His Winter Wolf

In The Shadow Of The Wolf.

65°F

The week passed in a blur, my mind lost somewhere between reality and memory. School became background noise, my notes filled with half-written sentences, my focus slipping away. All I could think about was the rough texture of his fur beneath my fingers, the quiet certainty of his presence, and the stark contrast of the white wolf’s face outside my window.

I barely snapped back to attention when Mrs. Ruminski walked a police officer into class. He looked young, his name tag reading WILLIAM KOENIG, and I recognized neither his name nor his face. He hesitated as he introduced himself, and Olivia, sitting beside me, leaned in.

“He’s cute,” she whispered. “Love the shaved head. Do you think his mom calls him Will?”

I rolled my eyes. He was good-looking, sure, but not my type. Not that I even knew what my type was.

Officer Koenig started talking about his career in law enforcement, but the class wasn’t interested—until Elizabeth, clad in mourning black, shot her hand up.

“Is it true Jack Culpeper’s body was stolen from the morgue?”

The room exploded with theories—cover-ups, medical experiments, drug smuggling. Even a joke about Jack being stuffed like a trophy. Koenig looked helplessly at Mrs. Ruminski, who, instead of rescuing him, pressed for an answer.

“We’re looking into it,” he admitted, clearly uncomfortable. “I ask that everyone respect the family’s privacy.”

Elizabeth wasn’t done. “Do you think the wolves are dangerous?”

His gaze flicked to me as she added, “Grace was attacked, too.”

I felt every pair of eyes shift toward me. The memory of that day stirred, but I forced it down. If people saw me as a victim, they’d want justice. They’d go after the wolves.

They’d go after him.

“That was years ago,” I said evenly. “And it might’ve been dogs.”

A lie. But no one could prove otherwise.

Koenig, relieved, steered the conversation back to career paths. When the bell rang, Olivia and I escaped to our lockers, only to spot Isabel Culpeper, Jack’s sister, staring into her locker like it held secrets. Unlike the rest of the school, she wasn’t wearing black.

“Maybe she’s not mourning anymore,” I mused.

“Maybe she’s the only one who ever really was,” Olivia replied.

Back at my house, I made coffee and cranberry scones while Olivia spread out a stack of her latest photos. Photography was her religion, and her shots made me believe in it, too. She was still hung up on Officer Koenig, grinning over her coffee.

“I think I have a thing for uniforms,” she teased. “We should order pizza sometime—Rachel says the pizza guy is cute.”

I smirked. “Since when do you care about guys?”

She shrugged. “And you don’t?”

I hesitated. “When the right guy comes along, I guess.”

“How will you know if you don’t look?”

I didn’t have an answer. Instead, I flipped through the photos until one caught my breath.

It was him. My wolf.

Half-hidden behind a tree, eyes locked onto mine through Olivia’s lens. Even in a still image, he felt alive—watching, waiting.

“You can keep that one,” Olivia said softly. “In fact, keep them all.”

I held the photo in my hands, my heart beating faster.

As if I’d ever let go.

Thanks," I said, and meant it more than I could express. I ran my thumb lightly over the photograph, as if I might somehow feel his fur through the glossy paper. It was a poor substitute for the real thing—flat, lifeless, inadequate. My wolf was so much more than an image, more than a moment frozen in time. Looking at it sent a pang through me, something tangled between longing and loss. I knew Olivia was watching me, but her gaze didn’t comfort me. If anything, it made the feeling worse, as if her presence highlighted just how alone I was in this.

Once, I would have confided in her. But something had shifted between us, something subtle but undeniable. And I had a feeling the change was in me.

Olivia slid a smaller stack of photos across the table. “This is my brag pile,” she said, her voice just a touch too casual.

I flipped through them slowly, distracted. They were beautiful, of course—Olivia’s photos always were. A perfect autumn leaf floating on a puddle, its reflection mirroring the sky. A shot of students reflected in the smudged windows of a school bus, frozen in time like ghosts. A moody black-and-white self-portrait, the lighting making Olivia’s expression unreadable.

I murmured my appreciation, but without thinking, I slid the photo of my wolf back on top, drawn to it despite myself.

Olivia made an irritated sound, a sharp exhale through her nose.

Guiltily, I flicked back to the picture of the floating leaf, trying to summon something intelligent to say about it. “I like this one. Great…colors.”

She snatched the stack from my hands and plucked the wolf photo from the pile, flicking it at me hard enough that it bounced off my chest and onto the floor.

“Yeah. Sometimes, Grace, I don’t know why I even…” She trailed off and shook her head, her frustration simmering just beneath the surface.

I stared at her, thrown. I didn’t get it—did she want me to pretend to like the other pictures more? Or was it something else entirely?

Before I could say anything, a voice interrupted us.

“Hello! Anyone home?”

It was John, Olivia’s older brother, his easy grin appearing in the front hall as he shut the door behind him. “Hey, good-looking,” he said, winking at me.

Olivia shot him a look. “I hope you’re talking about me.”

“Of course,” John said, still grinning at me. “It would be in terrible taste to hit on your sister’s best friend.” He glanced between the two of us, then made a show of checking his watch. “It’s four o’clock. How time flies when you’re…” He paused, taking in the piles of photographs and the vaguely tense atmosphere. “…doing nothing.”

“We’re introverts,” I told him. “We like doing nothing together. All talk, no action.”

John snorted. “Fascinating.” He turned to Olivia. “Olive, we’ve got to leave now if you want to make it to your lesson.” Then he turned back to me and lightly punched my arm. “You should come, Grace. Or are your parents home?”

I let out a short laugh. “Are you kidding? I’m basically raising myself. I should get a tax deduction for being head of household.”

John laughed—probably harder than the joke deserved—and Olivia shot me a sharp look, one that said I’d said too much. I shut my mouth.

John, oblivious as ever, just shrugged. “Come on, Olive. You’re paying for the lesson whether you go or not. Grace, you coming?”

I glanced toward the window. And for the first time in months, I imagined stepping into the trees and running until I found him, my wolf, waiting for me in a sun-dappled clearing. The pull was so strong, so visceral, that for a second, I almost said no to John without thinking.

But instead, I shook my head. “Not this time. Rain check?”

John flashed me his signature lopsided smile. “Yep. Come on, Olive. Bye, good-looking.” He winked again. “You know who to call if you’re looking for some action with your talk.”

Olivia swung her backpack at him, hitting him square in the side. But when she turned back to me, her glare was colder than before, like I’d done something wrong.

I wasn’t sure what.

“Go. Just go,” she muttered, shoving past him toward the door. Then, over her shoulder, a clipped, “Bye, Grace.”

I watched them leave, then wandered back into the kitchen, feeling unsettled.

The radio in Dad’s study murmured on—an NPR announcer introducing another classical piece, his voice calm, neutral, a presence without substance. My father had left it on, probably before leaving the house hours ago. The familiar sound was supposed to be comforting, but instead, it only emphasized the emptiness.

Sighing, I rummaged through the fridge and pulled out a pot of leftover soup, setting it on the stove to heat. If I didn’t cook, dinner would be a can of beans, and I was already tired of eating like a college student.

I leaned against the counter, staring absently at the simmering soup, but my mind was elsewhere. I hadn’t seen my wolf in a week—not since I’d touched him, since I’d felt the warmth of his fur beneath my fingers. And even though I knew it was ridiculous, his absence gnawed at me.

It was stupid. Irrational.

But it didn’t change the fact that I felt unmoored without him.

The weight of it pushed me toward the back door. I opened it and stepped onto the deck, the wood cool under my socked feet. The crisp afternoon air wrapped around me, carrying the scent of fallen leaves, damp earth, and something else—something wild.

I closed my eyes and breathed it in.

And then, from deep in the woods, a scream split the air.