Chapter 6: Cold

At midnight the shaking started, and nothing I did would stop it.

I sat on the cabin floor in front of the stove with two blankets around me and my teeth clattering.

Halvard crouched beside me and put a hot water bottle against my stomach without saying anything.

"It's the cold coming out," he said. "Some people shake for days."

"I'm a nurse. I know what shock looks like."

"Then you know it doesn't care."

I laughed through my teeth.

The husky came and lay across my feet.

I looked at the window.

Past the glass, down the slope, the lake lay silver under the moon.

And on the shore, at the edge of the trees, a man stood in the snow.

He had been there since dark.

I had seen him from the cot at ten and again at eleven, a black shape with his arms hanging.

"He'll freeze," I said.

"He's a wolf. Was." Halvard's voice was careful. "He'll be cold, not dead."

"How long does he stand there?"

"Some stand a night. Some a month."

"Some of them leave?"

"Some of them go in after her." He looked at the stove. "That's why the cabin's here."

I took a long breath.

Then I stood up, still wrapped in the blanket, and picked up my boots.

Halvard didn't tell me to stay.

He just reached over and opened the door.

The snow squeaked under my feet.

It was clear and still, minus ten, and the stars stood so thick over the lake that they looked spilled.

Lucan heard me coming.

He turned, and I saw him straighten, saw his hands start up toward me and fall back.

His lips were blue.

He had been crying, and the tears had frozen on his face in stiff tracks.

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