wide awake in my bed, staring at the ceiling, my thoughts full of the mortal maid my son has hunted, spending her first night in the Wolfsgate Valley. I pray for her sake that she is strong and clever and lucky, and that my son remembers he summoned her and watches over her well. I refuse to imagine what will happen if the little flame of awareness within him gutters and he becomes wholly wolf. I try to sleep, but I only grow more and more wide awake. Finally, I get out of my bed, dress myself and go up to the tower room.
I kneel beside the scrying bowl and, as usual, struggle with revulsion before I close my eyes and lower my hand into it. The liquid feels icy and my hand aches. It reminds me, for a vivid fleeting moment, of the pain I felt after I untied the rope to release myself from the tree where I had taken refuge from the wolves. I push the memory away, stir the dark water and open my eyes.
My son sits on his haunches amidst trees. He is gazing down into a clearing where a campfire flickers. Beside it sits a woman, her long blonde hair bound into a tight plait. She is warmly and practically dressed in jeans and a thick sweater and coat, and she is wearing solid hiking boots. There is a small bulging pack beside her as well as a stout, metal-shod walking staff, and I think wryly of the book bag and light coat and the empty plastic water bottle that were all I brought with me. She takes out a small silver knife and deftly slices an apple. I wish she would turn her head so that I can see her face. I note that she is sitting with her back to a great tumble of moss-covered boulders that curve around either side of her, and I feel sure she has chosen this campsite so that nothing can approach her save from the front.
I study her and it seems to me that her form is full and rounded and that her movements are too graceful and certain to be those of a young woman. She is older than is traditional for a maid, and yet what age is my son now, given that beasts age faster than humans or faerie folk and he has long worn his wolf shape.
My son stiffens and begins to growl. He is looking in the other direction and, following his gaze, I see with a chill that the wolf pack has gathered in a hollow and are tearing at some beast they have killed with efficient ferocity; a deer, by the look of it. I have the sense that my son is hungry and longs to join the feast.
Perhaps the grey wolves are eating so close in order to tempt him.
He looks back to the woman by the fire, now combing her hair out of its braid, and I see with astonishment that she is not alone. There is a large dog with a soft red coat stretched out beside her. She strokes it and I am so unsettled by the sight that I lose focus and the vision in the scrying bowl fades to blackness again.
There is nothing for it but to return to my room and lie down. I do not know what to think of the air of competence about the girl in the clearing, or of the fact that she has entered Faerie with a dog. Cats and dogs do cross, I know, but seldom, for their instincts tell them there are many things in Faerie that find dog and cat meat as sweet as human flesh.
But this dog did not wander across, I remind myself. The woman is clearly its companion and when I think of the tender way she broke off her grooming to stroke the dog’s head, I find I am glad to think that she has it to defend her, in case my son cannot control himself. Dogs have a loyalty that goes deeper even than the pack instinct of wolves, and I do not know if my son will be able to hold to his hunt. And even if he does, I do not know what will happen when the dog beholds him.
My mind drifts to the slight arrogance in my husband’s handsome face when he told me it was my trust in him that allowed him to prevent me