Chapter 8: The Wolf

He took me into the woods at dusk, on Saturday, the twenty-fourth.

The spruce stood close and black on either side of the path.

The air smelled of wet needles and the first frost.

Gunnar walked ahead of me with his hands in his pockets, and his shoulders were stiff.

"You're nervous," I said.

"Nobody has asked to see it in nine hundred years."

"Nobody asked you?"

"They are afraid," he said. "Or they're my pack, and they've seen it a thousand times."

He stopped in a clearing beside a creek.

The last gray light fell on the water.

"Turn around if you like," he said.

"I don't like."

His mouth moved.

He pulled off his jacket and his shirt and hung them on a branch.

He kicked off his boots, and he undid his jeans and stepped out of them without looking at me.

He stood naked in the cold with his hair loose and his shoulders broad as a door.

He looked like a carving of a king.

"Don't be frightened," he said.

"I'm not."

"You should be a little."

"I'm a little," I said.

He went down on his hands.

It happened fast, and it was beautiful and terrible.

His spine bowed and rolled.

His shoulders drew in, and thick pale fur broke across his skin.

His face lengthened, and his jaw opened on a sound that was half groan and half howl.

Then a wolf stood where the man had been.

He was the size of a pony, silver at the ruff and gold along the back.

His pale gray eyes were the ones I knew.

His head came up to my chest.

I did not run.

I stood very still and breathed out.

"Hello," I said.

The wolf stepped toward me.

He moved without a sound, heavy and soft on the needles.

He stopped a yard away and lowered his great head.

I put my hand out, flat.

His nose pushed into my palm, dry and cool.

Then he leaned his whole weight into me, and I had to plant my feet.

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