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R ose dreamed.

Rob slammed on the brakes, there was a thud and a figure fell forward onto the bonnet and then slipped off. Rose and Rob flung forward and back.

Rob slammed on the brakes, there was a thud and a figure fell forward onto the bonnet and stared at Rose. Eyes pierced into her. Eyes held hers. Sky

Rob slammed on the brakes, there was a thud and a figure fell forward onto the bonnet and then slipped off. Rose and Rob flung forward and back

Rose waited for a thump. Eyes stared in the side window at her and then were absorbed into darkness. Sky? She fumbled with her seat belt and got out. Simon was under the wheels.

Rose woke with a jolt and sat up. Her hands shook and nausea stung, there was sweat on her face.

‘What is it?’ Sky asked. She was lying alongside her on top of Rose’s duvet and under Simon’s.

Rose looked blankly at her.

‘I was lonely,’ said Sky. ‘I’m sorry. Why are humans always alone?’

‘I think it’s a modern thing not a human thing.’ Rose was still shaking. Eyes stared, Simon was under the car.

‘What’s the matter?’ Sky repeated.

‘Bad dream.’

‘Do you want to tell me?’

Simon was under the car.

‘No. No, sorry. It’s OK. I just need to have some coffee.’

Her phone rang. It was Andrew.

‘Hello Rose. Is Sky with you?’

‘Yes, how did you know? She didn’t want me to tell anyone. ’

‘She has a tracking collar. Didn’t you realise? She’s been gone too long, they’ve noticed. And the pack is behaving oddly. She needs to go and get her collar and move it or something. They know where it is. It’s near you.’

‘Oh god, OK, I’ll talk to her. Don’t… don’t tell Simon.’

‘Why not?’

‘I don’t know, but don’t. Let me.’

‘If you say so, but get Sky moving or you’ll have company.’

Rose closed the call and ran her hands through her hair. She turned to Sky. It was odd to have someone in the bed with her again. Odder that it was a woman who was really a wolf.

Before she could speak, Sky said ‘I’m leaving today.’

‘Are you sure? You don’t have to, but that was Andrew and he said you had to move your collar or something. You didn’t say you had a collar.’

‘Is that the thing that’s round my neck?’

‘Yes. They can find you with it. The other humans. They’re coming.’

‘I want to go now anyway.’

‘Can’t you just go and move the collar and come back?’

‘No, not this time. Maybe not… for a while.’ She got out of the bed and stretched, lost inside Rose’s baggy pyjamas. ‘Goodbye Rose. Thank you.’

Rose got up. She still felt foggy. Eyes accused, Simon was under the car. Sky’s eyes, no, not Sky’s.

‘Simon…’

‘Tell him, tell him I am sorry I missed him. I’ll come back … in a while.’

Sky was moving swiftly through the bungalow, pulling back the curtains in the sitting room and fumbling with the door. Rose opened it for her and they stepped out into the cold, damp air.

‘I’ll leave them under the tree,’ said Sky, indicating the pyjamas.

She paused then hugged Rose. She said, ‘This hugging. This is a good thing that humans can do. Listen to the beyond, Rose. The appearing and growing and dying and coming back again. The heart-beat and rhythm. Let it fill you and give you peace.’

She was gone, running up the meadow to the woods, a small figure in the early light, stumbling over the damp, muddy, clumpy land then disappearing under the trees.

‘Come back soon,’ whispered Rose.