11:39pm. A cloud cut through the shining moon, illuminated in an eerie light against the clamping darkness. At this time there were no separate shadows, only the shadow of night, itself, as it suffocated the small village below. Even the stars were eclipsed. Only the moon could light its way through the charcoal skies and aid the abbé in his late night activities. Tomorrow it would be full.
     A slight chilly breeze fumbled through the leaves of the trees around the church, signalling for Anatole Toussaint to look up. Despite being in the heart of summer it was unusually cold, but then again that could have been the wafer-thin shirt that Toussaint had been wearing since that hot afternoon. In fact, it had been such a bright day, that the entire village was in high spirits. He had even been in the mood to visit Claude’s residence (which he didn’t, in the end), at Giverny, something he hadn’t quite managed since Alice had lost her daughter.
   With this nestling back into his mind, Toussaint lowered his head, once more, and began gently examining the Papaver orientale he had planted, earlier. As his fingers stroked the closed petals, his mind wandered to a scenario in which he presented a cross-breed of plant to everyone at Giverny, all the while people praising his persistence and ambition in creating such a new species from his botanic work.
     “We all need to evolve in order to survive, so why should making a new species of plant be any different from evolution?” Toussaint thought to himself as he squatted in the moonlit churchyard. To be praised for his work was something the abbé desperately desired after how he was ridiculed for his beliefs in Darwin’s theory of evolution. In fact, by nurturing a new plant species, he would prove that evolution was more than mere speculation, he thought, as well as not being looked down upon.
     The trees let out a gushing rustle as the waves of wind picked up their pace. The howls caused Toussaint’s ears to sharply prick up, as if alerted by some ghostly presence. He shook his head after the rustling pampered down to nothing more than a trickle – the notion of the Holy Spirit materialising in the graveyard to warn Toussaint of his lack of faith was ludicrous. It wasn’t that Toussaint didn’t believe in God, since who was to say that a mighty being didn’t create life to evolve in the first place?
     A deep growling sound caused the abbé to freeze. It pierced the air as if it were more like a needle than a growl, injecting Toussaint with its paralytic poisons.
     Silence.
     “Perhaps it was simply my imagination?” Toussaint nervously laughed to himself. He had been working hard since 3:20 in the afternoon, stopping only for dinner, or what could only be assumed as dinner, for two apples, a glass of wine and a salad could hardly be considered a decent meal. He evidently needed some res-
     A grotesque snarl toppled the abbé backwards into the soft earth. This time it was much louder and certainly not a figment of Toussaint’s imagination. Not even the demonic curled lips of the muzzled beast, as it padded into the vivid moonlight, was of mental imagery. Smoky hair covered the being’s entire body, lightly wavering in the wind, pale from the moonlight and yet still crystal clear to Toussaint’s petrified perception.
     “What m-manner of beast are you?” Anatole demanded through a chatter of teeth. The ‘beast’ resembled that of a wolf more than anything, but its body was still trapped between the realms of being human in form; it stood on two crooked hind legs and its front ‘paws’ were definitely human hands, simply with sharpened black fingernails. As Toussaint eyed the fingernails, shuffling backwards on his hands, he caught a glimpse of red liquid. A vicious howl met his demand, the wolf-man raising its jaws to the moon, as if to laugh in retribution over finding its next victim.
     And then it attacked.

Light. Toussaint’s face glowed with warmth as the sunlight gently rained down upon it. The black became white under his eyelids as he became conscious. His eyes flickered open with an uneasy heaviness, causing them to clamp shut as the streams of sunlight glared straight into his pupils.
     “I found you in quite a state.” A voice explained in a tone that suggested he had been a large burden on her. Toussaint mustered strength enough to lift his head. With a force potent enough to unglue his eyelids together, Toussaint’s vision blurred as they lapped up the light from around him. Through prism eyes he could define a woman in a black dress walking towards him. Or was it away from him? He couldn’t quite tell. As she did so, her footsteps echoed around him. It became evident that he was inside the church, with sunlight pouring through the stained glass windows.
      A cold sensation filled the pours on the head of the abbé, causing him to gasp. His eyes endured the stinging as they thinned in order to focus, correctly. A flannel had been drenched in cold water and was being gently dabbed against his head. It was rather soothing.
     “I am thankful for your aid,” Toussaint smiled his simian smile, “but I will be fine from here on out.” The woman removed the material from his head as he pushed himself into a more presentable position. As his senses strengthened, he realised that he had been rested upright on a pew in his own church. Should he have been thankful that he wasn’t killed by that foul beast, or did he simply collapse from exhaustion, dreaming the entire affair? It would have been far more welcome as a nightmare than reality.
     “You’ve been cut up into fairly bad shape.” The woman explained as Toussaint placed his forehead in the palms of his hands to halt his nausea. A stinging sensation cleaved through the abbé at that moment. His eyes drifted downwards only to find themselves tracing the jagged tracks of where the beast had clawed into him. His fears had been confirmed – his nightmare was reality.
     A number of worried thoughts circled the abbé, at that moment; if it was morning then surely the church service would need his preaching at any moment, would these scars infect him in some way and were his oriental poppies still in good condition after the scuffle? He desperately flurried his arms about as all of these thoughts pinned themselves into his mind, causing the woman to gently push him back into the pew.
     “The service has been cancelled due to illness of the abbé.” She explained, reading Toussaint’s thoughts. With a curious look, the abbé looked into the eyes of the woman, only to find it was Alice, from Giverny, herself. He lowered his head in deep thought. She was still wearing her black dress and thus still mourning for her daughter. No doubt she had found Toussaint lying in the graveyard after she had walked up the grassy hill in order to, once again, watch the gravestone of Suzanne. Toussaint was aware of her presence at dawn, but always kept himself concealed. For her immeasurable kindness in looking after him, he would definitely have to visit them for lunch within the next few days.
     As the sleepers of primary coloured light slowly shifted themselves into a horizontal position, Toussaint engaged in selecting a few of his choice flowers to give to Alice, in order to take them back to the Giverny garden. It was the least he could do. As she left, he returned to the graveyard.
     His Papaver orientale had been ruined.

The burning orange of the skies soon filtered into a dying dark grey as the evening began to fixate its grip on the village, once more. Toussaint trudged down the lavishly tall grass as he passed the wheat fields, each wheat strand desperately trying to cling on to whatever light was left, in order to remain golden in colour. The abbé had decided to not risk the possibility of running into such a foul and unholy beast, returning home after an early night of assessing his botanic garden. He sighed as he thought about how much work had been wasted and how much work he would have to undergo in order for his lunchtime scenario at Giverny to come true... If only his peers would respect him...
     A howl whined through the air, causing Toussaint to slow his descent into the village and to his house. Another howl confirmed the beast was back. Without a second thought, he darted into the forest of wheat in a heart-pounding plea that it would hide him from the monster. It was a foolish decision, as the wheat crinkled loudly as he pushed the strands aside, only causing the abbé to panic, even more.
     “I am only skin and bones... it won’t eat me!” he cried out to himself in thought. He didn’t dare call for help in case someone thought him to be mad, much like the reason in which he didn’t recount his story to Alice.
     After several slow minutes of swift sprinting, Toussaint hunched over and stopped to catch his breath. No howl could be heard. Relieved, Toussaint panted loudly, smiling to himself in his typical monkey manner in that he had succeeded in outrunning the demon, unafraid to conceal his breaths for any longer. It was an exhilarating sensation that brought about a sense of achievement, at last. Or was it? The longer he stood, catching his breath, the more intense the sensation felt, filling his body with strength. Pins and needles darted throughout his arms and legs, suddenly, tackling his body with tingling. What was going on?
     Severely worried about his condition, thinking that he was dying from an infection to his wounds, Toussaint opened his jaw to cry out for help, at last. What came out, however, was more like a pitiful yelp of a dog. His eyes clenched from the power which flowed through his body, pulsing dangerously between pain and strength. His clothes tightened as his body bulked out, hair seeming to sprout from all manner of pours. Strong moonlight shot down against the wheat and onto Toussaint’s face as evening became night.
     The moon was full.
     As his clothes lay ripped to shreds in the wheat, Toussaint’s thoughts jolted around as if aflame with fires burning more wildly than those within locomotives. Apples. Flowers. Alice. An explosion of white light pierced his mind, only for Toussaint to regain his sight moments, later. Through distorted vision, he found himself at Claude’s manor. How did he even manage to dart there, that quickly? It was as if he shared two conscious minds at once – one of the beast and one of his human self. When one was active, the other couldn’t follow at the same time. A flash of white light ensnared Toussaint’s mind, once more.
   The shadowed night had eclipsed the garden with darkness. Somehow, the deformed abbé could see in extreme clarity in all bar colour, itself; the roses were ash grey, the grass was clay grey and Giverny building, itself, was graphite grey. In all his fish-bowled vision’s glory, his black eyes settled on the ripped apart flowers in the patch around him.
     He had torn apart a patch of Monet’s garden.
     Violent shivers speared his spine as the thought of having decimated the very flowers he had given Alice, that morning, settled in. Angry at himself, he clawed his long nails into the grass and snarled. As if his own emotions had attacked the beast half of him, his body began to reshape itself; the hair retracted back into his arms and his muscles disappeared, seemingly, into his bones. With a deep gasp, Toussaint found himself naked, in a human body and in Giverny garden.
     “Have you forsaken me?” Toussaint whispered to the night sky, as he lay in the cold for several moments more. He pulled himself up, reclaiming his thoughts. Somehow, his left eye still gave him a grey view of the world, around him, as if never having transformed back. No matter, Toussaint thought, as long as he didn’t cause any severe damage to anybody, it was fine. As his gaze moved towards the towering building, his eyes suddenly found themselves caught on a small poppy from the collection he had given Alice. His eyes ogled at that rare specimen in which he had failed to give his entire attention to, previously. He had hybridised the Papaver orientale into a cross breed, at long last, without even realised it. “I shall call it Papaver x monetti, based on this location.”
     The rest of the callous night watched as Toussaint hid in the plum darkness, borrowing the slightly shorter clothing which dangled on the washing line until he craftily crept back to his small house. He would have to return them upon his lunch at Giverny.