Wolf Hollow: Chapters 9–14

In no time at all, James was prancing around the house like a madman, crying “Ahoy, mateys,” and thrusting and parrying with a wooden spoon until my mother shooed him out the door into the sunshine.

I pared apples for pies, doing my best to make one long, curling ribbon from each apple.

I almost offered to share the chore with her, but Aunt Lily didn’t have much of a knack for housework.

It was strange to sit between my parents on a threadbare settee in the Glengarrys’ front room while Betty and her grandparents sat on kitchen chairs arranged in a line across from us.

It was strange to sit between my parents on a threadbare settee in the Glengarrys’ front room while Betty and her grandparents sat on kitchen chairs arranged in a line across from us.

She was a quiet woman and I was surprised to hear the grit in her voice, but here was a chance to believe that Betty was nothing but a pigtailed girl in a blue jumper afraid of a bad man who carried guns wherever he went.

The choir warbled out the hymns as usual, Mr. Simmons through his mighty nose, Mrs. Lancaster with a bigger hitch in her voice than our flatbed, and we all sang along in our various ways.

After dinner was over and the redding-up was done, my mother gathered the fixings for a poultice and made it while I watched.

What I couldn’t fathom was how they had thought to do that. Or why they’d actually done the thing. Even a wolf has reasons for what it does.

I pictured her practicing both prim and proper, aiming for innocent, and probably succeeding with those who didn’t know her.

Nobody dared tell a secret over the telephone, for fear that Annie was eavesdropping.

It was a slow and careful ride to the farm, the roads awash in some places, but we got there without mishap.

It was a slow and careful ride to the farm, the roads awash in some places, but we got there without mishap.

So I did that, and my mother hurried past me to open the door and beckon Mrs. Taylor inside.

In spring, swallows fledged from muddy nests wedged in crannies overhead, and kittens fresh and soft staggered between hooves and attacked the tails of tackle hanging from stable pegs.

“Mrs. Taylor is here to see you,” I said softly into his ear while the rain thrummed on the tin roof just above our heads and the horses stamped for their oats below us.

“I was just having a little rest,” he said as we walked abreast down the dim stairs into the stable below.

I imagined my grandparents sitting up in their bed, hoping they wouldn’t have to join the fray.

When they hesitated, Aunt Lily took them in hand with a sharp word and a set mouth. “Bed, your father said.” As if they were wayward sheep, she poked and prodded them out of the room.

When they hesitated, Aunt Lily took them in hand with a sharp word and a set mouth. “Bed, your father said.” As if they were wayward sheep, she poked and prodded them out of the room.

“Your parents and I were just getting into that,” the constable said. He talked while he ate, obviously famished.

“Andy’s a little too big for his britches, so I expected some lip, but he was shook up pretty good. He told me that he and Betty had planned to skip school and spend the day together, tramping around the farms and, as he put it, ‘having a lark.’”

And then Aunt Lily appeared in the doorway. She’d taken the rollers from her hair and it fell in anemic curls around her shoulders.

The trees bowed to one another as if before a dance, making their own sad music. And I was suddenly filled with misgivings.

Most ground animals and brooding birds kept quiet at night, for fear of attracting the attention of predators, so whatever was making that odd noise had no such fear.

He snorted at me and sauntered down the aisle toward the big open gate that led to the pasture.

“Follow me,” I whisper-called to Toby, opening the door to the stairs that ran up the middle of the barn to the threshing floor.

A cistern squatted on a slab at the back of the barn, next to a long corncrib.

Here was a big man in a black oilcloth coat, three guns slung across his back, long gnarled hair and beard, a black hat, a white face barely visible in the shadow of its rim.

Perhaps it was the word hide or the idea of clambering into a corncrib that did it. Perhaps the suggestion that he was a mouse. Toby didn’t say.