When we’re alone I push my chair back as far as I can, wedged in against the corner with no space to breathe. “Did you tell Duncan? Is that what you were talking about that night at his house?”
She shakes her head. “I didn’t tell him what I saw but I wanted to know why he hadn’t looked in that area—he knew Stu was coming to him. So why hadn’t he looked there?”
“What did he say?”
“That he had looked. He’d walked all around there and found nothing. Said it didn’t make sense, and Stuart must have been going somewhere else.”
There is a silence.
Lainey could have told him exactly where I buried Stuart. But she didn’t, and I realize it’s because she isn’t sure that Duncan didn’t kill him.
It’s the only thing that makes sense to me now. He didn’t tell anyone about Lainey’s call because he was protecting himself. It placed Stuart near his house, and it placed him out in that forest at the time of the murder.
When Lainey called Duncan to warn him, he was in bed with me. He went out to meet Stuart in the night. Maybe they fought again. Duncan killed him. And then maybe he was interrupted by me stumbling through the dark. So he left. Was he hiding in the shadows, watching me bury Stuart’s body as Lainey did from the road? Or did he leave and never know I was there? He must have guessed though, surely, when he got home to find me gone from his bed.
To think the four of us were out there wandering that patch of forest together, passing each other like ghosts in the moonlight.
I feel like I’m going to throw up.
At least—and this is one small consolation—if Duncan does know what I did, I don’t think he could arrest me for it without implicating himself in the worse crime. But Lainey had nothing to do with it. She could still come forward and turn us both in.
“What are you gonna do?” I ask.
“I could smash this glass into your face right now,” she says, and she is so calm it’s chilling. “I think it would feel good.”
“Yeah. Probably.”
“Who are you?” she asks. “Where did you come from? How did you … How does someone make that decision?”
“To be honest, Lainey? That’s the question I ask myself every fucking night.”
Our wines arrive and we both gulp thirstily. I don’t care that I’m not meant to. Right now, I actually could not care less.
“Did you ever imagine hurting him?” I ask her. “When he was hurting you?”
“Of course. I thought about it all the time. Wondering if I could. How I would.”
“That’s what I thought about too. When I met you both, and I saw what he was doing. It’s all I could think about.”
Lainey stares at me.
“But there’s a difference between imagining something and doing it, and the difference is the size of a goddamn ocean.”
She frowns. “What are you talking about?”
“If you want to report me,” I tell Lainey, “I won’t blame you. If it means you can put him to rest properly. That’s what’s best for your family, right? So do it, if you need to.”
She sits forward, holding my eyes. “You think I need your permission? If I wanted to turn you in, I would have. Fuck you, Inti. Fuck you for making me owe you. I fucking owe you, and that’s bullshit, because you shouldn’t owe someone for this.” Lainey lifts a hand to her eyes and I can see it trembling. Without warning she gets to her feet so explosively the chair crashes to the ground. “We’ll talk, all right?” she says. “We’ll talk again. I just … I’m meant to be having a nice night with my brothers, I can’t do this now.”
“Of course, whatever you want. I’m really sorry.” Then, “Are you … Lainey, are you glad he’s gone?”
The answer matters too much.
She stares at me. “You’re really asking me that?”
I nod.
She passes a hand over her face. Then says, “He was my best friend and I loved him and I’ve been a ghost for years. Of course I’m glad he’s gone.”
* * *
Outside I feel all my certainties slipping. Her words have dislodged something in my mind.
I climb into my sister’s bed. She is awake, and rolls to face me. We gaze at each other in the dark.
“Are you real?” I whisper.
She makes no sound, no movement.
“Or did you die?”
Aggie reaches to trace her own face, her finger probing her cheeks, my cheeks, her forehead, my forehead, her lips, my lips.
“I couldn’t let go of you,” I press, feeling her touch upon me so viscerally and yet isn’t this the trick of my mind? To pretend there is truth where there is none?
“Are you a ghost?” I ask her.
Aggie squeezes my hand so hard it hurts, so hard my bones could be crushed. She must be trying to hurt me. Then she makes a sign. One of the first she ever came up with.
I don’t know.
22
There are no new shoots in the mapped quadrants on the hill. I come out to the land Evan showed me when this began, the botanists’ survey grounds that are being closely monitored, but there is nothing. Nothing in a valley that has been grazed to dirt. Nothing green among the brown, pushing its way through to reach the sun. It is too early, I know this, and the wrong season now too, we must give the experiment time to work, give the wolves a chance to perform their magic, I know this, but still I walk the land as though to punish myself. In my mind, always, Red and his rifle. He’s even less patient than I am.
* * *
Aggie leaves me a sketch that is little more than a rough circle and scrawled words beneath. A grapefruit. And she can hear you now, too.
* * *
This week she is the length of a zucchini. She might not be a she, but she’s taken her own form in my mind, without any decision from me. My body makes and I wait. Will this be the day Lainey changes her mind?
* * *
Bursts of autumn color set the forest trees alight. Hyacinth red, the color of the spots on the Lygaeus apterous fruit fly. Dutch orange, of the crests of golden-crested wrens. The lemon yellows of hornets. Colors so vibrant they caress the air around them, and make of this land a different world. Leaves glitter as crisp winds shake their branches. Most around town say winter will come early and brutal this year. It is only October but we can, all of us, feel it in the air.
Number Eight has long since given birth, and the new Glenshee wolf pups are now fourteen weeks old. They have abandoned their den and begun to eat meat; unlike the Abernethy pups, they have a healthy pack to hunt for them. Their eyes turn golden. They are becoming predators.
And little one is now an eggplant.
* * *
The first is a cow, killed on a farm near Glen Tromie. It is bleak country here, in the midwest of the national park. Stark moorlands. Empty of most living things and yet dotted with shaggy cows. Livestock, everywhere. A gray drizzle, somewhere between rain and fog. We have all been waiting for this day. There has been a kind of hush but it will vanish now: there will be noise.
Evan and I drive out to the glen to inspect the carcass and confirm it a wolf kill. Most of the cow has been torn away and there is no doubt that only a large predator with extreme force in its jaws could have done such damage. No chance a fox did this, not to a cow, not in such unforgiving terrain, not with this much power.
The farmers are an older couple, Seamus and Claire. Seamus is inconsolable—the cow in question is one of his best breeders, an older girl he’s had for many years. She’s left behind a calf that will have to be poddy raised. I get the sense he’d feel as distraught over any of his cows being killed.
“Is this your land?” I ask, gazing out over the windswept grass.
“Our land ends a way back to the west,” Seamus admits.
“Are there fences anywhere here?”
“’Course not, it’s unowned land.”
I look at him. “A piece of advice? Move your cattle back to your own land and get them behind a fence.
You were warned about this months ago, again and again. And now the Wolf Trust is expected to reimburse you?” I shake my head and start walking back for the car. Behind me I can hear Evan apologizing and explaining some of the prevention methods—again. I feel bad for my outburst; the poor man’s lost something he loved. But he could have prevented this, and he didn’t even try.
I see Duncan’s truck approaching along the track and hurry to reach my car before he arrives. He knocks on the window just as I am starting the engine. Reluctantly I lower it, aware of how big my stomach must look. My coat will hopefully hide the worst of it. “Hey.”
“Wolf?” he asks.
“Yep.”
“What do we do?”
“About what?”
“About the wolf.”
I frown. “Nothing, Duncan. It’s one cow. They’ll be paid for it. More kills will come. You should be getting your people used to the idea instead of giving them hope of recourse.”
I roll up the window.
* * *
It doesn’t take long for word to spread about the cow. No time at all, in fact. And as though this is a war, the return fire is swift. The hush, over.
* * *
The smell reaches me first, even before I’ve seen it. This is the molecule that would repel me while at the very same time attracting predators. I know it’s a chemical reaction but my body fills with adrenaline nonetheless and there is nothing I want more than to turn and run in the opposite direction. Instead I carry on, and see.
Our base camp cabin is draped in a vermillion cape. Splatters arc across walls and windows with what can only be called a delighted savagery. It frightens me, as it was meant to, and that makes me angry, as most things do.
I reach for my phone, even though it’s barely dawn. No service. Never any service. I have to walk out into the field before I can make a call, and even then Duncan’s voice drops in and out. I manage to communicate that he needs to come.
Duncan arrives still half asleep. I didn’t think to warn him not to bring Fingal, and now the dog darts from smear to smear, trembling with joy.
“Quite a thorough job they’ve made of it,” Duncan mutters. I wait while he limps around the small building, snapping pictures on his phone. “Did anyone break in?”
“No.”
“Are you sure? Did you check inside to make sure nothing was taken?”
“Nothing taken. Door was still locked.”
“They’re just trying to scare you.”
“No shit, Duncan.”
“Leave it with me. You okay?”
I nod and he hops back in his car. Fingal doesn’t respond to being called because he’s having conniptions licking the animal blood so I jog over to him and pull him gently away by the collar. “Come, fiend.” He gives an excited yelp and launches himself up into the back of the truck.
“I’ll call you with any news,” Duncan says. He’s looking at me and I have to consciously avoid touching my swollen belly. It’s taken a long while for me to start showing. These days, naked, I’m obviously very pregnant. With thick woolen sweaters and a loose overcoat, I’m fairly sure you can’t tell. I look sloppy, but that’s not unusual for me.
“Thanks,” I say.
By the time the team arrives I’ve only managed to scrub the front door clean and there’s a river of sweat pouring off me.
“What the fuck,” Zoe says. “I’m going to be sick.”
“Who did this?” Evan asks.
“We’ve been expecting it,” Niels says.
“Um. No one warned me?” Zoe says.
“Not specifically.”
“Was there an animal here?” she asks.
“You mean aside from…” Evan gestures to the blood.
“Yeah, a living animal.”
“Duncan’s dog was here,” I tell her.
Zoe gives a moan, and scratches her arms. “I knew it, I’m breaking out. I am so not cut out for this wilderness shit.” She runs inside, presumably to take an antihistamine for her animal hair allergies. She shouts from the doorway, “I’m not coming out again until that’s all cleaned off. In fact probably not even then. I live in here now.”
“How is that different from usual?” Evan mutters. Then he moves closer to me. “Let me do this, boss. Niels and I can handle it, you go in and get started on the day.”
I shake my head and keep scrubbing.
He lowers his voice. “Probably not the best idea in your condition.”
I stop. “What?”
“Nobody else knows. I just have three sisters and a whole lot of nieces and nephews.”
It’s not that I’m keeping it as some big secret, it’s just that I try my best not to think about it, and that means not talking about it. So no one except Mrs. Doyle—and now Evan—know about it. I hand him my sponge and wordlessly head inside. For just a moment I pause, hand on my belly, on the firm swollen bump there. There is a universe within.
Once the cabin is as clean as we can get it, I send Evan and Niels out to find the packs and download their latest GPS data. We need to know which wolf killed the cow. The Tanar Pack is busy hunting the spotted deer with enormous antlers, and a very long way from Seamus and Claire’s farm. I doubt it was them. The Glenshee Pack are the closest but have stayed near their den while their pups are young, and they’ll probably remain there for months to come. We’ll have to think of a plan to collar the pups at some point. Number Ten’s data shows that she remained with her pack, which wasn’t what I expected to see. Of all the wolves, I would have put money on it being her. Meanwhile the Abernethy Pack have been happily ensconced in their forest to the north. Which leaves me with no explanation.
* * *
The next attack is far worse than the first.
Halloween is afoot. The streets are draped with hanging lights and spiderwebs. Grotesquely carved lanterns sit on doorsteps and corners. Ghoulish spirits peer out from windows and finger bones reach up out of their graves of dirt. The Scots love their monster stories; here the macabre is relished.
I am driving through town when stopped by a crowd of people on the road. My first thought is that it must be a kind of street party. But as they part for me I see that there is something strung up on the town sign, and it is not like the other bits and baubles. A gray smudge. A lolling tongue. My guts bottom out.
Old Number Fourteen, the gray wolf who survived all manner of threat and led his family from the pens to safety. Decapitated, his head hanging from a noose, all four paws cut off and draped around the four points of the sign.
I stop being a woman, a human, an animal, whatever I was. I am fury dressed in flesh.
* * *
Tonight come the hungry ghosts, in from the fields, seeking shelter from the approaching winter. Give them gifts of food and warmth to appease their desire for revenge. The boundary between this and the Otherworld is thin. Such are the old beliefs of Samhain, the Gaelic harvest festival to mark the beginning of the dark half of the year, the coming of the cold. A huge bonfire is lit at dusk in a field outside of town. People from all over the Cairngorms arrive dressed in spooky costumes. Once they would have killed a cow; I can almost smell the primal Pagan scent of its blood on the air. I move through the disguised bodies with a hunger of my own.
It turns out the monster I’m searching for is stupid. He kept Number Fourteen’s body, perhaps to illegally sell the hide, perhaps as a trophy, and he kept the radio collar that had been around the wolf’s neck. Maybe he pulled it apart, maybe he put it underwater, thinking that would be enough. But they are almost impossible to destroy and so it has continued to send its mortality code to our system, and this is how I’ve found him.
His name is Colm McClellan. He is thirty-one years old, divorced, and has two kids who don’t live with him. He’s not even a farmer—but he does enjoy hunting. I followed him from his house tonight and have watched him lead his children through the festival, feeding them sweets and letting them run around the crackling flames.
&
nbsp; He wears a wolf mask.
Ways to kill a man. Push him, unseen, into a bonfire.
A body brushes against me in the crowd. A hand takes mine, distracting me. I pull my eyes from Colm to see Duncan’s face in shadow.
“Are you all right?” he asks me.
I try to move past him but he stays me.
“Inti. I’m sorry about what happened.”
I look at Duncan. “Are you? I thought you wanted the wolves gone as much as the rest of them.”
“Don’t say that. You know I’ve been shifting. You were shifting me. I wasn’t sure, but now I am.”
“What are you sure of?”
“That whatever you’ve brought here to us is good.”
It stops me. “What made you sure of that?”
“You did,” he says.
He lets go of my hand, but only to trace his face with a finger. I shiver; he knows I can feel it. His fingertip running a fever from my forehead to my cheek to my lips. It doesn’t feel like a trick; the distance between our bodies feels like the trick because we share the same skin, the same muscles, the same bones and their marrow. I could be swept away so easily; there is a tide wanting to take me. For a split second in time he is everything, he is the whole world, and the little one inside me a universe for us both, but I gave myself to a universe long ago, one that held only my sister and me, and I don’t know how I will survive this. I think Duncan sees something in me that isn’t really there.
“Have you found who did it?” I ask.
“Not yet. I will.” Duncan leans close to my face. “I’ll get him.”
He won’t, though. Because I’m going to be the one to get him.
* * *
Colm drops his children at their mother’s house and then heads home. I follow a couple of car spaces behind. He lives on the edge of town. He has a large back shed, but parks his car in the driveway and goes inside.
Once There Were Wolves Page 21
