Read Online Still Life with Shape-shifter by Sharon Shinn - Free Book Online Page B

hated dogs, though, and he always chased her away when he realized she’d been hanging around too long. Once he shot at her with a BB gun, but he was drunk enough to miss. After that, I snuck food to the collie’s house without trying to entice her to stay at mine. She hadn’t come back on her own, either, unless she had returned tonight.
    But no. The shaggy shape moved closer to the porch, into the faint fey light of the insufficient moon. I had given up on fear a few years ago since it never seemed to keep me safe, but a tingle of primeval warning set all my nerves to dancing. It was a wolf, lean and a little mangy; it moved in a graceless, jerky pattern as it approached the deck. I quickly realized why. It was holding its back right leg curled up toward its body, an indication of an injury or infection or some kind of pain. Its mouth was open, and its tongue lolled out; I saw the narrow ribs heave in a shallow, incessant panting.
    It came to a halt about five feet from the porch and stared at me.
    I stared back.
    I’d never seen a live wolf before, though my mother collected drawings and figurines of them, claiming the wolf was her spirit animal. This one seemed smaller than most, which might have suggested it was female, but for some reason, even when it was too dark to tell by looking, I was convinced it was male. Maybe it was merely young. By dim moonlight, I couldn’t pick out many white markings against its dark coat, but its eyes were a chatoyant amber, a peculiarly light color against the dense blackness of its face. If night had decided to take animal form and come visit me, this was what it would look like.
    I waited for the wolf to gather his strength and bunch his muscles and leap for my throat and kill me. My nerves had quieted; I was at peace. I lifted my chin just enough to show him the long, smooth line of my neck. I kept my hands down at my sides. I didn’t even bother looking around for a weapon. I would rather die this way, all at once, I thought, than the way my mother had been dying for years.
    But the wolf didn’t leap, didn’t move, didn’t even settle on his haunches. He merely stood there, waiting, watching me with his unreadable yellow eyes. He even stopped panting and closed his mouth, shutting away the display of sharp white teeth. All I could hear were the summer sounds of crickets and bullfrogs and voluptuous green leaves whispering on a light breeze.
    The wolf gazed at me as if, with all his being, he was wishing he could speak.
    If he was not going to kill and eat me, perhaps he wanted something else from me. I kept my gaze on him as I tilted my head, considering. “Are you thirsty?” I asked in a soft voice. “Hungry? If you’re hurt, maybe you haven’t been able to hunt. If I go in to get you some food, will you still be here when I come back out?”
    Impossible that he could understand me, of course, but he made the smallest sound, almost a sigh, the sound a dog makes when it’s about to settle at your feet after a long day of running. Moving cautiously, not wanting to startle him, I rose to my feet and glided across the deck, soundlessly opening the door into the kitchen. There was a pound of hamburger defrosting in the refrigerator and any number of big Tupperware bowls in the drawer next to the stove. But I went first to the bathroom just around the corner from the kitchen and rummaged in the cabinet. Could you treat a wild animal’s wounds with the rubbing alcohol and Neosporin you’d use on a human? Would he even let me get close enough to try? I didn’t know the answer to either question, but I gathered the supplies anyway, stuffing them in the pockets of my jeans. Then I grabbed a flashlight from the hall closet and tucked it under my arm before tiptoeing back through the kitchen to pick up food and water.
    When I stepped back outside, the wolf was exactly where I had left him. I approached carefully, not certain if murmured words of reassurance would calm him, as