Chapter 7: Thaw

I couldn't sleep.

Every time I closed my eyes, I heard a small voice screaming in a stone room.

At midnight I got out of the guest bed and put on Sinead's boots.

The lodge was dark, except for one lamp in the kitchen.

I went out the back door and across the yard, and down the slope to the frozen lake.

The moon was three days off full.

It lit the ice from edge to edge, white and wide and empty.

I took off the coat and the nightgown and left them in the snow.

Then I called my wolf.

She came at once this time, with no cold to hold her down.

My back bent, my hands went to paws, and my bones pulled long, and the pain of it was almost a relief.

I was a big russet wolf with a dark stripe down my spine, and I ran.

I ran the whole length of the lake without stopping, and my paws hit the ice so hard that it rang.

I ran until the ache in my chest was lost in the burning in my legs.

I didn't hear him behind me until he was close.

A dark brown wolf came alongside, a little to my left, matching my stride.

He didn't try to pass me.

He didn't try to herd me.

He ran at my pace all the way to the far shore and turned when I turned.

Neither of us stopped for a long time.

Finally I slowed, wheezing, in the shallows at the north end of the lake, and he stopped beside me.

I shifted back, shaking, on my knees in the snow.

I had left my coat on the other side.

A warm weight dropped over my shoulders.

It was his flannel shirt, and his own coat on top of it.