The first thing he followed was a cat.
It was on the wall above the slipway, almost invisible until it moved. Daniel saw the shape of it against the darker hedge, the narrow back, one pale foot. He smelled it before he understood that the smell belonged to the cat: warm fur, meat, the sharpness of its fear as its head turned.
He wanted to go after it.
The cat sprang onto the fence. Daniel moved.
Not far. Three strides, then the cat was gone into the yard beyond and he had reached the wall.
His body stopped better than he expected. Hind feet dug in. Shoulders took his weight. The damaged paw sent a jolt through his foreleg, and he lifted it with a low sound which he felt more than heard.
He stood looking at the place where the cat had disappeared.
He knew he was Daniel.
The knowledge was almost disappointing. He had thought there might be an interval in which everything difficult about being himself went quiet. Instead he was Daniel with a mouth which watered at the thought of a cat.
He turned away from the wall.
The path led along the river towards the trees. He knew it. He and Leah had walked it slowly in September. Now the distance seemed to open as he looked, the far bend drawing close enough to want.
He began to run.
At first he kept thinking about each foot. The left would hurt. The right hind leg would pull. There would be a bad step, a fall, and he'd have to turn back and put his hand on Silas's chest before he'd done anything.
Then he forgot for three strides.
The ground came to him. He didn't need to ask his body to go across it; it was already going. His back lengthened, folded, lengthened again. Air moved through him in great cold draughts. He could feel the river beside the path without looking at it.
He went faster.
A noise came from him, not quite a growl, something which might have been laughter if he'd had a human mouth.
He missed the bend and drove into the verge. Wet grass brushed his belly. He swerved, nearly lost his footing, recovered. A branch struck his shoulder and broke.
He stopped beneath the trees, breathing hard.
Nothing was easy in the way he had imagined. His paw hurt. The old damage in his leg felt tight and hot. He had to learn how much of himself the ground could carry.
But there was so much of him.
He lifted his head.
The dark wasn't empty. It was full of movement too small to see. Something worked in the leaf litter ahead. Birds shifted on branches. Farther off a larger animal paused, one foot raised perhaps, listening as he listened.
He could smell water inside wood. The pale broken end of the branch he'd struck. Old smoke from a fire which was no longer burning. People had been through here: two recently, one with a dog, the dog pulling left towards something and then brought back. Their passage lay across the path in a confusion he could almost separate.
He followed the dog for a little way.
Then another smell took him.
Rabbit.
The word arrived after his head had turned.
It was under the brambles beyond the path, close enough that he heard a small shift of weight. He crouched without deciding to crouch.
There was room beneath the brambles if he went low. He could reach. His mouth opened slightly and he knew what the teeth were for, all their strange pressure inside his jaw suddenly understandable.
The rabbit moved.
He went after it.
It broke from the cover across a strip of bare ground. Daniel saw its white tail, the quick fold and spring of its body. He was faster. That was the whole thought: he was faster.
He caught it before it reached the next patch of cover.
There was a sound, thin and brief, and the rabbit moved in his mouth.
He stopped.
The animal's feet struck his chin. It was still alive. He could feel its heat through the fur, its frantic small weight.
He thought of opening his mouth.
His jaws closed.
Afterwards he stood for a long time with the rabbit hanging between his teeth.
The woods continued around him. A bird shifted overhead. Water dripped from a branch onto his back. His left paw hurt.
He hadn't lost himself. There was no missing part of the night, no other creature to wake from. He had wanted the rabbit and followed it and caught it, and when he could have put it down he hadn't.
He lowered it to the ground.
Then he ate.
He knew things he didn't want to know: how thin the skin was beneath the fur, how the small bones broke, which warm parts he wanted first. The pleasure shocked him. He tried to pull back from it and found himself leaning down again.
At home he had sometimes watched Leah eat the first bite of something he'd made. He had loved the moment before she spoke, when her eyes changed and he knew he'd given her exactly what she wanted.
He had never known appetite like this.
When there was little left he backed away, licking his mouth.
He wanted water.
He could hear the river below him. There was a place where he and Leah had gone down once in summer, and he took the path towards it. The memory wasn't a map, but his feet found the route. He pushed through an opening in the bushes and reached the bank.
The river was dark, carrying scattered pieces of sky.
He lowered his head to drink. The mouth worked differently. He was clumsy at first, then the movement became itself, cold water striking his tongue.
He drank too much and sneezed.
The sound startled him. He stood with water on his chin, feeling absurd. For a second he wanted Leah there to hear it.
Then he pictured her looking at him.
He went along the bank.
There were places his body fitted and places it didn't. He could pass beneath a fallen branch but couldn't put his weight on a rotting plank. A gap which looked wide enough for his head caught at his shoulders. He had to back out, growling at a fence which hadn't done anything.
He liked the growl.
He did it again.
A fox moved in the distance. He lifted his head and it stopped. He felt its attention meet his. Then it was gone, a quick, silent retreat, and he wanted to follow that too.
Instead he went towards the millrace.
He knew where he was before he could see it. The river's smell narrowed and changed. Water scraped against stone. Under everything was the deep, pulling sound which had scarcely registered when he stood there in daylight.
He came out on the maintenance path.
There was the mooring post above him, black and solid. There was the ledge, a strip of wet stone beside the dark channel. He remembered walking it, his careful foot, Leah waiting at the wider part.
He put one paw on the ledge.
It held.
The next step was worse. His left forepaw landed on damp leaves and slid. He threw his weight back, but the hurt right hind leg didn't take it cleanly.
He went sideways into the water.
Cold closed over his head.
For a moment he couldn't find anything except the force moving him. His paws worked and met nothing. He opened his mouth and water came in, closing his throat.
He surfaced against stone.
The side was smooth. He struck at it, claws scraping, and couldn't lift himself. Fur dragged through the water behind him. His body, which had felt immense on land, had become something the current could turn.
He tried again.
Pain tore through the old paw. He pulled it back and the river rolled him away from the side.
He needed the ledge. Somewhere behind him, or below. He couldn't turn to look properly. He could smell it, wet stone and leaves, but the smell didn't tell him how to get there.
He drove towards the wall with his right foreleg, hind feet working beneath him. His shoulder hit a projection. Hard enough to hurt. For an instant he stayed there, pinned against it, and got the front of his body onto rough stone.
The back half kept pulling.
He clawed at the ledge. His left paw couldn't close round anything. He pressed it flat and hauled with the other, inching until his belly scraped the edge.
Then the water took his hind feet again.
He nearly went back in.
He made a sound which had nothing pleasurable in it.
A little farther down the wall was broken. He could see the ragged line now. He let himself move towards it, afraid to let go, afraid to stay. His front claws caught. His hind foot found stone beneath the surface.
He climbed out.
At the lower bank he lay on his side in mud, coughing. Water ran out of his fur. Each breath hurt. He could have died there. All that strength, and a wet ledge had been enough.
He stayed down until the shaking eased.
He thought of Silas in the room, with the blanket. Of the phone he couldn't use, the clock he couldn't read from here.
He could go back now.
He imagined his hand becoming a hand again. Human skin in the cold. The room suddenly smaller and more ordinary. His left fingers, trying to button his shirt.
He stood.
The old thigh pulled. His shoulder hurt where it had struck the wall. A scrape stung along his belly. Those belonged to this night. He could give them away.
He shook water from himself, and the movement pleased him despite everything.
Upstream, beyond the bank, someone opened a door.
Warm air came out.
Food.
Not the rabbit. Potatoes, fat, the sharp sweet smell of cooked onion. Something familiar beneath it, a person he'd spent the morning beside.
He turned.
A light was moving along the path towards the workshop.