## Act I: The Last Shot (20%)

The wind off the Atlantic carried salt and the promise of snow when Arthur Winters raised his rifle for the third time that afternoon. Through the frost-crusted scope, he watched the thin grey wolf pick its way along the cliff edge, ribs visible beneath matted fur. Four small shapes tumbled behind it—pups, no more than eight weeks old, all legs and awkward enthusiasm.

Arthur's finger rested on the trigger. It would be easy. One shot, then another. Winter was harsh this year, and the chickens in his coop were growing thin. The wolf knew it too; it had been coming for three nights running, always at dusk, always when Arthur was inside mending nets.

But something made him lower the rifle. Perhaps it was the way the mother wolf paused at the edge of the chicken yard, not to steal, but to look back at her pups who were too young to understand hunger. Perhaps it was the silence of the New England coast in November, a silence so complete that even his own breathing sounded loud.

He set the rifle against the wall and opened the door.

The wolf saw him and froze, ears flat against its skull. Arthur moved slowly, deliberately, pulling flour sacks from the pantry. He tore one open and scattered the contents in a wide arc between them. Then he retreated into the house and closed the door.

Through the window, he watched the wolf approach cautiously, sniff the flour, then retreat again. When it finally ate, it did so with its body angled toward the pups, as if ready to dash back into the tree line at any moment.

That night, Arthur slept with one eye open, listening to the wind and the soft sounds of eating beyond the glass.

## Act II: The Long Winter (30%)

The flour ran out on the fourth day. Arthur expected the wolf to leave then, to return to whatever desperate corner of the forest it had emerged from. Instead, it waited.

On the fifth day, Arthur opened the door again with a piece of salted pork. On the seventh day, he left it on the porch and stood in the doorway, watching. The wolf approached within twenty paces, then stopped. Its eyes were the colour of winter sky—pale blue, almost grey. Arthur named it Sky in his head, though he never spoke the name aloud.

The pups grew bolder. By the second week, they would approach the porch while their mother waited at the tree line. They were ridiculous creatures, all oversized paws and clumsy bows, tumbling over each other in the snow. Arthur found himself talking to them through the window. He told them about the war, though he never told anyone else that. He told them about his wife, Martha, who had died ten years prior in the spring fever that took half the village. He told them about the house on the cliff, built by his grandfather, sold by his father, maintained by him alone.

The mother wolf began to appear in daylight. She would sit at the edge of the clearing, watching him chop wood, mending nets, staring out at the ocean. Sometimes Arthur thought she was judging him. Perhaps she was.

By December, a routine had formed. Arthur would leave food each evening at dusk. The wolf would appear precisely at half past five, as if keeping time. They never came closer than twenty paces, never touched, never crossed some invisible line that neither had drawn but both understood.

Then the snow came. Heavy, relentless snow that buried the coast in three feet within two days. The wolf did not appear on the first day. Or the second. On the third morning, Arthur found tracks leading to the tree line and stopping.

He told himself he was not worried. Old men worried about things that had nothing to do with them. That was what his father had said, and his father before him. But Arthur took his rifle and walked to the tree line, following the tracks into the deep snow.

He found her in a hollow beneath an oak, her body curled around four small lumps that moved faintly. She was alive, barely, her breathing shallow, her eyes closed. The pups whimpered when Arthur approached, their fur already beginning to stiffen with ice.

Arthur carried them back. All five of them. The mother wolf was too heavy, so he covered her with burlap and snow, hoping the cold would preserve her until spring. He brought the pups inside, wrapping them in blankets beside the stove.

They survived. So did he, though he lost half a toe to frostbite and spent three weeks coughing blood.

## Act III: The Leaving (35%)

Spring came late that year. The snow melted slowly, revealing a coast scarred by ice and wind. The wolf recovered with remarkable speed, as wolves do, and by April she was back at the edge of the clearing, watching Arthur plant his vegetables.

The pups were robust now, all muscle and mischief. They followed Arthur around the yard like oversized puppies, though Arthur knew better than to mistake them for anything other than what they were. Wolves. Not dogs, not pets, not companions. Wolves.

One afternoon in May, the mother wolf approached the porch. She stopped at the twenty-pace line, as she always had, and looked at Arthur. Her blue eyes were clear and direct. Arthur understood, somehow, that she was saying goodbye.

He did not try to stop her. He had fed her, housed her, kept her alive through the worst winter the coast had seen in decades. That was enough. More than enough, perhaps, for one man to give to a wild thing.

She turned and walked into the tree line. The pups hesitated, looking back at Arthur with wide, confused eyes. He felt something break in his chest, but he did not call after them. They followed their mother, stumbling slightly, then gaining confidence as they disappeared into the green dark.

The house was quiet again.

Years passed. Arthur aged. His hands grew too stiff for nets, his back too sore for woodchopping. He ate less, spoke less, spent more time sitting in the chair by the window, looking out at the clearing that was no longer empty.

The village called on him sometimes, bringing supplies, asking if he needed help. He always said no. He was a stubborn old man, and stubbornness was all he had left.

Then came the morning in early November when Arthur could not get out of bed. The fever came quickly, as it had with Martha, and he knew, with the certainty of old men who have lived long enough to recognize their own endings, that this was it.

He pulled himself to the window, dragging his body across the floorboards. The light was wrong—too bright, too cold. Winter was coming again.

And then he heard it.

A howl, long and low and mournful, rising from the tree line beyond the clearing. Arthur pressed his face against the glass. There, standing in the snow, was a large grey wolf. Older than the one he had known, its muzzle frosted white, its body lean but strong. Behind it, four younger wolves stood in a row, their heads tilted toward the sky.

The old wolf threw back its head and howled again. The sound filled the clearing, filled the house, filled Arthur's chest with something he could not name. Then it stopped. The wolves stood for a moment longer, then turned and disappeared into the trees.

Arthur sank to the floor. He did not know how long he lay there before sleep took him. When the villagers found him three days later, he was peaceful, his face turned toward the window. On the windowsill, pressed into the thin layer of frost, were four paw prints.

## Act IV: The Silence (15%)

They buried Arthur Winters in the village cemetery, next to Martha. The minister spoke of a life well-lived, though no one could remember the last time Arthur had spoken to another living soul.

The house on the cliff stood empty for a year, then was sold to a man from Boston who never visited.

Sometimes, on clear winter nights, people in the village claim they can hear a wolf howling from the direction of the old Winters place. They say it sounds sad, or maybe just lonely. They say it sounds like a man who forgot how to speak.

But then, the coast is full of strange sounds. Wind in pines. Waves on rocks. The cries of gulls. It is easy to mistake one for another when you are standing alone in the dark.