At night she put on her hooves.

Willa said goodnight to her father, who was still working at his desk. From her room, she listened for him to leave his study and join her mother in the bedroom, for him to close his door on the day. At last, slowly, she slipped from under her covers to the cool wood floor and reached under her bed like a thief. She pulled the green silk purse into her lap and removed one hoof.

Brown and shiny, it caught the moonlight through her window, which made it nearly shimmer. Willa petted it, smoother than skin but rougher than a fingernail. The hoof had a neat cleft in the front, dividing it into two toes. She tucked it back into the purse and climbed barefoot out her first-floor window. She walked past the hedges and down the hard stone of their front walk. Through the cornfield, into the thicketed woods, and along the river. She wandered human until she was sure she was far enough away. Then she slipped on her hooves.

Willa’s hair bristled and she shook herself out into the beast. She stomped her hooved feet, which were now four, and felt the wind on her furred back. She blinked, her eyelids heavy with extra-long lashes. She continued on, carelessly stomping branches and leaves, until she came to the other side of the woods. She hesitated just inside the edge of the trees    and looked out over the field of buffalo.

They chewed grass silently, stood close and warm, inviting. A gibbous moon rolled through the sky.

She emerged from the woods and some of the other buffalo saw her. She came forward and touched the nose of a tall cow, and the brush of their snouts in the chill sent a happy shiver through her. She flicked her tail pleasantly, shook her big big head. Willa munched grass, teeth sliding on teeth, next to one of the baby buffalo, who was something like her friend. Her name was Misha.

When the moon hit its apex, the lowing started. First deep and gruff, then rising in pitch. The sound gained power as each joined in. Willa made a low long sound, a noseing huff that got higher as breath left her mighty chest, then settled back down to a deep rolling exhale through her lips.

Then, the buffalo babies spoke, not just lowing but words. With their long, gymnastic tongues, they spoke about the night.

Misha said, “I am a mountain, aren’t you? I am so happy to see you, starlight beastling, wild confused baby cricket, you.”

“I missed you, missed you, sister,” Willa replied.

“Sweet friend of my grass-grown dew-nourished heart, you’re here and it’s everything everything to be out star-blanket-wrapped together, pointing our noses towards the sky waiting for the bright bird-sounds of dawn.”

“I love you I love you sister sister.”

“We’re here, we’re all here and we never have been before and never will be again with these exact frogs, we are born on night frog noises and become full up on their deep-dappled calls to the dead.”

“Sister, sister beside the trees, in the grass.”

All night they would do this, their little ode to the world. While the adults watched affectionately, silently, the baby buffalo taught her how to pray. There was no buffalo god like the god Willa’s family prayed to in church. Just everything tingling alive.

This was still before she had exposed them, before their tongues became heavy and quiet, babies like adults, fear having riffled their senses of selves. This was before she brought Darren there.

For now, though, Misha had a voice like a fiddle, bright and earnest. She had darling little twitching ears and lovely eyelashes that collected dew when it got close to morning, which meant it was time for Willa to leave.

 *

Willa and Darren met when his parents bought the farmland backing her family’s land.

All her 16 years, the same family had lived behind her. Grimmy had inherited the land from his father, who had bought it fifty years before, and turned the dirt into corn and two more generations of men. Grimmy lived with his son, Todd, and Todd’s wife, Rebecca, and their new baby girl, a cooing, dark-haired child.

Rebecca wasn’t much older than Willa, and, once the baby came, Willa spent her afternoons there, helping out after school when she had formerly wandered alone. She didn’t want her parents to know she had nowhere to go, that the other girls, the ones that lived in town, scoffed at the dust that gathered on her shoes as she walked from the farm each morning.

Rebecca saw her as the buffalo did, delighted like they did in her presence, made being together easy. Willa told Rebecca about school and what she was afraid of and what she wanted, bouncing the baby on her lap as Rebecca mended one of Grimmy’s shirts or hung laundry out their back door, a bee buzzing pleasantly nearby. Whenever Todd and Grimmy came home, around sunset, Todd would call Rebecca “Becs” and kiss her, leaving a dirty fingerprint on her arm or cheek, proof of his love.

When Rebecca stepped out and Willa was watching the baby, she whispered into its chubby neck about Misha and her singing herd. “Are you a baby buffalo too?” she asked, kissing the tiny ear. The baby gurgled contentedly.

When it happened, Todd was halfway through building Grimmy a small cabin on the property, so that Todd and Rebecca could have privacy but Grimmy could be nearby. So Grimmy could have grown old and lazy with his grandbabies in his lap, Willa’s mother said, shaking her head and tsking.

Todd had gone out alone on the tractor that morning to overturn some new dirt before planting. It was springtime and the katydids were still wild in the morning, would have been singing in quick, rhythmic bursts to each other as he crossed his land once, twice. By the time Grimmy found Todd in the afternoon, after he didn’t come home for lunch, the cicadas had taken over, with their vibrating zing-zing-zings.

The tractor had slipped down an embankment and flipped on top of Todd, pinning him underneath. They weren’t sure if he had died right away, but he was gone when they found him. The pattern of early-spring freezing and thawing must have made the soil weak, Willa’s father said.

Willa held the baby to her chest as she wriggled and everything shifted around them.

Willa’s father let Grimmy bury Todd in the woods at the edge of their property, beneath the drooping chapel of a ponderosa pine, a real resting place if there was one. Grimmy sold the farm not long after and moved with Rebecca and the baby to a small town half a world away, where Rebecca had secured work as a schoolteacher.

And so the days felt eternal and Willa waited anxiously for the dark, when Misha would stand beside her and name every nighttime noise, until Willa forgot herself again.

Two months after Rebecca moved out, in late spring, Darren and his family moved in. Willa could see their truck driving up way across the cornfield, shuddering down the dirt road like a wild thing.

They first met at church that Sunday morning; the bugs had settled down. Willa drove with her parents down the road that connected their farm with the little town and its littler one-room church. The pews sat in their rows, expectant and even. They took their seats towards the back, so when Darren and his family hurried inside and sat in front of them, just as the preacher was gathering everyone’s attention, they didn’t have time to say hello, and she saw the back of his neck before his eyes. His skin was sunny and covered with freckles that started above his hairline and disappeared under his shirt collar. They even dotted the backs of his ears.

 After the service, Willa’s father introduced them all, and she finally saw Darren’s face. His eyes were bright green, and when he said hello, he revealed a small chip in his front tooth, a freckle on his lip. Everyone shuffled out, and Darren and Willa stood beside the church together.

“We came down from Billings,” he said, coolly drawing lines in the dirt with his boot heel. “We lived there for a few years after we lost our first farm, but now Pa wants to try again. Not much here compared to Billings, is there?”

“I’ve never been anywhere as big as Billings. What’s it like?”

“Crowded.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah, I mean, you can see the mountains out past the city limits, but inside it’s all people and more people and cars.”

“You don’t miss it?”

“I mean look, where there are people you get to meet people, right?” He looked expectantly, and she nodded like she knew. “There are people from all over in Billings. It’s just—you can’t hear the bugs there, you know?” He looked down as he rolled up his shirtsleeve. “And, the other thing about Billings is, you know, the girls aren’t as pretty.” Willa could feel herself blush down to her fingertips.

 *

The first time he kissed her he was walking her home from school, and they were halfway between their houses. The cicadas zing-zing-zing’ed in the dusky air and a hawk was circling overhead; they could hear the mice and their babies rustling through the cornstalks. Everything was wild and alive around them. And they were too.

Some afternoons they walked back and forth between their houses for hours. It was a marvel, having someone to be with. As they walked, she described all the animal sounds—naming bugs and birds and rodents and the local plants that blew in the late afternoon wind—and he told her about people he’d met in Billings—the artist from Missoula, the real Indians from Havre, the ranchers from Blaine County.

Often, he took her hand and held it close to his chest. It was such a sweet gesture, and she liked it so much that he wanted her close, so she let him hold her there even though it hurt her wrist a little. Sometimes he pulled her to him just before they approached her house and kissed her cheekbone near her ear. Then he pressed her mouth open with his own, and she traced the chip in his tooth with her tongue.

When evening came and they were both tucked into their rooms, she remembered that there were no other buildings out in these fields. It was only the stars everywhere between them, seeming to chirp like crickets as their thoughts wandered below, where they weren’t supposed to.

Springtime faded towards summer; the world’s buzzing intensified and hawk calls were replaced by the returning geese. One warm afternoon when Darren walked Willa home, as they held each other, sweating slightly, she felt she couldn’t stand for him to leave. She whispered into his ear,

“Come see me tonight.”

After her father went to sleep, she listened for a small crunch on the dry grass. When she heard it, it was barely distinguishable from the stars. She pictured Darren’s boot, black and muddy. She had told him not to make any noise, because her parents might hear. She slipped out of bed, pulled on a sweater, and turned to the window.

He was on the other side, shadowed, and he leaned in and kissed the glass. When he pulled away his lips remained.

She opened the window and joined him, one leg at a time, and closed it behind her. She kissed the spot his lips had left on the pane. It was cold. Then she turned to him and kissed his real lips, which were warm like daylight. She took his hand and they walked past the hedges and down the hard stone of the front walk. They moved in silence through the cornfield and into the thicketed woods. They passed Todd’s grave, which already had vines growing up it. Even farther, until they approached the river and she was sure no one could hear them. Then she let him lean her against a tree and kiss her whole neck. She opened her eyes and saw the leaves rustling against each other overhead. Darren lifted the edge of Willa’s sweater and grazed her stomach. She gasped at the cold of his fingers.

She heard a noise, low and long, on the wind.

Darren moved his hands under her shirt, and it was both everything and too much, like she was full of light but also full of crickets, like she might break apart right there. She leaned away from him into the tree, wishing it would swallow her.

She heard the noise again, and she grabbed Darren’s hands to stop them.

“What is it?” he asked.

“Shh,” she said. More joined in. Noises low and sweet and so full of longing her heart broke. She hadn’t gone to visit Misha and the others in weeks. Darren kissed her neck again, moving his hands down her sides.

“Let’s go home,” she said. Darren paused and looked at her like he expected permission to continue.

“But you won’t be at home. Your belly won’t.” He went to kiss her there. She took his hand in hers and kissed his palm. Then she stepped away from the tree and pulled him with her, back until they couldn’t hear the lowing anymore. They stopped at her bedroom window, and she touched the print left by their overlapping lips, now outlined in dew. She smiled up at him, but he was already looking back towards his house.

 *

The next afternoon, he walked her home again, holding her hand to his chest. But when he asked to visit her that night, she said no.

“Not yet,” she said, pulling her hand from his. “I’ll see you tomorrow.” He went to hold her again but she pulled back playfully. “Tomorrow!” She turned and hurried to her door.

Later, she pulled the silk purse from beneath her bed. Dust had grown up and into its creases. She brushed it off and held it to her chest.

Out through the trees and past the river, she followed the lowing, which seemed to roll as it increased and decreased in volume, like the night expanding in its search for closeness, then contracting as it pulled her inside it. She put on her hooves, and from the edge of the trees, she watched her friends move through the field.

She emerged like a ghost. She walked slowly, hoping her hanging head would communicate her apology. Misha ran forward to meet her and touched her nose to Willa’s.

She had grown in the weeks since Willa had visited, by maybe half a foot. Everything was wider: her chest, her head, even her eyes, which reflected Willa’s image back to her. Misha’s fur was half a shade darker and, between her ears, little horns were starting to grow. Willa felt very small beside her.

This was the first time that Misha had grown.

“Darling sister, I missed you, the crickets missed you, and since you left all the baby birds have abandoned their straw-threaded little nests. But you’re here now, aren’t you, little mouse? Your eyes your nose your whole sweet head is here in this field again and you won’t leave us.”

“Sister sister I’m sorry,” Willa moaned.

“You can’t leave us for so long baby cloud child Willa,” Misha said, pawing at the ground with one hoof.

Willa twitched her tail uneasily and took a step back.

“Oh little owl,” Misha said, pressing her lips to Willa’s forehead and nibbling it gently. “Now you’re here.” Misha turned to rejoin the herd, and Willa followed her.

 *

After that night, Willa was more purposeful about her time, often leaving Darren earlier so she could sleep lightly before going to visit Misha and the others. Darren noticed, of course, and made some changes of his own. He would still walk her home often, but other days he kissed her goodbye outside their schoolhouse. He’d started to make new friends, other boys who played baseball in the afternoons. Darren’s farm-grown shoulders and sun-browned skin had made him glamorous, a person to be desired. Each time he walked away with the others, she felt a small nausea, like a premonition.

The school year ended and summer began in full, which only meant that both Darren and Willa had more responsibilities at home. The heat intensified and plants sprouted or withered; Darren was more and more needed on his parents’ farm. Sometimes they saw each other briefly in the evenings. Both exhausted, they sought privacy out on Darren’s family’s property, sitting against the skeleton of the cabin that Todd had started building for Grimmy.

“When can we go back?” Darren asked her one day. “To the woods. I want to go back with you.” He held her hand against his chest.

“I don’t like the woods.”

“Well, let’s go someplace else.”

“I don’t—”

“You’re the one who asked me to come that night.”

“I know.” Willa thought, for a moment, of telling him about Misha. Maybe she only needed only to bring her worlds together, and everyone could be satisfied.  

“What aren’t you telling me?” Darren said.

“What? Nothing, I … there’s nothing.”

“I saw you go into the woods last night. I went to visit you, to surprise you. But you were already leaving your house, walking towards the woods.” The accusation in his tone, the hurt of this betrayal, silenced her—the buffalo were hers

“You should have told me if you were coming,” she snapped.

“You would have said no.” Willa didn’t reply, because he was right. “What were you doing out there?”

“It was nothing.”

“Is there someone else?”

“No!”

He did not release her hand, but brushed it with his thumb as the shadows elongated around them.

 *

Later, when Willa trotted tearfully out onto the field, Misha understood that she couldn’t be with the whole herd, that the sweet lowing would be too much. They walked side by side, their flanks brushing against each other, to the river that Willa always passed. The cool water brought her back to herself as she lapped it up and it slid down her throat.

“There there baby beastling,” Misha said, nibbling Willa’s ear. Her tongue was longer and a deeper shade of blue, her body more sure and steady as she pressed herself against Willa to comfort her.

“You’re bigger again,” Willa said.

“Yes small mountain, we’re less baby both of us, we mid-season wheat, we pre-plucked flowers.”

Willa thought of the momma buffalo, the silent matriarchs who eyed her kindly but incomprehensibly. She said,

“Can I still visit you once we’re grown?”

“Oh sweet molting fledgling, pin-covered grounded little dear, we are sisters!” she cried, turning her head to lick Will’s forehead, just like the momma buffalo used to when they first welcomed her. “We are sisters.”

Misha’s tongue was warm, and Willa closed her eyes, imagining away Misha’s growing horns, which were starting to turn inward, imagining her thick hair back down to a calf’s curlicue locks.

 *

Missing Darren was a constant hole in her stomach. They saw each other less—he was busy with the late summer farming, he was with friends—and eventually they didn’t see each other at all, outside of church.

It was a special torture for Willa to watch Darren during the service each Sunday, cracking his freckled neck between hymns or greeting his friends afterward. To watch his chip-toothed grin growing wide for someone else. He had only wanted the same from her. But she was a secret half-breed, and maybe she’d never be able to give her whole self to someone else.

 *

One night, as she prayed to the wild with Misha and the others, she imagined him among them. She imagined bringing him there, how, if only he could see this, he’d realize how much he loved her.

She had always kept the baby buffalo her secret. It was safe and sweet and it was impossible to believe. She had never wanted anyone to know about them before.

She imagined taking his hand and walking through the woods together, up to the edge of their field, grass rustling.

“Do you hear that?” she’d ask him. “That’s the baby buffalo.”

He’d hold her hand even tighter, enchanted, intrigued, sensing the pleasure in their songs.

They would step forward together, and she’d see his face and the love he was already fostering for this, her other family.

“I’m one of them,” she’d say, and he’d be surprised at first, of course. Maybe confused, unsure, but the concern on his lips would be gentle, about wanting to know her. And under his green eyes she’d undress—her button-down shirt, her skirt and slip, even her underthings, and he wouldn’t touch her, not yet. She’d slip on her hooves and shake out her furry back and step out before him so he could see all of her, almost blue in the moonlight. Of course he might be confused or scared. That would be normal, anyone would be after seeing that. But he’d recognize her soul in her full black eyes. “Willa?” he’d say. He’d reach out cautiously and touch her nose and she’d push back against him in such a gentle, knowing way that he would understand who and what she was and they were. She would lead him to the herd—maybe she would feel his hand on her side tremble with the magic of it. The other babies would nose him, a momma would huff in approval, and they’d all speak together and he’d be there, feeling them reverberate through his body as they lifted their noses and let out those low, sweet calls.

“Dear night-children,” Misha would chant, “you belong together and with us like we belong to this field like hawk life-mates like constellations that circle each other forever.”

He’d know, then, that he loved her.

Later, when they were together, he would repeat the buffalo’s words back to her, as if praying to her. His hands on her body, he’d say, “You’re my dear, grass-glowing night nature, it’s only us who can hear the way the wind is hitting the trees right this second, and that sound is ours.”

 *

It took her nearly two weeks to form the words. On a chilly Sunday morning, Willa pulled Darren aside after church.

“Hi,” she said.

“Hi.” He was annoyed, maybe, raising his pitch at the end of the syllable.

“Do you remember seeing me go out into the woods?” He raised his eyebrows. “Well, I want to show you why. I’m ready.”

“Willa, I’m not sure—”

“I’m ready to share it with you. If you’ll just meet me tonight, then—” He had turned his eyes to the ground, like he wanted her to stop. “Please?”

Crickets filled the silence with their slow trills, which were already growing farther apart as the late summer air cooled.

“Jerusalem crickets?” Darren asked her.

“Yes.”

She asked him to meet her at the edge of the pines, near Todd’s grave. It was more like neutral territory than the window to her bedroom; she was less afraid he wouldn’t come.

That night, standing beside the grave, she listened to the leaves rattle. Darren arrived only a little bit late.

“Hi, Darren.”

“So? I’m here.”

“Thank you. For coming.” She held her silk purse, heavy with her secret hooves, in one hand, and she reached for his hand with the other, like she’d imagined doing, but he pulled back.

“Is this what you wanted to show me?” He waved towards the viney grave.

“No. It’s farther on.”

“Alright. Alright. Lead the way.” Willa turned and started walking and he followed, remaining two steps behind her as they moved deeper into the shadows, as they passed the river and approached the far side of the woods.

The lowing reached them on the wind.

“Do you hear that?”

“Hear what?”

“Listen.” She paused so he could hear.

“I’m not…is that an animal?” Willa nodded.

“Buffalo.”

“Okay, Willa, please tell me where we’re going. It’s late.”

“Just a little bit farther.” He nodded and they went on, until they reached the edge of the field. Just barely hidden in the trees, they could see the buffalo at their usual post. Misha and the other babies and the momma buffalo all standing close to each other, their sounds full of pleasure and longing. Willa turned to watch Darren watch them. His mouth was slightly open, and his freckles stood out against his pale skin in even greater contrast than usual.

“I’m one—” she started, just as he sighed and looked down.

“Yes?” And then she couldn’t say it anymore. Her tongue was stuck, pressing against her front teeth as she thought of what to say instead. “This is,” his face softened, he rubbed his hands together and covered his eyes, “I’m here, I’m listening, I want to know. Whatever it is you want to say, just tell me.”

What if they just got a little closer before she said anything? So she could greet Misha and the others first, introduce them in a way before he had to know what she was? She had never approached the buffalo in her human form before, but it seemed impossible to transform in front of him now, impossible to turn back.

“Come on,” she said, stepping past the treeline.

“Willa, let’s not get any closer, I can see them from here.”

“They’re,” she thought of the right word, “they’re tame. They trust me, and it’s something like, as if. You can understand them.”

She held out her hand to him, and this time he took it. Cautiously he stepped out to join her. They walked together towards the buffalo, and as they got closer, the lowing started to change.

“You’re hearing that?” Darren said, standing still. And then she could understand them again. The lowing of the adolescents—no longer babies, any of them—was morphing back into words.

“Our field vibrates,” Misha sang. “Can you hear the moon warbling as it grows, the corn stalks crackling as they bloom? The wind is honey-dripped with pollen and—” She paused, her nose twitching. She turned her head to locate the smell. The wind had shifted, Willa realized, revealing her and Darren to the herd. Others stopped singing to lift their noses too.

“Misha!” Willa called. But the name came out wrong. The word didn’t sound like it should.

“Willa, be quiet!” Darren whispered as Misha turned to face them. She shook her head and swished her tail. Instead of coming to them she took a step back, then a few steps forward, then back again. She pawed the ground.

“Misha, it’s me!”

Misha let out a sound like a tractor’s revving, opening her mouth and letting her tongue fall out as the call increased in pitch and volume. All the buffalo had seen them now, and the herd started to sway and paw and made those same long mechanical sounds.

“Willa?” Darren asked, holding her hand more tightly.

One of the momma buffalo touched her head against Misha’s, and Misha seemed to come unglued from her spot. She turned and ran. But the momma turned to face Willa and Darren. She walked towards them, huffing and calling and picking up speed until it sounded almost like she was screaming as she charged them.

“Willa!” Darren yelled, right next to her, in her ear, but she couldn’t do anything except yell her friend’s name once more,

“Misha!”

They were knocked off their feet, and for a moment Willa thought the buffalo had passed them by. She turned to Darren on the ground beside her. His mouth was opening and closing with a soft bubbling sound. It was only when she felt the wetness of the dirt beneath her that she realized he was bleeding, that the buffalo had torn through his side with her horn as she raced past.

She could see it. The blood reflecting off the horn. She felt dizzy and light, like the ground beneath her was no longer there, and she realized the huffing sound she now heard was her own breath coming in ragged gasps. She wanted to call out, but she didn’t know who to call. She realized that the rest of the field had fallen silent: Darren, the buffalo, even the cicadas. Darren’s gaping and ungaping mouth slowed, until it stopped completely. There was only her breath reverberating in her ears.

She was still gripping the silk bag, and she pulled it to her chest, covering it in warm blood.

“Misha,” she croaked, coming to her knees. One of the other young buffalo grumbled meaninglessly. Another responded—but it was just a chest-sigh, musicless and unintelligible. “Little mountain sister!” she called. “Sweet flower that’s sweet, that’s small, where are you?” The buffalo around her chewed at the grass. One grunted like a cow.

She was still holding Darren’s hand. She brought it to her chest, never looking away from the buffalo, kissed his knuckles, and dropped his hand to the ground. Still clutching the purse, she managed to get to her feet and started towards the river. She knew she’d find Misha there.

 *

Willa stopped behind a tree near the river and waited. She undressed, but even as she did she knew the hooves would no longer work for her. She placed the purse at her feet, between two knuckled roots.

The wind picked up. There, she smelled Misha’s musk. Even as a human she could identify her sister. Misha stepped up to the edge of the water, her big eyes glinting, knowing or not knowing, Willa couldn’t tell anymore. Misha made a nonsense noise and bent her head to lap at the water.

Which of them had changed? Willa prayed that it was her that had stopped understanding. But—as she watched closely the small movement of Misha’s cheeks—what if there was no longer anything there to understand?

If she had, by the shame beating in her hollow chest, taken them away from themselves. If she had broken their spell.

Misha drank and drank like there was nothing else in the world, until the water disturbed by her tongue rolled up and covered Willa’s bare foot.

Willa walked naked into the freezing water. It came up to her shins. She turned and stood in front of the young buffalo as she drank, watching her ears, her eyelashes.

Misha looked up and when she saw Willa she huffed and backed away and her eyes rolled up. She stomped her feet.

If Willa touched her, she wondered, could they understand each other again?

Willa reached her hand towards Misha’s huge head and paused an inch away. Misha huffed and rolled her eyes and stomped, but didn’t run. She refused to look at her, but she didn’t run, so Willa knew Misha knew her.

She leaned forward again, her arms covered in goosebumps, hand shaking from cold, and touched her fingers to Misha’s forehead. Then Misha’s heavy, hard skull rushed into her ribs, so hard they cracked like dry stalks of wheat, and Willa was down in the cold river and Misha’s hooves were stomping on her legs and arms and chest. Stomping so that it hurt so much it started not to anymore.

Better, though, that Misha was awake. She had seen it—young buffalo run from humans, and Misha didn’t run.

Better that she hadn’t ruined everything.

That the baby buffalo still spoke in the moonlight, still cried out to their creator, “I am here.”