Once, across a rough patch of knobbled tree roots, the dead man was jarred partway out of the quilt. The wolf stopped, and Turtle had to grab the woodsman’s pant leg and help roll him back into the quilt.
The wolf pushed his nose briefly against her arm. His nose was cold. Blood had dried in stiff red spikes across his muzzle, but Turtle felt better for it anyway.
“Here,” said the wolf, what seemed like a long time later. “This is far enough.”
It was twilight. Turtle was amazed that it was only twilight. It seemed like several ages must have passed, like it should be twilight of the day after.
They stood in a little clearing. Turtle shook herself and looked around. Night was gathering under the trees, and there were eyes in it, and a suggestion of teeth.
A growling began somewhere behind Turtle, and ran around the ring of trees. It was very soft and very hungry.
“It would be wise,” said the wolf, “if you would lay your hand on my shoulder now. And I will see you home.”
Turtle set her hand on the wolf’s shoulder. He was hot as fire under his fur, and his ribs heaved as he panted.
They walked away from the clearing. The wolves under the trees slunk out of their way, heads low, their eyes gleaming like frozen moons.
She thought about looking back, but the wolf said “I wouldn’t,” so she didn’t.
It was not a long walk. She cried a little. There seemed to be time now. The wolf didn’t say anything. When she stopped, she tangled her fingers in the wolf’s fur, and felt better.
They reached the path home twenty minutes later. Turtle expected it to take longer, but then again, it went much faster when one of you was not walking backward and hauling a dead man’s weight in his jaws.
They stood on the edge of the path, where the spurge grew thick and choked out the ferns and daggers of grass stabbed up through them.
“Well?” said the wolf finally.
Turtle thought about it, scuffing her foot in the dry pine needles of the path. “I’m sorry he had to be killed. But he shouldn’t have killed the goat.”
The wolf bowed his head, accepting this judgment.
“Will Grandmother be okay?”
The wolf shrugged. His fur rippled under Turtle’s hand when he did so. “She is strong. She would not be a friend to wolves if she were not. Give her a day or two to re-make her den around her and howl, and then visit her again.”
“Will you be here?” asked Turtle. “I mean…if I come into the woods, some time…”
“It is very likely,” the wolf said.
“Would you talk to me?”
“Quite possibly,” said the wolf. “If you are not too foolish, and will be silent sometimes. You do not smell like a foolish child, but there is often no way to be sure.”
“I promise to be silent sometimes,” said Turtle solemnly.
“Then I will be here,” said the wolf, and turned like a cat on the path and vanished into the wood.
No, that’s not the end of the story. Hush. I’ll tell you the rest. There isn’t much.
Turtle went home. The yelling was mostly over, although Turtle’s mother said a few things about the state of her clothes and the stained hood.
“Grandma’s goat got killed,” said Turtle, and that was enough explanation for everything, although Turtle’s mother then muttered a few more things, mostly related to letting a child gad out in the woods so late.
“It wasn’t late when I started,” said Turtle, much aggrieved, and that, too, was enough explanation for everything.
Nobody asked about the woodsman, then or ever. He probably had a name, but Turtle never learned it and did not ask. Her grandmother continued on the same as ever, except that she stopped hiring anyone to cut her firewood, and Turtle’s brother came home sweaty and full of splinters and complaints.
Her next batch of brownies came out chewy and if they were overly wet in the middle and burnt to a brick-like crust around the edges, everyone agreed that it was still a great improvement.
BLUEBEARD'S WIFE
She really hadn’t known.
No one believed her, of course. The more sympathetic among her friends said “Oh, poor Althea, you must have been terrified, of course you couldn’t tell anyone.” Her detractors—her sisters foremost among them—all said “Of course she knew. She just didn’t care. Those poor women.”
No one had actually suggested that she might be involved in the murders, of course. Once the bodies had been identified, it was obvious that she had still been in the nursery for most of them. The youngest of the lot had been dead for several years before Lord Bluebeard moved into the neighborhood, so no one could imply that she was a murderess herself.