Max sat in the rocker on his front porch.

The night was getting cold, but he hoped the brisk air would help him clear his head.

The moon was so bright that the stars were hardly visible in the sky.

The bear sizzled just under his skin, nosing around for a way out. Max suspected he only wanted to escape to find the one he considered to be his mate.

Sorry, buddy. She’s gone.

It huffed and clawed at his mind anyway, determined.

“Nice night for a sit,” a familiar voice called from the parking lot below.

“Hey, dad,” Max said. “This is a surprise.”

“A father can’t share a six pack with his son for no reason?”

“Nice.”

Hugh Reynolds jogged up onto the porch, placed the six-pack on the table between the two rockers and sat in the empty one.

“I heard your afternoon with your mom got cut short,” Hugh said carefully.

“Yeah,” Max said. He couldn’t exactly deny it.

“Do you want to talk about it?”

“Not particularly,” Max said. He knew his dad would continue the conversation without him, but it was worth a try.

“The way your mother describes it,” Hugh went on, “you were having tea on the loggia one minute, and the next you were chasing some poor girl across the whole estate.”

“Poor girl, huh?”

“Your mother said she looked just like Cinderella running past all those marble columns,” Hugh chuckled.

“Guess that makes me the prince with the shoe,” Max said with a smile.

“The girl is none of my business,” Hugh said generously. “But your mother had a reason for wanting to talk with you today.”

Max sat up straighter and began to pray internally. Not the cancer again, please not the cancer.

“It’s not the cancer,” Hugh said quickly. “It’s something else, something to do with you.”

Max sighed in relief.

“Okay,” Max said.

“Your mom and I are shifters too, as you know,” Hugh began. “We both shifted at the normal time, in our teens.”

“Your teens?” Max asked. That was weird. They’d always made it sound like he wouldn’t shift until he was in his late twenties.

“Yeah,” Hugh nodded. “When you were born, we hoped you’d be a shifter too. Of course we knew we’d have to wait a while to really know. It’s not a sure thing.”

Max thought about the letter he’d received, but kept his mouth shut and listened.

“We were so surprised when you shifted for the first time as a toddler. That’s special, Max, very few shifters can transform before puberty.” Hugh ran a hand through his hair. “We were proud of you, but also afraid of what could happen to you. You understand it would have been unthinkable for you to shift in a public place?”

“Yeah, I can see how that would be problematic,” Max said.

“We did some research in our circles, and we learned that there was a woman running a farm in the suburbs of Philadelphia. She fostered early bloomers there. Of course we weren’t willing to give you up, but we hoped maybe she could help,” Hugh explained. “We got there and she was so kind to us, helped us with all the information we could ever need. And she made us an offer.”

Hugh paused.

“What was the offer?” Max asked.

“She offered to have her friend sing over you - a special song. A magical song. She told us it would help to suppress your bear until you were older,” he said. “Your mother and I thought it was most likely nonsense, but we agreed. And it worked. You didn’t shift after that day. The spell was supposed to work for three hundred moons.”

“I see,” Max said.

“And tomorrow night is the three hundredth full moon since we visited Harkness Farms,” Hugh told him.

“Harkness Farms,” Max echoed. “So it was real.”

“You remember it?” Hugh sounded amazed.

“No,” Max said, although that wasn’t entirely true. He didn’t remember the looks of the place, but the thought of it struck him with a strong, peaceful feeling – a felling of coming home. “I got a letter from a woman by the name of Kate Harkness. I didn’t know whether to believe it or not. She said she wanted to warn me about my three hundredth moon.”

“Warn you?” Hugh’s voice went reedy with worry.

“Turns out that part was for no reason,” Max said. “I, um, shifted last night.”

“You did?”

“Yeah, I did,” Max grinned.

“Did you enjoy it?”

“Don’t try to change the subject,” Max said. “The letter said something else too. It said that you and mom gave up your life in the city and moved out here to protect me, is that true?”

“We love it out here, Max,” his father said.

“You didn’t answer my question.”

“Yes. We came out here to raise you. In case the spell didn’t work.”

Max thought about what it would be like to completely abandon his life, and swallowed over the lump in his throat.

“Thank you.”

“Don’t mention it,” Hugh said with a big grin. “It’s a good place to be a bear.”

Max grinned back.

“So, we could crack open a beer,” Hugh said, “or…”

“Or?”

“Or we could go for a run,” Hugh said.

Max’s father wasn’t a jogger.

Oh.

“Definitely let’s go for a run,” Max said.

His father’s eyes were dancing as they strode down the steps, across the gravel drive, and into the trees.

“I like to hide my clothes in the bushes,” Hugh said, stripping down.

“What if you can’t find them again?” Max asked.

“Oh, you’ll be able to find them,” Hugh said.

When their clothes were bundled neatly in the thicket, Max stood and waited for his dad’s signal.

He’d seen his father’s naked form as he helped to bathe and dress him during that terrible year of treatments. It was good to see him looking himself again, filled out and strong. He wondered if being a shifter had helped him to heal.

Hugh winked at Max and bowed.

Except that he wasn’t bowing, he had dropped into a huge bear.

Max called to his own inner bear.

The animal surfaced eagerly and Max sank into the background, as if he’d done it all his life.

The soil felt damp and satisfying under his paws.

Hugh scrambled up the hillside ahead of him, his large, lumbering form suddenly graceful.

Max followed, tasting the moonlight on the air, scenting the fish in the creek below with his sensitive nose.

The simple magic of the world was easier to spot from this form - family, fish and fresh mountain air all filled him with peace.

The only thing missing was his mate.

But from the bear’s perspective that was a simple matter too.

Max loved Sarah. Sarah loved Max, but something was bothering her. It was only a matter of finding out what, fixing it, and claiming his mate forever.

Simple.

So he crashed through the underbrush with a glad heart.