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Chapter 3
The next morning, Isabelle woke as a girl again. As a human, she was ravenously hungry, but while a wolf, she hardly noticed that she had gone without supper. Isabelle searched the woods for food. She found a few nuts on the ground, cracked them between two rocks and ate them. Isabelle walked for days, in the morning as a girl, turning into a wolf at noon and walking until dark. As she went, she tried to look for somewhere devoid of humans where she could stay without being discovered and feared. Isabelle tried to catch squirrels in the woods, but she was not skilled enough at hunting to feed herself this way. Two days later, at the first town she came to, the girl ruefully traded three of the copper buttons on her overdress for two loaves of bread and five apples in a canvas sack. The townspeople looked upon this wonderer as disdainfully as she looked at them. They were suspicious of the pretty girl with fine clothes and no escort. Isabelle thought herself above the plain commoners and moved on again.
Five more days passed; the food she had bought was gone. Isabelle was weary of the wandering life. Her feet and heart ached, longing for a home. In the middle of the woods, the wolf crouched beneath the bushes. In the clearing before her a boy and an old man crouched by a fire. The old man wore a rough brown robe and the boy a grey tunic and pants. They were holding meat over a fire; the smell of which drifted temptingly beneath Isabelle's nose. The meat was all she could think about now. She waited. When the two were distracted, she bounded into the clearing. Isabelle snatched a hunk of meat out of their hands, darting away like the wind. The old man simply shook his head, while the boy ran after her, shouting.
When Isabelle had loped far enough away that she had no more fear of pursuit, she settled back on her haunches and devoured her stolen feast. It was blissful for Isabelle to be full of food again.
After walking a few more miles that day, Isabelle realized that she had been in a different land for some time. Here, the woods were thinner and valleys formed around the many small rivers that lined the earth. The land was much more level than where Isabelle had lived. The changes had come so gradually, that Isabelle had hardly noticed them until she was in another region. The girl wondered where she was; she had no map, but was unable to read one even if she had. She decided to ask at the next village that she would come to.
By the next evening, the land had widened out onto a fairly broad plain with a large mound like a lump of porridge in the middle. The mound and some of the surrounding plain were covered in trees with a few orange and yellow leaves left on their branches. Nestled in the trees above the mound stood a small castle with a single tower. Isabelle was intrigued by the manor; it looked abandoned, but if a noble family still lived there, she could possibly beg a meal and a place to stay for the night from them.
Isabelle wearily climbed the hill. The closer she came to the castle, she more she realized that the castle had been abandoned. No smoke curled from the chimneys. The path Isabelle was on had been overgrown during the summer. Now, fallen leaves lay upon it mostly undisturbed. The few places that they had been rustled, the wolf guessed, were from deer and over small animals. She dismissed the thought as she arrived in front of the front doors.
The doors were as tall as the height of two grown men and as wide as five. They were of an ancient but sturdy wood, but bore the scars of their age with majesty. Isabelle opened the door by pushing it inwards with both of her paws. The wolf stepped inside a cavernous main hall.
The lofty ceiling was supported by curved wooden beams. In the corners opposite her stood two marble staircases, leading to the second story. A balcony extended over the silent hall. The room was bare, except for a large grandfather clock which stood beneath the balcony. The floor was made of dark tan flagstones, with footprints faint in the dust. Isabelle was intrigued by the silent castle. It looked uninhabited, but if the footprints belonged to another human, the wolf could leave.
Isabelle padded to one of the grand staircases and loped up it. She paced the empty halls half an hour, and then came back down to the main level. As far as she could tell, the place was deserted. Isabelle went back outside to try to find something to eat, but came back inside unsuccessful. She curled up in a corner of the great hall and did her best to get a little sleep.