The wolves melt from the trees. Their eyes reflect the moonlight. I turn and cover my daughter with my body, and I look down at her in this little cocoon. Survive, I urge her. The air catches in my lungs. But she doesn’t attack me, this smallest of the wolves, nearly grown now but still white as the day I held her in my hands. She lies her body next to mine. And as the rest of her pack move to join her, pressing their warmth around us and saving us from the cold, I lower my face into the white of her neck and I weep.
