DARK CORNERS He had a thin face framed by a spill of almost pure white hair, looking like a dandyish but down-at-the-heel doctor in his long black cape and tall shabby hat, the ruff of a shirt spilling over his collar. He carried a doctor’s bag that he placed to the ground and opened with one hand, all without taking his eyes off us as he took something from it, something long and curved. Then he smiled and drew the dagger from its sheath, and it gleamed wickedly in the dark. “Stay close, élise,” whispered Mother. “Everything’s going to be all right.” I believed her because I was an eight-year-old girl and of course I believed my mother. But also because having seen her with the wolf, I had good reason to believe her. Even so, fear nibbled at my insides.
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