Chloe stared through the car window at the darkening skies and despaired at their cloudlessness. So much for Vancouver’s perpetual rain. The moon hung large and round above the treetops.
She tore her attention from the moon and peeked in the Tupperware on her lap, to confirm her pumpkin mochis remained intact. She said, “I wish we made something savory instead. Your parents probably got mooncakes for dessert.”
Nick, her boyfriend, took his hand off the wheel to reassuringly pat her skirt-clad knee. He was clean-shaven and well-dressed in a button-up shirt and dark jeans, and did not share Chloe’s trepidation about celebrating the Mid-Autumn Festival at his parents’ place.
“They definitely got mooncakes, but the more desserts the better! Chloe, your mochis are bomb. My cousin Eva’s vegetarian and can’t have the lard in mooncakes, so the mochis are perfect for her.”
In their six months of dating, Chloe had met Nick’s parents twice, the first time for dim sum in broad daylight and the second time for hot pot when the moon was only a waxing crescent.
Chloe had tried her best to avoid this full moon dinner. She protested that maybe her family would have their own Mid-Autumn Fest plans. Nick pointed out that Chloe’s parents, though ethnically Chinese, were extremely white-washed, and didn’t even celebrate Chinese New Year. It would mean a lot to his parents, who were more traditionally Chinese, if she came.
Chloe should’ve told Nick about her lycanthropy earlier. She hadn’t expected their first date at a wine bar, after matching on Tinder the week before, to extend into a walk in the park that lasted past midnight. They discovered that their perfect days both included matcha lattes, beachside fried chicken, and karaoke. The next few dates swung her between euphoria and contentment, and it felt so right when they made it official.
As they passed their half-year mark, they agreed that they could see a future together. But Nick didn’t know what future he was signing up for yet: he’d sleep alone during full moons, and wake up to dead squirrels and rabbits littering the backyard. He’d face Chloe’s exhaustion-induced mental breakdowns when she’d run all night but still had to work the next day.
The longer Chloe waited, the more it would hurt if he deemed this altered version of their future a dealbreaker. But the confession stuck in her throat every time.
Chloe hadn’t even told her parents yet. She only had fragmentary memories of her first shapeshift when she was 13. She believed she was dying as her bones lengthened and black fur burst from her skin. She felt impossibly alive when moonlight and cool night air streamed against her pelt. The scent of pine, the sweet taste of rabbit. A bloodstain—the rabbit’s?—on her pillowcase the next morning the only evidence it hadn’t been a nightmare.
Chloe had been too bewildered to say anything at breakfast, and her parents overlooked the dark shadows under her eyes. She guessed that they’d guessed what happened from the fresh track marks and tiny white bones in the backyard, because on the next full moon, two other werewolves greeted her when she entered the woods: her aunt Susan and older cousin Olivia. Chloe rarely saw them outside of holidays. Was lycanthropy why Chloe’s mother kept Susan at arms’ length?
The trio hunted together that night. They returned to Chloe’s backyard as dawn broke, and it took Susan and Olivia under a minute to return to human form. They stayed with Chloe until she also shifted back. Aunt Susan explained that Chloe’s mother didn’t know how to talk about lycanthropy, but she still loved Chloe and had asked Susan to show her the ropes.
Aunt Susan gifted her a black fanny pack. A werewolf wearing a fanny pack looked ridiculous, but it was supposedly the best solution for storing clothes during their shifts.
Susan and Olivia introduced her to a few other werewolves. They didn’t always end up in the same forest, and sometimes Chloe went months without encountering another one, but they bore enough resemblance to a pack to stifle any urges to divulge to normie friends or family.
Nick deserved a divulgence. He’d already unspooled his entire life story over their many late night conversations. When she was house-bound by a nasty flu two months ago, he’d brought over congee and binged true crime documentaries with her. He’d accept her lycanthropy. Probably. She just had to formulate the right words to tell him.
“Alright, we’re here!” Nick announced. He noticed her faraway expression. “Chloe, you okay?”
“Huh? Yeah, we can go.” Chloe shelved the confession for later. Getting through this dinner without shifting would require her full willpower.
Nick’s family parents, Rachel and Frank, empty-nested in a two-story bungalow with the same sloping, asphalt-shingle roofs as its neighbors. Like most North Vancouver neighborhoods, the trees along the sidewalk and in the backyard grew so densely that from afar the houses blended into the old growth forest. The driveway was already full with three SUVs and a sedan, so Nick had found street parking around the corner. Moonlight tickled Chloe’s back as they waited at the front door.
Frank welcomed them in with a nod for Nick and a handshake for Chloe. “Good to see you! I’ll introduce you to everyone.”
He led them past the entryway to the living room, where guests chatted in Mandarin on the leather sectional and occasionally grabbed salted peanuts or a walnut cookie from the small dishes on the glass coffee table. The TV played a Chinese variety show where celebrity contestants competed in some variation of dodgeball.
The guests quieted at the sight of the newcomers. Frank said in Mandarin, “Nick’s here! And this is his friend Chloe.”
Everyone waved hello. The woman on the left said, “Nick, I love the new haircut! And Chloe, you’re so pretty.”
Chloe blushed and thanked her in her hesitant Mandarin.
Frank noticed the Tupperware in Chloe’s arms. “Aww, you didn’t have to bring anything. Let’s leave it in the kitchen for now.”
As soon as they were out of earshot, she asked, “Why did your dad say I was your friend?”
Nick shrugged. “Chinese parents always say that. I think everyone knows we’re dating.”
The kitchen lay along the same hallway near the back of the house. Inside, Nick’s mother, Annie, and another woman fried spring rolls in a wok. A pot simmered on a back burner; Chloe’s heightening sense of smell identified it as braised pork.
Every marbled inch of the kitchen island was covered in dishes—roast duck, fried rice, stir-fried vegetables, a whole steamed fish. Chloe felt dizzy from the vivid aromas.
Nick said, “Hi, Mom. Chloe brought pumpkin mochis.”
Annie turned around. “Welcome, Chloe! You really didn’t have to bring anything. You can put them…hmm.” She scanned the countertops before pointing to an opening between a box of mooncakes and a bowl of taro soup. “…There.”
Chloe set down the container.
Nick and Chloe took a hallway break on their return to the cacophonous living room for him to give her a crash course on the twelve other dinner guests.
Auntie Han, who’d called Chloe pretty, was his dad’s younger sister. She and Uncle Han lived a few blocks away and spent their weekends hiking the surrounding mountains.
Big Uncle was his dad’s eldest brother—the moniker captured both his seniority and stature.
Eva, the pretty, sharp-featured girl around their age with the ends of her blunt bob dipped blue, was Big Uncle’s daughter. Nick thought of her as the cool, alternative cousin. His parents’ label for her fluctuated between the black sheep of the family and the nice but white-washed niece. She’d come out to Nick as bisexual halfway through college, and he suspected Big Uncle had told his parents, but they’d never broached the subject with Nick.
Chloe had already met Hannah, Nick’s tomboy-ish younger sister, who studied at the local university and lived on-campus.
Auntie and Uncle Gao—the former in a lavender dress and the latter sporting a matching bowtie—were family friends, not blood relatives. Annie met Auntie Gao in English class. The two boys absorbed in an iPad game on the floor beside the couch were their sons.
The petite woman with the auburn perm in the kitchen was Big Auntie.
With guests introduced, they returned to the living room, where the dodgeball game on TV had entered an absurd endgame and colorful balls flew wildly across the screen. Chloe knew enough Mandarin to grasp that the Hans on the left of the couch were discussing their upcoming hike, with Eva leaning over her father to join the conversation, while the Gaos on the right of the couch discussed US-China relations, with Big Uncle shouting his contributions over Eva. Chloe did not understand enough Mandarin to contribute to either conversation; by the time she had parsed a sentence and formulated a response in her head, the conversation had already moved on. It didn’t help that the moon relentlessly tugged her thoughts towards night air and Douglas firs.
Annie came in to announce, “Dinner’s ready!”
The Gaos steered their sons into adjacent chairs at the dining room table. Hannah, after fulfilling her daughterly duty of setting out bowls and chopsticks, sat beside them. Next came Eva. Nick and Chloe took the two empty seats beside her, completing the kids’ side of the table.
Big Auntie sat beside Chloe. After the first round of tea was poured and sipped, she asked, “You’re a content writer, right?”
Chloe glanced at Nick’s parents. How much had they told their friends about her already? What opinions had they shared? Chloe’s parents never imposed their career choices on her, but Nick’s parents were still disappointed he didn’t get into med school.
Chloe said, “Yeah, I write AWS documentation at Amazon.”
To Chloe’s alarm, her voice had deepend, her vocal chords shifting before any visible changes. Fortunately, her poor Chinese excused her reticence; after two more Amazon-related questions from Auntie Gao, who wanted her sons to go into tech, Chloe was left alone to enjoy her food. The adults did most of the talking, continuing their conversations about hiking and politics with occasional forays into Korean dramas.
Chloe fought the urge to wriggle with pleasure as pork fat laced with soy sauce melted on her tongue, and roast duck skin crackled between her teeth.
She eventually noticed Nick’s look of mild concern at her plate. She realized the pile of clean-picked bones on her plate was twice as large as the next person’s, Big Uncle’s. Suddenly feeling queasy, she set down her chopsticks and dabbed at the grease around her mouth with her napkin.
Big Auntie asked, “Do you exercise a lot? Eva would get so chubby if she ate as much as you.”
Eva glared at her mother.
Auntie Han teasingly reprimanded her sister, “Come on, you can’t say that to a guest.”
Big Auntie said, “She’s basically part of the family now!”
Chloe wondered how Aunt Susan survived Mid-Autumn Fest dinners.
The conversation veered into cacophony as her hearing sharpened further, and her head spun with the scent of the meat she had to refrain from devouring.
Eva pointed at the mapo tofu on Nick’s plate. “Do you know if that’s vegetarian?”
He shook his head apologetically. “It has ground pork.”
Big Auntie looked over sharply. “You can take a break from your diet for one day. Let everyone have a good Mid-Autumn Fest.”
Eva sighed and picked up more bok choy.
Her parents left her alone until the desserts came out. The conversation grew louder as the 100-proof baijiu flowed. Chloe dug her nails, already sharper and yellower, into her palms, and tried to focus on the Mandarin instead of the moon’s aria.
Once everyone declared that they were stuffed, Rachel and Frank whisked away the dishes, some still half-full, to the kitchen. They returned with the taro soup, pumpkin mochis, and more mooncakes than there were guests. Rachel cut them into eighths and distributed slices onto everyone’s plates.
Before she could place a lotus paste egg yolk slice on Eva’s, Eva said, “Thanks Auntie, but I’ll skip the mooncakes. They have lard.”
Big Uncle said, “Eva, don’t make a scene. It’s not even meat.”
Rachel placed the slice on Chloe’s plate instead. “No problem. Plenty of Chinese people are vegetarian—it’s part of Buddhism.”
Big Auntie said to Eva, “You ate mooncakes last year. Come on, do the polite thing.”
Eva said, “We all know this isn’t really about me being vegetarian. It’s because I became vegetarian after meeting Irene.”
Big Uncle said, “Don’t talk about Irene here.”
Frank had to break the tension. He threw open the curtains beside the dining room table, “Hey everyone, look! The moon’s fully out!”
The guests made a show of rushing to the window to admire the moon. Its song crescendoed. Chloe barely registered Nick’s whispered explanation that Irene was Eva’s girlfriend. Her body thrummed in anticipation of shifting.
Eva hung back, her bottom lip trembling. Hannah patted her arm. “Let’s go hang out in my room.”
It took all of Chloe’s willpower to turn away from the window. She mumbled to Nick, “I’m gonna get Eva some vegan mooncakes. I’ll be fast!”
Nick looked alarmed, “What—”
While Eva and Hannah climbed upstairs, Chloe headed towards the kitchen, her hands clasped in front of her to hide the black fur sprouting on her fingers, then ran for the back door.
The long shadows on the back patio provided scant cover as she pulled off her clothes and stuffed them into her fanny pack. The shift was more uncomfortable than painful as her muscles and skin stretched to form a six-foot-long wolf.
Chloe leaped over the backyard fence into the back alley, where she made it to the end without encountering any neighbors. Then she slipped into the forest.
She’d go to Breadbox. It was a trendy downtown Chinese bakery with a large vegan selection, and she’d admired the colorful snowskin mooncakes on their Instagram feed that morning.
Chloe’s heart filled with exhilaration as she neared a major road and bounded past car headlights flickering through the undergrowth. To think she was faster than the cars.
This wasn’t her usual neck of the woods, and she marveled at its novel smells. It was more wild, dense with pre-settlement history. She scented coyotes, bears, and, faintly, other werewolves. Chloe briefly considered wrestling a grizzly bear. No. She had to get vegan mooncakes. Even though the squirrels smelled more enticing than any mooncake. She couldn’t hold back a howl, though; not when the moon glowed so bright.
Chloe emerged from the forest to turn onto the bridge that led downtown. The pedestrian walkway, separated from the cars by a thin railing, stretched ahead blankly. She delighted at loping past bumper-to-bumper traffic. Her heightened hearing caught a few surprised exclamations from passengers, but wild animal sightings were common enough in Vancouver that none sounded particularly alarmed.
She didn’t see the European tourist couple on their rental bikes pedaling onto the start of the bridge until she was only a few feet away with no time to hide. They screamed at the sight of her. The woman fell off her bike. Chloe brushed past them and into Stanley Park just beyond the bridge. It was fine. If the tourists mentioned a lupine monster, Vancouverites would dismiss it as an embellished coyote sighting.
Chloe emerged from the Southern border of Stanley Park and raced along the Northern coastline hugging downtown. The moon’s white beams danced atop black ocean waves. She wanted to return its song.
She reluctantly stopped in a dense copse of trees directly north of Breadbox to shift back. Aunt Susan had taught her the trick: find a spot without direct moonlight. Sit cross-legged—awkward for a wolf, but Aunt Susan said the awkwardness made it easier—and meditate on her human body. Chloe had gone through four pairs of earbuds before she’d found a pair adjustable enough to fit in wolf ears and durable enough to survive her clumsy claws. She used a stylus, which she’d gotten after cracking her last phone screen with her claws, to pull up the guided meditation app her aunt had recommended. She could shift back without the app, but it would take much longer than a minute-long meditation, especially with the moon coaxing her to stay lupine.
The world turned dark and cold as her sharpened senses and thick fur receded. She slipped on her clothes from the fanny pack—they were only slightly wrinkled—and shivered in her thin sweater. She jogged the two final blocks, past bars and pizzerias and a bookstore, to Breadbox.
She pushed through Breadbox’s glass door ten minutes before its 9pm closing time. A bell above the door tinkled its welcome. The bakery’s fragrant warmth thawed her goosebumped skin. A dozen other customers piled pineapple buns and egg tarts onto white plastic trays, taking advantage of the daily final hour sale. The brightly-lit display cases were less than a quarter full.
Chloe’s stomach growled after her run, despite her abundant feast of a dinner. She was immediately drawn to the last two hot dog buns. She placed one on her tray. The savory pork mooncakes enticed her next, but she reluctantly remembered that she was here for vegetarian options. To her relief, four snowskin mooncakes remained in the display case near the back: two matcha, one taro, and one strawberry. She added them all to her tray and paid in cash.
Mooncakes acquired, Chloe jogged back towards the forest and shifted once she reached the cover of trees. She wolfed down the hot dog bun. It was delicious, but not quite enough. She smelled fresher snacks darting between the trees. Chloe howled in anticipation as she picked out a squirrel to hunt.
Chloe chased the squirrel’s trail and snapped its tail between her jaws just as it started clambering up a tree. The crunch of its bones, the hot blood and tender meat, were exquisite. Chloe gave a second howl. Belly full again, she resumed her return journey.
She was back in the shadows of Nick’s parents’ patio a few minutes later, cross-legged with earbuds in. She checked her reflection in her phone’s selfie camera’s after the meditation ended. Her human face stared back, eyes bright and cheeks pink with exertion. She wiped away the stray droplets of squirrel blood on her chin with the back of her hand. Thankfully, none of it made it onto her clothes.
Chloe took a deep breath and reentered the house.
In the living room, the adults had turned their attention from the moon to the second bottle of baijiu on the living room table. The liquor flushed their cheeks and entropied them into disparate clusters. Rachel and Auntie Han comforted Big Auntie in the living room couch as she lamented the widening gulf between her and Eva. Big Uncle and the Gaos complained about gender-neutral bathrooms. Frank and the Hans laughed too loudly as they watched the next episode of the variety show; Chloe couldn’t tell if they were feigning interest or simply drunk.
Chloe announced, “I got snow skin mooncakes!”
Big Auntie wiped her eyes and looked up. “You shouldn’t have…”
Chloe said, “No problem. I’ve been looking for an excuse to try them.”
Rachel said, “Thank you, Chloe.” She went to the bottom of the staircase and called up, “Hannah, Eva, come down! Chloe got vegetarian mooncakes.”
When the two girls reemerged into the living room a few minutes later, the other guests had rearranged themselves back in a loose circle. The mooncakes were cut into eighths and displayed on small plates.
Big Uncle remorsefully offered Eva a slice of strawberry mooncake—his facsimile of the love language of giving sliced fruit. Big Auntie complimented Chloe on the mooncakes and mochis. She asked for the mochi recipe, which Chloe confessed came from the New York Times. Eva’s parents’ ire had inconvenienced Chloe, a guest, and a white-washed one at that, and they had to make amends.
They split into smaller conversations again once the mooncakes were eaten, the adults speaking Mandarin and the kids speaking English. The tension had dissipated. The aunties drifted from discussing Chloe’s mochi recipe to exchanging tips for pork chops, steamed carp, and almond cookies.
Nick put an arm around Chloe’s shoulder. “Thanks for getting the mooncakes. You saved the night.”
“No problem.”
Chloe could only hope Eva’s family’s uneasy truce extended past tonight. Her intervention could tip their relationship either way, either towards reconciliation or further deterioration.
Nick pointed out, “But. There’s no way you went to Breadbox and back in 20 minutes.”
“I got lucky with the traffic.”
“Sure.” He ran his fingers through her hair and plucked out a dried maple leaf. He said amusedly, “You have some explaining to do.”
Chloe sighed. “Can we leave soon? I’ll explain on our way back.”
Nick took in her exhaustion and nodded. His parents were only mildly disappointed that they were leaving early. On their moonlit drive home, she told him everything.
Sherry Yuan lives in San Francisco with her fiance and small brown dog, where she writes code by day and fiction by night. She loves writing, reading, art, rock climbing, and trying Trader Joe’s cheeses. She has stories published in Infinite Worlds Magazine and Luna Station Quarterly. You can find her at sherryyuan.me.
Translunar Travelers Lounge 