Wolf Hollow (25 page)

Some of them would survive to become fruit as good as anything on earth. Others would wither on the branch, killed by frost, wasted.

It seemed to me that Betty had been both the flower and the frost.

Toby's funeral was quite different.

We didn't have much money, but we had enough to bring Toby's body home and bury him, not in the churchyard but on top of the hill above Wolf Hollow, beneath a plain marker engraved with his name and the years of his life.

It had been easy to find out when Toby had been born—the army told us that, along with the fact that he had no living relatives—but we were the ones who told them when he had died.

They sent us a packet of information about what he'd done to earn the medal, but I had already heard his side of the story, and none of it mattered much now. Not to me.

We all gathered on the top of that hill after we'd laid Toby to rest. Mostly, we just stood silent, which seemed a fitting good-bye.

But Aunt Lily surprised me. “I regret passing judgment on that man,” she said, looking not at his grave but away into the distance, as if he were somewhere else . . . which I suppose he was, though it didn't feel that way to me.

After a time, my grandparents made their way slowly back toward the house, Aunt Lily trailing along behind them.

My parents kissed me and went away, too.

“Come on, Annabelle,” Henry said as the light began to fail. “Let's go.”

But I wasn't quite ready to leave yet, so Henry stayed on, and James, who had scampered off a ways, came curiously back, the dogs with him, to lie in the grass by Toby's grave and comment at length on the clouds overhead.

And then we all went home.

From time to time, over the years after that, I sat on top of the hill alongside Toby's grave, looking out over Wolf Hollow, and told him about my life.

The hollow seemed to listen, too, and I often wondered about everything else it had heard over the centuries. The sound of men digging pits. The hopeless confusion of the wolves they had trapped. Perhaps one who had not been fooled by the scent of the bait, still on safe ground, pacing along the rim above, looking down into the pit at his doomed mates. Then retreating into the woods as the men came back in the morning with their guns.

I imagined him so torn between the need to fight and the urge to live that he felt as if he, too, were bleeding. And I could not help but think of the hollow as a dark place, no matter how bright its canopy, no matter how pretty the flowers that grew in its capricious light.

But Wolf Hollow was also where I learned to tell the truth in that year before I turned twelve: about things from which refuge was impossible. Wrong, even. No matter how tempting.

I told Toby as much, though I also said that I didn't blame him for fleeing the greater evils he'd known. And I thanked him for letting me try to right any number of wrongs, regardless of his own surrenders.

But the wind always swept my words away like cloud shadows, as if it mattered more that I said them, than who heard them.

And that was all right with me.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

I am grateful to many people for their help with
Wolf Hollow
. First among them is my mother, Mimi McConnell, whose wonderful stories of life on a farm in western Pennsylvania inspired this book. Her entire family, and the farm itself, figured greatly in my own life for decades and helped me create an authentic setting. My father, Ronald Wolk, and my sister Suzanne Wolk have been among my first and most perceptive readers. Their insight and encouragement have been invaluable. My sister Cally has always been in my corner, too, along with my husband, Richard, and our sons, Ryland and Cameron, who have made me a better writer, not only through their insights but also their support when the demands on my time and energy were great.

The members of my incredible writers' group—the Bass River Revisionists—have been with me through thick and thin, and I will always be grateful to them for their keen brains and warm hearts, especially Julie Lariviere and Maureen Leveroni who first invited me to join their ranks, and Deirdre Callanan for devoting so much time and care to her own craft and to mine. I am blessed with a great colleague, Robert Nash, who has always understood that although I love the work we do together, my writing deserves time and attention, too. He has been a true friend.

I owe a debt, as well, to my former agent Dan Green, whose shift to nonfiction convinced him I'd be better off with different representation. He is a class act, as are Jodi Reamer, my superb agent at Writers House, and Julie Strauss-Gabel, my excellent editor. In fact, the entire Penguin Young Readers family has demonstrated an extraordinary commitment—both passionate and professional—to this book. I could not have asked for a better team. Finally, I am grateful to Annabelle for taking me into Wolf Hollow and showing me the way back out again. I'd like to be as brave as she is.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

LAUREN WOLK is an award-winning poet and author of the adult novel
Those Who Favor Fire
. She was born in Baltimore and has since lived in California, Rhode Island, Minnesota, Canada, and Ohio. She now lives with her family on Cape Cod.

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