Wolf

Ward tells of an incident in which she and friends saw what appeared to be a black wolf slinking across the road one night. The wolf is significant because, for Ward, it represents the conditions and factors that are the cause of the early deaths that are so frequent in her community. At the start of the book, Ward cannot identify just why her brother and friends died so young. She feels like the town itself, once called Wolf Town because of its proximity to the Wolf River, is stalking them. When she sees the wolf, it gives a tangible form to her feelings of being stalked and she says that she sometimes believes that DeLisle is the wolf.

Cellar

When Ward is a child, Joshua finds an old cellar in the woods and takes her to see it. The cellar disturbs Ward, though she isn’t...