She was in the papers for a while, and even on TV a couple of times. Her Mom wouldn’t let her give any interviews, though, so quickly enough the media attention dried up. The police wouldn’t take no for an answer, and for weeks afterwards they would come to the door at night, right after they’d finished dinner and cleared the plates, and she would have to sit down with a man in a uniform and answer questions. Sometimes they brought pictures, photographs of different kinds of wolves. Once they even brought pictures of the Crime Scene, of the stretch of road where it happened. Her Mom hated it when she had to look at the pictures. Chey would claim it was okay, that it didn’t bother her. There was never any blood in the pictures. She wouldn’t be able to sleep after she saw the pictures, though. Not for whole days on end.

Chey tried to ask questions, too, but the police didn’t like to answer them. They did tell her that her Dad hadn’t felt much pain at all, that he had been in shock when he died and probably wasn’t even aware of what was happening. They also confirmed what she’d thought, that it wasn’t any kind of ordinary wolf that had attacked them. That it was a lycanthrope. That was the word they used. The Assailant was believed to be a Lycanthrope. Just like the car was a Late Model Vehicle, and her Dad was the Decedent Victim.

Lycanthropes fit a certain profile of Assailant. There were Protocols for dealing with Lycanthropes. There were statistics on Lycanthropes—no more than three Fatal Attacks in the last twenty years, a believed Global Population of no more than a thousand Individuals, most of them in Europe now. There were whole three-ring binders of information on what to do when investigating a Lycanthrope Sighting.

The police carried out a Thorough Investigation. They formed a Searching Party and they swept the country around the Incident Area. They turned up No Result—the lycanthrope was never found.

The police had done what they could. Chey never blamed them—why would they even want to find the wolf? Who would ever want to face such a thing if they didn’t have to? The main detective on the case was good enough to recommended a therapist for Chey. The therapist was a very skinny, very pale man with blonde hair who recommended they meet three times a week, at least until they saw how much help she needed. Her Mom just nodded and wrote a check.

They had a funeral for her Dad. The police had held onto his remains for the duration of their investigation. Chey’s Mom had not protested. They had also cremated his remains—that was the law—but Chey’s Mom bought an empty coffin anyway. All of her relatives came up and touched the wood of the coffin and some of them cried. Chey got to stand with her Mom at the door of the chapel, wearing a black dress that buttoned at her neck. She got to shake all their hands and thank them for coming.

Back at the house they had a reception and the same people showed up but there was a lot less crying. People in suits and dresses filled up the tiny rooms, pressed up against the walls balancing paper plates full of food or plastic cups full of soda. They spoke in whispers or at least in low voices but the combined sound was loud enough to hurt Chey’s ears. She really wanted to just run back to her room and go to bed but it was covered in coats and bags so she couldn’t.

All of her aunts and adult cousins had to make her go through the same ritual that was boring after the first time. They would pat her head or hug her to their waists and tell her how brave she was and how the hurt would go away with time. She would nod morosely and look like she was about to cry and eventually they would let her go. Then the door bell rang and she ran to get it. A tall man in a military uniform stood there, a peaked hat in his hands. He was maybe fifty years old and he had a fuzz of iron-colored hair on his head. Chey had never seen a man before with hair that short and it startled her but she tried not to show it on her face.

“Cheyenne,” he said, and bowed forward a little to hold out his hand. “I doubt you remember me but I’m your uncle Bannerman. Your father’s American brother.”

She nodded politely and shook his hand. He smiled at her, a cold little smile without anything at all hiding behind it. She asked him to come in and he disappeared, making the rounds, greeting everyone. A couple of Chey’s aunts tried to grab him up into bearhugs but he deflected them easily with a neat little trick. He held his hat in front of his body. If they hugged him they would have crushed the hat and nobody wanted that. Chey was impressed. She wished she had thought to bring a hat.

She lost track of Uncle Bannerman then but near the end of the reception he found her again. She assumed he wanted to tell her how sorry he was for her loss and she assumed the position, eyes downcast, but instead he squatted down next to her and fixed her with his eyes.

“I wanted to say something to you, specifically,” he said. When she didn’t reply he just went on. “I was very impressed with how you escaped.”

She squinted. Nobody at the reception had mentioned any of that. The day was supposed to be about her Dad. “I had to do something or I would have died,” she said, trying to dismiss him.

“Not everyone would have had the intelligence to make that connection. Very few people would have had the resolution to carry it out.” He smiled at her and started to stand up. It was all he’d wanted to say.

A question came out of her then like a belch. She had no control over it. She actively fought it. This man was her Dad’s brother, after all. His grief would be very real, too. But she had to ask.

“Is this how people die?” she demanded. “They just disappear. And nothing happens.”

He looked at her with very hard eyes as if trying to decide what to say to her. “That’s exactly how it happens,” he told her.

“A person just goes away.” Her voice was getting louder. She couldn’t seem to control it. “A person is there, one day, and the next he doesn’t exist. Even if he’s your Dad. Because nobody is safe. Ever.”

More than a few black-clad aunts turned to look. But Uncle Bannerman just held her gaze and wouldn’t let go. He said nothing, just looked at her. Finally he took a handkerchief out of his pocket, not a tissue but a real cloth handkerchief, and gave it to her. She hadn’t realized she was crying.