Veena came out the instant the howling started. Snow-covered fields under a full moon would've made the barn easy to find even if she hadn't spent the previous day making sure she could literally walk over to it with her eyes closed. She was halfway there when the scratching started, wood torn by manic tools.

She carried the axe hands wide apart, a weapon to block a surprise attack by beast or man. If it was a big dog, she hoped she wouldn't have to kill it. It first occurred to her to be afraid when she saw the paw prints. They were real, and they were enormous. It was at least as tall on four legs as she was on two. There were fresh marks on the spot the locals pointed out to schoolchildren and other tourists, where they said the werewolf sharpened its claws.

Always the same spot on that old barn's wall, every full moon as far back as anyone in town could recall. It was a six-foot-tall mess of splinters no one dared repair, though the old man who thought Veena wanted to buy the place to house a commune had feigned to laugh it off as local color. None of the locals would investigate loud noises tonight. Veena put her axe to the wall.

She had an opening large enough for herself to walk through soon enough. Standing in the space she had measured two days before would exist between the inside and outside walls of the barn, fishing for her flashlight, she noticed for the first time how the wind had picked up while she hacked. Powder wafted in through her hole, and the part of herself she most seldom listened to supposed the patient animal breaths outside were a figment of her imagination.

Her light's beam struck the silver heart right away.

It hung from a nail right in front of her. She would've reached up and opened it to see what face it had kept hidden for so long if the beast hadn't come in after her.

She counted five warm breaths against the back of her head before she decided how she could least intrude, shut off her light and stepped aside. The beast's weight shifted across the tiny space and she committed the smell of its fur to memory. Then it moved close to her and rapid wet thanks crisscrossed her face.

When she switched her light back on, the heart was gone. She drove back home early next morning, leaving the townspeople to cobble together whatever final chapter of their local legend they would.

May 8th, 2001