Chapter 4: Seven Years

Four black SUVs parked across the front of my bakery at seven in the morning, and every window on Main Street got a face in it.

I was behind the counter with flour to my elbows and a tray of cinnamon rolls in my hands.

Hazel sat on her stool in front of a bowl of cereal she was not eating.

"Mom, there's a lot of big men," she said.

"I see them, baby."

"They're wolves," Orin said, without looking up from his book.

"I can smell them from here."

I set the tray down very carefully.

Sable Creek is neutral land, four hours south of Hollowbrook, and in seven years I had never seen a pack car on its street.

I had picked the town for that.

I had a two-bedroom apartment over the shop and a loan I paid on time.

I had a baker next door who taught me to laminate dough and never once asked where I came from.

I had two children who thought their mother was a woman who got up early and made good bread.

They knew about wolves, because everyone does.

They also knew I was not one, and that was all I had ever let them learn.

"Upstairs," I said. "Both of you."

"But I haven't finished my..."

"Hazel."

She heard it in my voice and climbed down.

Orin stopped on the third stair and looked back at me.

"Mom, the one in front is looking at the window."

"Keep walking."

I shut the door at the top of the stairs behind them, and I stood there until I heard their feet cross the floor above.

They were not going to hear me be scared.

The bell on the front door rang before I got back down.

I went the rest of the way slowly, because I had a lie ready and wanted to be sure I still believed it.

I had built it years ago on a bus: a man in Portland, a man who left before I knew.

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