The snow was chucking down and although it was dark the white blanket was so reflective that the small kitchen light illuminated the whole yard like a floodlight. Billy ducked his head and ran for the logs. They were piled under the two big lodgepole pines, kept dry by the canopy of branches that hung over them. Great system, his father bragged, for seasoning wood, letting the wind dry them quicker than if they were in a shed, and keeping the rain and snow at bay. But those long, springy swaying branches made it real spooky. The heavy wooden limbs cast deep shadows over the pile and Billy sometimes thought he saw things moving in there as the branches swayed, but it was just shadows on the gnarly logs. He scooped up an armful of dry wood, balancing as many as he could in the crook of his arm before turning to make the dash back to the warm kitchen.

He spun round and then yelped. There was a figure standing right behind him in the yard. Billy dropped the logs in fright. False alarm. It was his Dad. Sam looked at his son as if seeing him for the first time.

‘Dad? Are you okay?’

Sam looked down at the fallen logs, then back up at Billy. ‘Yeah. Yeah. I’m okay.’

He seemed far away, his eyes glittering like spangles in the freezing blanket of snow. But he was coming back from wherever he’d been and he was starting to see his startled son in front of him. ‘Here. Let’s get these guys picked up.’

He stopped to pick up the logs embedded in the white where they fell, their location only visible by the log-shaped holes left in the snow like a cartoon character’s body outlined in the dirt after a cliff-fall. Billy bent and joined him.

‘You gave me a fright Dad.’

‘Sorry Billy.’

They shared the cold logs between them and went into the house, Sam walking slowly in front like an old man. This was the same man who would normally throw a snowball at the back of his son’s head to announce his arrival, would probably have wrestled Billy into the snow and made him shout surrender! Now he seemed to be making the habit of standing alone outside his own house in the dark, his eyes reflecting the lights from the window as he looked at Billy, but radiating none of the warmth that used to flood out of those two dark pools into his son’s heart.

Billy decided that tonight, whether it wanted to or not, he would make the wolf come. He and the wolf would have to pad into Sam’s room and check out if his Dad was okay. Sniff around for the scent of what was wrong. Tonight. No more delay. Tonight.