Free Changeling Moon by Dani Harper

to one Jack Harrison, a schoolteacher who had homesteaded in the Spirit River area and established a ranch there. Zoey squinted to read the ornate scrawl.
    February 28, 1904.
    Got a big black wolf in my trapp today, biggest I ever saw. Had a white star on its chest and white on its nose and tail like a dog. Thought it were a bear at first until it puts its ears up and looked at me. Rifle jammed up and then there was no wolf in the trapp, just a young man. Snow was deep but he had no coate or boots. Asked him where my wolf was because I wanted that pelt, but he shook his head. Then he opened the trapp with his bare hands. Knew he must be one of the wolf people my dad told me about because two good men aren’t strong enough to open that trapp without the key. He pulled his leg out and it was bleeding bad but then it stopped right quick. I tried to unjam the rifle in case he might want to kill me but he just walked away and headed west to Macleod’s land.
    â€œOmigod,” breathed Zoey. Connor’s family was actually named. And guilt by association undoubtedly followed. Sure enough, a small letter made it to print in the very next issue of the newspaper, pointing to the Macleods as the cause of all the trouble.
    It’s about time someone called a spade a spade, and revealed the creatures who think to live among us undetected. Families like the Macleods have blurred the line between man and beast for decades, intermingling with humans and converting them to their kind. They look like us on the outside but underneath they’re all teeth and claws, just waiting for a chance to use them.
    The bizarre letter was signed by Roderick Harrison. Good grief, was he a descendant of the man who wrote the diary? It’s almost like a feud, thought Zoey. Harrisons and Macleods instead of Hatfields and McCoys. She empathized with Connor. No wonder he hadn’t wanted the werewolf stories to resurface. Just look at the craziness he’d have to deal with—something Zoey could certainly relate to.
    She shook her head, trying to get back to business. Harrison’s letter should never have been published—any newspaper that printed such a personal attack was opening itself up to a lawsuit. Maybe it wasn’t so surprising that Ted had fired the editor responsible. Most of the publications Zoey had worked for would have done the same simply as damage control.
    Subsequent editorials were allegedly devoted to quelling the “mass hysteria” yet special feature articles appeared on the myths and legends surrounding werewolves . So-called experts flew in from all over, and The Herald dutifully interviewed most of them. Even the one who insisted the U.S. government was conducting the top secret testing of a breed of superwolves in the Canadian north, and the one who claimed that aliens were masquerading on this planet as wildlife. Zoey rolled her eyes and wondered how the reporter had managed to keep a straight face.
    To her surprise, the story died out abruptly only eight issues later—not a very long run for such a sensational event. Zoey scanned all the issues up to the present, but no further mention of wolves, were or otherwise, was ever made. Undoubtedly, her hot-tempered publisher had killed the story the moment he returned to the office. She had little trouble picturing Ted Biegel’s wrath descending on the parties responsible. She smiled as she remembered Mabel Rainier’s words. Zoey only had to check the issue following the last werewolf update to see a change in the editor’s name!
    No wonder the village officials had been rude. She supposed she might even have to do some sort of damage control herself, to make certain she didn’t become affiliated with the werewolf stories in any way. But it rankled. She had never hesitated to take a stand with a story, no matter how unpopular it might be. As a professor had once told her, the concept of journalistic impartiality was a myth the