The space between a woman and a wolf is not empty.

By the third day, the manor has a moon.

Wherever I go, he follows at a steady distance—never close enough to touch without meaning to, never far enough to forget. Down the corridor to the office. Across the courtyard to the stables. Round the back to check the generator. Black fur in the corner of my eye, a constant satellite.

In the morning meeting, Inez has colonised one end of the long table with notebooks and coloured pens. The war map, as Django calls it, is spread between us: dates, routes, names.

Underneath, the table is warm.

Because there is a wolf.

He has installed himself under my chair, stretched out full length, his ribs rising and falling against my boots. Every time I shift, my heel finds fur.

The wolf does not utter sound, but silence is not blank. It has weight, texture, and intention. An ear turns at one city name. A tail taps once at another. He waits at the kitchen threshold because Tallulah has ruled that lamb is for guests who use forks. He settles outside the bathroom door because even in a changed body he still understands watchfulness, routine, and care.

That is the chapter’s real language: not explanation, but proximity. Not possession, but return.

The wolf sits, utterly dignified, just outside the line of tiles. His tail sweeps once.

“You can sit there and supervise,” Tallulah concedes. “But you do not get lamb. Lamb is for guests who use forks.”

He huffs, almost offended. I hide a smile in my cup.

Later, the same measured distance becomes more difficult. A wolf’s body can be warm and familiar. It can lie beside you, breathe beside you, rest its head where a human arm once might have rested. But it cannot automatically restore what was lost.

That is why Ma feels useful to me here. It does not promise that the interval will disappear. It asks what can happen inside it. I.Ph.

I hear the soft scrape of claws on tile as he settles just outside the line of water. A respectful distance. Always the same.

“You don’t have to stand guard,” I call through the curtain.

Silence, except for breathing and the drip of water. I imagine him there: large, patient, refusing to let even this thin wall go unmonitored.

In my work, the spaces between categories are rarely empty: human and animal, author and character, memory and invention, one world and another. They are crowded with signals that have not yet become language.

Wolfgang’s silence is not an absence of mind. It sits on another wavelength. The task is not to force him back into a form that can satisfy everyone else. The task is to connect to hear what he is saying.

I.Ph.

Start the series here: Kobo, Book 1 (The European Records): https://www.kobo.com/ca/en/ebook/the-european-records

© 2026 I.Ph. de Lange. All rights reserved. Published by CYcrds OÜ.