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“But wouldn’t that be presumptuous?”

“She likes being near you. I’ve seen it. She obviously cares for you.”

I ran a finger over a wet spot on my pants. Perhaps I should have changed into a new pair, but I hadn’t thought about it until this moment. “Maybe she just sees me as a friend,” I said. “That’s the most common, after all.”

“Sure, but the other way’s not as uncommon as you’d think.”

The door in the store opened, the bell chiming. A moment later, Alma stepped inside. She had hung up her coat and hat, but snowflakes still clung to her hair. “I told Mrs. Viksten. She hadn’t heard of any other wolf attacks, and God knows she likes to gossip.”

“I’m glad,” I said, “although it does make the whole thing ever stranger.”

“Maybe that one wolf was just crazed,” Helena said.

Alma sat down next to her, and I watched them for a moment, how they sat closer here in my parlor than they did in my uncle’s. The sight filled me with warmth, despite this day. It always did. I had done the right thing, fetching Helena and giving her a place here.

Should I tell them about the eyes of the wolf? Of the strange language Lilja had spoken? Perhaps I ought to, but I held my tongue because they already found her odd and foreign.

I stood because I couldn’t dawdle any longer. Not this close to Christmas. I still had half a day of light, and I should get going on my orders. In the workshop, I put a log on the fire before I set to work. I had a whole tray ready for painting, and so I brought out the paint cans and the mug with my brushes.

A calm fell over me as I set to painting a spinning top. Mr. Paulsson had told me to decide on the colors myself, and I chose blue, yellow, and red. The shades looked very nice together, I thought. Very cheerful for a little boy.

Footsteps made me look up. Lilja stood in the door. I was next to her in a second, taking her arm. “Are you all right?”

“I think so.”

She had put on Helena’s purple dress, and the shawl was back around her neck. I pulled up a chair so she could sit next to me like she always did. She watched as I picked up the train car that was next on my tray.

“Can I paint too?” she asked.

“Of course.” I fetched the reject basket, and she chose a square of birch I had discarded because the grain was wrong. I poured out black for the wheels. Lilja got a dollop of blue and one of yellow and mixed them into a vibrant green that she used to paint stems and leaves.

“How is your arm?” Lilja asked me.

“It’s fine. The wound’s only superficial.”

“My foster mother had wolves,” she said.

I made a point to not look at her because I wanted her to talk. “Tame wolves?”

“They were to her, but they were vicious with the rest of us.”

“Did they ever bite you?” I asked, thinking of her scar.

“Not me, but others.”

“Your siblings?”

She nodded. “There were a lot of us.”

I painted the car’s roof red, gathering my courage. “That language you spoke,” I asked. “What was it?”

“It’s what we speak where I’m from.”

“I’ve never heard it.”

“It’s rare. There’s not a lot of us, and we like to keep to ourselves.”

“I see.”