On the night of the full moon our super-sensitive wolf vision was at its height. We ranged so far that the color of the sky confused me. I said, Altemonte, look at the sky, it’s all pink. We’ve finally made it to the Wolfriders’ land, to the World of Two Moons, or maybe to Middle-earth. But Altemonte said, I think the sky is that color because it’s morning and the sun is rising. We’d better go back before my grandma wakes up.

But then I saw my cave.

It was the cave I had discovered just before the Outside Girl took me away, except then it had been winter so its mouth had teeth which were icicles, and now it was spring so the cave had a mouth of puffball mushrooms and a red eft crawled out of it like the cave had a tongue, and once I saw my cave I saw everything else too. The oak tree with the split trunk and the sandstone like a star from outer space and the burned-out elm stump where I sometimes found morels and the sassafras that was a catapult. What is it, Altemonte said, you look like you have to pee or something. I told Altemonte, This cave means that I am home. Altemonte said, You told me you lived in the All Worship Altemonte camper not in a cave, and I was like, That camper isn’t far. I know my way from here.

I pictured every step, first the hollow beech tree, then the ditch that the ducks liked especially to shit in when they roamed that far, then the sharp turn downhill where one time but not again I saw a snapping turtle, then the jagged hickory, then the trees of heaven that Mama K liked to cut rings around, then the worn-out peach orchard, the oak tree where the Mean Aunt and I shook acorns, the goat path, and then the roof of the house and then the house, then the smoke from the chimney and then the chimney, then the firepit and then the fire, and then the mamas and the Mean Aunt. They were knitting and whittling and skinning and waiting for me.