Snarling wolf head on lower back

Her name was Agnes Tulley and she sold hot chestnuts from a brazier under the clock arch. Every evening a grey dog stood at the edge of the lamplight, thin as a rake handle, watching the coins drop into her apron. She tossed him the burnt ends. He never once came closer than the length of her arm. Then one November night the rain came in sideways, the dog was gone, and in his place stood a wolf with its lip peeled back, snarling at the gutter as if the water had insulted its mother.

Agnes did not run. She had buried a husband and two children and was not frightened of a little weather. She stepped out with her ladle and said, "You'll get nothing from me tonight but scorched nuts and a sharp word." The wolf's ears went flat and its teeth shone like wet pewter. Then it turned its great head, and the whole market heard the carters stop their wheels, for the wolf was looking past her at the alley, where a boy from the tannery was creeping toward the cash box with his hands cupped.

Nobody saw what the wolf did after that, only what it left behind. Next morning the cobbles by the arch were marked with wet pawprints leading up the hill, and the cash box sat dry on the step with a single copper coin laid beside it. Agnes kept the brazier going for thirty years. Every evening she set a burnt end on the step and nobody ever asked her why.