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she’s getting desperate. When Joshua shot at her, the pup must have been frightened off. She couldn’t follow him, I suppose, if she was hurt. So she holed up somewhere till she was better.” He frowned. “By the river, maybe. There’s a load of caves up there, and it’s close to where Samson Wright said they were when Joshua shot her. Then by the time she was well enough to look for him, she’d lost the pup’s trail, with the snow falling.”
    Amelia was silent for a moment, as they trudged on through the snow. The trees were heavy with it, and the whole forest was eerily quiet. “Would they ever beable to go back to the pack?” she asked. “Are they outcasts forever?”
    Noah looked round, frowning. “I just don’t know. I hope not. I was thinking, if I feed him for a little while, get his strength up so he could travel, and if we find his mother, maybe they’d be able to go after the others.” He sighed, and Amelia saw his shoulders slump. “If, if, if… He might not even be at the hollow tree any more. He could have wandered off again. And how are we going to find his mother? Every time it snows, any tracks she leaves get covered up, too.”
    “It doesn’t help that the last person she saw shot her, either,” Amelia said. “She’s not going to be friendly, is she?”
    They stared at each other, until Noah saw Amelia’s eyes widen.
    “What is it?”
    Amelia wrapped her arms round herself, tucking her mittened hands under the shawl to stop them shaking. He was there.
    The wolf pup was standing on the path, looking at them hopefully. His ears were pricked up and his eyes looked bright and curious. He scratched at the ground uncertainly with one paw, and looked from Noah to Amelia and back again.
    Noah gave a little snort of laughter. The pup couldn’t have asked,
Who’s she?
any more clearly if he’d spoken out loud. He was used to Noah, but the girl was new, and new was dangerous.
    “There he is,” Noah said proudly, nudging her. “Must have heard us talking. He’s a smart one. Look at him, eyeing you up.”

    “Yes…” Amelia whispered. The way Noah had been talking about the wolf, calling him a pup, and the runt of the litter, she had hoped that she wouldn’t be scared. He was only a baby, after all.
    But the wolf pup’s dark eyes were fixed on her, and she could see him sniffing the air, trying to catch her scent. He didn’t look helpless to Amelia, not at all. He was a hunter – much more frightening than any normal dog she’d hidden from back home. Her fingers twisted in the fringe of the shawl, and she gulped air, trying to breathe away the panicked dizziness inside her.
    “Are you scared of him?” Noah sounded doubtful – actually, he almost sounded like Tom. A little burst of angry pride surged through Amelia, making her shake her curls and set her shoulders back.
    “No.” It wasn’t true, of course, but she glared at Noah as if he’d said something stupid, and then – slowly, carefully – held out one hand towards the wolf. “Here, boy…”

20th October, 1873 – later on
     
    So I did it. I took Amelia to meet the pup. She was scared, but she hid it well. Even the pup believed her, after a little while. I could tell by the way the colour drained out of her cheeks, and the way she set her teeth together when she stroked the pup. She made herself do it, though.
    He’s not even that big. I could see her being scared of a big old dog wolf, but not this little pup. Perhaps she’s been bitten, and she doesn’t like dogs? I can’t imagine what that must be like. He’s so friendly, and good-natured, I don’t understand how someone could be scared of him. I do worry about his mother, though, and what she’ll think of us if she gets well enough to come looking for him. She won’t understandwe were trying to help. To her, we’ll just smell like danger. Amelia’s right – the mother wolf will see us as the same people who hurt her and made her lose her pup in the