Twisted Winter by Catherine Butler Page A

strong, too, as it guided my fingers to his face. I felt the stubble of his cheek. Then I realised that it was not stubble after all. My fingers were moving over thick, bristly hair. Where his nose should be they found a muzzle, with a wet snout at its end. And beneath that…
    I opened my eyes, wide.
    â€œAll the better to eat you with,” said Adam sadly.
    * * *
    Lucy got a dog that Christmas, just as she’d wanted. It turns out that her parents had put their name down for a floppy-eared spaniel at the Rescue Centre. It was like a china dog come to life, Lucy told me later. So they weren’t too pleased to find an unexpected visitor on their back doorstep, three nights before Christmas Eve. A large dog with thick, grizzled hair, white by the light of the Wolf Moon. Lucy loved it on sight.
    â€œIt’s so
big
,” Lucy’s mother complained to mine. “I don’t have time to walk a dog that size. Lucy says she will, but we’ll see how long
that
lasts.”
    He is big, too. When he growls, it’s like someone fired up a chainsaw somewhere deep inside his throat. And you should see him run! There’s a bit of husky in him, Lucy thinks, but more Alsatian. He’ll win no prizes at Cruft’s but he’s beautiful, with brown eyes that look back at you in a way even Lucy’s mum says is almost human. They call him Merlin.
    I talk to him when Lucy’s out of the room.
    â€œAdam?” I say. “It
is
you, isn’t it?”
    His tail slaps the lino, though he cannot speak. What does
that
mean?
    â€œI’m so sorry, Adam. I wish I’d known sooner. Maybe we could have done – something – ”
    I choke on the words I don’t have. It sounds pathetic, I realise. I’m almost glad he can’t reply. Anything Adam had to say would be sarcastic. But dogs don’t do sarcasm.
    At first I wondered why he attached himself to Lucy’s family, not ours. I resented it, to be honest. Then I saw how difficult it would have been. No teenage boy wants to be taken for walks by his little sister. Besides, no one could love a dog more than Lucy loves him. She really did want a pet as much as she had said.
    Oh, but I miss my brother.
    I spend a lot of time at Lucy’s house these days. Mine isn’t much fun, since Adam went missing. Christmas got cancelled, pretty much. Mum and Dad keep up the pretence even now, months later. They wonder aloud where Adam might be, and phone the Family Liaison Officer every week in case of news. I suppose they think they’re still protecting me. I can’t stand it.
    I won’t tell Lucy the truth, though. Adam has a good life, and I don’t want to spoil things for either of them. And that, I suppose, is how this story ends. You might even call it a happy ending, looked at in theright light. Or perhaps not so happy after all. Either way, for better or worse they’re together, and not just for Christmas.
    For them, more than for anyone, a dog is for life.

Home for the Holidays
    Rhiannon Lassiter
    Lazy as a sunbeam I wander through the meadows in the dying days of summer. My bare feet sink into the warm brown earth. The fields are gold and green and buzzing with butterflies and bees. The sky is an azure bowl upended over the world.
    I wind white water lilies into a chain and plait them into my sun-streaked hair. My dress is whitemuslin, simple as a shroud. Beneath it my skin is nut brown, hot and dry.
    High in the dome of the sky a black bird wheels and I shiver, goosebumps rising on my skin, seeing that predatory shadow.
    This was where it all began, here in the water meadows. Imagine us seen from above, maidens scattered through the greenery like the wildflowers we are gathering, our hair and clothes bright and festive. The watcher descends, a long slow swoop, taking time to pick his target.
    I am the target. Unwary, oblivious, innocent. In my memory the dark shape falls from above, the earth splits open