When the truck finally left, its tires crackling against the dirt road, the quiet that followed felt heavier than before. Something thick and watchful. Catherine stayed on the porch, her eyes fixed on the line where her yard bled into the trees.
If it really was a sibling, maybe that explained everything. The cub wasn’t returning to her; it was looking for its family. The sound she’d heard in the dark, maybe that had been the mother, or the other cub, calling back. The thought refused to let her go.