The house was screaming. Not with a voice, but with the groan of floorboards and the rattle of windowpanes against the gale coming off the Pacific. Clara Vaughn sat on the floor of what used to be her father's study, surrounded by cardboard boxes and the smell of old paper. She had spent the last six hours sorting through a life she barely remembered, and the dust had turned her throat to sandpaper.
She stood up, rubbing the small of her back, and looked out the window. The moon was a sliver, a fingernail of white in a bruised sky, but the woods beyond the property line seemed to be leaning in, suffocating the house.
A sharp, metallic clack sounded from the porch.
Clara froze. Oakhaven was supposed to be safe, the kind of town where people left their keys in the ignition, but the darkness here felt different than the city. It felt heavy.
She grabbed a heavy brass candleholder the nearest thing to a weapon and moved to the door. When she pulled it open, the cold air hit her like a physical blow. Standing on the bottom step was a man.
He was tall, wearing a worn canvas jacket that had seen too many winters. His hair was dark and damp from the mist, and he was holding a heavy wooden crate.
"I didn't mean to startle you," he said. His voice was like low-gear gravel, steady and deep. "I'm Reid. From the ranger station down the road. Your father... he used to get his firewood delivered this time of year. I figured you might need it."
Clara lowered the candleholder, feeling a flush of embarrassment. "Firewood. Right. I'm Clara."
"I know," he said, then immediately looked down, as if realizing that sounded too intimate. "I mean, the town knows. We don't get many newcomers."
He stepped up and set the crate down. As he did, his hand brushed against hers. Clara gasped, not because of the contact, but because of the heat. His skin was scorching, like he was burning up with a fever.
"You're burning up," she said, her professional instinct to care for fragile things kicking in. "Are you sick?"
Reid pulled his hand back quickly, tucking it into his pocket. He looked at her then, and Clara felt a strange, electric jolt. His eyes weren't just brown; they were the color of turned earth, shimmering with an intensity that felt almost predatory, yet deeply pained.
"Just the climb up the hill," he lied. She knew it was a lie. "The weather is turning. You'll want to keep the hearth going tonight. The fog gets in the lungs if you aren't careful."
"Thank you, Reid. Truly. Would you like to come in? I have tea, or... well, I think I found a bottle of my father's scotch."
For a moment, Reid looked at the open door, at the warm amber light spilling out onto the porch, and Clara saw a look of pure, unadulterated longing cross his face. It was the look of a man standing outside a window in the rain, watching a family he could never join.
Then, his jaw tightened. A muscle in his neck twitched, and he took a step back into the shadows.
"I can't," he said, his voice tighter now. "I have... rounds to finish. And the moon is rising."
"It's barely a crescent," Clara pointed out, trying to keep the conversation going. She didn't want him to leave. There was something about him that felt like a mystery she wanted to catalog and preserve.
Reid looked up at the sliver of white in the sky. To Clara, it was a beautiful celestial event. To Reid, it looked like a countdown.
"It's enough," he whispered.
He turned to leave, but stopped at the edge of the porch. "Clara? If you hear something tonight... in the woods. A sound like a dog caught in a trap, or something hitting the side of the house... don't go outside. Not for anything."
"Is there a bear?" she asked, her heart beginning to thud.
Reid looked back over his shoulder. The porch light caught his eyes, and for a split second, they reflected the light like a wolf's a bright, haunting amber flash.
"Something like that," he said.
He disappeared into the trees before she could ask another question. Clara stood on the porch for a long time, watching the spot where he had vanished. The heat from where his hand had brushed hers stayed on her skin for hours, a glowing ember in the cold Oakhaven night.
Inside the house, she lit the fire. The wood Reid had brought smelled of cedar and something else something wild and musk-heavy. As the flames took hold, she sat by the hearth, the cello-like groan of the wind outside sounding more and more like a voice.
That night, Clara didn't sleep. She sat by the window and watched the treeline. Just before dawn, she saw a shape move past the edge of the clearing. It was huge, moving on four legs with a terrifying, liquid grace. It stopped and looked at the house, its breath huffing in the cold air like steam from a locomotive.
It didn't attack. It didn't howl. It simply watched the flickering light of her fire, standing perfectly still until the sun began to bleed over the horizon.
When it finally turned back into the shadows, Clara realized she wasn't breathing. She touched the glass, her heart aching with a strange, inexplicable sorrow. She didn't know why, but she felt like she had just watched someone she knew drowning in a sea of trees.