The Winter Wolf

by Holly Webb

  The right-hand pocket was empty, but in the left-hand one, Amelia’s fingers closed round a small, flat packet. She pulled it out and walked over to the armchair under the window to get a better look at what she’d found.

  A notebook? No – Amelia prised open the stiff old pages, and saw the scrawled handwriting and the date written at the top of the page.

  16th October, 1873.

  A diary.

  Amelia swallowed, and her hands shook with excitement. It was more than a hundred and forty years old! She’d seen ancient things before in museums, even Egyptian mummies from thousands of years ago. But somehow holding this little book in her own hands felt very different. It might even have belonged to one of her relatives, since this house was her family’s. The spidery brown writing felt like a message from the past:

  Bitter cold again today. Wind howling around the cabin so loud you’d swear it was alive and trying to get in. Pa says we need to plaster mud over the chinks in the walls again come springtime.

  Amelia shivered. That was just what she had felt, earlier on in her room. But at least she was in a house, a big stone-built house that had been here for hundreds of years. A cabin didn’t sound very warm at all, especially if it had holes in the walls.

  The writing was so faded that it was hard to read in places. She was frowning over it, trying to puzzle out the rest of the entry, when she heard voices calling from below – impatient voices that sounded as if they might have been shouting for a while.

  “Amelia! Amelia, are you asleep up there? Come on, we’re all going for a walk.”

  Amelia jumped up, wriggling out of the heavy coat, before draping it over the chair. She looked for a second at the diary, but for some reason she didn’t want to take it with her. It belonged up here, with the old trunk. And it was a secret – her secret.

  “I’ll come back,” she whispered, as she started down the wooden stairs. It was silly, talking to a book, but she didn’t care. And she would come back, just as soon as she could slip away.

  17th October, 1873

  Pa hasn’t seen any sign of the wolf. He’s beginning to think that Mr Wright is seeing things, I reckon. There haven’t been any tracks round our cabin, so I’ve been out setting snares as usual. I can’t deny that I’ve been looking over my shoulder a lot, though. The wind blowing through the trees can sound a lot like a wolf when you know there’s one about. At least it’s not a puma! Wolves can’t climb trees, and I don’t like the thought of a great big cat stretched out on a branch, just waiting for me to walk by underneath!

  18th October, 1873

  Well, Mr Wright and Joshua weren’t imagining it, after all. I’ve seen the wolf. Ma sent me to fetch water from the spring, and I was on my way back with the bucket when I saw it. Just standing there, looking at me! I wanted to scream and run, but Pa’s always said that wolves are like dogs. They like to chase, and if you run, they’ll run after you, except they go lickety-split. So I just stood there and stared back at him.

  That’s when I realized – it was a pup. I’ve seen wolves, full-grown ones, and they’re bigger than our dogs, even if they can be skinny sometimes. They’re big at the shoulders, and the old dog wolves have great ruffs of fur round their necks. This wolf watching me was just a pup. And he was more scared than I was, I reckoned, after we’d stood there staring at each other for a full minute.

  The more I looked at him, the more I thought he couldn’t be the wolf that Joshua took a shot at. He’s only a pup and he’s not been hurt at all – Joshua said he saw blood. He didn’t look fierce, either. He was like a big gangly puppy – all paws.

  Slowly, I crouched down, waiting and watching in case he decided to spring. But he didn’t – he just looked, shuffling his fat paws in the snow like he was nervous. So I clapped my mittens on my knees and called to him, like he was one of the dogs. I know I should have gone home straight away and called Pa and told him to get his gun, but I couldn’t.

  Maybe Pa wouldn’t have shot him, anyway. He never hunts deer in the springtime, when the does are looking after their young. So he wouldn’t shoot a wolf pup, would he?

  Except, he’d probably say that the pup would grow up to be a danger. He’d be right, too. A young wolf like that can’t know how to hunt properly yet, and if it’s all on its own, there’s no one to teach it. So all it can do is go after people, and our livestock, the horses and the cow. If Grace was still with us, it wouldn’t be long before that wolf could eat her up, even if it is only a pup.

  So I shouldn’t have done what I did.

  But he came to me. As friendly as our dogs, Sammy and Ned. He let me rub his ears and he sniffed at my coat, which probably smelled of rabbits. And then he licked my face. When I went to walk away – Ma was still waiting for that water – he followed me.

  Well, I stopped then, of course. I couldn’t take a wolf pup back home, no matter how friendly he was. But I had to do something about him. Was he lost? I couldn’t work it out. He shouldn’t have been on his own, a pup like that.

  I crouched there, petting his ears, and that was when I worked it out. He wasn’t the wolf Joshua shot – that was his mother. It makes sense, I’m sure of it. She came hunting, and Joshua wounded her, so now she’s run off, or she’s hiding out somewhere till she’s better. Or she died, I suppose, but Joshua’s the worst shot I’ve ever seen, so I reckon not. Meanwhile, her pup’s come looking for her. We’re not that far away from the Wrights’ place. He’s tried to track his mother and got himself lost and found me instead.

  So now I’ve got myself a wolf pup.

  Amelia woke up, breathing fast in the darkness. She had been dreaming about that dog again, the one in the park, and it had left her so scared that she was shaking.

  She peered out at her room, but she couldn’t see anything at all. At home, even in the darkest part of the night, there was a dull orange glow from the streetlamp outside her window. Here there were no lights at all, and the darkness was so thick Amelia felt like she could touch it.

  She fished around on the bedside table for her torch and flicked it on. The glowing amber beam danced over the walls, and Amelia caught her breath at last. Freddie was downstairs, shut in. It had only been a dream. But she didn’t want to go back to sleep, in case she dreamed it all over again. She shone the torch over the floor, wondering where her book had got to – under the bed, maybe? She wished she hadn’t left the diary upstairs. She wanted to know more about the person writing it, and the snowy winter, and the wolf pup.

  Her torch beam flickered upwards over the window, and Amelia gave a little excited gasp, sitting up straight in bed and forgetting about the dark, and the dog.

  It was snowing! At last! She scrambled out of bed, pulling the duvet with her, and went over to kneel up on the window seat and look.

  The flakes were swirling down thickly, but it was hard to see if it was settling or not, with the torch reflecting off the black glass. She undid the window catch to peer out for a moment and sighed delightedly. Already the trees outside the window had a thin, crisp coating of white, like icing sugar. And the sky was heavy with fat, yellowish-tinged snow clouds. It looked as though the snow could go on falling for a while. She huddled the duvet closer around her and stared at the whirling whiteness.

  Real, proper snow. Maybe Christmas would be a little bit Christmassy after all.

  “Don’t you want to come out on the sledge?” Bella asked coaxingly, putting her arm round Amelia. Bella had her big fluffy jacket on, and a sweater and a hoodie underneath, and her cheeks were pink. They’d hardly finished breakfast, and already everyone was out in the snow. Tom had been out in it as soon as it got light.

  Amelia shook her head. Through the window she could see Tom and Freddie racing around outside. Tom was throwing snowballs, and Freddie was chasing after them. It was quite funny, really – Freddie kept trying to pick up the collapsed snowballs in his mouth. The mush of snow got all over his long nose and every time he’d shake his head and give Tom a confused so
rt of look.

  But even when he was confused and funny, Freddie was still huge. And his teeth were almost as white as the snowballs. Amelia didn’t want him chasing her.

  “No. It’s too cold. And my nose is all blocked up – I don’t want to make it worse,” she told Bella. She was pretty sure Bella didn’t believe her, but her big sister just sighed, and went out to join Anya and Lara, who were pulling the sledge up the hill.

  Amelia watched them for a few minutes, and then she padded quietly along the hallway to the stairs. Dad was making lunch, and Mum, Aunt Laura and Uncle Pete were going for a walk in the snow. No one was around to see where she was going. Amelia hurried up the stairs, trying not to let them creak. Hopefully Dad would think she was playing outside, too.

  She tiptoed along the passageway and opened the little wooden door. Shining the torch beam ahead of her, she crept up the stairway to the attic. The coat was still there, draped over the armchair, and she could see the diary sticking out of the pocket. She’d left the blanket there, too, and Amelia wrapped it round her before she settled herself in the chair and drew out the diary, opening it eagerly to the first page.

  She had thought about the diary all yesterday afternoon, and when she’d gone to write in her own diary last night, she’d flicked through it, thinking how different the two little books looked. Her diary had a pretty silver padlock, and a flowered cover, and a page at the front for her name and address. But that had made her think – wouldn’t the boy still have written his name on the first page, even if his diary was just a worn cloth-bound notebook? And there it was – written on the inside of the cover:

  Noah Allan

  Wisconsin, 1873

  The painter! This boy had grown up to paint that amazing campfire scene downstairs. And this had been his house.

  Amelia stroked the pages gently and began to read. The spelling was odd in places, and there were some words she just didn’t know. Was a creek a river, maybe? And what was a snare? But even with the spiky, difficult writing, it felt amazing to be reading something written over a century before her own time. And the more of the diary she read, the easier it was to work out the words, and the strange phrases didn’t seem so strange after a while. Noah’s life in the woods sounded so interesting – so different to hers.

  It was probably just that she was sleepy, Amelia thought, after waking in the middle of the night, but she could almost hear Noah’s voice. As though he was talking to her. As though he was telling the story himself…

  19th October, 1873

  Pa called to me to put the lantern out, so I couldn’t finish writing this last night.

  I had some dried blackberries in my coat pocket so I spread them out on the snow for the pup, and dashed home while he was snuffling around eating them up. I told Ma I was going back out because I’d forgotten my muffler, and she was baking so she didn’t really pay attention. I took an old blanket from the store chest up in my loft room, and got it out of the cabin without her seeing. Then I went to the lean-to and cut off a little bit of frozen pork. I reckoned we could spare it.

  The pup danced up to me when I came back. He’d eaten all the dried berries, and there was a pattern of little paw prints in the snow where he’d trotted round looking for more. I’d known he’d eat them all, of course I had. But seeing him so eager and hungry-looking still, it made me worry about how much he needed to eat. I couldn’t keep stealing food for him from the cabin. It wouldn’t be fair on Ma. And besides, she’d soon notice. I’ll be lucky if she doesn’t see I took the pork.

  The pup got a surprise when he tried to bite into it. He’s never had frozen meat before, I guess. We depend on it, in the winter. Pa only kills the pig when the weather’s cold enough to freeze the meat. This year he killed a bear, too, so we’ve got plenty of meat for the winter. But not enough to feed a wolf as well.

  Unless I can find his mother and give him back, the pup’s going to have to learn to hunt for himself.

  I went back to see him early this morning, and he was just where I’d left him, tucked up and snoozing in that old hollow tree I found last summer, not far off the path to the spring. I reckon it should be safe – it’s always me that fetches the water. I’ve made him a little nest out of that old blanket, and he looked snug as anything. He let me walk right up to the tree before he awoke and growled a little.

  The more I watch him, the more I can see he’s too young to be by himself. All he wants to do is play and have someone bring him his food. I trapped a rabbit for him today. Had to tell Ma that a fox or something had torn up one of the snares. She said it was just bad luck I hadn’t caught anything, but I hate lying to her.

  Ma and Pa thought I’d gone out to do some drawing this morning, when I’d sneaked off to see the pup. I was supposed to be helping with the stable work. Tonight Pa lectured me on sticking to my chores and taking better care of Russet and Ruby and Lucy, and how we all had to depend on each other, so now I feel really guilty.

  That’s not what sticks in my mind, though. I just keep thinking of the pup, and the way his ears pricked forward when he saw it was me and he bounded out of that hollow tree to lick my fingers. Grace would have loved to play with him. I can’t let him starve, can I?

  Amelia twitched and wriggled sleepily, trying to find her pillow. It had hitched up, somehow, and now she was pressed against the wall. And she must have kicked off her duvet, too, she was so cold. Amelia gave up trying to reach for them with her eyes shut and sat up.

  There was no pillow, and no duvet, either. She wasn’t even in her bed. Amelia clutched the hairy brown blanket, the only thing that seemed familiar, and tried to work out where she was. Slowly, it came back to her – that she’d gone upstairs to the attic. She must have fallen asleep in that battered old armchair. But it didn’t feel like she was still curled up there – the chair was comfy, even if it was falling apart. Now it felt as if she was sitting on straw.

  She peered through the dimness, trying to see where she was. It had to be morning – she could see chinks of light showing round the door, over on the other side of the little room. But if she was in the attic, there would be light coming through the windows in the roof. Had she gone sleepwalking, and found her way to another room of the house?

  It was then that the dark shape next to her – she’d taken it to be another piece of furniture – suddenly moved and blew a gust of hot breath down her neck.

  Amelia squeaked and jumped sideways, and then scrambled up, reaching for the door. What was that? Where was she? She wrestled with the strange, bulky latch, all the time waiting to feel that hot breath again, as whatever it was came to eat her.

  Something snorted, and there was a heavy shuffling, and as Amelia managed to pull open the door at last, she saw where she was.

  The cold white glow of sun on snow lit up the little stable, and the cow that Amelia had been lying next to watched her curiously. In the stall beyond, two horses eyed her over the wooden partition, ears flickering with interest.

  There were no animals at Allan House. Except for Freddie, of course. And Tom, if she was being mean.

  This was not the house she had gone to sleep in.

  It wasn’t even the winter she had gone to sleep in, Amelia decided, standing in the doorway and looking out at the huge drifts of snow. That couldn’t have built up overnight. It looked like days or even weeks of snow – someone had dug a path between the drifts, leading to the stable, and the snow stood in great walls on either side.

  Amelia frowned. Something about that seemed familiar, but she wasn’t quite sure why. Digging their way out – it was what Noah had said, in his diary. There were drifts up to the eaves of the cabin, and he and his pa had to dig their way to the stable each morning.

  It was just like the diary. Amelia shut her eyes for a moment, counted to ten and opened them again, but she hadn’t woken up. And it didn’t feel like a dream. She was in the diary.

  Slowly, she let the door swing shut and sank down next to it. Her eyes were get
ting used to the dimness, and it helped that now she knew what all the strange shapes were. She could still just about see the two horses, and the dark bulk of the cow. She was quite a small cow, Amelia realized. Not as big as the ones they’d seen in the fields on their drive up to Scotland. But even a small cow was a lot bigger than Freddie, which was odd, because Amelia didn’t feel very scared of her. And that didn’t make sense.

  Amelia gave a little snort of laughter, and one of the horses whinnied in surprise.

  “Sorry…” she murmured. “Nothing about this makes sense, that’s all. That’s why I laughed. I can’t be here! Maybe I’m not,” she added thoughtfully. “Maybe I’m still dreaming.” Carefully, she picked her way across the hay-strewn floor and went to stroke the velvet noses of the horses.

  “You feel ever so real to me. And this stable smells real. Not to be rude,” she added hastily, “but I don’t usually dream smells, and I think your stable needs cleaning. I suppose you must be Russet and Ruby. He said you were beautiful and you are. And you must be Lucy,” Amelia added. She wasn’t quite sure about stroking the cow. She had been riding a couple of times at the local stable and she liked horses, but she’d never met a cow before. Did they bite?