Eighteen

STACY LIT A fire with her flint and steel. It was the next morning and, after several dips in the lagoon, Stacy had finally washed all the cephalopod ink from her hair. It was the first gloomy day the pack had seen since arriving on the island and, after such an action-packed day yesterday, Stacy decided she would rest all day while the wolves continued to work on their various projects. She had a simple but delicious breakfast of bananas, rice, cassava root, and coconut milk and then settled into the hammock underneath the palm trees. Stacy was resolved that today was the day she would finally decode the rest of the tundra explorer’s journal. She was determined to finish the translation and read the journal in its entirety—something she was almost able to do now without needing to check the key.

Today is a dark day. We returned to the tundra to discover that Diamond went into labor earlier than we anticipated. She is dead. Two pups are also dead, but one survived. Somehow. Ames is missing. We suspect he left when things took a turn for the worse during the birthing, hoping to find us. I cannot fully express the pain of discovering such a grisly scene in a place that has also brought me so much joy over the last decade. We will continue looking for Ames and introduce the surviving pup to the taiga pack in a few weeks when he is stable and can eat meat. His eyes are open already. They are a beautiful rust brown. We’ve named him Garnet.

Oh, Wink. A tear rolled down Stacy’s cheek. She brushed it away. Everest, who was lying next to Stacy in the hammock, buried his head in the fabric. Wink survived because that’s his ability. Just like Basil was fast as a pup and Addison was so smart she picked up some of the rune language—the wolves’ future powers were present even from birth. That’s why Wink lived. That’s why Wink was younger than the rest of the pack when I came to live with them in the taiga. That’s why Diamond’s name was crossed out in the rune along with the two numbers next to Garnet. And the “Where are you” was a message from the tundra explorer to Ames. He was searching the tundra for help. He never found it. He would have returned to see the names scratched out. Poor Ames! He was left all alone in the ice cavern, waiting for the explorer to return. He carved “Here now” into the ice and continued to look for the explorer. He used what little strength he had left to carve runes out on the tundra that Addison found, hoping to be reunited with his family. Stacy turned the last page of the journal and read the final entry.

We’re back in the tundra after introducing Garnet to the taiga litter. The introduction went well. Ames is still not here. I am very concerned that something has happened to him. I’m going to leave this journal here, seeing as I have filled it. I will buy another one the next time I am in the village for supplies. One piece of good news is that the art my partner produced while living in the Arctic with me has been well received by the public. So much so that it has afforded us a helicopter that will make trips to the tundra and taiga much easier. Our daughter is getting old enough that we want to start bringing her along with us as well. Our first trip with her will be to the taiga to check up on Garnet’s progress. After that, we will launch a larger search effort for Ames. Beyond that—we’ve heard of a sighting of a pair of white wolves with four pups in the southern mesa biome. We may use the helicopter to investigate. If there are more wolves of this kind in the mesa, we hope to find them before hunters do. Until then, good-bye.