They unpicked and restitched, pushed babe into wolf and wolf into babe.

In the end, after their unthreading and nudging, after their prodding and clipping and lacing, there was left neither babe nor wolf…

… and both babe and wolf.

In other words, had any asked, Did the babe survive? the answer would be No. And had any asked, Did the runt survive? the answer would be No.

But of bodies cold, there was only one.

Was it wolf or babe?

Yes. Both.

And no. Neither.

The handiwork of the roots and crawling things was too delicate, too artful for any neat distinction—only that one body was cold and still, the other warm and mewling and searching now for the she-wolf’s belly.

And the unpicked and restitched creature clambering now over the other sleeping pups, squirming toward the mother-wolf in the dark, warm den and feeling the comfort of other plump little bodies underneath his own, wondered at the absence of the little hand, wondered at the absence of another’s little fingers to hold.

XII

FUR

In her earliest years, the years before memory, the years before language shaped more than Ness and Mop and sheep, there was warmth—sunlight and firelight, cradling and carrying—and breath—beneath her ear, a gentle rise and fall—and song—lullaby, lullaby, lullaby. The world was green meadow and wildflowers yellow and orange and white and white sheep and blue sunlight and warm slumbering darkness and quiet and Mop’s arms to carry her and Nessa’s arms to hold her and meadow and mountain and forest and stream.

Rae, toddling everywhere, all golden light and green meadow, was fearless, for there was Mop to hoist her on his shoulder, there was Nessa to bundle her with fleece; there were hearth and pot and garden; there were sheep, breath steaming in the frost, woolly bodies warm in the barn; there were summer and autumn and winter and spring, blossom and leaf and fruit and branch, and sun and moon and stars tumbling across the sky day after day after day, and always arms, warm arms, a lullaby, a singing to sleep.

She grew tall and straight as a reed, and her face shone with the light of the meadow; she was freckled or dirt smudged, it was unclear, only she was always speckled with mud and stains from the grass, and when she laughed she showed a scraggle of teeth that themselves looked like laughter, joyful and crooked and bright; she was barefoot, running, flying, full of the warmth of the soil, full of song and sunlight, hop-skipping, stone to stone, across the stream; she was clambering over the rocks in the hills; she was winding her way through the trees at the edge of the forest; she was belly-lying watching snails meander single-footed across the grass; she was knee-deep contemplating water bugs skittering across the stream; she was sky-gazing at hawks drawing circles in the clouds; she was peering into twiggy nests and dusty rodent holes and flipping over bark and leaves and logs to discover whole universes of silvery grubs and pale eggs and lacework of fungi. At all times, she seemed haloed by pewtery wings—mayflies or moths or sparrows or bees—airy things she stirred out of bramble and flower. And all the while, Rae, Rae, would echo across the meadow, and she would fly, galloping across the field, back to Mop, who would lift her on his shoulders, back to Nessa, who would bundle her in her arms, and all was warmth and light and song.