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The wolf paces. I can feel it moving under my skin now, a restless circling that wasn’t there before Nora arrived.

“You were fine yesterday.”

So was I.

I go upstairs and change out of my work clothes, even though I have nowhere to be. When I pull my shirt over my head, the bathroom mirror catches me from the side.

White hair. Scars across my shoulder. A thick pale line down my ribs where the first shift tore skin faster than it could heal.

I look away.

Nora didn’t.

That’s the part I keep coming back to.

Most people try not to stare. They become very interested in whatever is behind me, beside me, on the floor, anywhere except where the damage actually is.

Nora looked directly at the scars on my hand, then lifted her eyes back to my face without flinching or pretending she didn’t notice them. No pity in her expression, no discomfort or careful politeness. Just curiosity.

I knew what to do with fear. I knew what to do with pity.

I had no idea what to do with that.

I pull on a clean shirt and head downstairs to make dinner, eating it standing at the counter while dusk settles outside the kitchen window. At half-past six, music starts next door, low enough that I can only just make out the melody drifting across the gap between the cottages.

Then Nora starts singing along.

Badly.

I stop chewing and listen despite myself. The wolf does too, which feels like a betrayal on several levels. She misses a note badly enough to make me wince, then carries on as if accuracy is optional.

I shut the window. The music disappears, along with her voice, and the house goes quiet again. Exactly the way I like it.

Or the way I used to.

Five minutes later, I open the window again.

A few hours later, I’ve learned far more about Nora’s evening routine than I have any right to know. Her downstairs lights go off first, then the one at the top of the stairs, until only the bedroom window opposite mine is still glowing.

I know because I’m standing at my upstairs window pretending I came here to check the latch.

The bedroom opposite mine is still lit. Her silhouette crosses behind the curtain, pauses, moves again. Then the light goes off.

The wolf settles, which should make me feel better.

It doesn’t.

I get into bed and turn off the lamp. Sleep usually comes fast. Years ago, I trained myself into it because lying awake gave the wolf too much room. Work hard. Eat. Shower. Sleep. Same time every night.

Routine works.

Tonight, I lie there listening.

A car passes on Briar End Lane. Wind moves through the trees. Somewhere deeper in the woods, something calls once and then goes quiet.

And underneath all of it is Nora. Not sounds. Scent.

Her cottage is too close. Even with both houses shut up for the night, I can smell traces of her through the open crack in my bedroom window. Soap, the faint citrus note from earlier, something floral I couldn’t identify on the street.