“I wish I knew,” she muttered. “Deanna, I’d be happy to talk more with you about wolves, but I—”
“You have to go,” Deanna said. She gnawed her lower lip. “Before you leave, I—I wanted to give you something.” Abruptly she turned, darted into the hall, and returned to thrust a tube of rolled paper at Alex.
Alex unrolled it carefully. It was a drawing, awkward and heartfelt—a drawing of a woman running with a wolf. The woman had red hair in a cloud about her face, and the wolf was silver gray with a long, flowing tail.
“I’m taking art classes,” Deanna said in a rush. “Our last assignment was to draw something from our imagination. So I—I just thought…”
Alex cradled the drawing carefully in her hands. “It’s beautiful, Deanna.” She swallowed. “I’ve never had anything like it before.”
Deanna seemed emboldened by Alex’s praise. “If it’s not too much trouble… could we talk about wolves again sometime?”
“I’d be happy to. Maybe we can get together when I’m a little more settled in—”
“Hey, Dee,” Julie said, strolling up to join them. “Don’t forget you promised to take the little monsters out to the pond before it gets too late.”
The “little monsters,” Tracy and Liz, chorused in with enthusiastic agreement, tugging at Deanna’s shirt. Deanna rolled her eyes at Alex and went to get the twins’ coats.
Julie grinned indulgently. “Kids. Too much for Kieran, I see.”
“No, not at all. I apologize for him. He’s just… wolf researchers do tend to be solitary…” She trailed off, feeling awkward. “We’ve had a great time, Julie. Thanks.”
Julie shrugged. “You’re welcome.” They watched while Deanna took the twins outside, trailing scarves and giggles. “Hey, you got Deanna to talk. She seems to have developed a case of hero worship.”
Alex laughed. “For me?”
“Kids can be funny that way,” Julie said. “They can see things pretty clearly sometimes.”
Alex was spared a reply when Kieran came back into the house, his eyes untroubled and his face relaxed. He rejoined them in silence, and without any further comment Julie took Alex and Kieran on a round of good-byes and thanks. Julie’s grandmother had disappeared, and Alex was frankly relieved.
Everything had turned out all right.
* * *
“You were remembering back there, weren’t you?” Alex asked.
Kieran had said very little since they left Julie’s house. There were about a hundred questions she wanted to ask him, such as what Julie’s grandmother had said to him, and what he’d thought of the visit and Julie’s family. But this one seemed the one most likely to break through Kieran’s silence.
She was right. He looked up, a deep crease between his dark brows.
“When you were talking about trapping wolves,” he said. There was little inflection in his voice, no echo of his earlier distress. “I had an… image of something. A cage. Being confined.”
“As a wolf?” Alex quickened her pace to match his.
“Were you trapped once?”
He gave her a long, unreadable look. “I don’t know. I hated it, and I escaped.”
His reaction told her it had been a bad memory. It would only be natural for him to block memories like that. She knew all too well. But she couldn’t let him take the easy way out.
“Think, Kieran. When did this happen? Where? There must be something more you can remember.”
His stride broke and resumed, uneven. “Close,” he muttered. “Sometimes I feel it—”
“Feel what?”
But he was not looking at her. He came to a sudden halt and lifted his head as she had seen him do several times before, as if to test the air: When she would have touched him he raised his hand sharply, forestalling her.
“Listen,” he commanded.
She did. For a moment she heard only the faint rustling of pine boughs, and then—very faint—a cry, high-pitched and wavering.
Kieran sprang away in a single long leap and was running before Alex could blink. She cursed under her breath and followed, floundering along in her snowshoes. The cry sounded again.
A child’s voice, growing more distinct. Alex’s stomach knotted. She struggled to set her feet in the widely spaced tracks Kieran had made, hating her human limitations.