Chapter 2
Wolflinda 2
Galinda Upland was supposed to have a private suite all to herself. Her parents made quite the donation to the university to get it for her. And that was on top of the yearly donations the Upland family had been generous with for generations.
Because that was part of the cover. The Masquerade. They were fairy tales told at bedtime or stories told around a campfire to scare scouts.
Those legends weren’t real.
Except they were.
So the Uplands had a secret to hide.
And what better place to hide than in high society.
People always had things to say about the hermits who lived away from the prying eyes of society, tucked into a creepy cabin in the woods. They ate unsuspecting travelers, bashing heads in and setting pit traps. Just so they could tear flesh from bone. But they hardly said the same about nobles and the rich.
No one especially said it about the Uplands. Though they were guilty of hunting, that same tearing flesh from bone. But in a civilized way. They would never go after sentient beings, Man or Animal. That had only brought trouble and made their number dwindle until Galinda was sure they were the only pack left in the Uplands, if not all of Gilikin.
Which is why Galinda Upland was supposed to have a private suite.
During the full moon, she would shift.
And she would rather not have anyone know.
The plan had been that Galinda would hole up in her room after the transformation struck and until the sun came up. No one would be the wiser.
That was, after she made the room soundproof.
But Elphaba Thropp had been assigned as her roommate. Once the girl had displayed a bout of magic, there was no doubt in Galinda’s mind that the most powerful would want to have her.
Galinda couldn’t protest too much about Madame Morrible’s decision. It would draw attention to herself. And Uplands were wary of magic users.
Aside from silver, magic was another thing that could hurt them.
So there it was. One magic user forcing her to share a living space with another magic user. And there was nothing Galinda could do about it.
It just wasn’t fair.
Her classmates agreed.
Of course they were more concerned about Elphaba’s greenliness. Galinda couldn’t really tell. But apparently that wasn’t a normal shade for humans to come in.
It had been embarrassing when the girl had overheard Galinda asking about it.
”What are you all staring at?” The girl stared down each of the students staring at her. “Do I have something in my teeth?”
“It’s just that… You’re green?” Galinda took in the faces of the other students. Especially ShenShen and Pfannee’s.
Being green wasn’t normal. She never wanted to see those looks of disgust and dissecting curiosity ever directed her way. Although if anyone ever found out about her, there would be another expression on other’s faces.
Fear.
The girl held her head up high, a challenge in her eyes. “I am.”
Galinda didn’t think she could be as brave. If she couldn’t hide what she was, then she would never show her face in public.
Galinda looked around then realized the other students were looking to her for how to proceed. She was chosen as their leader for her reputation and beauty. She knew what she had to do to not end up like this girl in front of her.
“I’m sorry.”
So Galinda used her peers’ feelings toward her roommate to her advantage.
Galinda made jokes about Elphaba’s greenness. And about her clothes. About her lack of control of her magic. Her answers in class and sucking up to the professors. It had only been a couple of weeks, but everyone was on Galinda’s side.
If everyone was focused on Elphaba’s strangeness, they would hardly notice Galinda’s own.
Not that she would give them a chance to pick up on anything.
With the help of, well, the Help, Galinda had crafted the perfect image. Dainty. Feminine. A damsel in distress. Someone with a gilded life that never knew any hardship. She learned to do her hair and makeup for a soft look. She had a way to memorize the compacts and palettes to get her color just right. And her mother taught her how to cover up bruises and cuts as they healed, as well as her scars.
Pink was the designated color for girls and women apparently so she made sure to get most of her belongings in the color when sending the personal shoppers out. And of course her clothing. Mostly pink or pastels, any color that reminded one of spring. Galinda liked yellow though, the color of newly hatched chicks and sunflowers. The only other color she could see was blue. Like the sky.
Still, pink was to be her color.
But to her, it was just a shade of grey.
Aside from her looks, there was personality.
She had to be well liked.
It was the way she was viewed.
Galinda did feel bad for using Elphaba’s green skin like that but Elphaba’s sour and surly attitude was just asking for it.
Besides that was part of her plan.
If Elphaba loathed having Galinda as a roommate then maybe she would move out. Not that she wanted the girl to leave the school entirely. Maybe she could move in with that sister of hers.
Or Galinda could donate money to quickly renovate some of the Animal Faculty Housing and convert it into student accommodations. There certainly wasn’t enough Animal faculty left not to.
Which was a good thing for Galinda. Animals felt unease around her. It would be harder to keep her secret if Animal professors couldn’t even be in the same lecture hall as her. As it was, Dr. Dillamond was her history professor and she was trying to transfer into another professor’s class. A human professor’s class. When Elphaba found out, it had only been another strike against Galinda.
But still rooming with who she thought was a bigot wasn’t enough to get Elphaba to leave.
And tonight was the first full moon she’d experience at Shiz.
Galinda had no choice but to shift elsewhere. Somewhere deep in the woods just outside campus. Even though she had hoped it wouldn’t come to this, Galinda couldn’t help but be prepared.
So Galinda made plans to not be in the dorm room. She didn’t plan on telling her roommate she would be out. It was none of her business and frankly Galinda was being generous. What she wouldn’t do to have their room all to herself for just one night.
Anyway, Galinda made it to the treeline after greeting several of her classmates. That was one downside to her cover of being popular. People always wanted her attention. She’d have to pick a better route for tomorrow.
She made it to a winding path that would take her past Animal faculty housing and then she would be in the clear. She thought about using one of the abandoned Animal faculty buildings that were boarded up and shuttered, but the bigger ones were close to Dr. Dillamond’s dwelling and she couldn’t chance it. Galinda couldn’t trust Animals. They had turned on her kind before. Easy to do when Galinda’s ancestors didn’t belong fully in the world of Animal or of Men, so they had no support from either.
They were on their own.
Galinda walked for another twenty minutes before stepping off the path into the woods. She took a flask from her satchel, and chugged the mixture white willow bark and ginger root down, an old family recipe meant to lessen the pain of the transformation. It didn’t work as well for her, but it was better than nothing. Once the flask was empty, she put it back in her bag. She’d have to brew another batch tomorrow afternoon.
She had picked a tree for the occasion. Standing next to it, she started to undress. Even if she had picked a dress she could part with should she run out of time before she shifted, she hated to do so. She folded up her dress and undergarments before placing them in her satchel with her heels. She felt the twitch in her back, knowing soon the transformation would hit. She got her bag up in the tree just in time.
Even though she had transformed countless times before, Galinda always found the transformation never got any less painful.
Momsie and Popsicle said it was because of her size. Going from something so petite to such a large form took more, even when she had only been a pup. Her wolf form was bigger than her father’s. And her father’s form was larger than a Grey Wolf’s. They said that it would hurt less once she had someone to share the pain with.
If Galinda had someone to share what it felt like with she would describe it as follows.
First, it felt like her bones cracked and broke, grinding against each other as they became longer and took on new shapes. Then her muscles tore and ripped to become larger, along with the rest of her insides. Finally her skin split open, like it was no longer able to contain everything, rippling all over to make way for the fur.
A scream ripped out of her throat before it turned into a howl.
Catching her breath, Galinda collapsed. The shift hurt more now that she was doing it alone, without her parents. For some reason, her transformations hurt more than what her parents seemed to go through. They couldn’t explain it. Not really. Her grandmother’s wife, who she had lovingly called Gigi, had left to consult another pack, but had never returned. After that, Galinda just put up with the pain so they wouldn’t lose anyone else.
Galinda felt like exploring, stretching her legs out and running free. After she shifted, her energy was high, so there was no way she was going to get any sleep tonight. She didn’t feel the pain of the shift once she was in this form. But her body would feel it tomorrow. If she could, she’d want to never change back. Stay like this forever. But there was a danger to that. Galinda had an ancestor that never shifted back, forever fur and fang. He was lost. A monster that had to be put down lest he expose and destroy them all.
But still, this wasn’t her family’s ancestral lands. Anyone could stumble across her and rumors would fly. Rumors she could twist over time, but there were those in Oz who knew the truth long since turned into stories.
That’s who she had to watch out for.
No one came out this far. So she could at least go for a stroll.
She had time to kill.
It was going to be hard to do it alone.
Galinda was a social creature. She had been part of a pack. And since the secret had to be kept, she had an image to uphold. Uplands were high society and members of such a social class went to Shiz University. It just wouldn’t do for her not to attend. It would look bad.
And besides, maybe she would meet someone here to continue their pack.
But if there was anyone else like her at Shiz, she wouldn’t be alone in these woods. She would have sensed them around on campus.
Of course, she could hunt, not for these other fellow mythical Wolves, but for prey.
Although she would hate to end up hunting an Animal. The deer or rabbits on their estate were raised to be hunted. Although that had to be a secret as well. Those of their kind that hunted Animals for food were the wrong sort and driven out. Not only was it wrong, but it would have drawn attention to all of them.
Still, there were berries and fruit. She had been too nervous for her first full moon away from home that she hadn’t eaten very much at dinner. So she was starving. A high amount of protein would help with the muscle soreness meaning she’d have to make up for it all tomorrow. She knew she should have packed some jerky to eat. Now she knew what to do for next time.
Somehow, Galinda made it through the night.
When dawn broke, the shift back began. Her fur retreated as if it resided under her skin. Her muscles and bones shredded, shrinking down to fit inside so her body wouldn’t burst open. Her fingers raked through the dirt as her back arched and twisted from her hips. The pain left her gasping for air. She curled up into a ball on the forest floor, as if that could make everything feel smaller, let her feel less hurt.
Galinda waited until her body stopped twitching. It was as if all the pain from her dusk shift waited until her dawn shift to be felt, doubling up. She pushed herself off the ground. She stretched out the stiffness in her limbs. She rolled her neck and it gave a loud crack. She tried to clean the dirt off herself and get leaves out of her hair as best as she could. She dragged herself to her tree and pulled her bag down from its branches. She got dressed in her clothes from the night before. She pulled out a travel sized brush, running it through her hair. She badly needed a shower, burning hot like molten metal in a foundry.
She walked back to her dormitory, keeping to the shadows. Once she made it to her dorm, she realized she had to climb all the stairs up to her dorm room. Even if most of her classmates and staff were sure to still be asleep in their beds or at least staying in their rooms for as long as possible, Galinda didn’t want to risk being seen in the stairwell.
So Galinda decided to climb.
Why did her dorm room have to be on the fourth floor? Galinda took off her heels and shoved them into her bag. Even though she was tired and sore, she made quick work of scaling the side of the dorm. She climbed over the railing of their balcony and nearly flopped down on her back on the damn thing. But she caught herself at the last moment.
After peering through the glass double doors to make sure her roommate wasn’t awake and traipsing around the room, Galinda slowly opened one of the doors and slipped in quietly.
“Did you just sneak into the room from the balcony?”
Galinda let out a shriek. She should have heard Elphaba sneak up on her. Magic users were so shifty.
“No?” Galinda said slowly. She winced at how it sounded like a question.
“Hmm.” Elphaba crossed her arms over her chest.
“Fine. I was on the roof,” Galinda lied.
That was a good way to misdirect her.
She had been on the roof before. Her first night there. She had gone up to see if there was anywhere she could go to shift. Just in case.
And it was a good thing too because she hadn’t driven Elphaba off just yet.
“You went up to the roof?” Elphaba raised an eyebrow.
“Is that so hard to believe?” Galinda huffed.
“Actually it is. You seem the type to not want to get dirty or mess up your hair. But clearly I was wrong.” Elphaba looked her up and down.
“The roof is dirty,” Galinda tried to explain away her appearance. The roof was definitely not as dirty as wriggling around the forest floor, clawing at the ground because of bone searing pain.
“Which is why I said it was strange of you to be up there.” Elphaba cocked her head and stared at her.
The silence was awkward and Galinda rushed to fill it.
“It’s nice up there. The view is gorgeous. And the stars. They’re the same ones I can see from my home.” It was a half truth. She had been looking at the stars last night, but from a clearing in the woods. She missed her parents dearly. Writing letters home was no replacement. “I guess I was feeling homesick. And since I couldn’t sleep, I just went up to the roof.”
And maybe that was a stupid thing to say to who had to be the smartest person in their first year class. One didn’t have to go to the roof to look at the stars. Galinda could have just laid out on the balcony. And she was sure Elphaba would point that out.
“Oh.” Elphaba’s crossed arms wrapped themselves around her. “That must be hard. To be away from your parents.”
“It so is,” Galinda agreed. But the way Elphaba spoke, it sounded like she understood but she couldn’t relate. “Sounds like you’re not having the same problem.”
Why was Galinda asking? It’s not like she cared. There was no need to show Elphaba kindness if the goal was to drive her out.
“I have my sister here with me. And my father and I were never close.” Elphaba, who was usually so confident, was staring at the floor.
Galinda didn’t know what to say to that. She could hear the longing in the other girl’s tone. She couldn’t imagine not having parents that cared for her. Her parents always wanted the best for her. And her mother had sobbed when they dropped Galinda off at Shiz. Her father’s voice had cracked when he hugged her and said goodbye. Galinda had a hazy memory of a man with a beard and ugly hat shouting at Elphaba. If that was the girl’s father he didn’t even stick around to see if his daughter was staying in acceptable conditions and with a pleasant roommate. What if Galinda was a killer? And there had been no sign of Elphaba’s mother. Galinda was keen enough on social interactions to know not to bring up the other girl’s mother just yet.
“That’s-“
“Well,” Elphaba cut Galinda off and walked back to her bed. “If you need to use the shower, go right ahead. I think I will try to get a few more minutes of sleep.”
“Thank you,” Galinda murmured.
Elphaba got underneath her thin blanket. She turned her back on Galinda. On any other day, the small blonde would have found that rude, but she realized that the other girl was just protecting herself.
And that’s all anyone in this world was guilty of.