Rain and a Wulver

By the time that winter settled in for good, every sound in the house had grown thin. The floorboards didn't pop as much, the stove didn't hum the way it used to, and even our voices felt smaller-like the cold had taken a little piece from each of us.

We lived in a leaning two-story frame house on stacked stones at the edge of the woods, eight miles from town and a lifetime from anything that looked like help. The garden was a memory buried under crusted snow. The last rows of canned beans lined the shelf like tombstones. Daddy's lunch pail sat empty on the counter; the mine had shut down again, same as it always did right when folks needed it the most.

Seven kids and two grown mouths to feed and every day the meals got thinner. Cornbread made more water than cornmeal. Pinto beans stretched so far, they were more broth than bean. Little ones asking if there was any more, rubbing their bellies like that might coax something out of them.

The traps Daddy set back up the mountain have stayed bare. Rabbits either got smart or froze before they reached the snares. The river below us was still half-frozen, ice clinging to the banks like old scars. Even if it had been open, nobody had the strength left to swing a line out all day in this cold.

I was the oldest girl, which meant I was the one who saw most of the worry and got the least of the pretending. I caught Mama staring at the cupboard like it had betrayed her. I listened to Daddy cuss under his breath when he thought we were all asleep, restless in his chair, hands black-stained from odd jobs, that never paid enough.

It was on one of those mornings, the kind where the sky looked like an old bruise and the cold crept in under the doors, that I found the first fish.

It was a trout.

Not frozen stiff like it ought to have been, either. Its scales still shone faintly, wet and slick, as if it had come straight from the river. Its eyes were clear. It looked like it was only sleeping.

" Daddy?" I called, my voice too loud in the thin-walled kitchen.

He came in from the back, bootsteps heavy, coat already on like he meant to go try the traps again. " What is it, Lou?"

I pointed. "Did you leave that out there?"

He frowned, leaned close, then unlatched the window and pulled the sash up with a grunt. Cold air knifed through the room. He reached out, fingers working clumsily in the chill, and brought the fish in.

"Where'd this come from?" he muttered.

"I just found it there."

He checked the sill, then the ground below, squinting. "No footprints," he said, more to himself than to me. "Not fresh ones anyhow."

Mama had come in by then, youngest on her hip, two more peeking from behind her skirt. When she saw the fish, her shoulders dropped in that way they did when she was too tired for anything but gratitude.

"Ask questions later," she said softly. " Scale it now."

So, we did. There wasn't enough meat for all of us, but Daddy cut it crosswise into thin steaks, fried it in some lard and each of us got a bite or two. The warmth of it spread through me like someone had lit a candle behind my ribs.

"Maybe it flopped itself up there from the river," my brother Jesse said that night.

"River's half a mile off and down," I answered. "You ever seen a fish hike uphill in the snow?"

Nobody had an answer that made much sense.

The next morning there were two fish.

This time Daddy found them. He'd gone out to bring in wood before sunup and came stomping back in, boots dripping and eyes wide.

"Mama, kids," he said. "Get your coats and come look at this."

They lay on the sill like they'd been arranged on purpose-tails curving opposite ways, bellies pale against the blackened wood. Again, they were fresh. Too fresh.

He checked the ground. The snow was old, crusted, but I saw the marks anyway-long impressions spaced too far apart for any dog, too narrow for boots. Like something walking upright with feet shaped wrong.

"You see that?" Daddy whispered.

I swallowed. "Maybe somebody from town-"

"Ain't nobody from town walking all the way out here in the dark to leave us fish." He rubbed his jaw. "We ain't that special."

But he brought the fish in anyway.

After the third morning, rumors started up. We didn't start them; kids rarely do. They just carry them.

Jesse heard it first at the bus stop, came back red-cheeked and breathless.

"Walker boys say their uncle saw something last week," he said while taking off his coat and boots. "Tall as the porch roof, standing just inside the tree line. Said it had a wolf head but stood like a man. Said it disappeared into the fog."

Mama told him to hush, but her knuckles were white around the spoon.

Later that day, trying to find an extra quilt in the upstairs closet, I knocked over one of the old trunks that had belonged to my grandfather. It tipped with a thunk, lid popping open, and the smell of dust rolled out, dry as old paper.

Inside were papers yellowed with time, a rusted tin of buttons, and a cracked pipe. At the bottom, wrapped in wool, there was a book.

The leather cover was cracked along the spine, corners darkened by hands long gone. There was no title on the front, only a faded knot-work design. I brushed dust off and opened it.

The pages were covered in tight handwriting-English mixed with older, unfamiliar words. Between the lines were drawings.

On one page:

a stag with branching antlers.

On another:

a woman with riverweed hair.

Then a page that made my breath catch.

A creature stood upright-wolf -headed, man shaped, fur dripping as though forever caught in rain. Not monstrous...just steady, Watchful. Patient.

Beneath it, my grandfather's note:

The Wulver of the Old Country.

Not man, nor beast, but its own kind.

Lives apart yet watches.

Catches fish for long hours in rocks.

Leaves food for the poor on window stones.

Harm non, and he harms none.

Ask nothing, want nothing, give freely.

A chill went down my spine. I didn't tell anyone what I had found. I was too shocked and trying to process it all.

That night, the wind turned mean, howling around the leaves. Sleet ticked against the windows. Daddy hadn't returned from an odd job, and Mama kept checking the road through the frozen glass.

We'd eaten the last bit of beans. The younger kids slept upstairs, curled like pups for warmth.

I sat at the table, lamp flickering, the Wulver sketch going through my mind.

A sudden scrape sounded against the back of the house. Soft. Heavy. Purposeful.

I froze.

Then I thought I heard a wet step in slush.

Mama had dozed off in her rocking chair, too exhausted to hear anything.

I don't know what made me move. Maybe curiosity, maybe hope of more fish. Maybe the old words in my grandfather's script whispering from the page.

I grabbed the lamp and slipped on some boots.

The back door groaned as I eased it open.

Rain and sleet mix had started heavier again-fine, cold needles. Fog lay thick and swirling, turning the yard into a small world lit only by the lamp's trembling glow.

On the kitchen windowsill lay a line of fish. A whole stringer-fresh shining, still slipping water.

My breath left me.

Then the fog parted.

At the tree line stood a shape.

Tall.

Still.

Wrong, and yet somehow familiar.

A wolfs head.

Shoulders hunched like a man.

Fur dark and rain-soaked.

Arms long enough to touch its knees.

It stood upright.

My grandfather's drawing had been close-close but smaller than the truth of it.

The Wulver watched me.

I couldn't see its eyes clearly, but I felt the weight of them-steady, measuring, curious but not threatening.

The book's words rose in my mind:

Harm non, and it harms none.

Gives freely.

Ask for nothing in return.

I lowered the lamp to the porch and lifted my empty hands, palms open.

"Thank you," I whispered.

The Wulver tilted its head-a slow, thoughtful gesture. Rain traced silver lines down his fur.

One step back.

Another.

Fog closed around it.

And then it was gone, swallowed by the mountain.

I lifted the stringer of fish and felt their weight- real, solid, warm with the promise of a meal.

The fog rolled slow across the yard, erasing the last of the long, inhuman footprints. The mountains held their breath. Even the rain seemed to soften.

Somewhere in the trees, a branch snapped lightly-not a warning, just a farewell.

I stood there in the rain, boots sinking into the slush, heart fuller than my stomach had been in weeks. The Wulver had come when no one else could. It fed a house of starving children without asking for a thing.

It didn't want worship. It only wanted that we survive the winter.

Grandfather's stories weren't tales. They were inheritance. They were protection.

And tonight, as I was standing in the cold, dark rain, I felt a strange calmness come over me knowing a creature from the old country had claimed us under its protection.