principal asks about a father figure or a positive male role model, but Loretta shuts this down, Artie has a whole family who cares about her. Speaking of family, Mac and his family are coming to visit because they don't like how things were left between them and they want to check on Loretta and Artie. Meanwhile, Artie has one of the pictures developed. It’s of her mom, pregnant with her in a restaurant. Behind her, looking very suspicious is Cat.

Coincidentally, Cat is right behind Artie. Loretta senses something is wrong with Artie and tries to leave the meeting, but the Principal needs to go over test scores. Cat hasn’t attacked, she claims her coven has changed. There was a lot of in-fighting which Cat didn’t want to be part of. Lots of vampires died so that meant lots of new vampires were created. It was a vicious cycle she wanted no part of, so Cat sat back with others who wanted change. She and the others learned to resist the bloodlust and stop hunting, and made attempts to rectify what they had done. Cat says that recently, the one who killed Artie’s dad was caught up in the violence and died so now Kelly has come back as a vampire. He ran off, terrified of what he was. Cat meant to keep an eye on Artie while the others of her coven found Kelly and helped him. Well, they did, and he’s here. Surprise!

While Artie and Cat run off, Loretta is still in the meeting but can feel something is off. Mac and his family have reached Loretta and Artie’s house, but no one is there. Cat has taken Artie to a creepy-looking rundown mansion in the woods. Her whole coven is there, but Kelly is not because Artie is naïve and Cat is a lying liar who lies. Cat killed Kelly, and once he was dead, her coven gave up on chasing her mom for easier food. Cat had been out hunting when she heard Artie’s howl, it sounded strong, young and a tiny bit human, and went to investigate her hunch. It paid off and Cat got to play with her food for a bit. Artie isn’t going to let the vampires eat her and she puts up an excellent fight. It’s actually rather embarrassing for the vampires as Artie manages to kick butt and make her escape before one grabs her. Artie’s pleas to herself to shift go unanswered. 

Artie is bound and gagged and has to suffer Cat bad-guy monologuing and taunting her. However, like her first shift, rage helps the wolf come out and Artie goes FULL Teen Wolf. She rips from her bonds, swipes at Cat, and howls to her family. The wolf instinct kicks in with Loretta, Mac and his family, and even Aunt Valerie in the city chilling with her werewolf friends. Soon wolves descend on the vampires, but Cat has already sunk her teeth into Artie’s throat. Then Wolf Mom Loretta appears and she is terrifying. 

Everyone, werewolf and vampire, stops to see Loretta half changed. Loretta recognizes the vampires as the ones who murdered her husband. Loretta would rip Cat’s throat out, but Mac stops her. Kelly wouldn’t want to come back as a vampire. Eve and Valerie wrap Cat in silver chains to bury her while Mac, Maya, and Terrence take Artie away for medical attention. 

Artie wakes a huge bed, her mom at her side. There’s lots of tears and apologies from them both. Everyone comes bustling in like that scene from The Lord of the Rings, happy Artie is awake. 

In June, Artie and Loretta are all packed up, the moving box attached to their car and the sold sign swinging on the front lawn. They’re moving to Willow Ridge. Mac and his family are the first to greet their new neighbors with a house plant and food. Now Artie has her friends, and fellow wolves, to run with, which she does right now, and shifts with absolutely no problems. 

The next full moon celebration is great. The music is loud, the dancing runs the gamut between fun and cringe, and the food is good. From the other end of the long table, Loretta keeps looking at Artie weirdly, but she’s just expressing Wolf Mom Pride. It looks funny, just go with it. Loretta apologizes to Mac and Eve for not trusting them sooner, believing she was better off without family but that was her fear driving her. As Eve toasts Family, the vampires tied up under the ground screech and writhe against their bonds. Speaking of family, Loretta’s mom and family from Pineville have come for a visit. Meanwhile, Artie and Maya have snuck off for some alone time. Artie is taking pictures of the full moon, at last, and Maya because she’s cute. All through the night, the howls of happy wolves can be heard.