The parlor had erupted into whispers, and with creeping dread Yeva realized that she could be here all night. There was still no sign of bad weather on the horizon, but uneasiness lingered at the back of her mind. “Oh, what shall we do?” she murmured, not bothering to look outside herself, but staring around at the faces of her ladies. The baronessa scarcely noticed, though, too busy wringing her hands. Galina turned to whisper to the lady next to her, forgetting herself. “The air smells of it,” Yeva replied, eyes shifting from Galina’s face to the baronessa’s. With her attention mostly on the far-off forest, Yeva noticed with a start that Galina had been speaking to her. “Do you really think a storm is coming?” asked Galina, one of the baronessa’s other ladies. “It’s too early for such snow, I don’t know what we’ll do this winter.”

“Not another storm,” moaned the baronessa, clutching her fur wrap more closely about her shoulders. I thought I saw bad weather approaching.” Yeva reached for the latch to pull it closed, trying to look less rattled than she felt. Close the window before we all catch a cough.” “Yeva, darling!” The baronessa’s voice cut in, the world snapping back to the present. If only that sign of movement would come again, perhaps she’d be able to. Her father used to tell stories of larger, stranger things that hid in the heart of the wood, but she’d outgrown stories long ago. Here on the edge of the wood, there shouldn’t be anything larger than a bear skulking beneath the canopy. How large must a creature be to cause movement like that? Larger than anything an arrow could bring down, unless the shot was beyond lucky. The air outside was frigid, especially for Yeva in her finely embroidered dress, but she didn’t mind-the glass distorted the distant woods, and she’d rather see clearly than be warm. She leaned forward, abandoning the sewing on her lap so she could nudge the glass-paned window open a fraction. In the distance the treetops swayed as if in a gust of wind, but the rest of the forest was still. A storm? she wondered, inhaling the strangeness. YEVA WATCHED THE SKY over the far-off forest, listening to the baronessa with one ear.

We always know before the change comes-but we never know what the change will bring. But we are trapped, and we can do neither.

We could track it, or we could run with it. Each of us could read the change to come, neither hindered by the other. Our frustration vents in growls and grunts. We pace, our steps stirring the early snows. We sense a shift of power when it is coming. We feel the moment the wind changes direction. When a storm approaches, we feel it in the thickness of the air, the tension in the earth awaiting the blanket of snow. Who feels most alive in worlds that never were

Hunted spooner