Free The Winter Wolf by D. J. McIntosh Page A

like drunken soldiers on some arctic battlefield. Huge ice chunks fall off the sides of buildings like tiny avalanches spilling over cliffs. For a few wild moments I panic, fearing the ice will rise up in an angry wave to claim me. Of course that’s impossible. Calm down , I tell myself. You’ll make it. You will.
    Turning onto a street so narrow it seems more like a laneway, I notice the familiar store signs: Boulangerie, Dépanneur. Night has fallen fast, as it does at this time of year. The glass trees stand against a midnight blue so deep it looks like velvet. The buildings on the street before me are black and deserted, windows empty holes, doors frozen shut. All the businesses are closed. Everyone’s at home, brushing the icy chips offtheir coats, breaking out the whisky in the light of one or two candles, trying to keep warm.
    Keep to the safe streets. Grandmother’s words of warning seem to hang suspended in the frozen air. But I’m still weak from my recent hospital stay and bone-weary from struggling through the tempest. I decide to take a shortcut through the little lane. I’ll be careful. Cautious.
    Looking up to get my bearings, I see a flicker of lights after all, coming from a narrow storefront halfway down the lane. As I approach, they grow stronger. Christmas lights. A string of bulbs— red, white, and green—circling a store window. Inside the window, a fibreglass Santa raises his mittened right hand in a wave; in his left, he grasps a bag of toys. Above this, a small neon sign flashes on and off: Bar Café, Bar Café.
    I stumble and slip on the glassy sidewalk and grab at the knob of the paint-peeled door. A weak Ho Ho Ho is emitted by the dusty Santa when I cross the threshold. Ashamed of how I must look— even my eyebrows are caked with ice—I stop and shake off my hood and shoulders. My eyes grow accustomed to the dim interior. It’s a small place, ten or twelve tables at most, each covered with red gingham oilcloth. Oilcloth. Haven’t seen that since I was little.
    The Christmas and New Year’s decorations are still up. Someone made a half-hearted attempt to string red and gold balloons—like a row of limp sausages—below a rope of icicle lights. A lingering scent of balsam drifts over from a small Christmas tree in one corner, decorated with faded, homemade paper chain and scraps of tinsel. Its dry needles litter the floor.
    A TV fixed to a grimy wall of no discernable colour flickers as a weather forecaster speaks earnestly into the camera against a backdrop of freezing rain. She wears a hooded anorak, and too much mascara. Behind her, a massive tree is splayed across a deserted downtown street, splinters of wet brown wood as horrifying as a compound fracture.
    As my eyes become adjusted to the weak light, I spot a dim figure hunched over a table next to the rear wall at the end of the bar. His back is turned to me. I can’t help but think I know his type—someone who’s occupied the same chair every night for as long as anyone can remember, with beer breath and a bloated gut spilling over his trouser belt. Not even the storm can get in the way of his date with a Bud. I shake my head. What an unkind thought.
    I flip offthe hood of my parka, push my matted wet hair back from my forehead, and wipe my face with my scarf. A rustle sounds from the dark hole behind the counter. A wave of relief washes over me when I see a woman emerge. She looks in her twenties, but with the pinched face of a rodent. Small bright black eyes and a twitchy little mouth. All the same, the last thing I care about right now isappearances. I’m just happy someone else is here besides the man at the bar.
    â€œVous êtes venue par l’orage.”
    I read a little French but have never mastered the spoken word. I’m embarrassed.
    â€œYou came through the storm,” she repeats in English, without exasperation.
    I force up the corners of