Noel escaped the carriage as soon as they arrived at church, but it was like moving from the frying pan into the fire. Madelaine stayed glued by his side all through the service, too. He had no more space to breathe than he had had in the enclosed box, but now the walls were made of people.

It felt like the whole parish was staring at them. He neither liked nor understood the attention he was getting, and he barely heard the priestess’s sermon as he guarded the posy in his hand. By the time the congregation was dismissed, he was nervy and desperate to leave the flowers behind as soon as possible.

While everyone else stayed and socialized in the warm church, Noel made a beeline for the cemetery. Madelaine, of course, followed right on his heels. The oddments on her chatelaine clacked as she haunted him all the way to the St Germains’ graves.

“Thank you again,” She said as Noel laid down the posy by the tombstone. Eyeing the parishioners slowly trickling out of the church, she slunk her arm around Noel’s and stood on tiptoe to lean in and add, “I know no one here, and it’s so nice to have a man to rely on.”

“Don’t forget that Manon and Alcide are happy to help, too,” Noel replied, removing his arm from her grip and stepping back. He looked briefly at the flowers on the ground. All the comfort he had expected to take in the action had been robbed by Madelaine’s shenanigans. Now that he was done, he wasn’t in the mood to continue humouring her; on the way back, he insisted on sitting beside Alcide.

Noel got up early the next morning to go find the monster. The grass was still crunchy with frost as he walked to the stables, and the overcast sky seemed ambivalent as to whether it planned to rain or snow. Regardless, Noel was determined not to come back until he had more answers. Noel readied Apollo in silence and set out into the forest just as the frost was starting to soften in the sun.

It took Noel a while before he was able to find the monster’s trail again. Once he had, he started following it methodically, just as he had done before. It was starting to feel familiar now. Sure enough, after a few hours of work, he spotted a flash of blond in the underbrush, and gave chase. This time, Apollo’s breath puffed out in gauzy plumes in front of him, obscuring his vision even more than the foliage. He and his horse were in good shape, but once or twice he had a terrifying moment of losing track of the wolf, and he realized that he might not be able to keep up with it.

“Wait!” Noel finally shouted. He didn’t know what he expected, but the wolf stopped in its tracks and looked back at him. Noel pulled on the reigns and came to a skittery stop in front of it. “Wait,” he said again.

Gaetan looked at Noel as Noel looked at him, his body cautious and low to the ground. The man above him appeared regal and picturesque, hair tussled and cheeks flushed red, sitting proud on his horse. Except this morning there was an uncertain expression on his face, and his gun hung limp and untouched at his side. Gaetan couldn’t interpret this Noel’s actions. His recent experiences with the ruthless hunter fit poorly with the quiet young nobleman he’d known before, and the strange, fragmentary memories he had of their recent encounters showed yet another character. He didn’t know which Noel he was meeting today, nor did he know which version of himself he’d become in this encounter.

Seeing that the wolf wasn’t moving, Noel decided to try again. “Can you… understand me?” he asked in a cautious, quiet voice.

Gaetan nodded emphatically, his posture easing somewhat.

“Oh,” Noel replied. On the one hand, it was patently absurd to try and talk to a wolf, but on the other hand, this had been what he was hoping for. He decided to ask another question.

“If I get off the horse, will you attack me?” As soon as he said it, Noel knew he’d asked a stupid question. There was no reason to think that a talking wolf couldn’t lie. That’s what they did in fairytales, after all. Nevertheless, when the wolf shook its head back and forth, he trusted it enough to get down. He tied Apollo to a nearby tree and, after careful consideration, hung up his gun as well. It hadn’t seemed to help him much in his previous encounters, anyway.

Gaetan watched Noel’s actions with some sense of relief. He sat quietly in place as Noel approached him again.

“So…” Noel began.

Gaetan huffed in encouragement.

Noel looked down at the wolf. It was far smaller like this than in the monstrous form, but its head still easily reached his hips. He tried again to speak, “You’re not really a normal wolf, right?” The answer was obvious.

Gaetan nodded his head seriously.

“Then are you a…” Noel paused. “Werewolf?” He felt silly even saying it.

The wolf stared at him like he was an idiot. It very slowly nodded again.

“So you’re a wolf, and you’re also that monster…” Noel continued. He fidgeted nervously with his fingers. Somehow knowing the wolf could understand him made it harder to talk.

Gaetan nodded along, waiting for Noel to ask the next most obvious question. As long as Noel asked the right questions, he could tell him everything, even if he couldn’t speak. His identity, his clothes, Madelaine’s actions… he could already imagine how quickly and easily it could all be revealed through careful questioning. Then, he might actually have a chance of escaping the forest and going back to his life! His tail swayed slightly in anticipation.

Unfortunately, Noel did not have any careful or considered line of questioning in mind.

“… And you can understand me, so why did you,” Noel blushed and turned his head to the side as he stammered, “why did you behave like a, an animal…” his voice trailed off softly.

Gaetan was so preoccupied with his own train of thought that he did not immediately understand what Noel meant. Once it registered, he yelped in shock. He had been disregarding those memory fragments as dreams or misremembered illusions. When he realized that Noel was referencing them, he could only shake his head vigorously and disavow his past actions.

“No? What no?” Noel said in surprise as he watched the wolf. However, after considering it, he followed up, “No you can’t understand me?”

The wolf began nodding again.

“But you can understand me now! So you couldn’t understand me then? Is that what you mean?”

The wolf continued to nod.

Noel put everything together and confirmed, “You can understand me as a wolf, but not as the monster?”

Another nod. In fact, Gaetan wasn’t sure that this was true, but it seemed true, based on his own lack of understanding.

Noel bit the inside of his lip in frustration. It made sense, but it also didn’t make sense. He looked into the wolf’s soft, light brown eyes and saw an intelligence that would answer all his questions if it could. Or at least, that’s what he thought he saw. Maybe the wolf was tricking him, or maybe he had too many questions, or maybe the things he really wanted to know didn’t have answers. He felt more foolish than ever.

It was some comfort to know that the wolf hadn’t consciously tried to hurt him. Upon reflection, it did seem as though he had always provoked it before it acted. This went some way towards an explanation, but there had also been instances where the monster appeared without an obvious incitement, so it couldn’t explain everything. The monster’s motives also remained elusive.

A sudden whuff brought Noel’s focus back to the creature in front of him. “Right,” he addressed the wolf again, “How do you know my name?”

Gaetan stared blankly at him, then yawned in frustration while he waited for Noel to realize his error. He couldn’t do anything to help him except wait for him to ask the right questions. Which Noel wasn’t doing. He got up and paced back and forth.

“Oh that’s not a yes or no question, sorry,” Noel said belatedly, “I’ll try again. Do you know my name?”

Gaetan nodded.

Noel waited a beat. “… Right. Can you try to say it for me? Like, with your mouth?”

Gaetan cocked his head in confusion, but ultimately nodded. “No-wu.”