I laughed and kept eating. I was hungry. Ravenous. I ate a lot, but I still felt unsatisfied. Jules seemed to feel the same way. Once he’d finished his fish, he gnawed on his stick for a bit. Then he started fidgeting and moving around, sitting on this log and then that one, seemingly unable to find a comfortable spot. His movements were jerky and sudden. He was moving around a lot, even for Jules, and that was saying something.

I looked up at the moon. It was swollen, almost full. Dappled and milky in the black night sky. I found myself chattering mindlessly. “The waxing gibbous moon. The last quarter before the full moon.” I was saying it more to myself than to Jules. “More than half-illuminated, but less than full. It’ll be a few days yet till full moon. The word gibbous means ‘convex’ or ‘protuberant.’ It comes from the root word that means ‘hump-backed.’ Waxing moons are a time for introspection. A time for preparation. A time to refine yourself before the next phase of your development.”

I had no idea why I was talking like that. I did it sometimes when I was nervous or didn’t know how to behave in social situations with humans. When I felt like that, I tended to spew a whole lot of facts and information about whatever topic popped into my head. It made no sense that I was doing it when only Jules and I were around.

Jules jumped to his feet again. He tugged at his T-shirt, twisting his body as if the fabric was chaffing him. I found myself unable to sit still either. I paced around the fire pit, and then I paced around the whole cabin. When I returned, Jules was still on his feet. He was scrubbing his nails over his chest and scratching the sides of his neck and face. I noticed that I was doing the same thing. My skin felt wrong. Too tight. Itchy. Creeping and crawling.

Jules looked at me suddenly. His eyes were bloodshot, and he was breathless. “Sully, I think I’m going to shift.”