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All Chapters of I Am More Than What He Saw: Chapter 1 - Chapter 10

16 Chapters

The Ceremony

Chapter 1:The Alpha's son had one job at his ceremony, and he'd been staring at my hips for ten minutes deciding whether I was worth it.Miriam stood so close her shoulder pressed mine. "Stand straighter," she said, sweet as poison. "You're representing the pack too, you know."I didn't answer her.The hall was full. Three hundred wolves, candles, the good chairs brought out of storage. Elder Marcus stood at the front with the ceremonial cord and the patience of a man who'd done this two hundred times and would do it two hundred more."Karl," Elder Marcus said. "Name your mate."Karl's jaw moved. His eyes came back to me. Then to Miriam. Then back to me.Miriam's hand found my elbow. "Smile," she whispered. "He's nervous."His father, Alpha Roderick, sat in the front row with his hands folded. He nodded once.Karl's shoulders dropped. That nod was the answer to a question he'd been asking himself all night."Name her," Elder Marcus said, quieter.Karl's mouth opened."I reject you, f

Last Updated : 2026-11-04

Head Up

Chapter 2:The rain found me before I found the road.I got twenty feet from the side door before I heard the front doors of the hall bang open behind me and the whole pack come spilling out into the courtyard like water out of a cracked bucket. Boots in the mud. Coats half on. Somebody laughing — that same laugh, carried out into the night air where it could breathe."There she is." A man's voice, thick with drink. "There she goes.""Jane!" A woman, cupping her hands. "Jane, honey, come back inside, you'll catch your death —""She won't catch anything. She can't catch a cold, she can't catch a wolf, she can't catch a man—"The laugh rolled across the courtyard and hit me in the back.I kept walking. The gravel drive was slick and my shoes were the wrong shoes, thin soles, and every step skidded a little, and I made each step anyway. Head up. Chin level. I remember thinking: don't run. If you run they'll chase."Jane!" Miriam's voice cut through the rain, bright and carrying, the voic

Last Updated : 2026-11-04

Still Here

Chapter 3:The house smelled like my mother. I stood in the doorway dripping on the floor and couldn't think of a single thing I owned.Rain ran off my hem and made a dark ring on the boards. I'd mopped that floor Sunday. It seemed like an insane thing to remember.I got the bag from under the bed. Canvas, straps, the one I took to the market. I put in the good dress because it was on the hook, and then took it out because it was the good dress. I put in the other dress. I put in the boots and not the shoes, and then I put the shoes in anyway because I was still wearing them.My hands were doing things without asking me.Money. I went to the tin on the shelf above the stove and opened it and there was less than I thought and more than nothing. I took all of it. My mother's ring was in there too, wrapped in a scrap of cloth, and I took that, and then I stood holding it and the rain kept hitting the window and I put it in the bag.I caught myself looking at the second chair.Nobody was

Last Updated : 2026-11-04

The Trees Don't Care

Chapter 4:The thing about walking into a forest at midnight is that the forest doesn't care that you're having the worst night of your life.My boots sank to the ankle in the first fifty feet. Wet leaf litter, old mud, the kind of ground that holds water like a sponge. I pulled my foot out with a sound like a bad kiss and put it down somewhere worse."Great," I said. Out loud. To the trees. "Perfect. Love this."Nobody laughed. That was new.I'd spent my whole life with somebody laughing somewhere. The market, the hall, the back of a room. There's always a laugh if you know where to listen for it. Out here there was just the drip of the trees letting go of the rain and my own boots and my own breathing, and my breathing was getting loud.I kept the pack lights behind me for as long as I could. Over my left shoulder, through the trunks. Small and orange and getting smaller. Then a trunk went past and they were gone and it was dark in a way the village wasn't.Not black. Grey-dark, wet

Last Updated : 2026-11-04

Down

Chapter 5:I ran.Not the smart kind. Not the kind where you pick a direction and keep your head. The other kind. The kind where the branches hit you in the face and you put your arms up and keep going and don't know where you're going because going is the whole point.My boot caught a root and I went down hard on my knees and got up without deciding to. My bag was gone. I didn't know when. Somewhere back in the dark it had come off my shoulder and I hadn't felt it go, and my mother's ring was in that bag, and I did not turn around.The footsteps came on.Not running. That was the thing that got into me worse than if they'd been running. They walked. They walked at the same unhurried pace they'd walked at when they started, and I ran, and they walked, and they were still there.I went sideways through a gap in two trunks and something took my hat off — no, I didn't have a hat. Something took the top of my hair and pulled, and I felt the sting and kept going, and my chest was on fire a

Last Updated : 2026-11-04

Herbs and Hands

Chapter 6:I came up out of the dark once, on my back, moving.The sky was above me and it was moving too, sliding sideways, and there was a sound like boots on gravel and a woman's voice doing a low steady stream of words I couldn't get hold of."—eight pounds soaking wet and nobody thought to feed her, nobody thought to—"The sky rocked and I was going up steps."Hey," I said.The sky stopped rocking."Hey. Hey, don't do that, don't talk." A hand found my forehead and pressed it down, firm, no argument in it. "We're almost in. Don't you dare talk.""I'm not—" My mouth was full of cotton. "I'm not that heavy."The woman made a sound. Not a laugh. Close to one, but it had a crack in it. "You're a sack of bones and wet wool. Don't flatter yourself."The door frame went over me. Inside light. Warmth hitting my face all at once, and it hurt, the way warmth hurts when you've been cold too long."Chair," the woman said, to nobody. "No. Floor. Floor's better."The floor came up under me.I

Last Updated : 2026-11-04

Not On My Floor

Chapter 7:I was so cold I couldn't remember my own name, and then I could, and that was worse."Jane." A hand on my jaw, turning my face. "Jane, look at me. What's my name?"I tried. My teeth were a machine and my jaw was doing all the work and nothing was coming out right."Mar—""Close enough. Stay with me."The fire was going and it wasn't enough. I could see it from the floor, the flames doing their thing behind the iron grate, and I could feel the heat on my face, and my back was freezing. My back was against ice. The whole left side of me was against ice."That's not —" I got out. "That's not right. The floor's not—""I know." Margaret was up and moving, and I heard her at the hearth, and I heard the poker, and then she was back and something heavy and warm got laid down along my back.Rocks. Heated rocks, wrapped in cloth, and the heat of them went through the blanket and into my spine and my whole body arched off the floor like a fish."There. There. That's what I thought." H

Last Updated : 2026-11-11

Whose Bed

Chapter 8:"Yours," Margaret said.She was awake. Of course she was awake. She'd probably been awake since before I opened my eyes, sitting in that chair with her hands in her lap, watching me come up out of sleep."That's not what I asked.""It's the answer you get."I sat up.The room went sideways and I put a hand on the mattress and held still until it came back. Margaret didn't move to help me. She just sat there and watched, and I got the idea that she was taking my measure, and I didn't like it.I turned around and put my hand on the headboard."These letters," I said."Eat something first.""These letters, Margaret."The fire was out. The room was cold grey and my breath was coming out of me in a cloud, and my hand was on the carvings and my thumb was going back and forth over the top set like it had a mind of its own.Margaret stood up.She went to the hearth and knelt down and started building the fire back up. Kindling first. Then the bigger pieces. She took her time about

Last Updated : 2026-11-11

Barred

Chapter 9:I stood there with my hand on the door frame and the bar down behind me and said, "Who was that."Margaret didn't answer. She walked past me to the window and put two fingers against the shutter and moved it a half inch and looked out through the gap."Margaret.""Mm.""Who was out there."She let the shutter fall back. "I don't know.""You put a bar across your own door. You don't put a bar across your door for nobody.""I put a bar across my door every night of my life, girl. I'm an old woman living alone at the edge of a forest." She came back past me and picked up the poker and started doing something to the fire that didn't need doing. "You want to make a mystery out of it, that's your business.""Those tracks were a man's boots.""They were.""A big man. Not a kid. Not a trader with a cart.""Big boots. Yes.""And they came to the yard and went away again."Margaret set the poker down. "Jane. Sit.""I don't want to sit—""You're swaying." She said it flat. "You're sta

Last Updated : 2026-11-11

Somebody's Watching

Chapter 10:Neither of us slept.Margaret sat in the chair with the poker across her knees like a woman in a story. I lay in the bed under two blankets with my eyes open and the bar down on the door, and every time the wind moved the shutters my whole body went tight."Go to sleep," she said around midnight."You first.""I'm old. I don't sleep.""Then don't tell me to."She made a sound that was almost a laugh and then the cottage went quiet again and we stayed like that until the dark started thinning.Around first light I heard her get up and go to the window. She stood there a long time with the shutter cracked and then she said, "Nothing. It's gone.""You don't know that.""No. I don't." She came back and sat down. "But the sun's coming up and a wolf doesn't stand in a clearing in the daylight. Not that one.""That one.""Get up. I'll make tea."So we got up.The morning was the same as the one before it, which felt like an insult. Frost and woodsmoke and Doris being loud about s

Last Updated : 2026-11-11

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