his paw from her hand, severing the bond between them. The dream dissolved, like a shadow running from the sun.
Witch woman, he thought. What are ye doing to me?
With a start, he realized she was awake.
"Oh!" Channa Leigh exclaimed. Her fear quickly turned to pleasure as she saw a ray of silvery moonlight filtering through her window, saw the huge wolf stretched out beside her. "What are you doing here?"
He growled softly, then licked her hand.
She shivered with delight at the touch of his tongue, warm and rough against her palm. Sitting up, she glanced around her room, one hand clutching the wolf's fur. There was her chair. Mama had made the cover in shades of blue, because blue had always been Channa Leigh's favorite color. The cross above her bed was delicately carved from dark wood. Black, she thought. The color was black, like the wolf. The quilt on her bed was dark blue; the curtains at the window were white with tiny red flowers. Colors. So many colors. She had learned them early and never forgotten them.
She glanced out the window, her hand still stroking the wolf's coat. There was so much to see. "Would you like to go for a walk?"
As if he understood, the big wolf leaped to the floor, stretched, then moved to her side of the bed, waiting patiently as she stood up and drew on her wrapper. Then, one hand fisted in the long fur at his neck, she tiptoed quietly out of the house lest she wake her parents, who would certainly object to her taking a walk in the moonlight with the wolf.
The night was bright beneath a full lover's moon. Awed by the beauty of it, Channa Leigh walked through the village, stopping at each cottage, each shop. As a child she had been inside most of them, but the memory of how they looked had been lost.
The big wolf paced slowly at her side, stopping when she stopped, sitting patiently while she stared in wonder at the small stained-glass window set high in the wall of the church. Lit by the lamp that burned from within, she recited the colors.
"Red. Blue. Green. Yellow. So beautiful." She paused to study the summer roses that grew alongside the midwife's house, ran her fingertips over the petals. They were soft, so soft.
" 'Tis just as I always dreamed it," she mused as they walked on, leaving the town behind, "and it's all so beautiful."
She paused atop a grassy hill and sat down on a log, her hand stroking the wolf's fur. "Have you a name, I wonder?" She tilted her head to one side, and her braid fell over her shoulder. "What shall I call you, hmm?" She cradled his big head in her hands. "Magick," she decided. "I shall call you Magick, for truly, that is what you are."
He growled softly and licked her hand.
"Like it, do you?" she asked, and her voice was like music in his ears.
He laid his head in her lap, inviting her touch.
"Ah, Magick, isn't it a wonderful world? Look at the stars, shining so brightly. And our village, there, below. See now, there is the house of Lazlo, the baker. He has a son, you know." She sighed softly. "I've not seen his face since I was a small child, of course, but he has a lovely voice. And he has ever been kind to me."
He licked her hand in an effort to draw her thoughts away from the son of Lazlo the baker. He knew the boy. Tall and lanky, with a shock of wheat-blond hair and guileless brown eyes. It startled him to realize he was jealous of her affection for that callow youth.
"Papa says there is a pool up here. Shall we find it?"
She stood up, and he stood beside her. He knew where the pool was. When she had a firm hold on his fur, he led her farther up the hill.
"Are you sure 'tis this way?" Channa Leigh asked. She spoke to him as if was the most natural thing in the world, as if she expected a reply.
A low rumble in his throat was her answer.
And then, as they topped the rise, she saw the pool, shining like a crystal placed in a bed of green velvet The surface of the pool shone like a mirror, reflecting the light of the moon and stars.
"Oh, Magick," she murmured, "have you ever seen anything so beautiful in all your life?"