Wolf head with patterned scales

You will laugh at me, but the wolf came back last night, and this time it did not stop at the sheepfold. Father would have gone out with the gun, but Father has been three winters in the churchyard and the gun is rusting in the porch. I took the lantern because Mrs Pell's goat had started that dreadful bleating, and I found the beast sitting on the stile as calm as a bishop, its jaws open just enough to show the teeth, its ears laid flat.

I expected blood. There was none. Its coat was not fur, not properly. It was made of small shapes, leaves and eyes and zigzags picked out in white on black, as if someone had gone over every inch of it with a fine pen, patiently, over years. I know what the old folk say about the trees past the mill, but I am not a child. I stood very still and counted the leaves on its shoulder, and somewhere past forty I stopped being afraid of it.

When I woke this morning there was a leaf-shaped print pressed into the mud by the gate, and beside it a single white feather I could not name. The goat is fine. The sheep are fine. I have not told the vicar, and I do not think I will.

Write soon, and tell me the city has better wolves.

Your sister, Ada