Watch Wolf

Wake up!”
    Faolan leaped instantly to his feet, towering over Edme. She looked up, concern filling her eyes. “Who knew what?” she asked.
    “Did I say something in my sleep?”
    “In your dream more likely — a bad dream at that.”
    “No! No! Not really bad. At least I don’t think so.I dreamed of fire, of warmth,” Faolan said.
    “I dreamed, too, of warmth, a winter dream,” Edme replied.
    “For a summer vanished. Look!” Faolan peered out from their shelter.
    A thin coat of ice skimmed the shallow water of the marsh. To the east, the rising sun splintered on jagged points of grass now stiff with frost.
    “What in the world is going on?” Edme said. “Look, the spiderweb is still here, all frosty, and the wind blew hard last night — but there isn’t a tear in it! You said it was strong.”
    “Yes, and you can see that the frost must have doubled its weight. But it’s all in one piece.”
    Edme’s teeth were chattering as shestepped close to Faolan. “It’s almost the summer moons, the Moon of theFlies. It makes no sense for it to be this cold!”
    “Those elk and caribou, all the migrating animals, are going to turn right around and head south if this keeps up,” Faolan said.
    “If this keeps up, it’s going to be the hunger moons of winter all year round.”
    The two wolves, both carrying antlers carved with their
Slaan Leat
stories tucked beneath their chins, parted ways at the edge of the marsh. Faolan was heading farther south toward the river, Edme heading north toward Crooked Back Ridge. They would meet at the beginning of the Moon of the Flies, the first of the true summer moons.
    “Let’s hope the flies don’t become snowflakes,” Edme said with a touch of her old familiar cheer, which relieved Faolan. Perhaps she was not as downcast about this
tummfraw
business as he had thought. Surely she would feel something when she arrived at her peak.
    The sudden frost of the previous night had melted away, and the sun shone bright in the blue bowl of the sky. Edme had expected the ridge to be capped in snow but was surprised at how low the snow line fell. Nevertheless, there was an abundance of tiny flowers flecking the slopes. The flowers that grew at this time ofyear were called Beyond Blossoms and were known for their toughness and ability to thrive in a harsh land with more rocks than soil and with abrasive winds that scoured away anything that could not cling fiercely. Their blossom time was short, but a night of frost had not discouraged them. Edme paused and set down her antler to study the tiny face of an ice violet. They were the first of the Beyond Blossoms, popping up at the end of the Moon of the Cracking Ice. As she peered into the purple cup with tiny little branching filaments at its center, she marveled at how the flower survived. It was no higher than half the length of one of her claws, and appeared to be growing straight out of the rock.
It’s so fragile and yet so strong, like the spiderweb after the frost.
    I must be strong, too,
Edme thought as she plodded on toward the crest of the ridge. But with each step forward, she felt an increasing sense of unease. She was anxious, anxious to be done with what she felt was a travesty of some sort regarding this
tummfraw.
    By the time she reached the crest and headed toward the northern peak, it was high noon.
Get it over with,
she told herself.
Just get it over with.
The peak, of course, was not a pointy mountaintop. She knew it wouldn’t be. From a distance, all peaks appeared sharp and seemed to prickthe sky. But it was just a distortion of perspective. The greater the distance, the sharper the profile of a peak, but when approached, the land flattened. The
tummfraw
loomed up before her now, a flat table rock. She felt nothing. Absolutely nothing.
I was never here — never, ever here. This is not my
tummfraw!

CHAPTER THREE
T HE S CENT OF THE R IVER
    THE SCENT OF THE RIVER DOESN’T change much, no matter the season. Even when the ice is thick upon it, somehow the river’s tang seeps through. After the Moon of the Cracking Ice in spring, the river unlocks; the deep ooze of the bottom mud mingles with the woody fragrance of tree roots that grow on the banks and are scrubbed by the coursing waters. Faolan felt a quickening in his marrow as he passed the summer den and then the spring den where he had spent his infancy tucked in the embrace of his second Milk Giver, the great grizzly Thunderheart.
    He knew the den as