Zed didn’t smile back. “And this took you how long to notice? How many
sandwiches ago did he finish your bread? How many bowls of cereal?”
“I don’t know. What does it matter? I miss him, Zed. I want so much to be
able to talk to him again. I’m just happy he’s been here at all.”
“It matters because you’ve stopped bothering to feed yourself.” He got up
abruptly, pulled the yogurt out of the freezer, and handed her a spoon.
“Yogurt. It’s good for you. People eat it for breakfast. Eat some human food
for once instead of those airy nothings you eat at Stillwater’s. I’m not
moving until—”
“Oh, all right,” Carrie said. She prodded a spoonful out of the box, sucked
on it until it melted. “Here. Your turn.”
“Finish it.”
“I will, I will, I promise. You’d better go before the puppy chews its way
out of the house.”
He lingered, his forehead creased, his eyes dark, watching her excavate
another bite, until the thought of the ravaging, whimpering beast tugged him
away. “I’m bringing groceries tonight.” It sounded like a threat.
“Somebody around here needs to exercise some common sense.”
She tossed the carton and the spoon into the freezer when she heard his engine
start, and went outside to see if she could spot the errant wolf.
She found him by his singing.
Crooning, more like, she thought. If a wolf could. It was a gentle sort of
whine, hitting notes of love, lullaby, and play, the sound a creature might
make that had spent an entirely satisfying night, and looked forward to
another just like it. She could not see the wolf though it sounded close, just
behind a tree, or around the great fallen snag of a root-ball lying partly in
the grasses, partly in mud the ebbing tide had uncovered. She followed the
wolf song through the trees behind the house, the hemlock and cedar, the
occasional apple tree orphaned by a long-forgotten farm, scattering the last
of its blossoms among its roots. She saw the deer the wolf ignored, nibbling
on a shrub. The song, a tangible thing now, like a beckoning finger, or the
wolf’s shadow sliding out of eyesight every time she saw it, led her deeper
into the forest, but never far from the tranquil shallows reflecting the flush
of light in the wake of the rising sun.
The wolf sang. The song flowed into her ears, into her head and heart, then,
like sunrise, it illuminated her eyes. She heard herself humming with it, now,
seeing what the wolf saw, what it sang to, what it sang about. The daily ebb
of water, the blue heron in the tree, the sleeping owl, the patient, peaceful
trees, season after season of leaves falling, petals falling, needles flying,
cones budding, petals forming again, opening again. The rich, tangled wealth
of smells from the water, the living treasure buried in the mud, clinging to
the long grasses, waiting for the tide to turn, return.
At last she saw the wolf, sitting on its haunches, waiting for her.
She walked up to it. It had stopped singing, just sat there, silent,
motionless, its eyes the color of the drifts of morning mist above the waters.
Its eyes closed. When they opened again, her father stood there, gazing at her
out of weary human eyes. He was mud-stained, disheveled; there was dried
eelgrass in his hair. He didn’t speak; neither did she. She just put her arms
around him tightly, clinging to him thoughtlessly as she had when she was a
child and believed he could protect her from anything.
Then she dropped her arms, stepped back to see his face. He lifted his hands,
gripped her arms, staring into her eyes. She saw crow wings in his, the full
moon, lightning flashing in the dark, turning every hidden thread of slough
water into molten silver. The sudden light ignited, turned to amber and fire;
she stood reflected in the wyvern’s eye.
She drew a deep breath, seeing herself finally, answering the one question
that she hadn’t even known to ask.
Daughter of the wolf. Daughter of the magus.
“Yes,” she said tightly. “I want this. I need this. Whatever you can give
me.”
“You need to see this world before you can recognize the other.”
She nodded, not entirely understanding but trusting him to arm her.
“I have been calling for help,” he added. “I think I have finally been
heard. I had to find someone who would remember me. Not many left who remember
back that far.”
Her eyes stung suddenly because he was finally talking to her, telling her,
and because she could finally hear him. She did not have to ask how far back.
He had seen the living wyvern, that was how far. He stood with his old,
gawping boots rooted so far into the deep they probably reached bottom, down
where the new things had started to crawl out of the sea onto the first of the
drying mud.
She saw the glimmer of a smile: Not quite that far. He went back as far as
that, at least: to the beginning of laughter.
She said, “Tell me what to do.”
“I’m going to give you something. Give it to Lilith when you take her Hal’s
note this morning.”
“All right.”
He leaned forward; she felt his lips brush her cheek, before they paused over
her ear.