There is a legend the villagers tell about the local forest. They say that an enchanted wolf lives there, a proud and lonely creature cursed in some fargone age by the gods to live forever and to be burdened with a mind as sharp as a man’s, that it might know its loneliness.

Of course, there are many stories about the deep wood, and most pay them no heed. After all, believe in such faraway tales and you might as well believe the stories you hear about fairies and a young boy catching a sunbeam on his fishing line.

But I know that the legend is true. I’ve seen it—when I wander into the forest to pick flowers or collect stones rubbed smooth along the riverbed, kneeling carefully so as not to muddy my dress along the riverbank, sometimes I look up and see a pair of fierce amber eyes staring at me from out of the bush. At other moments, I’ll see a fleeting grey shadow darting away between the trees, or hear a lonesome, baleful howl arcing over the trees.

Others call me a silly girl, or claim that I spend too much time with my head in the clouds. And perhaps they are right.