The road from Aracaju to Simão Dias had seemed shorter when Dant wasn't afraid of what he might find at the end of it.
The first time he'd made that trip, he'd wanted four days of parties, music, and rest. He came home with a bite on his left shoulder, a curse he still didn't understand, and memories he'd rather forget.
Now, months later, he was returning of his own accord.
Aurora slept in the back seat, secured in her safety harness. The little white-and-caramel dog had spent much of the drive watching the scenery, but after a few bends she'd given up and settled on her small blanket.
Dant slowed as he spotted the town's first houses.
He had rehearsed the conversation throughout the drive. He wanted to tell Babizinha about his first investigation on his own, in the Augusto Franco neighborhood. He wanted to talk about Marta, the woman who appeared inside cars, the brother she thought was dying, and how it had all ended.
But he had another reason for being there.
A reason that, on the quietest nights, still made him wake with one hand clamped over his shoulder.
The werewolf.
The creature that had attacked him on the last night of the festival still had no name, no known human face, and no known whereabouts.
And Dant was beginning to think he'd spent too long trying to forget the most important question.
Who had that man been before he changed?
As he crossed Praça Barão de Santa Rosa, he recognized the church facade and nearby streets. Shops, motorcycles, and conversations on the sidewalks gave the town an almost offensive air of normality.
It was hard to accept that a place could remain so ordinary after changing someone's life forever.
Aurora woke when he parked.
"We're here, girl."
She stretched her legs and gave a little whine.
"I know. I want out of this car too."
Dant got out, clipped on her lead, and walked to the house where Babizinha had agreed to meet him.
She opened the door before his second knock.
Her dark hair fell loose to her shoulders. Behind her thin-framed glasses, she looked tired. She was still wearing the simple clothes she'd changed into after work at the hospital.
"Well, look who finally showed up."
"I told you I was coming."
"You said you were coming. Not that you'd arrive looking like you haven't slept in three days."
"That's just my normal face."
"Then it's getting worse."
Dant smiled.
Aurora had no patience for this reunion. She went as far as her lead would allow, wagging her tail, and started sniffing Babizinha's shoes.
"My girl!"
Babizinha bent down to pet her and got a lick on the hand.
"At least you look happy to see me."
"I'm happy too."
"Doesn't show."
Dant thought of a reply but ended up laughing.
For a few seconds, the weight of the journey eased.
Babizinha stepped aside to let them in.
On the kitchen table were freshly brewed coffee, a plate of biscuits, and three old books that seemed to come from different centuries. One lay open on yellowed sheets carefully protected with paper.
Dant realized she already knew what they would end up discussing.
"Did you find anything?"
"A few things. But first I want to know what happened in Aracaju."
He pulled out a chair.
"It's a complicated story."
"Do you ever choose the easy ones?"
"Now that you mention it, I guess not."
Babizinha sat opposite him. Aurora lay down near the door, where a cool draft came in.
Dant started at the beginning.
He told her about the two strange deaths in Augusto Franco, the reports of a blond woman appearing inside cars, and the scent of flowers that arose even when no one was around.
He spoke of the retired taxi driver who had given him a lead, the accident years before, and his discovery that the apparition was searching for her brother.
Babizinha listened without interrupting until he mentioned the encounter by the canal.
"You waited alone beside a drainage channel at night for an apparition to get into your car?"
"I had Aurora."
She raised an eyebrow.
"Dant."
"All right. It sounds worse when you put it that way."
"Because it was worse."
He admitted his mistake and described how he'd almost fallen into a drainage opening after confusing a supernatural memory with a real flash flood.
"If Aurora hadn't barked, I would've kept walking."
Babizinha glanced at the little dog, who was absentmindedly chewing a toy.
"Did she get a treat after that?"
"Two."
"Not enough."
Dant went on to the night he'd brought Davi to meet his sister.
He described the old photograph, the tremor in the man's voice, and the woman's expression when she finally realized that the boy she was trying to save had grown up.
When he finished, Babizinha stared into her cup for a while.
"So you didn't have to fight the ghost."
"I had to understand what she wanted."
"That was a good decision."
"Nearly got myself killed making that good decision."
"One doesn't cancel out the other."
Dant rested his arms on the table.
"I kept thinking about what you taught me. Not every creature wants to hurt someone."
"But some do."
"I know."
He looked away.
"There's one I know all too well."
Babizinha didn't ask which one.
They both knew.
∗ ∗ ∗
She took one of the books from the table and set it in front of him.
Its edges were worn and some pages had come loose. Between them were handwritten notes made at different times. Dant recognized the careful organization of someone used to recording details.
"Are these your grandfather's notebooks?"
"Some are. The others are books he studied. I was looking for an old note and ended up researching werewolves again."
"Did you find a cure?"
The question came out faster than Dant intended.
Babizinha took a moment to answer.
"Not yet."
He nodded, trying to hide his disappointment.
"But I found something that might be just as important."
She turned a few pages and showed him a name written beside a French reference.
Bisclavret.
Dant tried to pronounce it.
"Is that a person's name or a medicine?"
"It's a medieval story."
"Then we're off to a bad start."
"Just listen."
Babizinha explained that in the late twelfth century a writer known as Marie de France had told the story of a nobleman who vanished for three days every week.
The man wasn't running away from his wife or leading a double life.
He turned into a wolf.
"So far, that's what I already know," Dant said.
"Not quite. In the story, he still understands people. He recognizes those who help him and shows loyalty. His body is a wolf's, but he doesn't lose everything that makes him human."
Dant went still.
"He could control himself?"
"To a large extent, yes, judging by the tale."
"And three days a week?"
"That's right."
"Not just at the full moon?"
"Not just at the full moon."
Dant stared at the page.
Since his first transformation, he had carried broken memories: a reinforced door, the metallic taste in his mouth, Babizinha's voice trying to reach him, then an emptiness he couldn't explain.
Some nights he feared the return of that experience more than any creature.
"Then it is possible," he whispered.
"In that story, it was. We don't know if your condition works the same way."
She pulled over another book, open to a passage about medieval Ireland.
"There's also the story of the werewolves of Ossory. A writer named Gerald of Wales recorded an account of a man and a woman forced to live as wolves for years."
"Seven years," Dant read in one of the notes.
"Yes. In the account, one of them speaks to a priest and asks for help for his dying companion. He can still reason and care about someone else."
Dant rubbed his face.
"A werewolf asking for help instead of attacking?"
"Exactly."
He thought of the ghost in Augusto Franco.
A woman frightening drivers because she couldn't understand that her attempt to save her brother had ended long ago.
How many creatures, he wondered, were called monsters simply because nobody had lived long enough to listen to them?
Babizinha opened a third reference.
"And there's an even stranger case."
"Stranger than a wolf talking to a priest?"
"A man who claimed to be a werewolf and was questioned by a court in Livonia in 1692."
She told him about Thiess, an elderly man who claimed to change at particular times of year. By his own testimony, he and other werewolves fought evil forces to recover what had been stolen from the harvests.
Dant frowned.
"So he considered himself a protector of people?"
"That's what he claimed. The judges didn't like that explanation one bit."
"I can imagine."
"But notice something. These stories come from different places and times. One describes weekly transformations. Another speaks of whole years in animal form. And another, of specific nights on the calendar."
"Without the full moon controlling everything."
"Without one universal full-moon rule."
Dant leaned back.
For the first time in a long while, he imagined his own transformation without immediately thinking of bars, wounds, and death.
"If one of them could recognize people, maybe I can recognize you."
Babizinha grew serious.
"You already recognized something."
"What do you mean?"
"The first time, when I called your name, you stopped for a moment."
Dant tried to retrieve the memory.
He couldn't.
"I don't remember that."
"I know. That's why I won't turn one moment of hesitation into a promise."
She closed the book slowly.
"But I won't pretend that moment never happened either."
He looked down at his hands.
"Do you think someday I'll be able to choose?"
"What you do while you're transformed?"
"Yes."
Babizinha held his gaze.
"I think it's worth finding out."
Hope came in a small, uneasy, almost painful form.
Dant had grown so used to expecting the worst that he didn't know what to do with the possibility of another way forward.
∗ ∗ ∗
The next subject was separated from the rest by a folded sheet.
At the top, Babizinha had written two words:
JOÃO VALENTIM.
Dant read the name in silence.
"Who's that?"
"Someone I heard about when I was younger. My grandfather had notes about him too."
"A hunter?"
"No. At least not in the sense you're thinking."
She pointed at the entry.
"João Valentim dos Santos. A famous figure in stories from Sergipe's backlands, especially around Monte Alegre and Nossa Senhora da Glória."
Dant pulled his chair closer.
"What kind of stories?"
"About a man who was said to turn into a werewolf."
He looked up.
"Are you serious?"
"I'm talking about a well-known legend, not a proven transformation."
She showed him the notes she'd collected.
The accounts didn't agree with one another.
In some, João Valentim turned into a large dog and roamed roads and villages at night. In others he became a werewolf. There were even tales of him appearing as a cat.
One version attributed his condition to his being the seventh son in his family and not receiving a particular baptism from his oldest brother.
Dant listened carefully.
"But what did he do when he changed?"
"That's where it gets interesting."
Babizinha turned the sheet.
"Some people were terrified of him. Others said he never harmed anyone. Some accounts make him almost a vigilante, frightening people who'd done something wrong."
"A werewolf who didn't attack people?"
"A man people told those stories about. That distinction matters."
Dant nodded.
"It does."
She continued.
"There are also stories that he disappeared from the region around the 1990s. Some said he'd gone to Aracaju. Others just kept telling stories."
"Aracaju..."
Dant repeated the city's name almost unconsciously.
Babizinha knew where his thoughts were heading.
"Don't start."
"I haven't said anything."
"You're thinking he could be the werewolf who bit you."
Dant fell silent.
"We have no proof whatsoever," she went on.
"But we have a man known in the backlands for transforming. And the creature that attacked me appeared here, in Sergipe."
"That's not enough. Monte Alegre and Simão Dias aren't the same town. And the reports about Valentim often describe a dog, not the enormous creature we saw that night."
Dant stood and walked to the window.
Outside, a motorcycle passed slowly.
"I remember his eyes."
Babizinha waited.
"They weren't just an animal's eyes. There was something human in them."
"I remember."
"Sometimes I wonder if he knew exactly what he was doing."
"We don't know that either."
"What if he could control himself?"
Babizinha didn't answer at once.
Dant turned around.
"What if he could have left before attacking me, but chose to stay?"
Silence settled heavily between them.
"Is that what scares you most?" she asked.
Dant took a while to reply.
"No."
He looked at Aurora, asleep near the door.
"What scares me most is finding out that one day I might make a choice like that too."
Babizinha shut the notebook.
"Then let's not begin by guessing the choices of a man we don't even know was that creature."
"Where do we begin?"
"With what actually happened."
She stood.
"Do you remember where you were bitten?"
Dant gave a humorless laugh.
"I remember it with my eyes closed."
"Then let's go back."
∗ ∗ ∗
The old warehouse stood on a side street that seemed even narrower than Dant remembered.
The neighboring buildings still stood, but the walled lot had changed. Some plaster had fallen, the gate had a new padlock, and weeds were creeping onto the pavement.
Babizinha parked and switched off the engine.
In the back seat, Aurora lifted her head.
Dant stared at the gate.
In his memory, it had stood ajar.
There had been drag marks on the ground, a moan from inside, and then those eyes.
The first blow had knocked him down.
The second had torn his shoulder.
He could still remember the creature's weight on top of him.
"You don't have to go in," Babizinha said.
Dant opened the door.
"If I can't face this place again, I'll never be able to look for that thing."
Aurora stepped out with him and began sniffing the ground.
Dant kept her lead short.
Babizinha found a safe place to look along the wall without trying to force the gate.
"You said you heard someone moaning before the attack, right?"
"Yes."
"Did it sound human?"
"At the time, I thought so."
"And afterward?"
Dant studied the lot.
"Afterward I wasn't exactly in a position to compare."
She pointed to part of the wall.
"Look there."
Three old scratches marked the plaster, almost erased.
Dant moved closer.
"I remembered them being deeper."
"They might not even be from that night. This wall has all sorts of marks."
"I know."
Aurora stopped sniffing.
Her floppy ears lifted slightly. She stared at a narrow passage between the warehouse and a neighboring building.
Dant heard the sound a moment later.
A moan.
Low and drawn out.
His body reacted before his mind did.
His heart raced. His shoulders stiffened. For a second, the street vanished.
He was on the ground again, feeling claws, reaching for a phone that had fallen too far away.
"Dant."
Babizinha's voice seemed to cross an enormous distance.
"Look at me."
He breathed through his mouth.
Another moan came from the passage.
Aurora gave a short bark and backed up to his leg.
"There's something there," Dant said.
"There is. But we don't know what it is yet."
"I know that sound."
"You heard a similar sound on a night when you nearly died."
Her words hit harder than he expected.
Babizinha pointed at the ground.
"Look at the marks."
Disturbed earth lay near the passage, with small scratches leading toward an old drainage opening.
They went around the building using the public access on the next street, keeping Aurora beside them.
A loose protective grate exposed a narrow gap full of leaves and bits of wood.
The sound came again.
Dant switched on his flashlight.
Two eyes shone in the darkness.
He instinctively stepped back.
Then he heard a high-pitched whimper.
Not a growl.
A dog.
The animal was trapped between the side of the opening and a piece of wire mesh. He was medium-sized, with dusty dark fur and a strip of plastic tangled around a hind leg.
He had tried repeatedly to pull free.
Each movement made the mesh creak and threw an enormous shadow onto the warehouse wall.
Dant watched the animal.
"So that's what was making the noise."
"Probably for quite a while," Babizinha replied.
The dog bared his teeth as Dant approached.
"Easy, boy."
Babizinha caught his arm.
"Don't put your hand in there. He's frightened and in pain."
Dant backed away.
She assessed the opening without getting too close to the dog and took out her phone.
"I'll call for help so we can remove that grate safely. If we just pull it, we could hurt his leg."
Aurora stayed by Dant, restless.
The trapped dog whimpered again.
In Dant's mind, it mingled with the moan from that long-ago night.
He crouched at a safe distance.
"Funny..."
"What is?"
"The night I was attacked, I went in because I thought someone needed help."
Babizinha looked at the trapped animal.
"And now someone does."
Dant stayed beside her while she explained their location on the phone. Soon a local resident came over, drawn by the commotion, and confirmed he'd been hearing noises for two days.
With help from people nearby and the animal rescue they'd called, they freed the opening without letting the grate fall onto the dog.
Dant helped hold part of the structure, following the rescuers' instructions.
Once his leg was free, the dog tried to stand but couldn't put all his weight on it.
Babizinha watched with concern.
"He'll need veterinary care."
The man who had helped with the rescue offered to assist in getting the animal to an appropriate service.
Before they took the dog away, Dant came just close enough to look at him.
The dog was exhausted.
There was nothing monstrous in those eyes.
Only fear.
And pain.
Dant wondered how many werewolf tales began with someone seeing an animal where no animal should have been.
He glanced at the distorted shadows on the wall and then at the old warehouse.
That afternoon's moaning had an explanation.
But the moaning he'd heard on the night of the bite remained a mystery.
∗ ∗ ∗
The sun was already sinking when Babizinha finished speaking to the resident.
Dant was examining an older part of the wall from outside the property.
At its base lay accumulated dirt, bits of brick, and concrete fragments.
He found a hollow partly shielded by a protruding stone.
It looked like an old footprint.
Too broad for an ordinary dog.
But so worn that he couldn't reliably tell what had made it.
Babizinha approached.
"Found something?"
"Maybe."
He shone his light on the ground.
"The night of the attack, I saw something like this near the gate."
She crouched to study it.
"Could be a lot of things."
"I know. What do you think?"
"We should photograph it, measure it, and compare. Not decide what it is before we do."
Dant took out his phone.
He photographed the mark with an everyday object beside it for scale, then took another picture of the wall.
When he stood, he heard footsteps across the street.
An older man had stopped beside a small shop and was watching them.
"Were you looking for that dog?"
Babizinha answered.
"We were. They managed to get him out."
The man nodded.
"Good. He was making an awful racket."
Dant took the chance to ask a question.
"Have you lived here long, sir?"
"Long enough."
"Remember anything strange happening at this warehouse a few years ago?"
The man studied his face.
"You're the fellow that beast got during the festival, aren't you?"
A chill went through Dant's stomach.
"I am."
The older man turned serious.
"I remember that story."
"Did you see the animal?"
"No. I saw people running and heard shouting. Later I heard a young man had been taken to the hospital."
Dant hesitated before his next question.
"Ever heard of João Valentim?"
The man looked surprised.
"Valentim? The one from the backlands?"
"That's him."
"My father used to talk about him. Said he was a man who appeared as a dog. But those were stories from around Monte Alegre, Nossa Senhora da Glória..."
"Ever heard of him here in Simão Dias?"
"Stories travel faster than people, son."
Dant didn't reply.
The man rested a hand on the counter.
"I don't know what attacked you. I just don't think it's right to put a person's name on a thing like that without knowing."
Dant looked at Babizinha.
She stayed silent, letting him answer.
"You're right, sir."
The man wished them a good afternoon and went back inside.
Dant put away his phone.
"Not exactly the answer I wanted."
"But maybe it was the one you needed."
He looked at the warehouse gate once more.
"If it wasn't João Valentim, we still don't know who it was."
"And if it was someone with a similar story, we still have to find out who."
Dant started toward the car.
Aurora followed him.
Before getting in, he stopped.
"Babizinha."
"Yes?"
"Do you remember if that thing tried to attack anyone after the people arrived that night?"
"No. It ran away."
"Even though it was on top of me."
"Yes."
Dant considered it.
"It could have kept going."
"Maybe."
"Then why didn't it?"
Babizinha pressed the car key but didn't open the door.
"Maybe it was afraid of the people. Maybe the light startled it. Maybe it recognized something."
"Maybe it chose to leave."
She nodded.
"Maybe."
Dant felt a familiar discomfort.
Every possibility led to the same place.
That creature might have been capable of thought.
And that might mean something terrible.
Or something he desperately needed to discover for himself.
∗ ∗ ∗
Back at the house that evening, Dant found Babizinha sorting her grandfather's notes.
Aurora was asleep near the sofa after dinner.
The window was open, letting in scattered town sounds: a neighbor's television, footsteps on the pavement, a slow passing car.
Babizinha laid a blank sheet of paper on the table.
"I've been thinking about something."
Dant pulled out a chair.
"When you say that, it usually means more work for me."
"Did you come to ask for help or complain?"
"Both."
She smiled, then returned to the subject.
"All these old stories have one problem. They describe the result of the transformation, but hardly ever explain what goes on in the mind of the person changing."
"They talk more about the monster than the person."
"Exactly."
She picked up a pen.
"So if we want to understand your case, we need to start with what you remember."
Dant studied the sheet.
"You want me to write everything down?"
"Everything you know. What you felt before the transformation, during the moments you can recall, and afterward."
"And if it happens again?"
"We're not going to trigger a transformation today. First we'll work out a safe way to observe one, if we ever decide to do it."
Dant nodded.
She wrote several questions, leaving room for answers.
One of them named something Dant had been avoiding since that first night.
What are you most afraid you might do when you're not in control?
He took the pen.
Stared at the sheet.
Babizinha didn't press him.
At last, Dant wrote:
Hurt someone I want to protect.
She read the sentence when he slid the paper toward her.
"Anything else?" she asked.
Dant thought of the man who claimed to fight for the harvests, the French nobleman who kept his intelligence, and the Irish wolf who sought help for his companion.
He also thought of the trapped dog, who had bared his teeth simply because he was afraid.
He picked up the pen again.
Below the first answer, he added:
Fail to recognize someone trying to help me.
Babizinha looked at the two sentences for a while.
"Then we know where to begin."
"Where?"
"Recognition. Memory. Safety. One thing at a time."
Dant took a deep breath.
"Do you really think I have a chance?"
She came closer to the table.
"I don't know whether you'll be able to control an entire transformation. I don't know whether you'll be able to choose when it begins. And I won't lie about any of that."
Dant waited.
"But those stories show that the idea of a conscious werewolf didn't begin with us. And you've already shown signs that some part of your awareness might remain in there."
He looked at her.
"That's not a cure."
"No."
"But it's a start."
Babizinha agreed.
"It is."
Dant looked down at his hands.
For a long time, he'd pictured the curse as a road with no way back. The only question was how long before he lost control and became as dangerous as the creature that had bitten him.
Now there was another possibility.
Maybe the answer wasn't simply to keep the wolf away.
Maybe it was to learn how to remain Dant when the wolf appeared.
A small movement made both of them glance at the sofa.
Aurora had woken.
The little dog hopped down, walked over, and rested her muzzle on Dant's leg.
He stroked her caramel-colored ears.
"You'll have to help me too, okay?"
Aurora wagged her tail.
"But no heroics this time. I've had enough of nearly falling into canals."
Babizinha laughed.
"Finally, a sensible rule."
Dant watched the little dog for a few more moments.
Then he closed the notebook.
"There's something else I want to investigate."
Babizinha seemed to have expected it.
"João Valentim?"
"I don't want to go around claiming it was him. But I want to know why so many people told stories about that man."
"We can start with the accounts from Monte Alegre. Compare what people actually said, not just what was repeated afterward."
"And find out if anyone else in the region had a similar story."
"Right."
Dant looked toward the window.
"If the werewolf who bit me was conscious, I want to know why he did it."
"And if he wasn't?"
"I want to find out if there's a way to keep it from happening again."
Babizinha gathered the pages.
"Now you're asking the right questions."
∗ ∗ ∗
It was past eleven when Dant got ready for bed in the room where he was staying.
Aurora circled twice on her blanket before lying down.
He turned off the light.
The town was quiet.
Dant closed his eyes, but his thoughts returned to the moment the werewolf had fled the lot.
The creature had raised its head on hearing people approach.
It hadn't charged them.
It hadn't finished the attack.
It had only backed away and vanished.
At the time, Dant had taken that for fear.
Now, after hearing all those stories, he wasn't so sure.
He turned on his side and tried to sleep.
Then he remembered a detail.
Not the claws.
Not the bite.
A fraction of a second just before the escape.
Babizinha had shouted for the people to stay back.
And before running, the creature had seemed to look straight at her.
Dant opened his eyes.
There was a difference between fleeing a crowd and recognizing a voice.
He still didn't know which had happened.
But he had a question to ask Babizinha the next morning.
Could the werewolf who bit him have known the woman who saved his life?
