Free By These Ten Bones by Clare B. Dunkle Page A

looking out the window. “Tonight is the full moon.”
    Maddie sat still in shock. A werewolf! An evil creature that changed with the moon. When had she faced that hissing shape in the doorway? Was it a month ago that she had dreamed of her town littered with bones?
    â€œBut it didn’t look like a wolf,” she whispered.
    â€œI don’t think they do,” replied Lady Mary, turning from the window. “People call them wolves because of their connection to the moon. I have a book about them around here somewhere, but I haven’t looked at it in a long time. You’d best be home, girl. Your mother will worry.”
    â€œI don’t want to go back out there,” answered Maddie, and that at least was the perfect truth. “Couldn’t I just stay on this bench? I won’t make a sound.”
    â€œCome up into bed by me,” proposed the old woman. “That’s where Kathleen used to sleep before she died and quit my service. I do miss that girl.”
    Maddie scrambled into the soft bed with Lady Mary and pulled the linen sheets up to her nose. Kathleen was Black Ewan’s childhood sweetheart. He missed her, too, said all the town widows. It was strange, reflected the tired girl, that the love of the same person could turn two people to hatred.
    The next morning, Maddie was up in the gray dawn to go to Mass. Lachlan’s mother was there, too, her face like a light. Her boy had woken up at last. He didn’t remember anything about what had happened the last two days, but he had eaten all the food she cooked him and begged for more.
    How fervent Maddie was in Mass that morning! God had spared her to look on another day. Safe in the damp little church, she thought about the evil shadow in the cave. Thank God it hadn’t gotten her. Pray God it never would.
    Ned spotted her as she gathered eggs. “You’re alive,” he called cheerfully.
    â€œI did just what you told me to do,” she said with a shudder, coming over to him. Mad Angus was dozing out of the wind. She looked around and lowered her voice. “Is he a werewolf?” she asked.
    â€œHe is,” confirmed the Englishman. “Ugly brute, ain’t he? Ain’t a ugly enough name.”
    â€œWas he the same thing that came to my house?” she wanted to know. The old man nodded.
    â€œThat was a long night,” he said. “I was afraid. Up all night. At last I decided he can’t get out of the cave. That’s when I heard him scream.” Maddie thought of the stone shards at the cave mouth. That’s what had made the crack wider.
    â€œBut how is it possible?” she demanded. “That creature tore up Carver. It couldn’t have been him.”
    â€œIt was him,” affirmed the Traveler calmly. “The farmhands say you hit him with something. You cut him, I think. When he smelled the blood, he can’t stand it. Then he cut himself.”
    The weather was gray and dreary, with a chilly wind. The men were still away from home. Maddie thought about the wood-carver all day long without meaning to think of him at all. Part of her was waiting for him to come back, and part of her was dreading it. She didn’t think she wanted to see him again.
    â€œI wonder where my poor, sick boy is,” sighed Fair Sarah as they ate their lonely meal. “I hope he’s warm. It’s good we got the grain stacked. There’s rain coming in from the west.”
    Fair Sarah’s sick boy didn’t come back all day, and Maddie couldn’t help wondering why. Maybe he had strangled on that chain, or maybe he had wandered away into the tunnels of the cave. Maybe he never meant to come back. Maybe he was ashamed to, now that she knew.
    Maddie thought about that, about how upset he had been that she would be there. Of course he must be ashamed. He hadn’t wanted her to see him. She remembered his handsome face and wary eyes, his low voice talking to