Page 44 of The Wulver's Bond
Arran took more cold dips in the river than usual for the next few days.
He also began to leave his hoodie in its basket when he rose each morning. If he were living alone, this would have been the normal state of affairs anyway, Arran reasoned. He was far more comfortable with nothing rubbing against the fur on his torso.
The fact that Moss clearly appreciated this change had nothing to do with it.
Moss seemed at peace, at least. He spent much of his time sunbathing, or thumbing through Arran’s books. When Arran requested that they visit his friend on the cliffs, Moss agreed with no hesitation.
‘Who is she, anyway?’ Moss asked, picking flowers on the way. ‘You never told me her name.’
‘I do not know her name.’
Moss gave a snort of disbelief. ‘What? How can you call her a friend, then?’
Arran shrugged. ‘You do not need to know your neighbour’s name in order to be kind to them.’
‘That’s wild, wolfie.’
When Arran slunk off to place his parcel on the old woman’s windowsill, Moss added his bouquet of flowers to it. ‘Probably no one gives her flowers,’ he said tersely, though a tinge of pink graced his cheeks as he looked away from Arran’s smile.
‘She will appreciate them.’
It seemed that she did. Her frail voice faltered on inspecting the parcel. ‘Flowers, today? You gone soft, old man.’ It was followed by a light laugh, which for a moment made her sound young again.
On the long hike home, Arran let Moss open the bag she’d left out for them.
‘Worse than last time,’ Moss said, with amusement rather than scorn. He pulled out the items for Arran to see, one by one. ‘Three buttons, a shoelace, an open packet of lemon bonbons—ooh, those look nice actually—and… half an onion?’
Moss shook the bag to double check, but nothing else fell out.
‘She does what she can, and I wouldn’t ask for more,’ Arran reminded him.
‘Yeah, but… I mean… Is she okay?’ Moss’s expression grappled with a mix of alarm and concern, like it was a foreign emotion he wasn’t used to outwardly expressing. ‘Is her mind all there, you know what I mean?’
Arran’s tail drooped. ‘No, I do not think she is well. People change with age. She has lost much of her acuity in recent years.’
He watched Moss carefully from the corner of his eyes. Eventually Moss said, ‘That’s sad.’
‘Yes. It is.’
Arran had watched it happen to countless others. Friends who had been sharp-witted and wise turned slow and quiet. No matter how strong they were in youth, frailty would eventually claim them. It happened to all humans, in the end, if they lived long enough.
As the afternoon wore on, the air became muggy and gained a dense kind of pressure to it. It clogged their throats, and Moss asked to stop for water several times. In the distance, dark clouds gathered over the ocean. Arran raised his snout, assessing the unusually warm breeze.
‘It is likely to storm soon,’ he said. ‘We must hurry back to make preparations.’
The angry clouds drew much closer to the island over the course of their journey. Moss sensed Arran’s urgency and skipped to keep pace with him rather than dragging his heels.Once they were home, Arran spent the remaining hours of daylight ferrying items between his network of storage caves.
If he were alone, he wouldn’t be quite so concerned about being caught in a storm. Arran knew he was capable of enduring a cold cave for weeks on end, that he could survive on hard tack for every meal, and even brave the storm itself if he really needed to top up any supplies.
But with Moss in his care, he daren’t let his cave go unwarmed, or his larder unfilled.
He hadn’t let on about this to Moss, but having a fire lit every day was an extreme luxury on an island with so few trees for firewood. Arran was acutely aware that Moss didn’t have the same resistances as he—and even if he did, Arran was loathe to suggest Moss tolerate anything short of absolute comfort while in his home.
One of Arran’s caves was filled with coppiced firewood from past seasons, and an ancient stockpile of coal that he’d been slowly picking at for over a hundred years. He gathered baskets of each and stowed them in the living cave. Next, he visited the smoke-cave and retrieved every morsel from its hanging station over the embers. For a final trip to the river, Moss helped him refill the barrel of water from the larder and a few extra containers for good measure.
‘You think this storm’s gonna be that drastic?’ Moss asked, his gaze sliding from Arran to the approaching black clouds. ‘How long do you expect us to be holed up in there?’
‘Hopefully just a day or two,’ Arran reassured. ‘But it is always best to prepare for the worst.’
