“He’s yours,” Gran said. “He won’t let any harm come to you. Now you can return to the forest, you see?”

Ivy decided to name the creature Shilling, for his coat was silver as a coin. It shone so brightly that sometimes Ivy suspected it was made of starlight.

With Shilling by her side, Ivy soon felt brave enough to return to the forest, where the wolfdog’s ears and eyes always stayed alert, as if he were searching for any signs of danger. Ivy was overjoyed to feel the pull of the wind through the trees once more, and the embrace of the sunlight that glittered in the glades.

The seasons stretched into years like saplings into great trees. Shilling grew from a pup to an enormous creature that made the villagers hiss and whisper behind their hands.

But still they came to the cottage for Gran’s remedies. And when the villagers left Poppy Cottage, they spoke in serious voices of how the child, Ivy, had herself grown from a small girl into something else. Something equally wild.

Ivy never heard this gossip, for she spent each happy day in her beloved forest, climbing the trees and memorizing from above the location of every thicket and clearing and rock and burrow. She spent each contented night by the fire, learning from her gran to prepare and mix remedies.

And, like a stone dropped into a deep pool, Ivy’s memory of the woman in white slowly faded away into nothing at all.

Until one moonless summer’s evening, Ivy and Shilling stayed late in the forest, picking dandelions to make a remedy for aching bones. When Ivy glimpsed the stars appearing between the branches of the trees, she knew it was past time to head for home.

Together, she and Shilling galloped through the trees, each racing the other and both racing the wind. But just as Poppy Cottage came into view, Ivy’s breath caught in her chest and she stopped short.

For there, gliding from the cottage, was the woman in the white cloak, carrying her wooden staff. Although it was summer, her fur hood hung across her face, hiding it from view. Shilling began to growl, but Ivy motioned for him to be quiet. Together, they hid behind a great oak tree. Nearby, Ivy could hear the sound of the woman’s cloak sliding across the forest floor. Fear spread like a dark ink stain across her heart.

She waited until the sound faded away, then sprang out from behind the tree. For she had just realized the importance of what she had seen. The woman in white, leaving Poppy Cottage, where Ivy left her grandmother tending the fire.

“Gran,” she whispered.

And then she took off running once more.

17