Odds Are Good by Bruce Coville

locked on mine, were like the kind of coals you find late at night: nearly spent, yet still holding the power to burn—or to kindle a new flame.
    I thought of red-haired Wandis, safe in some distant village, and wondered if I could somehow change my mind. But of course it was far too late for that.
    The wolf lowered his head, then curled his black lips in a snarl, revealing yellow fangs that glistened with saliva. I held my breath to keep from crying out in fear.
    Dying-ember eyes still locked with mine, the beast moved closer. My self-control was weakening. But before I could disgrace myself with a scream, his teeth sank into my flesh, and I fainted.
    How long I lay on the floor of the cave I have no idea. It could have been an hour; it might have been days.
    When I finally woke I felt drained of strength. Even opening my eyes seemed more than I could manage. Wondering if I had been a fool or—perhaps more accurately—just how much of a fool I had been, I began to review the strange events that had led me to this moment, starting with my first encounter with the great wolf.
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    It had happened eleven years earlier, when our little village was being battered by the worst winter in memory. I was only five at the time, but I knew it was the worst because my grandmother told me so. She seemed to take most of her pleasure from telling me how much better or worse or bigger or smaller everything had been when she was young, so if she said the howling winds and driving snow that lasted for weeks on end were the most ferocious she had ever experienced, I felt it must be true.
    It must have been bad for the wolves, too, for they had never troubled us before then. But one night, when thick snow was dropping like wet feathers onto our already snow-choked village, they came, slipping through the dark as silently as whispers between friends. Their killing was quiet, too, until the warm blood emboldened them, and the village animals took fright. Then the silence was broken by a growing commotion.
    I was among the first to hear it, possibly because my sleep had already been disturbed by strange dreams that night. I didn’t understand what was going on, of course. I only knew something had roused our small flock of chickens.
    Even at five I was trying to fill in for the lack of a man in our house. So when I climbed down the ladder from the little loft where I had my bed, I moved as soundlessly as possible, hoping not to rouse my mother from her sleep. I slipped into my coat and pulled on the fur-lined boots my grandmother had made for me. Then I pulled open the bottom half of our door. But the way out was blocked by drifted snow. I closed the bottom of the door and opened the top. Then I fetched my stool and clambered through the opening.
    I almost disappeared in the snow. Sputtering and cold, I dug my way out of the drift. Fortunately, the snow was not that deep everywhere. The same winds that had blown it against our door had cleared other places almost down to the hard-packed paths we had made over the last two months. Wading over to one of the paths, I headed for the henhouse.
    After a few moments I sensed a dark form on my left. A moment later I realized there were two more on my right. A sudden fear clutched my heart. I would have turned back, but the house seemed suddenly very far away. Moreover, I had a favorite hen, a biddy with golden feathers, that I loved too dearly to lose. In my childish mind, I somehow thought I could protect her.
    Or perhaps I thought that she would protect me.
    Anyway, as I struggled my way to the small henhouse the surrounding commotion grew louder. I knew it would not be long before other folk came out to tend their livestock, too.
    Once inside I gathered my hen in my arms. As I was trying to soothe her a dark form surged through the doorway. The light was too dim for me to see it clearly, but I had no doubt that it was a wolf. The hen squawked and struggled in my arms. It was hard to say