The Wolf Within

Walk in theWoods

The trail narrowed almost immediately, swallowed by the dense canopy of second-growth timber that ran parallel to the Blackwood River.

Even with the sun sinking toward the western ridge, the forest floor retained the gentle warmth of the afternoon. Lily walked with light, familiar steps, her sneakers making scarcely a sound against the carpet of pine needles and damp leaf mold. The scent of wild ramp, wet stone, and decaying cedar filled the cool air coming off the water, sharp and clean after the heavy smells of the kitchen.

Along the edges of the path, the understory was in the midst of its quiet, annual handover.

Lily slowed her pace to look down at the shaded embankment. The early spring ephemerals were already flagging, their brief season spent. The delicate white petals of the bloodroot had withered into brittle brown ribbons, and the mottled, fleshy leaves of the yellow trout lilies were drooping toward the moss, their nodding blossoms long gone. In another week or two, they would disappear entirely beneath the earth, yielding the clearing to the hardy arrivals of early summer—the golden flares of lanceleaf coreopsis and the rough, sun-hungry stalks of black-eyed Susans that Silas loved so much.

Lily smiled faintly, brushing her fingers against the frond of a maidenhair fern. Her father had spent years walking these banks with her, pointing out the subtle shifts in foliage and teaching her the botanical names with patient reverence. A garden doesn't end where the fence stops, Lily, he had told her when she was ten. The woods just plant themselves.

That knowledge made the woods feel like a second home, an extension of the hearth rather than something wild and alien.

She walked on for perhaps ten minutes, following the gentle curve where the river widened over a bed of polished granite stones. The steady, white-noise rush of water was a constant companion, but as she stepped over a mossy root into a stand of old hemlocks, a strange sensation prickled across the nape of her neck.

Everything had gone quiet.

Lily stopped in her tracks, her head c*****g slightly.

Her hearing had always been remarkably acute—sharp enough to catch Rowan whispering through closed doors or the scuttle of field mice beneath the winter porch. Normally, this stretch of the Blackwood corridor was alive with late-evening chatter: the raspy calls of red-winged blackbirds among the reeds, the chattering scold of squirrels contesting the lower oak branches, and the sudden, frantic rustle of white-tailed deer bolting through the brush.

Now, there was nothing. No birdsong. No insects droning in the damp hollows. Even the breeze seemed to die in the upper canopy, leaving the air heavy and motionless.

Lily scanned the darkening timber, her pulse picking up a measured beat. *A storm?* she wondered, glancing up through the lattice of branches. But the sky above was a clear, deepening indigo, untouched by thunderheads.

Then she heard it.

A dry branch snapped somewhere in the thicket thirty yards ahead, followed by the heavy, deliberate drag of footsteps through dead leaves.

Lily froze. She eased her weight onto the balls of her feet and inched back toward the trunk of a broad birch tree. A knot of cold dread tightened in her stomach.

Bear.

Black bears were common enough in the state's northern counties, though sightings this close to town were rare. Still, as the spring thaw turned into summer, hungry yearlings occasionally wandered down the river drainage in search of food. Lily had never encountered one on her walks, but the sheer weight behind those footsteps left little room for doubt.

She leaned slightly to the side, peering through a screen of mountain laurel.

Through the green leaves, she caught the silhouette of massive black fur, dark as soot against the evening shadows. Her throat tightened. Don't run, she told herself, recalling every piece of trail advice her father had ever given her. Never run from a predator.

She began to take a slow, agonizingly careful step backward, intending to put the birch tree between herself and the trail.

Before her heel could touch the ground, the brush parted.

The creature stepped out onto the path, and Lily’s breath caught hard in her chest.

It was not a bear.