"Could be worse," Kane judged. The bandsaw's intermittent wail continued in the distance. He wandered over to the building and looked at the playbill up by the door. After opening with the Mikado in November, the Millinocket Theater Company (sponsored by Miss Y. Rajid) would present King Lear in December (Kane's eyebrows twitched in some perplexity; not really what he would have thought of as a seasonal production), and then Faust for the New Year. Most peculiar.
    Just then the bandsaw was joined by another sound, filling the pauses in the mechanical rhythm. If that was a wolf....
    Kane half-closed his eyes, looking for the source of the noise; he had a certain facility with creatures of the night, after all. It felt like a wolf to his mind, but it swatted his mental touch aside as easily as he would have fended off a child.
    "I don't think that's exactly a wolf," he remarked, as the fur stood up all over Adam's body.
    
    I listened to the windows rattling and the distant howl of the mill's saw—and perhaps something else as well, though my ears were uncertain—and continued my research into the history of Ambajejus, looking for a pattern to events there that would provide a clue as to their nature.
    The Jenkins family that founded the town had moved there as a clan, opened the mill, drawn others in their wake, and things had gone well for some time aside from the occasional death—those tended to take place around the new moon. Not every month, and the Jenkins family seemed less affected by others, though it was hard to tell given the size of the family and the amount of intermarriage between those few initial groups.
    I set the volume aside and picked up the next book in the stack, one I hadn't even noticed, an old, slender one the librarian had added without my noticing. The cover was blank leather. Inside I read in faded script, This is the diary of Cecilia Earhart, and the world changed around me as I was pulled into the past.
    I know a great deal now about Cecilia, heiress to a small fortune, her whirlwind romance with the young Jenkins heir, his own wealth all invested in the growing timber business of northern Maine, family pushing her into the marriage, her husband not a bad man but a trifle odd, and then she had come to Ambajejus as a new bride....
    She'd been a very emotional woman, unfortunately for me, as it lent overwhelming power to the most insignificant events, and even now I shudder to think of her. She did not adapt well to Ambajejus; to the darkness, to the isolation, to the lack of society, to her husband. He seemed infinitely more interested in his sister than his wife, as if she had been brought in only for her money, but no, surely he cared for her? He had even invited her along on one of the family outings into the forest, which must mean that she was being accepted at last as one of them, and
    My god the wolves! THE WOLVES!
    
    On the street near the opera house they heard Eve scream something about wolves. Adam's civilized training gave way under the pressure of the howling and now this evidence that one of his band was in danger; he loped back toward the hotel on all fours and at high speed.
    "Well, at least I didn't attract any attention," Kane sighed, watching him go. "Damn all I can do about this." Adam leaped to the second floor balcony, from there to the third floor, and smashed through the French doors. "There goes our expense account."
    
    The sound of shattering glass brought me back to my senses. I saw a huge, furred shape looming over me, and Jules in the doorway to the hall with a stunned expression, and I gave another little scream until I realized it was only Adam standing there, though he looked... strange.
    "What're—uh—" Jules' eyes were very wide.
    Adam regained control of himself, stood upright, straightened his lapels and said, Hello.
    "I—there was a scream," Jules said. "Mrs. Roberts, are you all right?" He hesitated in the doorway, not sure if he should come to my rescue.
    "I must have nodded off, had a nightmare," I told him. This is after all hardly the first time I have had to explain something like this.
    "You were screaming, about the wolves? And then there was a smash...."
    As you can see, Adam indicated, there are no wolves here.
    "Bad dream," I said firmly. "I'm not used to being out in the woods." That happened to be true.
    "Oh. Well, you can hear the wolves. They don't ever come too close to town, though. What happened to the... door?"
    "I must have left it unlatched. That wind is pretty fierce."
    "I'll get some wood and... board those panes over." He looked from me to Adam to the door, still somewhat suspicious but as with most people he was happy to believe what seemed logical.
    Excellent, Adam approved.
    "Terribly sorry for the trouble," I apologized as he left, drawing the door almost closed behind him.
    I told Adam about my vision; Ambajejus is definitely a trouble spot.
    
    Why the hell do they have a third shift on at the sawmill? Kane wondered suddenly, now that the screaming from the hotel seemed to have stopped.
    Assuming that Adam had everything under control there, he walked across town toward the lake. The mill turned out to be an open building; he skulked around for a bit to see what was going on. The place was running with a skeleton crew, running at maybe one quarter capacity. None of them were Yasmina's people, which made him wonder who did own them. They were pulling timber from a stack far off in a corner of the mill, then carting it off to an isolated storage bin, not stacking it with the rest of the timber. Something special about this wood? He squinted at the stacked trees; the unstripped bark was silver. Not metallic, but nevertheless with a distinct sheen.
    He found a rat and asked it to bring a piece of bark back for him. It squeaked cheerfully and scurried off, brought a strip back and was thanked. He put the bark in his pocket in hopes that someone else would be able to identify it later.
    The night was still young, and it had been fruitful this far; he decided that he may as well poke around town a bit before returning to the hotel. In the distance, wolves howled counterpoint to the bandsaw. He found the local watering hole without any trouble. Edgar was there, looking three or even four sheets to the wind.
    

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