Chapter 4: The Second Noose

The hunt began at the old quarry road at first light on Thursday, with my whole pack watching from the gravel.

My father stood at the front in his good coat.

He did not hug me.

He put a hand on my head, the way he had when I was small, and said, "Make us proud, Bee."

"I always do," I said.

Beau kissed my cheek and told me he would be waiting at the stones.

Opal pressed a thermos into my hands.

"Honey water," she said. "For strength."

I thanked her and put it in my pack, unopened.

Then the horn blew, and I went into the trees alone.

The red ribbon was tied to the first birch, exactly at eye level.

It was brand new and smelled of Gray's hands and of lamp oil.

I stood under it and breathed in.

Under the oil there was a sharp, bitter smell that did not belong in the forest.

Wolfsbane.

He had rubbed the ribbon with it.

The ribbon was not a trail.

It was a bait line, meant to keep me nose-down and walking in a straight line.

I had to give them credit.

If I had not heard them plan it, I would have followed it all morning and thanked Gray at the end.

I left the ribbon where it hung and went the way I always went.

South along the river, over the ledge, then the long slope to the old fish weir.

That is where the water narrows and the Kettle line begins.

It was the way I had walked every spring since I was nine, and nobody else in the pack used it.

It was my path.

For two hours I read the ground and found nothing.

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