Arrow Lake white snake

Anselm caught the way the stranger's face faltered. For a split second, he felt sorry for being the author of such doubt -- but then he remembered he was burnt out on people, and who was to say he'd ever see her again?

She left the water, trailing splatters of riverwater in her wake. He thought she might be leaving - he certainly would have if he'd been addressed in such a way -- but instead, she tacked on something that invited Anselm's attention.

Just before he'd approached her, Anselm had picked up on the scent of beaver. Theirs was a strange scent; waterlogged and damp like firetail seaweed, with a faintly bitter musk to them.

There is a creek up that vay, where the beavers are fat and slow. There is a lodge -- they hide in it, but two volves make short vork of splinter-houses.