Free Little Wolves by Thomas Maltman

hurt her.
    “You’re the pastor’s wife.”
    She nodded, her face ashen. The wind whipped her curly hair in front of her face.
    “He around?”
    She shook her head, no. The same relentless wind snatched the paper from her grasp and sent it tumbling across the lawn and into the cemetery where it was lost among the graves. “Fuck,” she said, the very first word he’d heard her speak, and then brought up her hands over her mouth as though to cover the profanity.
    At that moment he also noticed the missing fingers on her left hand. It had bothered Seth, he remembered. His boy had come home telling about the new teacher, a mystery. “When is he coming back?”
    Her eyes darted between Grizz and the place where the paper had vanished. What had she been holding? “He has a service at the nursing home. I think. Probably return in an hour, unless he has visits.”
    “You know who I am?”
    She met his gaze. “You’re Seth Fallon’s dad. Logan’s been trying to reach you.”
    “I wasn’t ready to talk before now. Are you okay? You look about ready to puke.”
    “That paper I was holding? Someone left it at my door.” She wrapped her arms around herself and shivered. “It was a drawing your son made for my class. Did you see anyone else around here?”
    The look he gave her must have showed his confusion. She shut her eyes briefly and drew in a heavy breath. “I’m Clara Warren. Seth’s English teacher.” Tentatively, she held out her hand, and he took it. “I’m sorry for your loss, Mr. Fallon.” Her hand felt smooth and hot within his own. She held on a moment too long, maybe feeling the wounds in his palm and reading some story from the touch. He jerked his hand away and then felt embarrassed of his foolishness. Her eyes were bright and amber colored. She had sharp features, her small nose twitching as if scenting something troubling in the air. A petite woman, despite her pregnancy. Grizz loomed over her.
    “What was on the drawing?” He thought of the ones on the boy’s desk. The monster in the woods. The woman’s severed head.
    “A wolf,” she said. “He’d written something in runes on the bottom about no one being spared.” She rushed on, nervous. “We were studying Beowulf in class, just finishing up a unit. It might not have meant anything.”
    Grizz fanned the air with his cap. “He liked your class.” It was the only class Seth had spoken about once school started.
    She smiled faintly, and her eyes filled. “I know.”
    They were alone, the cemetery behind them, hidden from any traffic on the street by the big two-story parsonage. “Why didn’t you go to the door, then?”
    “I didn’t know it was him. I didn’t know who was there.”
    “Had he threatened you before this?”
    “It was only a feeling,” she said.
    “The same feeling you have now?” He was tired of it, the way people looked at him, shrank from his size. Tired of being feared. A weariness Seth must have felt as well.
    She raised her chin and studied Grizz. “No. I know you’re not going to hurt me, Mr. Fallon.” Then she wiped her hands along her skirt and peered into his eyes.
    Grizz stepped back. It was the expression on her face, open, expectant. He was afraid she was going to hug him, and he didn’t want her to do any such thing. He needed to hold on to his anger, see this to the end. “There’s something else,” he said. “He carved a word in his desk. It doesn’t look like English. ‘Wergild,’ or something. You know what it means?”
    After a moment, she nodded. “It’s Old English. A blood debt, that’s what it means. It’s a price a family paid to keep others from taking revenge. Gold for blood spilled.”
    “Why would he write that, then do what he did?”
    She was quiet while she thought about it. He saw this and knew he would trust her. Her hands were around her stomach, as though to soothe the baby inside her. “Maybe he wanted someone to stop him.”
    He set his cap on his head, not