Red Wolf

by Rachel Vincent

  “You’re right, of course. It’s just that he looked so comfortable in your company.”

  “As I said, I’ve only just met him, but I suspect Maxime Bernard would look comfortable hopping on one foot, buck naked in a snowstorm.” The lie sat heavy in my gut.

  But Grainger smiled, evidently appeased. “Well, thank you for the stew.” He sopped up the last of the broth with his bread, then he handed me the empty bowl and spoon. “Will I see you tonight?”

  “If you like.”

  “Oh, wait, I’m on patrol tonight.”

  “Tomorrow, then,” I assured him, and Grainger nodded.

  “Tomorrow.” He leaned forward to kiss me on the cheek, and his warm lips lingered longer than usual on my skin. Then he turned and headed for the sawmill while I made my way home.

  I found my mother alone in our cabin. “Max has gone to meet Monsieur Girard,” she said as she ladled stew into a bowl for me from the pot still hanging over the fire. “And Sofia is playing with Jeanne Paget.” She set the bowl on the table and poured me a small cup of ale.

  “So, what do you think of him? Of Max?”

  “He’s a bit arrogant.” I sat at the table and picked up my spoon. “But also knowledgeable.”

  “And handsome. Surely you’ve noticed that he’s handsome?”

  “Well, I do have eyes.” I took a bite and chewed slowly, enjoying my mother’s exasperation. “Yes, he’s handsome,” I finally admitted. And if the stares he’d gotten from the village square were any indication, every woman in Oakvale agreed with my assessment. “But so is Grainger.”

  “But you can’t confide in him the way you can in Max. And that’s only going to get worse, as more and more of your life becomes about being a guardian.” The wariness in her voice spoke of long hours and exhaustion beyond anything I’d understood before.

  She wasn’t wrong. But she also wasn’t being fair to Grainger. “Mama, I want to take him into the dark wood with me.”

  “Max?” Her eyes lit up. “I think that’s a great—”

  “No. Grainger.”

  That light died. “What? Adele, what do you—?”

  “I want to take him with me to see Gran. He’s already offered to accompany me any time you can’t. So we’ll head down the path, and if he happens to notice that I can see better than he can in the dark—”

  “No. That’s too dangerous.”

  “I’m not suggesting we tell him anything or let him see me as a wolf. But I think he can be trusted.” And I had to prove that. “What better way to know for sure than to ease him into an understanding of my abilities and see how he reacts?”

  “No.”

  “We’ll go slow. I’ll point out something just beyond the fall of our lamplight—a flower, or a tree with an interesting shape—and when he raises the lamp to see it better, he’ll understand that I have very sharp eyes. And—”

  “No.”

  “And that’ll be it for now. I’ll just start getting him used to the idea that I can see a little better than he can in the dark wood, without giving myself away. And when he accepts that—” My mouth snapped shut. No need to mention the next steps, before I had her on board with the first. “Well, we’ll go slowly, is what I’m saying. Just sort of testing the waters.”

  “And what happens when you’re in the dark wood with Grainger and you see a monster? Or someone who needs protection, like that unexpected merchant wagon? Are you going to turn your back on your duty to keep our secret? Because that’s what it would come down to. You would have to decide whether to reveal yourself and save a life, or protect our family and let someone die. And if Grainger rushes into the fray, that someone could be him. What would you choose, Adele?”

  “I—” I stared down into my stew, trying to come up with the right answer to an impossible question. “I don’t know,” I said at last. “What is the right thing to do, in that situation?”

  “There is no right thing to do.” My mother pulled out the stool next to mine and sank onto it. “The life of a guardian is full of impossible choices, and the best you can do is avoid putting yourself between a rock and a hard place to begin with. Which means you should never be alone in the dark wood with a member of the village watch.”

  I exhaled, my lips pressed together, because arguing with her would do no good. “I understand.”

  “Do you? If you show Grainger what you are and he reacts badly, it will be too late. And the truth is that you’d be putting many other guardian families at risk. If word about us gets out, people will start seeing monsters in every shadow. Guardians will be hunted by the very villagers they’re trying to protect, and along the way, innocent women suspected of being one of us will be hurt. You have to keep all of that in mind when you decide whom to marry.”

  “I know,” I mumbled, staring hopelessly down into my bowl. But knowing was one thing. Accepting was quite another.

  A couple of hours after sundown, a knock echoed from the front door, and I looked up from the apron I was sewing. “Come in!” my mother called out, using a paddle to remove a loaf of bread from the oven.

  The front door creaked open, letting in a brisk gust to combat the heat from both ovens, and Max appeared in the doorway. My sister jumped up to greet him, clutching her rag doll to her chest.

  “Sofia! How lovely to see you again. I’ve brought you something.” Max knelt and pulled a small object from his pocket. When she squealed with excitement, I saw that he held a little horse, carved from a scrap of wood.

  “Just for me?”

  He handed the horse to her. “Especially for you.”

  “Well!” Mama beamed at him. “You’ve certainly managed to charm my youngest daughter!”

  “Last week, she was charmed by a bug in the garden,” I reminded her, and Max laughed, his hazel eyes lighting up at my jest, and I had to begrudgingly admire his good humor.

  My mother brushed flour from her hands and pulled out a stool for him at the table. “How did you find Monsieur Girard and his workshop?”

  “Very well indeed. He has somewhat of a sour expression most of the time, but he smiles out in the workshop—at the very scent of fresh wood, in fact—and he is well-equipped for the work. My father would approve.”

  “Madame Gosse says he’s sour-faced so often because his wife’s voice is the very pitch of a rooster’s crowing,” my sister announced with a giggle.

  “Sofia!” my mother scolded. “How would you like people to discuss your voice in such terms?”

  “That would be impossible, Madame Duval. Both of your daughters have such lovely speaking voices,” Max insisted, and Sofia beamed up at him.

  “I’ve changed my mind.” She looked boldly at me with her new toy clutched in one hand. “I think you should marry Maxime.”

  “Yesterday you said I should marry Grainger. If I left all my choices up to you, I’d never get a thing accomplished.”

  “You should marry them both!” Sofia declared with another giggle.

  “For heaven’s sake, child,” my mother chided. “Busy your troublesome tongue with some stew, and then off to bed with you.”

  “I must apologize for my sister,” I told Max with a pointed glance at her as she ladled some stew into a bowl for herself. “She doesn’t know when to hold her tongue.”

  “She speaks her mind. There’s a certain charm in that.”

  “Let’s hope someone agrees with you, when she’s old enough to marry.”

  “I’m quite certain my little brother would agree.”

  My hand froze mid-stitch as his declaration hit me like a blow to the gut. I’d forgotten about Max’s brother. About my mother’s arrangement for Sofia with Alexandre Bernard. Would she find out as suddenly as I had, only after her trial? Was there any real reason she couldn’t be told earlier? Would it hurt for her to be better prepared, at least for her betrothal?

  With one look at my expression, Max cleared his throat and raised his voice, signaling a change of subject. “Sofia, would you lik
e to see something else I made?”

  “Yes!” she shouted around a mouthful of food. “Is it another horse?”

  Instead of answering, he sank onto the stool next to hers at the table and bent to pull a small book, bound in soft leather from his satchel.

  “What’s that?” I asked as I set a bowl in front of him.

  “This”—he laid the book on the table, evidently inviting me to examine it—“is the most valuable thing I own. Go ahead.”

  I picked up the book and untied the thin strips of leather holding it closed, then I folded back the soft front flap. “Where did you get this?” The only books I’d ever seen belonged to the church.

  “My mother gave it to me. She spent more than she should have, when a merchant offered it to her. What do you think?”

  I flipped through the book, only to discover that most of the pages were blank. Puzzled, I frowned at Max, and he laughed. “It’s actually a ledger, intended for bookkeeping, but I use it for another purpose. Start at the beginning.”

  So I turned to the first page, where I found a drawing of a beautiful woman with round, wide-set eyes and a dimple in her right cheek. She looked a lot like Max. “Your mother?” I guessed.

  “Yes.”

  “You drew this?” I stared at the drawing, stunned. “You’re very talented.”

  “Thank you,” he said as he tore a bite from his hunk of bread, avoiding my gaze as if he suddenly felt modest.

  My mother clearly wanted a peek at the book, but the hopeful way she was watching us told me she that she wouldn’t interrupt our conversation for anything.

  Captivated, I turned the page and found a beautiful drawing of a charming little cottage I’d never seen before. The one he’d built for us in his village?

  It was small, but pretty—everything he’d promised. This page was an image from the life that was waiting for me in Ashborne, should I choose it, and staring at it suddenly made that alternate path feel tangible, where before, it had felt like a . . . like a passing thought, insubstantial as a puff of smoke on the breeze. Something I could just wave away and forget about once Max went home.

  Would Ashborne be harder to forget, now that I’d had a glimpse of it?

  I turned another page and found an adorable little boy a few years older than Sofia staring out at me. Behind him, looking over his shoulder, stood a man who looked so much like the boy he could only be his father. Around the edges of the page were a series of less detailed sketches of that same man and boy, from various angles, as if Max had been practicing capturing their features.

  “Is this your brother?”

  “Yes. Alexandre. He’s twelve,” Max said. “And that’s our father, behind him. Alex is training to be a carpenter as well.”

  Sofia rose from her stool and peered over my shoulder. “He looks a lot like you.”

  Max smiled. “That’s what people tell us. But he’s a bit quieter than I am. A little shy. My mother thinks he’ll grow out of it.”

  I certainly hoped so, if he truly intended to court Sofia, some day.

  The next page held a drawing of a building I’d know anywhere.

  “This is our church!” I turned to Max, astonished. “You drew this since you got here?”

  “I had some spare time while Monsieur Girard and his wife were . . . arguing. So I went out to the square to sketch. It’s a beautiful building.”

  “The pride of the village,” I told him. “The community came together to build it when I was Sofia’s age.”

  “I’d like to see the inside soon.”

  “Of course. How long have you been drawing?” I asked as my mother put wooden cups of ale on the table for Max and me. Drawing was not a common hobby in villages such as ours, where paper was scarce. “How did you learn?”

  “A couple of years ago, a monk got stuck in Ashborne when the river froze over, so he decided to remain until the thaw, rather than braving a trek through the woods. He stayed in the church, and the village fed him in exchange for his sermons. The first time I delivered food from my mother, I saw him working on something. He explained that he was an illustrator, and he had in his possession several unfinished manuscripts, which he was working on to pass the time.

  “I asked if I could watch. Then I asked if he would teach me. And he agreed.”

  “He taught you to draw people?” Sofia asked.

  “No.” Max smiled at the memory. “He was mostly working on illuminated letters. Have you seen any?”

  My sister shook her head.

  “They’re highly detailed and colorful letters drawn in a manuscript. The first letter of a book or of a chapter, usually. They can take weeks—sometimes months—to complete. But he showed me how to draw some simpler things, on scraps of paper. And I really enjoyed it.”

  “You’re very good at it,” Sofia said.

  “Thank you. I find it very relaxing.”

  “You should draw monsters!” she declared, her eyes suddenly aglow with the possibility.

  I huffed. “That doesn’t sound very relaxing.”

  “Actually, I think that would be a very interesting challenge,” Max said. “Unfortunately, I can’t see in the dark wood, so any monsters I draw would have to come from my own imagination.”

  Sofia shrugged. “Mama makes up stories about them. You could make up drawings.”

  “Or . . .” I shrugged. “Maybe someday someone who’s actually seen the monsters will describe them for you in detail.”

  Max’s smile seemed to light up the whole room. “I cannot imagine a more generous gift.”

  At once, I understood my mistake. As impressed as I was by his talent and his desire to help the guardians, I hadn’t intended to volunteer my own eyes for his art project.

  His mother seemed much more suited to that role.

  Twelve

  I stepped out of the cottage with a full basket hanging from my arm, my gray cloak draped over my shoulders, bracing myself for a cruel gust of frigid wind. My sister darted around me, a pitchfork in one hand, our empty milk pail in the other, her long red hair flying out behind her as she raced across the patch of dirt behind our home, headed for the cowshed.

  “Sofia!” Romy Paget appeared in the mouth of the alley, carrying a leather ball. An instant later, her sister, Jeanne, and little Tom raced to a stop behind her, winded, their cheeks rosy from exercise and from the cold. “Come play with us!”

  “Yes, come!” Jeanne called. “We’re going to race Tom to the barn, and you’re the only one who can beat him.”

  In the week since I’d found him in the woods, little Tom had yet to say a single word that I knew of. However, he had formed an oddly sweet sort of friendship with the Paget girls, who treated him like a little brother.

  Sofia dropped the pitchfork and set the pail in the dirt, but I clamped one hand on her shoulder before she could run off with her friends. “She may, after she’s done her chores.”

  “Please, will you milk the cow for me?” my sister begged, staring up at me with big green eyes.

  “I have deliveries, Sofia. I—”

  “Hey, give that back!” Romy shouted, and I turned to see Tom holding the leather ball. Romy tried to take it from him, since he’d clearly just plucked it from her grip, and when she reached for the ball, he bit her.

  Romy screamed, clutching her arm, where blood welled from the wound.

  “Non!” Jeanne snatched the ball from Tom, her little brows furrowed. “We do not bite! You go back home right now.” She pointed in the direction of her cottage, and little Tom hung his head as he sulked off toward the Pagets’ home, looking more confused than contrite.

  “Let me see.” I knelt next to Romy, reaching for her arm, but she brushed away her tears and swiped one hand over the bite, smearing a few small drops of blood across her skin.

  “It’s fine.” She sniffled. “He just doesn’t know any better.”

  “So I see.” I stood and ruffled her hair. “Why don’t you go home and let your mother put a p
oultice on that? When Sofia finishes her work, she can come over. But maybe you three could play poppets today, and leave Tom alone to think about his behavior?”

  “Okay.” Pouting, Romy waved to my sister, then she and Jeanne headed in the direction of their cottage.

  “Milk and muck.” I pointed at the bucket and the pitchfork. “Then you may go play.”

  “Fine.” Sofia picked up the bucket, and I smiled at her dramatic pout as I headed down the alley.

  “Elena!” I called as I rounded the front of our cottage, pleased to find her sitting in the village square. “You’ve saved me a trip!” I headed across the square toward a bench made of a split log, where she and Simon were seated.

  The flush in her cheeks said I was interrupting a private conversation, and his smile told me it had been going very well. In the days since their betrothal, many of Elena’s fears had been allayed through nothing more than the charm of Simon’s company.

  “I have your mother’s order. Two loaves of rye, as well as a little raisin tart, in thanks for your help with the churning yesterday.”

  “Thank you,” she said as I pulled the cloth-wrapped bundle from my basket. “Sit with us.”

  I had a few moments to spare, so I sat next to Elena, then leaned around her so I could see Simon. “What were the two of you discussing?”

  “Children,” he admitted with a smile. “And how many we might like to have.”

  “And did you come to a consensus?”

  “Yes.” Elena laughed. “We’ve decided on ‘just enough,’ rather than ‘far too many,’ as Simon suggested at first.”

  “How very specific and well-thought-out. I hope—”

  “Adele!”

  I spun on the bench at the sound of Grainger’s voice and found him jogging toward us, his sword swinging in its scabbard. Something rust-colored dangled from his fist, and as he came to a breathless stop, I realized he was holding a fox by its tail.

  “You’ve caught it!” I stood, and a drop of blood dripped onto my shoe from the poor dead animal. “This very moment, evidently.”

  “Yes. And you shall have its pelt as lining for your shoes, just as you requested.”