The girl stood at the edge of his flock.
Up close, the Shepherd saw she was about his age, which caught him off guard. She still had blood caked around her mouth and chin, her skirts stained where she must have wiped her hands.
“Are you all right, Miss?” he asked, relieved he sounded calm. “May I help you?”
The girl tilted her head to one side.
“Perhaps you can, Shepherd,” she replied. “How long have you been here?”
“Not long,” he said, hoping she wouldn’t notice his trembling. “I just stopped to feed and water my flock. We have a long distance to travel tonight.”
She nodded slowly.
Then she bent down and picked up the youngest lamb, the tiny animal struggling against her. But her hold was firm and she gripped its throat with her fingers.
“I don’t believe you.”
“Please, Miss. I just want to go with my sheep.”
The girl didn’t answer right away.
His heart roared in his ears when the Shepherd stared into her eyes, chips of ice in the light of the moon.
She finally let go of the throat and stroked the lamb along its back. But she never looked away from him.
“Shepherd, come to me.”
She almost sounded gentle, but her low voice sent tremors along his flesh.
The Shepherd wondered if he’d stepped outside himself.
Part of him detached to bear witness to something that didn’t seem real, even as he pushed through his flock to go to her.
The lamb in her arms was the only thing between them when he stopped.
The girl locked the Shepherd inside her gaze and dropped the animal to the ground.
Without warning, she grabbed his shirtfront and pulled him to her, pressing her ear against his chest.
The illusion of separation disappeared and the Shepherd was back in his skin, his limbs shaking.
He’d never been this close to a woman in his life.
The softness of the girl took his breath away.
“I can feel your heart,” she said. “It’s beating really fast.”
She leaned her head back and stared up at him.
The Shepherd could neither move nor speak, trapped between the warmth of her body and the chill of her eyes.
“You’re afraid, aren’t you, Shepherd You saw me kill the Sorcerer.”
The girl paused.
“Didn’t you?”
In his mind, the Shepherd saw a shroud held out for him by the Angel of Death.
For a moment, he felt like he’d turned to stone.
Then his knees buckled. The Shepherd collapsed to the ground and started to cry.
The girl ran her fingers through his hair.
He found the gesture terrifying and soothing at once, leaving him no words to plead for mercy and his heart pounding.
The girl came down and knelt before the Shepherd, holding his face and wiping his tears.
Then she lay back upon the ground and pulled him with her, resting his head against her breast.
She kept stroking his hair, his scalp tingling from the brush of her fingers, the vibration of her voice against his cheek.
“So, tell me Shepherd, what do you feel? What do you hear?”
His heart stopped beating for an instant when he realized that all he heard inside the girl was silence.
The Shepherd pulled his head up and stared at her.
“Nothing, Miss.”
“That’s right,” she murmured. “I’m a girl who can live without her heart.”
Then she pushed him to the ground and rolled him on his back.
Nestling along his side, she laid her head on his chest and sighed, her breath seeping into him.
The Shepherd didn’t resist when the girl took his hand and brought it to his neck, pressing his fingers into the groove where his heart echoed. His pulse beat into the tips of his fingers and reverberated through him.
When the girl spoke again, her whisper felt like a caress.
“Listen to your heart,” she said.
****
The Shepherd trailed off, his eyes glazed over looking back on that long ago night.
The Wolf rested on his belly, his forelegs stretched out, blinking when the story came to its close. He shifted his weight and found his limbs were stiff, but the Shepherd remained lost in reverie.
“So then what happened?” the Wolf asked.
The Shepherd started and glanced at him with an expression of mild surprise. Then he shook his head, pausing for another moment before he spoke.
“I must have fallen asleep. Next thing I remember I woke up and she was gone.”
