Nora's POV

A wolf howled while I was gathering the washing, its cry rising from Blackpine Forest and carrying over the empty lane. I paused with Mama's shawl in my hands. Usually, others answered from the hills. Tonight, the howl broke off before it finished, leaving me listening for a sound that never came.

“Nora, inside. Now.”

Papa stood in our doorway, looking past me toward the trees. I hurried across the yard, embarrassed by how grateful I was that he had come to fetch me.

He shut the door behind us. “You know better than to be outside under a full moon.”

“I was bringing in the clothes, Papa. I doubt the Beast wants your shirts.”

His expression hardened. “Don't make light of something that could kill you.”

Mama looked up from the hearth, her lips parting as if to soften his words. She said nothing, and I lowered my eyes to the basket. “I'm sorry.”

I regretted upsetting him. I wasn't sorry for questioning the stories.

The Lycan King, the elders called him: a creature with a wolf's head and a body that rose above a man, black fur concealing the scars of battles no living villager remembered. They said he ruled the wolves of Blackpine and grew restless beneath the full moon.

Yet every account came from someone's grandfather, or a hunter who had seen a shape between the trees. I had grown up afraid of him without knowing whether he existed.

Papa slid the bar across the door. Watching his hands, I wished I could dismiss his fear as easily.

Mama reached for the basket, but I carried it past her before she could lift it. The cold had left her fingers swollen. She smiled at my clumsy attempt to spare her, then tucked them beneath her shawl.

Jamie came running from the kitchen with Papa's carving knife.

“I can watch the door,” he announced, holding the blade out as though he had forgotten which end belonged in his hand.

Papa took it from him. “You can sit beside your sister.”

My brother obeyed reluctantly. When I squeezed his shoulder, he leaned against me without looking up. I had been mocking the Beast, and he had been searching for something to defend us with.

At supper, I waited until Mama had filled everyone's bowl before speaking.

“Why are you more worried tonight?”

Papa glanced at Jamie. “The hunters found tracks on our side of the river.”

“Wolves come down to drink.”

“These prints were beside them. Much larger.”

My spoon rested against my lip. Papa didn't exaggerate what he found in the woods; he had taught me to distinguish a fox's tracks from a dog's before I could read.

“Perhaps a bear,” I said, less confidently.

“The tracks continued through the mud on two feet.”

Mama set the pot down too sharply. Stew spilled over its rim, and I reached for the cloth, grateful for something to do while Papa told us neither of us was to leave the house.

Then a low howl sounded beyond the cottages.

Jamie grabbed my sleeve. Papa rose to close the last shutter, but I could only stare at the narrow strip of forest visible through the window. The sound had stirred an ache beneath my ribs, so sudden and intimate that I pressed my hand there.

I knew I should want the shutter closed. Instead, as Papa reached for it, I stood without thinking.

“Nora?” Mama asked.

I stopped beside my chair, unable to explain why I had been about to ask him to leave it open.