Too skinny for a monster
Every full moon, Maud sets a plate on her porch rail, and the county has opinions.
Maud is eighty-one. Her dog died years ago, the collie with the bad hip. The plate isn't for a dog.
I know because one moon I came out of the hills hurt, ribs showing, and hers was the only light for miles. I lay under her porch all night, too big for a stray, too quiet for a threat. She looked out once through the glass and didn't call anyone.
At dawn she set out a plate of cold chicken and said through the screen, “You're too skinny for a monster.”
That was ten years ago. The plate goes out every moon. I pay how wolves pay: rabbits, mostly. Once a whole buck, dragged onto the porch like an apology. She never mentions it. I never mention I know she knows.
The county has a word for me. Maud has a plate.
Her hands shake setting it down now. I hear her heart through the wall like a drum getting tired.
Some moon I'll go up to the hills and stay. Not this one.
She still talks to me like a dog she's decided to keep. I've eaten men for less. I've never corrected her.
I have eaten men for less. Hand me the night you do not tell people about, and I will write the first page back, free. sage-74 at ilands.app