Chapter Text
** Chapter One – Griffith Falls **
Peggy had forgotten how crisp the air could get out here, as she made the hairpin turns towards Griffith Falls, New York in her stalwart compact SUV, with her three-year-old liver-colored Curly-Coated Retriever Mabel in the backseat. It reminded her of all those long youthful summers the Carter family would spend up here in the first decade of her childhood. It had been a long time since she’d been up this way, yet the road still felt familiar.
Though summer would linger for a few more weeks, up here in upstate New York, she could already feel the changing of the seasons, under the canopy of leafy green trees where the mountain air brings an early chill to her skin.
Peggy peeked at the rearview mirror to spot her canine companion enjoying the fresh air, her head sticking out of the cracked window, the pup’s tongue and ear flapping in the breeze. She smiled to herself, glad to not be alone on the trip. Mabel was by far the best thing to come out of her failed relationship.
Fred had brought her home not long after they moved back to Hampstead, touting his success at getting the purebred from a reputable breeder for a steal, a claim that Peggy found dubious even at the very start. She never cared for the snobbish show dog and pedigree pet world. But the puppy was to symbolize their new start in London. In retrospect, Peggy realized Mabel actually symbolized the beginning of the end of her ties to Fred. It dawned on Peggy how clear the signs had been, between the pup finding immediate comfort at her feet instead of Fred’s, and then Fred’s animosity when it became clear that his “steal” actually came at the cost of a bitch instead of the promised stud he had desired.
Their engagement would be over less than a full two years later. Peggy moved back to New York with Mabel alone.
“We’re the lucky ones in this whole fiasco,” Peggy had told Mabel back then, after all of Fred’s secrets came to light, several affairs and varying attempts of siphoning assets and money from the Carter family trust. Even if some of her personal trust was still tied up in the legal battle. No matter, Peggy had always been self-sufficient, if a lot more frugal these past few years.
“You’ll regret leaving me Peggy. Who will want to marry you now at your age?” was one of the parting lines from Fred, before his indictment.
“I imagine there are dime a dozen other gold-digging wankers in Hampstead alone that would love the Carter family legacy,” she replied icily.
“And that’s all they’ll ever like,” Fred had sneered in reply. “You may look the part of a proper British woman Peg, but underneath the fine veneer, you’re an unpleasant, cold nag.”
But it seemed likely that Fred was right about one thing. Now that she was officially in her late thirties, the prospect of marriage seemed slimmer and slimmer.
“We’ve never needed a man to take care of us,” Peggy found herself saying out loud. Mabel only briefly turned her head in Peggy’s direction before returning to enjoying the breeze.
The sight of the Welcome to Griffith Falls sign filled Peggy with a warm flood of nostalgia, of long summer days when the extended Carter family came together, when even the nights were warm and safe. Before Nana died. Before her mother died. It was immediately followed by a wave of guilt. Guilt of not having visited her Nana here in the year since she moved back to the United States. Guilt of not visiting her three years ago when her mother had passed away suddenly, and Nana reached out to suggest she come visit the cottage.
Though Nana had never completely seen eye to eye with her son’s wife, they were still family. Nana must have known exactly the kind of void Peggy had been wrestling with. How had she become so wrapped up in her own life that she couldn’t find time for even one weekend trip to the only family she had on the continent?
When was the last time she had been up here? The summer after her sophomore year at Yale? Had she really not been here in nearing two decades?
She shook her head in a feeble attempt to clear the pain, focusing instead on the buildings in the town square. She recognized it all immediately, even if most of the individual stores seemed to be much different from those of her youth. Peggy was pleased to see that the ice-cream & hot dog stand was still thriving, tourists queuing even as the last of the sun was setting. Her stomach had a sudden craving for a Griffith Falls soft-serve sundae. She ignored the urge and continued driving, including driving past the Griffith Falls Inn, the more reputable of hotels directly in town.
She would come to regret not stopping there for the night.
A half mile up the road, Peggy sought out the right turn up the long hilly lane that led to Nana Carter’s cottage. Apparently she was wrong to expect to remember exactly where that turn off was. She just assumed there would be some kind of marker. It didn’t help that a fog seemed to appear out of thin air, the sky growing darker by the minute.
“There must be rain on the way,” she said absently to Mabel.
Mabel let out an uncertain whine, her head now entirely inside the car.
“We’ll be there in a few minutes Mabel darling, then I’ll let you out,” Peggy replied. “You will love Nana’s wild yard and garden. All the freedom you don’t get in the city.”
Finally, driving at a snail’s pace so that she wouldn’t miss it, Peggy spotted the narrow opening into the unpaved drive. With the growing mist and the darkening due to canopy of trees Peggy flicked on her fog lights.
“I don’t remember this drive feeling so long,” she said to herself, as the uphill quarter-mile drive seemed to go on endlessly. “Nana should have had this paved and lighted years ago.”
But finally, Peggy spotted the opening to the front yard, and could make out the Queen Anne style house beyond. It towered eerily in the evening, abandoned and unlit, bereft of the life Nana Carter brought here.
When the family lawyer showed up at the tail end of her Nana’s funeral, the last thing Peggy had expected to hear was that she was inheriting, and apparently urgently at that, her Nana’s cottage on the edge of the wild forests of the Adirondacks. But here she was, car idling between the twin stone columns, a portal to the property beyond, the only pinpricks of light coming from the lamps sitting atop each. She was thrown back into summers chasing Michael into the woods here, fireflies aglow around them late into the evening, the shrieks of both older and younger Carter extended family cousins abound.
Mabel’s throaty growl threw Peggy from her memories. Peggy turned her head to the backseat, seeing Mabel’s brown eyes fixed forward, ears raised in alert.
“We’re not in Manhattan anymore Mabel.”
Mabel started to bark. The one that told Peggy she saw something. Mabel was not a creature who barked without good reason.
“I’m sure it’s just a squir—”
Peggy screamed as she whipped her head back to look out the windshield. Lightning illuminated the sky and showed a shadowy figure of a well-built man standing not ten feet in front of the car. Rain started to pour immediately.
“Perhaps it’s just a neighbor,” Peggy muttered to herself, holding a hand to her chest willing herself to calm down.
Though it struck Peggy that she was pretty sure said figure, when lit up by lightening was naked. A well-muscled naked man. That couldn’t be right. Who would run naked in a storm on her Nana’s property? Definitely not a neighbor!
No her eyes must be playing tricks on her. But how else would see have seen tight abs and hamstrings?
Mabel stuck her head out the window again and her bark grew more insistent, more aggressive. Instinctively, Peggy turned back towards her pup, and when she returned her gaze towards the figure, it was gone.
“What in the bloody hell?”
Not a second later, the sound of metal captured her attention. Mabel howled. And then a growl emanated from somewhere other than her canine. Lightning cracked once more in the sky followed by a thunderous rumble and this time illuminated a silver wolf on the hood of her car, jaw open, sharp teeth bared directly at her, snarling menacingly.
“Holy shit!”
Peggy made eye contact with the wolf, its blue eyes unsettling her for some reason. The sight made her freeze in terror until Mabel’s terrified whines broke her stupor.
“Mabel!” she called out as her dog stuck her head out the window again. The second Mabel’s head was safely inside Peggy rolled the window up and child-locked it. Her retriever was no doubt a great rodent hunter, but ferocious is not how she would describe her, not when there was a wolf double, maybe triple her size denting the metal of her car right in front of them.
Without thinking, Peggy slammed both hands on the horn. But instead of scaring the wolf, Peggy swore it cocked its head in annoyance. She couldn’t recall Nana ever mentioning wolves on the property. Surely the kids wouldn’t have been allowed to run free if they were a concern.
Peggy had never seen a wolf in the flesh, not outside a zoo. Fear won over reason as she tried desperately to figure out the correct course of action. In a last-ditch attempt, Peggy slammed the gas pedal but the wolf wasn’t perturbed, and gracefully leapt from the hood to the roof of the car. Peggy stared unmoving up at giant paws set on her moonroof with wide eyes. The wolf stopped its snarling only to let out an incredibly loud howl. Then a giant paw started to claw against the top portion of the windshield.
“Fucking hell! What are we supposed to do now?!”
Between the downpour and the howling canine, Peggy had made her mind up to forgo a visit to the cottage that night. Surely daylight would make the wolf less bold. Were wolves nocturnal? Or just hunted at night? She suddenly regretted not taking a bigger interest in Mabel’s ancestors. Peggy slammed the brakes, and the sudden change in motion threw the wolf off. Just as Peggy felt her win deserved celebrating, she locked eyes with the wolf and could swear it was shooting her another look of pure annoyance. Its striking blue eyes were way too human-like for her liking.
Taking the chance while the wolf seemed distracted, Peggy reversed with as much speed as would be safe on the narrow and increasingly muddy lane.
“No reason to flirt with death again tonight, huh Mabel darling?” she said with a calmness she did not feel.
When she was far enough back, to where she could risk a three-point turn, Peggy looked back towards the house. Between the stone columns, she could still make out a looming figure.
What were the chances that this lone wolf was not the only predator on the property? Wolves were pack animals, weren’t they?
With one more look in the rearview mirror, Peggy could swear the figure was now upright. Of the man she saw. Not some wild quadruped.
But then it was too dark and stormy to see any more.
As Peggy reached the main road, she had decided she would check in at the police station in the morning. If there was an aggressive wolf in the area, no doubt they would have reports of it. And what of the person she could swear she had seen? A man. A naked man? Just moments before and also after the wolf showed up. Was there a known trespasser? Maybe a town squatter? A neighbor?
Peggy was smart enough to know when she needed back-up. That’s what she would do here. No doubt daylight would make it look more familiar, less for her imagination to run away with.
No doubt the daylight wouldn’t make her mind jump to something as fanciful as... a werewolf.
But the wolf’s humanlike blue eyes...
She swore under her breath at herself. “Get a grip.”
Peggy had never been so glad to have thought ahead to book a hotel room for the night as when the woman running the front desk at the Griffith Falls Inn handed her the key. Even if said woman frown disapprovingly at Mabel, despite it being a pet-friendly establishment. Peggy locked the door the second they were inside, and immediately went to the windows to make sure they were closed as well, even if the room was on the second floor.
Peggy flopped down onto the bed with a loud sigh. The unmistakable wet touch of Mabel’s nose bumped her left hand. She propped herself up on an elbow to spot Mabel’s brown eyes pleading silently with her.
“Yes, yes alright. You can sleep on the bed. Just for tonight.”
Mabel immediately hopped onto the full-sized bed and curled into a circle so that she could rest her head on Peggy’s stomach.
“I swear you understand English better than some humans,” she murmured, running her hands through the curls at Mabel’s scruff. They had both been traumatized enough for one night to follow her usual no dogs on the furniture rule.
The weight and warmth of Mabel must have lulled Peggy to sleep, because she had woken some time later with the need for water and the bathroom. Mabel barely acknowledged the disruption, simply rearranging herself to a larger share of the mattress before closing her eyes again. It had been less than an hour, but Peggy figured the fright had taken something out of her, after an already long trip. She washed her face and took deep breaths reminding herself of her morning plan of enlisting assistance.
She changed into pajamas, plugged her phone in, and found herself at the window again, watching the incessant rainfall. The storm still refused to let up. Peggy found herself staring blankly, her head full of gleaming white teeth and blue eyes. Another burst of lightning captured her attention, and something in the distance, across the street, under the glowing streetlamp in front of the local hardware store caught her eye. A woman stood there in all black, and Peggy swore she was staring right at her.
Having had quite enough for one day, Peggy shook her head and shut the curtains.
“Get a grip Peggy Carter,” she muttered. “You’re scaring yourself for no reason. This is Griffith Falls after all. It’s just a low-tier Adirondack tourist town.”
She nudged Mabel until she could get under the covers. But instead of falling easily back to sleep, Peggy stared up at the ceiling. She missed Nana. The sudden sadness snuffed out all other emotions, and Peggy turned to shut off the lamp.