Free Still Life with Shape-shifter by Sharon Shinn Page A

convey? Was he warning me? Beseeching me? Assessing my speed and swiftness to determine how fast he would have to move to catch me if I ran?
    Then he rested his head on the ground again and stared straight before him. On a man, that expression would mean gritted teeth, a girding of the gut against an expected onslaught of pain. I licked my lips and touched the alcohol to his foot again.
    This time he did not move.
    He did not resist at all, over the next few minutes, as I disinfected the wound as best I could, as gently as I could. In my household, it was a common thing to deal with injuries; I was completely inured to the sight of blood. Once I was done with the alcohol, I spread so much Neosporin on the wound that I emptied the tube, then I wrapped the whole thing in a cocoon of gauze. A couple of hours of contact with the rich soil of Illinois’ farmlands would destroy the pristine white of the dressing, but even so I thought the antibiotic properties of the ointment might make a start at fighting off infection.
    “Good. Done,” I told him, my voice brisk as my task was completed. “Though it would probably be better if you had that bandage changed every couple of days.”
    As I spoke, he rolled back to an upright position and came to his feet, though he kept his back leg curled up behind him, several inches from the ground. I could not rid myself of the notion that he was actually listening to me.
    “I’ve been spending a lot of nights outside lately,” I told him. “Come back anytime after midnight, and everyone else will be in bed. I’m usually in the lawn chair.” I actually pointed. “So if I’m already asleep, come over and wake me up.”
    I spared a moment to think about how unnerving
that
would be, startled from a dream by a black nose against my cheek, opening my eyes to find this dark face, these amber eyes, hovering over me.
    “But don’t show up before nightfall,” I added. “My dad’s got five guns in the house, and they’re all loaded. And he likes to shoot things he doesn’t understand.”
    The wolf swung his head as if looking at the house for a moment and considering its inhabitants, then turned it back to make eye contact with me again. The flashlight was still on; I could see his whole face clearly. It was fuller than a collie’s but just as intelligent. The triangular ears were pointed straight up—again, as if he were
listening
to me. He was so close I could see the layered pattern in the yellow eyes. And they watched me, as if he was waiting for me to go on.
    I moistened my mouth again. “I’ll put out water every night,” I said. “In case you come back. But farther back, toward the edge of the property. I’ll put out food, too, but—” I shrugged. “There are a lot of squirrels and possums around here. It might be gone in half an hour. Of course, I guess you could eat the squirrels and the mice,” I added with halfhearted humor. “So it wouldn’t be a total waste.”
    I faltered to silence. What was I expecting? A reply? An acknowledgment? The longer I knelt there, face-to-face with the wildest creature I had ever encountered, the more surreal the whole evening felt.
    “Well,” I said, and switched off the flashlight. Instantly, the world seemed plunged into bitter blackness; you would not have thought such a small light could be so profoundly missed. I heard, or felt, the wolf shake himself, as if he, too, was feeling the strangeness of the night and trying to cast it off before trotting back into his dangerous life.
I cannot be the kind of soft creature who takes food from a human’s hand or I will never be able to survive on my own.
I had recently learned the word
anthropomorphizing
in an English class, and now it rose unbidden to my mind. It was the first time I truly understood what it meant.
    “Well,” I said again—but realized I was speaking to an empty lawn. That stealthily, without my noticing it, the wolf had slipped away.
    *   *   *
    I expected