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‘ I can’t talk him out of it,’ said Rose.

Sam had cycled round after work and was helping prepare the sitting room for painting. Now they were sitting over a ready meal in the kitchen.

‘Where is he now?’ asked Sam.

‘Gone for a long run. He can heat up the leftovers.’

‘Well, so what’s the problem with him doing the talk? The Guild’s never had anyone so distinguished.’

‘Distinguished?’ Rose snorted.

‘Well he is,’ argued Sam. ‘You’re his sister. You forget he’s highly educated, highly intelligent, engaging…’

Rose stared at her over a forkful of lasagna.

Sam sipped her wine and after a moment, winked.

Rose put her fork down and got up to look out of the window. With relief, she saw Simon’s distant figure coming closer, running along the road. She sat down again.

‘Sam…’ Oh God, how could she even start this conversation?

‘Is this truth or dare?’

‘Sort of.’

‘Well, if it makes it easier, I’ll start. I really fancy your brother. As I said he’s…’

‘Don’t ever, ever tell him he’s highly intelligent and engaging. He’s full enough of himself as it is.’

Sam sniggered. ‘Oh, I can see that, but I can keep a man in his place if I want to. Only…’ she shrugged and sighed. ‘He’s spoken for isn’t he?’

‘Sort of.’

‘So are you going to warn me off him then?’

‘Not exactly,’

Sam picked up her wine and sat back in her chair.

‘Go on then, your turn.’

‘I don’t know how to tell you this, you’re not going to believe me.’

‘Try me.’

‘Simon’s not well.’

‘I know. Everyone knows that. I mean the whole town. All the amateur psychologists are out in force.’

‘What are they saying?’

‘You name it. Mind you, the Guild’s playing it up for all it’s worth.

He’ll be a big draw on Wednesday. They’ll have enough entrance fees to pay for them all to go on a holiday together.

Wouldn’t that be lovely? It’s all a bit roll-up, roll-up, see the famous half-man half-beast …

what have I said? I’m so sorry, I didn’t mean anything, oh God Rose, what have I said? ’

She put her glass down and reached for Rose’s hand.

‘Is that what they’re saying? Really?’

‘No. No, nothing like that, seriously. It’s… there’s just this underlying… I can’t explain it, as if they want to goad him into something. Only he’s a professional. I’m sure he can handle a room full of country folk and their stupid questions.’

Rose got up and looked out of the window, Simon would be home soon. She sat down again.

‘Sam, you won’t believe me, but I’m telling you anyway because you’re one of only about three people I trust in this place. You know Simon was attacked in Denmark last summer?’

‘Yes.’

‘At the same time my husband was killed.’

‘Yes.’

‘The thing that attacked Simon wasn’t a normal, rogue wolf. It was a werewolf. Simon is a werewolf.’

Sam was silent. She leaned back and put her glass on the table.

‘I don’t blame you for not believing me. But it’s true. It’s some sort of virus which causes mutating DNA. It’s degenerative. Simon is dying. Little by little.’

‘And, I can’t believe I’m asking this, but your husband, was he attacked by the werewolf too?’

‘No, he was shot. No one knows who by, someone who was trying to shoot the werewolf, judging by the film.’

‘The film.’

‘It’s all on film. I could show you.’

‘I don’t know what to say.’

‘Do you want to see the film?’

Sam started eating again. ‘You know, for a ready meal, this is pretty good.’

Rose put her head in her hands. ‘You don’t believe me.’

‘Would you?’

‘I didn’t. When they brought Simon home and he went to some out of the way clinic, I just thought he’d got some sort of tropical disease.’

‘From Denmark?’

‘You know what I mean. Then the specialist told me. Andrew Ford. I was there at the start of the first transformation. I’ve never seen one through, I can’t bear it. Even now.’

‘Well,’ said Sam, topping up her glass and then Rose’s. ‘That wasn’t what I was expecting you to say.’

Rose tensed. ‘What were you expecting me to say?’

‘That you fancied Rob. I mean I already knew, it’s hardly a secret.’

‘Is it that obvious?’

‘A helluva lot more obvious than Simon being a werewolf.’

‘Well, in an odd sort of way, that’s a relief.’

‘Have you told him? I mean, have you told Rob that Simon’s a werewolf.’

‘Yes. He saw the film. I could…’

Sam got up, peered out of the window, waved, then got dessert from the fridge.

‘Look Rose, nine months ago, assuming we’d known each other then, I’d have eaten up this cream cake and then skedaddled and would have avoided you like the plague ever after.

But eight months ago, I moved to this place.

I swear, I’ve lived in small towns most of my life and there are all the usual stereotypes here as there have been everywhere else, but this place has something extra. ’

‘Weird people.’

‘There are weird people everywhere. There’s history everywhere.

In most small towns, they celebrate old customs or old triumphs, resurrect old markets and fairs.

People dress up in mock mediaeval or Tudor or Stuart or Victorian clothes and it’s all a bit of a laugh.

No one really cares what the authentic thing was, old inhabitants, incomers, they all muck about with a facsimile of the past. But here.

Nothing. The most significant thing in its past is never referred to.

There’s no museum, no local history society, no old traditions. All it has is the Guild.’

‘There are ceilidhs. And Emmeline was pretty rigid about the format of that.’

‘Ceilidhs are generic. The thing about her wanting to keep things traditional I’ve realised, is just a front.

What’s traditional about a ceilidh with amplifiers and microphones, electric light, people leaping about in jeans, wine from Australia, chilli con carne and baked potatoes?

Anyway my point is, my brain is telling me that you’re either deluded or a liar.

I’m pretty sure you’re not a liar. So that makes you bonkers.

But then my spirit is telling me that it’s all true.

Your brother is a werewolf. It’s weird, but how could things be any weirder? ’

‘His girlfriend is actually a shape-shifting wolf.’

‘There you go. It just got weirder.’ Sam upended the rest of the wine into her glass as Simon walked through the door.

‘You’re going to have to drive me home,’ she said. ‘Your sister is messing with my head.’

Simon glanced from one to the other. ‘Right, so she’s told you.’

‘Yup. Cheers wolfman,’ she raised her glass.

‘Yeah, well, I don’t bite. Not for a few days anyway.’ He waggled his eyebrows.

‘I was just telling Rose why I believe her.’

‘You do.’

‘“There are more things on heaven and earth, Horatio…”’

‘If you say so. I’m going for a shower. Shove my dinner in the microwave, Posie, I’ll be back in five.’

‘No.’

He walked off.

‘So,’ said Sam, ‘the film…’

‘You want to see it?’

‘No, I don’t want to see your husband die. I can’t imagine how upsetting it must be.’

‘Rob thinks I should get rid of it.’

‘Yeah well, he’s a man. He put photos of Saoirse away and thought it would help him forget. It didn’t work. You can’t just tidy things up like that. You’ll get rid of it when you’re ready.’

‘You said you were going to explain why you believe me.’

‘Oh yeah, well, like I said, there’s little recorded local history, just a few bits of hearsay and legends etc. So I’ve been doing some research. But this is what I dug up. The town was pretty much untouched by the outside world until the 1600s.’

‘Yes, so Rob said.’

They could hear Simon singing in the shower.

Sam grinned then became serious again: ‘I mean the big things impacted here the same as everywhere, battles for the crown, the Reformation, tobacco and potatoes, that sort of thing. But this place was so far out those things were like ripples, rumours. Few people came here, fewer people left. People who moved in didn’t leave.

I think it must have been true that the wise women here were more skilled than most. It might be propaganda but what little evidence there is suggests a longer life expectancy than the norm for the time.

A lower birthrate but also lower neonatal and maternal death rates.

There were fewer children, but the majority grew up.

That really bucked the trend for elsewhere.

Women seemed to have a little more influence here than was normal for the time, perhaps because they weren’t constantly pregnant.

Guilds allowed female membership, even some roles in the church were opened to them. ’

‘Sounds idyllic for that period in history.’

‘Yes, but as I say, I’m not sure how much is propaganda. The thing that does stand out is that they managed to keep what they had quiet. And controlled.’

‘Everyone was controlled back then.’

Simon had come out of the shower and, still singing, had slammed into his bedroom.

‘Yes, that’s true but I think it was more than that.

The evidence of the witchfinder suggested the usual things: magic potions, the evil eye, dancing with the devil.

But the reality would suggest that potions indicate a really good knowledge of herbology and the evil eye is nothing but good (if warped) psychology and… ’

‘Dancing with the devil?’

‘Whose devil? That was the question. The majority were good churchgoers. There were a few who weren’t. Perhaps they were secret Catholics, perhaps they followed older ways, but there’s nothing to suggest devil worship.’

‘Yes but isn’t that what the witchfinders did? Made things up?’

‘I don’t think it was made up. It just depends on what you mean by devils.

It took some digging, but I found something else.

After a few years, the townsfolk weren’t just your usual people.

There were others. The parish records are vague, coy, sometimes defaced, but there are brides and grooms and children with no ancestry. ’

‘Incomers. Illegitimate.’

‘No, I think they’re local. And there’s a pattern.

I thought they were nicknames instead of surnames.

Surnames weren’t common then. But then I realised they weren’t nicknames.

They were animal names. Mostly seal and wolf but sometimes fox, crow.

Ridiculous as it sounds, I came to the conclusion that either they were shapeshifters or people thought they were.

Selkies, that sort of thing. People who weren’t people. ’

‘That’s … I was going to say ridiculous, but actually, that’s what Rob said. Sort of. Only there was something else. Something bad happened.’

‘Yes, that’s when it all went wrong. More and more names in the records. Then, as the country’s infrastructure started to improve, actual incomers. Then witchfinders.’

‘The incomers told.’

‘Yes. I think they did. I don’t know why.

But they brought down the torturers and the hangman and the torchbearers.

Before the plague, almost half the town was murdered.

What records there are say that all the shapeshifters and their descendants were killed, with the exception of a few, most of whom it was said, travelled in human form to other places.

Some west to the New World, others east to darker forests. ’

‘Like Scandanavia?’

‘I believe so.’

Rose sat back. Could Sky’s ancestor have come from Kirkglen? Is that why the forest felt familiar deep in Sky’s bones? Had the ancestor learned to change to get away from the witchfinders? Or had that happened beforehand and the witchfinders came?

Sam wasn’t paying attention to her silence.

‘Whether they were secret shapeshifters themselves or not, most of the families of the wise women were killed,’ she said.

‘Most but not all.’ She paused and prodded the table with her finger.

‘The rest lived to make descendants and when the coast was clear, create the Guild.’