Page 9

A t the edge of the forest, Simon turned and looked down at the glen. He had been muttering his ideas into his phone over the sounds of birds and small sounds coming from the distance.

What’s up with my knees aching? I ought to get more exercise.

I should never have let them get me out of the habit of going to the gym regularly.

I wonder if this place even has a gym. What’s a heron doing in this field?

Where’s the nearest river? That way isn’t it?

Can’t quite tell, my eyes are tired. Maybe it’s just a bit of wood, it’s not moving at all.

It seems oblivious to that crow. Look at it march about as if it owns the place.

Looks as if it’s pacing out the acreage.

Or if it’s stalking me. Ha ha. Needs a training course on tailing people.

Being locked up like that is doing my head in. Hard to imagine why anyone had decided to build just two identical bungalows dead opposite each other in the middle of nowhere. I wonder if there once were plans for more.

There’s Rose, walking across the road with her cello.

People used to say she was quite good. Couldn’t tell myself.

That Rob seemed to think she was, but then, I know nothing about Rob and for all I know, the man is a musical idiot.

For all I knew, he’s all sorts of things and I’ve just let Rose go and walk into a stranger’s house.

There are other cars parked outside now, presumably the rest of the band.

I wonder if I should go back down the slope but then again…

Things don’t happen to Rose. Rose just manages them out of the way and gets over them and just carries on calm and sensible.

Her tears at lunchtime were a bit much. What has she got to cry about?

I’m the one who’s doomed to a half-life, I’m the one whose best friend died next to him, I’m the one whose career is in the balance, I’m the one who’s lost the one woman who had ever meant anything to me before I’d even had a chance to tell her.

Woman, wolf, whatever. Rose had David, they’d been happy.

She must have been devastated at the time, but she’s got through it somehow, sitting at my bedside and then in Andrew Ford’s lab.

What was there to make her cry today? It was my story, my grief we were talking about. Besides, I could see how Rob looked at her. I reckon she sort of fancied him too. She’ll find someone to replace David sooner or later.

Why do I feel so twitchy? Should I go back? Perhaps she isn’t safe. She’s certainly very emotional these days. Isn’t it too early for her to be going through the menopause?

A sudden warning cry in the branches above and the rattling of leaves and flapping of wings caught his attention and he forgot about Rose, turning to see what had disturbed the birds.

He peered into the trees, looking for that familiar blue glint, but there was nothing.

He breathed in deeply but couldn’t smell the proximity of a pack.

Presumably they’d moved on. Curling his fingers round the wire he leaned his head against the fence, murmuring Sky’s name into the trees.

He’d thought she was dead but she wasn’t.

It was impossible not to feel a joy to make him smile.

The birds were still clamouring however and he heard something else, a sort of sniffing.

He scanned the space around him and saw movement in the mud under the shade of one of the trees his side of the fence.

He moved closer, as slowly and nonchalantly as possible, the record button pressed on his phone.

As he reached the tree, something bolted.

Even though he knew it was too small to be a wolf, his heart pounded.

It’s a cat , he told himself, just a cat .

He peered harder after the retreating creature. Not a cat, a fox.

Deep in the forest, the pack relaxed. The leaders had found patches of sun falling through gaps in the trees and were bathing in it, their eyes closed in pleasure as their fur warmed.

One slept, her snout on her stretched out paws, twitching with dreams. The lesser members of the pack lolled around trunks of more shaded trees but the ground was still warm from summer.

One or two raised their noses to smell the air.

It was sheltered here. They tried to remember the scents and odours of the place before this place.

It was puzzling but there was nothing to be done.

No trace of their old world could be found and they had become accustomed to the new sounds and smells and tastes.

The young wolves ranged aimless and restless, flexing muscles and feigning aggression, but there was no meaning in it.

The cubs slept in a heap after wrestling.

The leader looked over at the young female.

She had come back from wandering, and now the pack was complete again.

The young female stretched her limbs, licking the ache in her shoulder where that biting thing lay buried.

When it cramped like this, it meant rain would come.

She sniffed the air. Hazy, she looked at her paws and for a second, saw them furless, powerless, slender fingers and toes.

She recalled coldness and hunger and confusion.

And fear. She lifted her nose and smelt the air.

The source of fear was a long way off but not gone.

She lay down and looked sideways at the young male not so far from her.

He wanted to leave the pack and find a mate.

But no one could sense any other pack anywhere near.

She didn’t know why she didn’t feel the same, but there was a pain inside her worse than when that thing flew through the air to bite her and concealed itself in her flesh.

The pain was connected with the slender fingers and toes and the cold.

She saw a face. It should have been the face of an enemy but it was not.

He was like the sun or the moon, drawing her towards himself to warm her to her bones.

The pain was the longing to have that warmth and the knowledge she could not.

There as nothing clear in her mind. She felt a confusion like swirling mud in a puddle - where was the sense, the instinct, the security of the pack knowledge?

It was lost to her for the moment. She felt sure the puddle would clear but knew somehow it would swirl again.

She was very tired. An old memory older than herself, but deep in her fur and bones knew this place, thought she couldn’t see how.

It smelt different. The very birds sounded different.

Another memory, which was certainly hers said that once, long long ago, she could change her shape and the sounds which came from her throat but something had altered and now it was impossible.

But all the same, she knew in her blood that the next time the moon’s belly filled, she would need to leave and try to find him again.

The young female, opened her jaws in a silent howl, closed her blue eyes and tried to sleep.