Black Wolf by Steph Shangraw Read Free Book Online Page B

wands & pentagrams) but
they're expecting some of the wooden kind soon (wands &
pentagrams, a few cups). Sounds like you could pick up a nice set
for someone who uses them.
    Events for the equinox
are fairly plentiful (wait until next month, for the Samhain
activities!), there's a full list on the back page.
    Historical notes for
September: Morgan Dominique, honoured ancestor of virtually every
witch in Haven, was born Sept. 17, 1767. Yes, Morgan of Coven
Starluck which founded our fair village was born a full century
before Canada's birthday. One year ago Sept. 19, Flynn 'Sundark got
his first acceptance letter for a short story (thanks for reminding
me, Cynthia). Fifty-six years ago, Haven College began its first
year as a recognized private post-secondary school with our own
schedule for holidays and various programs tailored to and
practical for the abilities and needs of the mixed village
population—my highest respects to those who pulled that trick off! How many of us would go noisily insane
if we didn't have our own college to rely on, and to bring in our
own kind from the other five Canadian mixed villages, they being
not so fortunate, and occasionally from farther afield? Without it,
we'd be more inbred than we already are, and I would never have
come here from Ravenrock to meet my coven!
     
    Have fun back in
school, kids, and I'll get back to you in October. Ciao!
     
    4
    Aindry woke
sharply, lay still to try to find what had disturbed her. The
familiar musty smell of hay, loose ends of which they'd scraped
together to make a bed, and the smells of the cattle below... the
animals were stirring, though, and there was a human scent now,
faintly.
     
    "Oh, damn.
Jaisan, wake up. Wake up!" she whispered.
     
    "Mmm?" Coiled
warmly against her, Jaisan opened his eyes. "What?" he asked
drowsily.
     
    "We overslept.
The farmer's up."
     
    Immediately,
he twisted away from her, sat up and brushed away as much of the
hay as he could. "Let's get out of here."
     
    The barn was
an old one, with a ladder down to the lower part, and two huge
doors for bringing the hay in. Aindry thumped with the heel of her
hand at the solid hook—over her head, and she was five-foot-six,
why did they put them so high ?—until the rust on it
surrendered, and the door swung open. They slipped quickly out, and
Jaisan found a rock to brace the door closed with.
     
    There they
paused, all senses alert, scanning the area. Aindry touched
Jaisan's arm, indicated a cedar-rail fence liberally overgrown with
brush and trees; he nodded acknowledgement, and they darted across
twenty feet of open space to it. A short distance along it, they
stopped and crouched.
     
    "Near miss,"
Jaisan whispered. "We should've been awake a long time ago."
     
    True, but not
so hard to explain. Cold, hunger, and general fatigue made a
powerful team.
     
    "We'll just
have to be more careful," Aindry murmured back, putting all the
reassurance she could into her voice. "Besides, what's the worst
that could happen? We get thrown out. No one's going to catch us.
We'd just have to move on a little faster than we would have." She
ran a hand over his hair, the long midnight mane forever getting in
his eyes, but he refused to cut it short like hers. Given the
strong resemblance between them, it wasn't unusual for strangers to
get them confused. Even more common was being thought younger than
her and Jaisan's twenty-one and seventeen years respectively.
     
    He shifted
under her touch, restlessly; she kept stroking, and slowly he
relaxed.
     
    "Let's go
farther back," she suggested. "Maybe there'll be a woodlot or
something that will have prey we can hunt."
     
    Silently, he
followed her along the fence. It opened into a tree-edged lane.
     
    Some distance
back onto the farmer's property, they found a possible hunting
ground: large flat glacial rocks with trees growing between them,
and places where dirt had piled up to provide footing for various
sorts of brushy cover.
     
    They