The Poison Season
The wolf was not thinking of hunger as it chased its quarry through the dark woods, having feasted earlier that day on a large roe deer. It was driven by a sense of purpose, one that had infected its brain late last winter, when it had picked its way carefully across the ice to the wooded island that seemed so still and peaceful—and likely full of prey.
The wolf was not from this mountain. It had been born on another, not so far from here. The alpha had driven it from the pack, already aware that it would be competition someday. But the wolf hadn’t known that; it had only known that it was alone for the first time in its life. Alone, and hungry, and wanting...
There were no other wolves on this mountain. It had searched everywhere, but something about this Forest was not welcoming to wolves, or any other large predators, for that matter. It wasn’t a lack of prey; it was something in the Forest itself. A warning of some kind, that this place wasn’t for the likes of the wolf. But it was tired and hungry and searching, and so it had found itself on the island, padding about on silent feet, past the sleeping cottages and their unwitting inhabitants, which would have made a lovely meal. But the Forest told it, “No, they’re not for you, either.” And it had found itself in a pine grove in the island’s center.
The wolf had snuffled at the base of the trees, picking up the scent of old blood and new growth, deep below the Forest floor. The roots of the trees, which had been replenished in a ceremony not long before the first snowfall, were always alive, even when the rest of the island slept. Feeling safe and quiet for the first time in many months, the wolf lay down amid the roots and slept a long, dreamless sleep.
When the wolf awoke the next morning, it felt changed. It was no longer hungry or tired or lonely. It was as if the Forest itself had sustained the wolf in the night, and now the Forest bid it farewell, told it to go away from the island, before the lake thawed and it would be trapped. The Forest only asked one thing in return: that the wolf nourish the Forest the way it had nourished the wolf. And now the wolf, which was still young and still learning, would finally fulfill its duty.
As the island came into view, the wolf released a long, doleful howl and drove its quarry onward.
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