Rain in the Bieszczady Mountains can whisper. That night it whispered of leaves that stuck to the path like scales, of soft earth that remembered every step. Lena pulled up her hood and switched off her torch once she was used to the darkness. In the valley of the Volosatka, the mist lay in strips and the birches glowed with pale bark like signs, only for those who could read. She stopped at the first photo trap, slipped the card into the secure case. She had Stach's warning in her mind: the wolves had stopped howling. Not because they had disappeared, but as if they were waiting. Waiting for what? She wasn't used to silence. Usually the night in this valley was a woven blanket of sound: the wheezing of deer, the laughter of jays, the wings of a tawny owl cutting off the air. Now everything held its breath. As she unhooked another camera, a crow flew over the top of the hood. It didn't whistle, it didn't hoot. It came full circle and perched on a crooked larch, looking at Lena as intently as if she, too, had been part of his study. She knew him. She had her weaknesses: she gave names to creatures she shouldn't have given them to. This raven, with a broken feather in its left wing, was Darkness to her. Darkness turned his head and flew off towards the stream, stopping every few dozen metres, like a guide who doesn't like to be late. - 'Okay, Darkness, I'm coming,' muttered Lena, though she knew it wasn't for her exactly that the raven was cutting short its flight. Ravens had their business, wolves had theirs, and people stuck somewhere in between, if they had the courage to look. The smell of wet mulch mingled with something sharp, like metal grated to powder. Lena crouched by a shallow rut in the mud. It was not a tyre mark - not in a place like this - and not a human shoe. The indentation was wide, as if a wolf's paw had pressed into the ground, but a ridiculously even texture glistened around the edges, hexes, like on soles. Five distinct claws, and an imprint in the middle that didn't match any book of tracks. She slid her finger into the mud, memorised the shape, whispered the date and time into the dictaphone. Far away, beyond the mist, the yellow blinds of a deer twinkled. It evaporated like a thought as soon as Lena raised her head. By the concrete stream, nature pretended it wasn't there: an old culvert overgrown with mosses breathed a chill. Lower down, between the stones, otter tracks registered: tiny, like a signature made in haste. Lena smiled involuntarily. It was a sign that the water still lived its life, despite the weight of history and folly. The darkness flew lower again and made a sound consisting of three short tones, like a windscreen wiper wiping the glass. Lena knew that ravens could speak to those who would listen to them. She followed it, entering a copse of black alder where the ground gave way at once, like a soft mattress. Another camera recorded images that made the skin on the back of Lena's neck tremble. She rewound the footage once more, slowly. First: a pack dragging itself through a clearing at the end of twilight. A young male pokes his sister in the side, she jumps away and comes back again, gentle play. Behind them a shadow, larger than the rest, wary. A female wolf. There would be nothing strange about it if it weren't for the glint at her neck. Silver, like the thread of the moon. A collar. Not the kind worn by scientists with Lena's team - those are wide, dull, secure. This one was narrow, shiny, as if someone had forgotten that a wolf is not a dog. In the next frame, the wolf walks under a birch tree and suddenly stands, as if something has pricked her. A jerk. Badly chosen length, badly designed lock. Lena clenched her teeth. She scrolled on. The last image, just above dawn: the wolf silhouettes disappear into the mist, as if someone had dissolved them in milk. The memory of Stach's words came back like a scab: - I heard a buzzing over the night, and then everything went into hiding. Even the bison stood like statues. - The buzzing? Drones were appearing more and more often here, despite the bans. Lena shuddered at the thought of getting the propellers close to the wolves' ears, the vibration of the air that can paralyse. She walked a dozen metres away, where the path widened into a patch of grass, and then she saw her. She lay like a figure in a shadow theatre: a doe, without a single trace of blood. Her nose turned towards the stream, her eye dull, like a closed window. Around her, not a single trace of riven earth, no tear. Only on her neck, just at her jowls, a tight garland of braided grasses. Not man-made, for this was too even and too strong at the same time, as if the plants had grown into a shape and that shape remained. The smell of metal tugged at Lena's nostrils again. She shook her head, took half a step back. The darkness jumped off a branch, came full circle and sat on a boulder, wings pressed down, looked somewhere beyond the doe, deep into the copse. The forest grew even quieter. Even the water slowed down, as if it understood that there was something going on here that needed concentration. Lena lifted her camera only to leave without taking a picture. She wouldn't leave a stranger's image before finding sentences to lift it. A twig clattered behind her back. Reflexively, she slipped her hand into her pocket, closed her fingers over the small torch and knife she used to cut lines in the field. Not to fight, just to have tools. A tall shadow slid out of the hazel bushes. Her heart pounded harder, but she didn't back down. He stepped out without haste. A wolf. A large male with a hazy steel back and a single scar stretching from his shoulder blade to his side. Grey-bearded, as she christened him at work. He shouldn't be approaching. He should shield, disappear into a plume of air. Yet he stood on the edge, half a step, sure as stone. His eyes were alert, not fierce, just anxious. And he was carrying something. He lifted his muzzle, gently deposited a black tape in front of Lena, a short, ragged one. A rope? A belt? She bent down, careful not to make a sudden movement. It was a scrap of a collar. On the inside burned in numbers: 27-042, and next to it a small mark that resembled a letter but was not one, something like a spiral claw. - Who put this on you? - she silently moved her lips, though she knew the question hung between them just for her. The grey-bearded man twitched, turned his head towards the copse where Darkness watched immobile. There, in the darkness, a sound spilled out, at first barely audible, then clearer: high-pitched, thin, soulless, trembling. A buzzing. Like the skin of a metal fruit being rubbed with a file. The forest's breath changed. The grain of the trees tightened, as if each trunk suddenly wanted to move. Lena straightened up slowly, drew in air. The bison below murmured briefly, warningly, and began to move away between the beech trees, leaving wet footprints like seals. A fox darted from a nearby clump of blueberries, red as a spark, dragging its tail just above the ground. The otter froze in the creek and disappeared beneath the water table, without a ripple. The shadow between the alders thickened. Something moved through the misty strands, which flashed a silvery line and went out. The grey-bearded man took a step back, not leaving his eyes from that spot. The darkness spread its wings, but did not fly away. Lena felt her own voice tremble, though she made no sound. She could still feel the roughness of the collar in her fingers, the cold of the metal piercing through the fabric of her gloves. She defended herself against the thought that someone was playing with power over this forest after night. She knew the neugier side of people who like to watch, not knowing that watching could be like biting into someone else's nerves. But this buzz had something about it that didn't suit a cheap toy. It was too penetrating, too persistent, as if it was dragging itself through space while looking for something to fall on. - 'Stachu, pick up,' she whispered to herself, touching the camera in recorder mode, though she knew the range here could disappear like a dream in the morning. The dashes on the screen danced. One, another. Then nothing. The grove opened up. No, it didn't open - it moved away, like a curtain that had been pulled with too sure a hand. Something slid out onto the path, darker than the darkness around it, bigger than a fox, than a deer. A metallic tone cut through the fog like a thin needle. The grey-bearded man tensed his muscles, stepped forward, paw in the mud, did not look away. The darkness whistled briefly, warningly. Lena lifted her head and saw another silver line flash among the grasses, like the breath of something that shouldn't be breathing. The air around her thickened, waiting. And then, out of the shadows, the first paws emerged at the height of her knees - wide, silent - and something she hadn't expected at all hovered at the edge of the path, as if considering whether they would take a step towards each other, or whether the world would take one for them in a moment itself