Winter Study

Did Katherine think it was her wolf lover come back for her after twenty-three years or more? In dog years, that would be one old lover. No, Katherine was not crazy; she didn’t strike A

Early on, A

During the Malone Bay adventure, A

Katherine had hinted Bob was withholding her Ph.D. Was that sufficient motive to hate? Probably. People hated without much provocation.

The second time Katherine contradicted him was when he’d said the study must be shut down; she insisted the foreign DNA was sufficient reason to keep ISRO closed winters, keep the study intact.

Protecting wolves again? Protecting scientific study? A

Katherine was all whispers and Bob all shouts, yet both of them were opaque, keeping their secrets.

The woodstove had been stoked later than usual and, though the door was closed, the bedroom was warm. A

She switched off the bedside lamp and let the sleeping bag drop.

Drifting unanchored in the dark, she replayed Katherine. Bob introducing her the first night, Katherine ducking, hiding behind her hair. Bob asking her if they’d ever used ketamine, Katherine blushing and turning away. Katherine insisting on telling the others at Malone Bay that Bob was so strong, he carried her up five flights of stairs.

When she was unconscious. A

Bob had carried Robin back from the V.C.

When she was unconscious.

Bob asked, “Have we ever used ketamine?” Robin lost one of the jab sticks loaded with ketamine and xylazine. Katherine fought with Bob after collecting the dead wolf’s blood. A

A

Bob was with Robin in the V.C. before A

A

Katherine’s laptop was on her desk, plugged into the wall to save its batteries. Once, when A

Having unplugged the laptop, she turned the light out again, dragged back the bathrobe she’d thought was a towel, returned to her own room and completed the operation one more time in reverse. Then she covered the window with Robin’s parka, shoving the sleeves into the grooves of the metal window frame to cover peepholes from the woods. There was probably no need for secrecy. There was probably no one out in the wee hours, peeking in frosty windows. But telling everyone everything hadn’t worked. A

The laptop wasn’t password protected. The screen saver that came up was a photograph of Katherine and an older woman who looked so much like her, she couldn’t be anyone but her mother or an aunt. The two women were laughing, the camera obviously held in front of them in Katherine’s hand, as they yelled “Cheese!”

A

Number-oriented, Katherine kept spreadsheets of her personal finances. She earned barely enough to live on but was subsidized by a monthly stipend. From her mother, A

She had been on the antidepressant Effexor for eighteen months. Half of America was on antidepressants, but Katherine had been given a hefty dose, 250 milligrams daily, plus.75 milligrams of Trazodone, an antidepressant and sleep aid. There were weekly payments to a Dr. Lewis. A psychologist, A

Maybe an abortion.

Then depression.

Under the file named “Black Ops,” Katherine had saved sixteen articles from newspapers and periodicals as ridiculous as The Star and as sublime as The Journal of the American Medical Association on the subjects of amnesia, traumatic amnesia, fugue states, repressed memory and multiple personalities.

The folder “Possibilities” contained short synopses of what A