Sun Mote Copse Should have bought myself a home when I was a fetus.

She spotted the hawk off toward the south, winging in slow circles. He must be right over Jr, Towhee deduced, dropping her eyes to look ponderously at her youngest child. He was at an age where she could leave him on his own for a little while, so she ushered him into the cottage with the promise of snacks.

After settling him into The Taigh, Towhee stepped out of doors and once again looked southward. But she saw no sign of Ghost. She frowned, then began scanning in other directions. Her head reared back a little when she saw him flapping steadily toward the copse’s northeastern corner.

She immediately began loping that way. There was no way her daughter had kept up with the hawk, though surely she was en route. The elder Towhee was much closer and clearly there was something—or, more likely, someone—there to capture Ghost’s attention.

When Towhee first clapped eyes on the stranger, she immediately mistook her for a small deer. Then the canine features began to register. This wasn’t the first dog she’d ever met, though this one—a female, by scent—couldn’t have looked more different than the one Towhee had come to think of as “the beefalo.”

I have to ask: what’s it like, Towhee said as she approached with a mostly curious, slightly wary expression, wandering around a place teeming with wolves, looking so edible?