Chapter 15: Small Costs

His wolf came out at twenty to four, and it was a black wolf, much too thin.

It lay on the boards with its chin between its paws and watched me with its gold eyes.

I sat against the wall a body-length away until the window turned gray.

I did not touch it, and it did not ask.

When I went home, my boots were wet to the ankle and I was smiling, which I resented.

The wood started the next morning.

I woke to the sound of an axe at six, in the dark, and the sound was careful.

It stopped each time my floor creaked.

By the time I opened the door, there was a stack against the porch wall as high as my hip.

Duncan was at the edge of the yard in a flannel shirt, with his sleeves pushed up and his breath smoking.

He had split the stack without once coming up the steps.

"Orson said a cord a month," he said.

"That's a lot more than a cord."

"I was early." He set the axe head down on the stump. "I'll stop if it bothers you."

"It doesn't bother me."

"Then I'll stop when it's a cord."

I looked at the pile.

My mother's cabin hadn't had a full woodpile since she died.

"Does it hurt?" I asked. "The wolf."

"Less than it did." He glanced at his hands. "It still doesn't know what to do with itself."

"Neither does mine."

"I could feel that." He said it carefully. "Last night. I'm not asking you about it."

"You can ask."

"Then, is it all right that I can feel it?"

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