Rather than back up from the fence, the wolf rushed through it, squeezing its lean body through the small space, in the same liquid way a cat gets through tiny gaps. I breathed a sigh of relief then, seeing that the wolf wasn’t the slightest bit interested in me. In fact, I even dared to move a few steps closer to watch its behaviour. It’s not every day you come across a wolf, not for me anyway.
But what broke my heart was where the wolf immediately ran—to the body of what I had to assume was its mother. It let out a whine and lowered its snout to the dead wolf. I stumbled out from the trees and stood near the fence, watching. As I moved closer, the wolf’s head rose, and I saw its pale-yellow eyes for the first time. The grey of its fur was marred by blood, formed into a rudimentary cross on its chest. We both stood there, eyes fixed, until a force pulled me away. I stumbled back, confused, and tripped over my feet, landing on the grass, convinced that a hand had wrenched my shoulder. But there was no one around. Nothing moved, not the wolf, not the sheep, nothing.
At this lower spot on the ground a white shape caught my eye. It was far off in the distance, but I recognised it for what it was. On the left-hand side of the paddock was the edge of the same forest I’d hurried through to find the pup. Between the trees stood another wolf, much larger than either of the others I’d already seen today. Its head was low, its back arched, throwing into my imagination the sound of its growl, the trembling of its hackles, the saliva dripping from its jaws. I hurried to my feet and ran.
Chapter Seven
Irene regarded me with disdain, the corners of her mouth pulled down. “Where have you been? You smell terrible.”
On my way back to the monastery, I’d lost the path between the trees and ended up circling through the same patch of forest two or three times before I found my way again. Wandering so far up the mountain to the farmland had resulted in me staying out for hours. I’d stumbled back in the dark, mud on my hands and in my hair, heart still pounding after what had happened. With every step I’d imagined the large white wolf leaping from the undergrowth, ready to rip open my throat. In view for barely a moment, yet the sight of that beast had left a bad taste in my mouth, like rusted pennies. There’d been an intangible strangeness about its presence that I could feel even from so far away. The young wolf was just that, a skinny pup with a dead mother, but the white wolf was different. In fact, it was probably the white wolf that had killed the pup’s mother, now I thought about it.
“I think I fell into animal muck,” I explained. “I had a crazy walk. There was this—”
She held up one hand. “Shower and get online. You’re late for your shift.” She gestured towards the rota on the wall, leaning her weight against the doorframe.
“Okay, but you need to call the authorities about some wolves I saw. They’re protected, aren’t they?”
Irene threaded her fingers through her hair and paused. “I’ll have to check.”
“I’m sure you can find them on Google. Maybe you could email them? Or use your local contact?”
“Of course,” she said. “You saw an actual wolf?”
“I saw two,” I replied.
“Did you get it on camera?”
“Yeah.”
“Wow. Okay, well upload it.”
It was my turn to stay up late and interact with the viewers. In fact, I was the first to do this. But before I got started I took Irene’s advice and got straight into the shower, washing away the mud and other delightfully smelling things I’d picked up on the walk. Afterwards, I pulled on my comfy clothes, padded into the kitchen and made toast. There were several dirty bowls and plates on the side from the dinner I’d missed, so I quickly rinsed them and put them in the dishwasher. By the time I took a laptop to the snug, nearly everyone had gone to their bedrooms. I realised it was after ten p.m. Jules had stayed up long enough to wish me goodnight.
“We should hang out tomorrow,” she said as she left.
“Yeah, sure,” I replied. “I’d like that.”
I decided to upload the footage from the body cam as I was chatting to viewers. After spending so long away from the cameras in the monastery, I needed to provide content for the subscribers, plus I wanted to view the footage myself. On my way back from the mountain, my thoughts had been scattered and panicked, my fear too extreme, to dwell on one element of the day. There’d been a moment near the sheep field—as if there’d been a hand on my shoulder, yanking me away from the fence. Had another person been there? A farmer? One of the others out on a walk? And if someone had been there, why had they run away?
It took a while to go through the footage, skipping forward through my walk at the beginning. Every now and then I stopped to answer questions on the live stream, like: What is Irene like? Do you like The Yorkie in real life or is he a dick? How do you write so fast? Are you a virgin?
That one kept cropping up over and over again and I continued to ignore it, but every time I saw that word my stomach dropped. I had Nathan to thank for that. I ground my teeth, trying not to focus on him, to not allow my thoughts to spiral back into paranoia, back into the nagging feeling that he stole my medication.
When the wolf appeared on the screen, I leaned in, checking the surrounding area for anything I might have missed. There it was, panicking and whining, pulling its weight against the wires, hurting itself with each frantic tug. In the background, I saw the way the scenery fell into the distant mountains, and the trees carpeting the view in between green grass and blue peaks. There, in the trees, was a white shape. The large white wolf I’d seen after I freed the pup. It’d been there the entire time, watching.
It wasn’t quite recognisable as a wolf on the footage, and no amount of zooming in helped at all. But, surely, it was the wolf. What else could it be?
Because the camera had been strapped to my chest, there was no way for me to see if anyone had been behind me, but I watched the footage from when I was tugged back, slowing it down, pausing it where I could to check for anyone else around. There was nothing, no one.
I had to admit to myself that I must have imagined the feeling of being pulled back. It made tears spring to my eyes. The disappearance of my pills had thrown me for a loop, and almost immediately set off unhelpful thoughts in my mind. First that someone had stolen the medication, and now that I was imagining things. Surely it was the stress of being in another country, not the beginnings of my illness coming back. I wiped away any traces of the tears, hoping that none of the watchers noticed them, and focused on editing the footage to make a compelling clip for the followers.
There was a fireplace in the snug. A small one big enough for a few logs, with a poker hanging from the alcove, and a ledge above it. On top of the ledge was a clock. The ticking caught my attention for a moment as the second hand moved over the twelve. It was after midnight and the monastery was silent. Even the sound of my fingers tapping on the keyboard sent shivers up and down my spine. I watched the usernames pop up in the chat box, already recognising the regulars, like Cheezemonkeys and AliceAkarthis. It surprised me to see Akarthis fans online, and even a few donations from them. They already knew me well; I had a reader group set up, one that was free. Several were beta readers for the books, others I chatted with about non-book things. They already had as much access to me as they wanted, yet they were kind enough to play this game with me.