because counting was something he could still do.

One.

Two.

Three.

By twelve, the last note faded into the trees.

Then he heard the twig snap.

It came from his right.

Michael stopped breathing.

Another snap followed.

Closer.

The steps were slow and padded, but heavy enough to press leaves into the wet earth.

Whatever moved out there was not a raccoon.

It was not a person either.

The smell came next.

Wet fur.

Musk.

Cold breath.

Michael’s fingers locked around his cane.

He had heard wolves before, years ago, from hunting camps deep in the hills.

He remembered the way men grew quiet when that sound rolled through the night.

Not because wolves were monsters, but because they belonged to the dark in a way men never could.

Now one was close enough for him to hear it breathing.

Michael lifted the cane with both hands.

It was a useless weapon.

He knew that.

The animal circled once.

Leaves shifted near his boots.

Michael felt warmth brush the air in front of him.

His heart hammered so violently he thought the creature must hear it.

“If this is it,” he whispered, “please don’t make it long.”

The wolf came closer.

Michael clenched his jaw and waited for pain.

Instead, a damp nose touched the back of his hand.

He flinched.

The wolf did not retreat.

It sniffed him again, slower this time, then exhaled against his fingers.

The warmth of that breath moved through Michael like a human touch.

Very carefully, he lowered the cane.

His hand opened.

The animal’s snout pressed into his palm.

Michael’s fingers shook as they touched coarse fur, then the ridge of a muzzle, then one pointed ear.

The wolf stood still, allowing it.

“You’re real,” Michael breathed.

The wolf made a low sound, not a growl exactly.

More like a rumble from deep inside its chest.

Then it sat beside him.

Michael did not know what to do with mercy from a wild thing.

For a long time, neither moved.

The wolf’s body gave off heat.

Michael leaned toward it without meaning to.

The cold had made his thoughts slow and brittle, but the warmth beside him pulled him back from the edge of despair.

“Are you alone too?” he whispered.

The wolf’s ear flicked.

Michael gave a broken laugh that turned quickly into something like a sob.

“I used to know this place,” he said.

“Can you believe that? I used to walk through here like it belonged to me.”

The wolf stayed.

So Michael kept talking.

He told the animal about the first tree he had ever cut with his father watching.

He told it about Gloria in a yellow dress at the county fair.

He told it about the day he built their porch, and how proud she had been when neighbors came by to admire it.

His voice changed when he spoke of the blindness.

“I thought losing sight meant losing colors,” he said.

“Faces.

The sky.

Her smile.”

He swallowed.

“But that wasn’t the worst part.”

His fingers rested lightly in the wolf’s fur.

“The worst part was becoming someone people had to manage.

Something to step around.

Something to feed.

Something to pity.”

The words had been inside him for years.

In the forest, with no human