The signal came back at 4:47 in the morning.
I knew the exact time because I was already awake, sitting at the kitchen table with a cup of tea that had gone cold somewhere between the second and third hour of not sleeping. The window above the sink faces east. I wasn't watching it deliberately. I was looking at the grain of the wood on the tabletop, following one dark line where the tree had curved around something in its growth, and then the light caught the edge of my vision, and I looked up without meaning to.
Silver. Clean and brief, just above the treeline.
Gone before I could be certain I'd seen it.
I put the cup down carefully.
You saw it, my wolf said. She is not excitable. When she says something directly like that, without qualification, I have learned to trust it.
I sat st
