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what Smoke might have done before she met him.
    Very quickly, their life together took on patterns. On most days they went into the forest to gather roots, fruits, herbs, and nuts against the coming winter. They never hurried, but spent the hours laughing and kissing and talking of inconsequential things. These days passed sweetly.
    But every few days Smoke would go alone to hunt.
    The first time he was gone Ketty stayed in the cottage with the door closed, while all her imagined fears gathered around outside. But as the days passed her imagination grew less fevered. Soon she worried only a little about the wolves, the bears, the lions, and the Hauntén. Then she would stand at the cottage door and listen to the murmuring of the brook and the gossiping of the trees as they spoke to one another in rustles and creaks on topics beyond her understanding, until late afternoon finally brought a happy shout from the forest, “Ketty, I’m home!”
    Then she’d run to meet Smoke as he came striding through shafts of mist-drenched sunlight with the quartered carcass of a deer over his shoulder, or the meat of a forest sow—and despite the blood and the smell she’d hug him gingerly and kiss his mouth, because even if he wasn’t entirely human he was showing himself to be a good husband, in every way that mattered.

    Smoke marveled at the binding threads that tied him to Ketty; each day there were more than the day before, all of them tight and strong. He felt her always in his thoughts. Even when he was far away he knew if she was content or if she was concerned. If anything should come to threaten her he would know it and be able to return to her within seconds along the world’s weft.
    But there was nothing within his holding that would bring her harm. The beasts of the Wild Wood knew his will and didn’t trouble him, and if any woodsman dared to venture so deep into the forest, Smoke would know it by the trembling of the threads—and such a trespasser would be dead long before he could follow the scent of wood smoke to the cottage.
    The days passed, until winter chased away the brief autumn season, laying crisp snow across the meadow. On that first snowy morning Ketty was happy. With her bare hands she scraped up the snow and packed it into a rude clump. And to Smoke’s astonishment she flung it at him when he turned his back. When it exploded against his shoulder she ran away laughing and only after several seconds of thought (and another snow stone bursting against his chest) did he understand it was a game. 
    “Don’t just stand there,” she scolded him. “Defend yourself!” And a third snow stone went flying on a path that would take it past his shoulder. He caught it instead and flung it back at her underhand—though he made sure to miss. But she was caught by surprise, and jumped back anyway—and he was there to catch her, heaving her over his shoulder. She laughed, her hair wild in her face. “Put me down, you idiot. This is not how it’s played. You must make your own snow stones and throw them at me—”
    She shrieked, when he made as if to drop her, but of course he caught her again, setting her feet gently on the ground. “Never, Ketty,” said. “You’re precious and I would never hurt you. I don’t understand how any man could.”
    “It doesn’t hurt, silly.” Then she laughed at herself. “Not so much, anyway.”

    All that day Smoke was quiet, seeming wrapped up in thought, which was not his way. Ketty worried. “Tell me what’s on your mind,” she urged him, as they lay together that night, with only the glimmer of the hearth, and the hearth spirit, for light.
    He sighed. “Do you know why men are cruel to women?”
    She turned toward him. “Smoke! You are never cruel to me.”
    “Not me, silly. Men like those in the Lutawan Kingdom. Men like your father. He especially should have loved you. I think men like that have evil hearts.”
    “No, my father wasn’t evil.”
    “Then why