Red Wolf
Page 26
My hand paused, the rag hovering over the clean spot I’d been uncovering on my arm. Could he possibly know me so well, already? I hadn’t been sure myself, at times, that I would come back.
Gran’s focus found the pups again, while I bathed. “The girl is little Romy Paget?”
“Yes, and the other is Tom. The boy I found in the woods.”
She sighed. “Okay. Finish cleaning up, then we’ll talk.”
It took a while to wipe off all the grime from the forest, and by the time I was finished, the rinse water was brown. Gran pulled open her trunk and handed me a bundle of cloth. I shook it out while she dumped the bucket and ran fresh water from her well, and I was surprised to realize I was holding my own dress. The very one I’d worn into the dark wood a week ago.
Warm, clean, and dressed, I finally began to process my surroundings, and I was surprised to find my bright red cloak hanging from a hook on the far wall. The arced arm of my crossbow sat on the floor, peeking beneath the hem of the cloak.
“How do you have my things?” I asked as my grandmother came back inside carrying a bucket of clean water.
“I found them.” Max stepped into the cabin behind her.
I crossed the room in several steps and threw my arms around him, and my throat felt thick with the effort to hold back tears. “What are you doing here?” I buried my head in his neck, breathing him in, and his arms wrapped around me, holding me close.
“Looking for you,” he whispered into my hair. “Which is how I found a beautiful red cape hanging from a tree branch, and beneath that an exquisitely hand-crafted crossbow. Why would anyone leave such nice things abandoned in the dark wood?”
“I’m so sorry. I didn’t know what else to do. I couldn’t just leave the pups, and we were much safer as wolves.”
“You were never going to dispatch them, were you?” he asked.
I shook my head. “I couldn’t. And I couldn’t let my mother do it either. It isn’t right. This isn’t their fault.”
Max stepped out of my embrace to frown down at me. “That’s why you left without me? You thought I wouldn’t let you leave them alive?”
I nodded, but the truth was more complicated than that. Some part of me had known from the beginning that I couldn’t just leave the children out there. But Max couldn’t have survived in the dark wood, stuck in human form and largely blind, his lantern drawing attention to us everywhere we went.
I’d left him behind because deep down, I’d known there was a possibility that I wouldn’t be coming back.
Max exhaled and let the question go, as if he could see the answer in my eyes.
“You shouldn’t have gone looking for me,” I whispered. “Even with your experience, the dark wood isn’t safe for you.”
“Your mother was with me that night. When I found your things.” He brushed tangled hair back from my face and pressed a kiss to my forehead. “And when she isn’t, I stay on the path.”
“Has this become a habit?” I asked, glancing at my grandmother over his shoulder.
She shrugged, taking two wooden bowls down from the shelf. “Well, someone has to keep an old lady company.”
I laughed. And then suddenly I was crying.
“Sit, child.” Gran handed me one of the bowls and waved me toward the suspended pot of stew. “Eat something.”
I tried to compose myself as I ladled stew into my bowl. “I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean to disappear. I just couldn’t leave them. And now, because of me, people have been venturing into the dark wood, and—”
“No,” Max insisted, taking the ladle I offered him. “The search party isn’t your fault. Madame Paget would have gone out on her own, even if everyone else had refused. They found Romy’s poultice on the path leading to the forest, and she insisted that the children had wandered too close. And that you might have gone looking for them.”
I sank into my chair. “She knows about Romy.”
Gran pulled a chair close to the fire for Max. “Are you sure?”
I nodded as I scooped up a steaming bite of venison. “Romy told me. Her mother told her to keep it a secret. I don’t think she’ll tell anyone.”
“Does she know about you?” Gran asked, pulling a stool closer to the fire for herself.
“No. Not that it matters. Everyone probably thinks I’m dead.”
“They don’t,” Max said. “Your mother told everyone you were staying here for a little while, to help your grandmother in her advanced age.”
Gran snorted, but the sound echoed with good humor.
Max smiled. “Your mother was as convinced as I was that you would come back.”
For several minutes, we ate in silence while I processed everything I’d heard. Then, finally, my grandmother turned to me, her expression carefully . . . inscrutable. “What are you doing, chère? You were supposed to deal with the pups, for the good of the entire village.”
“I know. But I can’t do it. I can’t kill them, and I can’t just leave them.”
“Adele—”
“I won’t. And I don’t think leaving them out there would truly help Oakvale, anyway.” I turned to Max, begging him to understand. “The dark wood . . . it talks to me. To all three of us, I think. I don’t mean whatever creature it is that makes us hear the voices from our memories; I mean the woods itself. Have you ever heard it?”
“No.” He frowned, cradling his half-full bowl.
“I’ve felt like it was calling to me for as long as I could remember. But it was always a vague kind of pull before. A feeling that deep down, I might belong there. Then, when I started training, that feeling became . . . more defined. As if the dark wood itself were a presence inside me. A part of me. Or at least, as if it knew me. I thought that was a lie. A trick, intended to scare me. To make me careless. But now . . .”
His focus narrowed on me. “Now, what?”
“When I started spending all of my time out there in wolf form, it was as if the voice of the dark wood came into focus. That’s when it began talking to me in earnest.”
Gran exhaled slowly. “What does it say?”
“It tells me to do things. To stay in my wolf form, and to . . . kill things. That didn’t really matter when the only thing around to kill was monsters. But then people started searching for us. And the dark wood wanted me to kill my own neighbor.”
“I’ve heard the voice,” Gran said, softer than I’d ever heard her speak. “When the dark wood starts to talk to me, I know I’ve been out too long. That I’ve been the wolf for too long. I should have told you that. I should have warned you.”
“You had no way of knowing I would just disappear into the forest.”
She exhaled, and for the first time, I saw real fear swimming in her eyes. “The dark wood wants to keep us, and when you didn’t show up after a couple of days, I worried that it had gotten you.”
“It almost did. I was out there too long, and I lost myself. I . . . I let something bad happen.” Fresh tears formed in my eyes, and the cabin swam beneath them. “Grainger’s father is dead.”
“Mon dieu,” Gran breathed.
Max set his bowl down, his brows dipping low. “You . . . ?”
“No. It was the pups. Monsieur Colbert was on his way to Oldefort to ask for a physician and he heard me talking. He left the path and saw me with the pups, and he figured it all out. He was threatening to burn our entire family alive in the village square. Along with the Pagets. I couldn’t let him do that, and the dark wood was promising me that if I just killed him, everything would be fine.
“I didn’t do it, but . . . I let the pups. I think the forest was talking to them too, and I just . . . let them.” My voice hitched as a sob clogged my throat. “And then they tried to eat him, and I realized what I’d done. I let an innocent man become a threat, then I let the children dispatch with that threat. Because I was a coward. And now Romy’s tasted human flesh. What if she can’t come back from this? What if I let the dark wood make monsters out of
those children?”
Gran shook her head slowly. “Chère, they’re already—”
“No, they aren’t,” I insisted, gripping my spoon so hard that my fingers ached. “They were listening to me. They hunted when I told them to hunt and they stopped when I told them to stop. They didn’t attack Monsieur Colbert until I gave them permission. But then the dark wood told them to eat him.” At least, that’s what I imagined they were hearing. “And now I’m afraid I’ve lost them.”
“Adele.” Max sat straighter, looking me right in the eye. “Maybe it isn’t that simple. Maybe human flesh isn’t a poison apple, and they aren’t damned with one bite. Tom almost certainly hunted humans before you found him. Yet he obeyed you out there, right? As if he were a part of your . . . pack.”
I hadn’t thought of that. Tom was born a whitewulf, in the dark wood. Surely Max was right about his pre-Oakvale subsistence. Yet . . . “Yes, he obeyed me. And both pups backed away from their kill as soon as I told them to. So . . .” I stood, as the power of my conclusion drove me to my feet, my food forgotten. “Maybe it’s not true,” I said, my focus shifting between Max and my grandmother. “Maybe whitewulfs are no more monstrous than we are. Maybe they’ve just been in the dark wood for so long that it’s eroded their humanity. Tilted their inner balance in favor of the beast.”
Gran frowned. “I don’t think that’s possible—”
“It is possible. I know, because it was happening to me. The longer I spent out there, the less I wanted to go home. The more I wanted to hunt. To spill blood. I think . . . I mean, yes, there are differences between whitewulf and redwulf, but I think the only important difference is where we’ve chosen to live.”
“You think Tom and Romy can be redeemed?” Max asked.
I nodded firmly. “I really do. I think they can be taught to hunt monsters, rather than villagers. To eat deer, rather than people. I think they can be guardians, Gran.” I turned to her, capturing her gaze and holding it. “I think we owe them a chance, at least. Because the alternative will only lead to more death. More destruction. If we abandon them in the dark wood, someday we will face them again, when they’ve become a threat to the village. When it’s too late to save them. And if we kill them now, we’ll never know if they might have been enlisted in Oakvale’s defense. If they might have saved lives.”
“Okay . . .” she said, clearly thinking it over. “It’s certainly worth a try. But what will you do with them? You can’t take them back to the village. They seem to have accepted your authority, but if Romy goes back to her family . . . ? If Tom winds up living in another household . . . ?”
“I know.” I shrugged with a glance at the sleeping pups. “I was hoping I could keep them here. Safely away from the village, yet not in the dark wood.”
“Adele, I’m too old to raise pups,” she said.
And though I had my doubts, I nodded. “I’ll raise them. I thought . . . maybe I could stay here with them. I can protect the village from out here, just like you have. And I can teach the pups to do the same.”
“Well, you’ve obviously given this some thought.” Gran stood and laid one hand on my shoulder. “I have some wood to chop and some saplings to clear. Why don’t you let me think about this while I do my chores?”
“Of course.” I’d certainly sprung the whole thing on her.
My grandmother took her maul and headed outside, leaving Max and me alone with the sleeping pups. For one long moment, I stared at my hands and he ate stew, while we tried to figure out what to say to each other.
“I thought I’d never see you again,” he said at last, and the ache in his voice triggered an answering pain deep within me. “I worried that you’d chosen the dark wood.”
“I thought you were certain I’d come back,” I teased softly.
“I was. And yet I still worried that you wouldn’t.”
“I would never choose the dark wood,” I assured him. “But it isn’t that simple. I don’t think anyone ever consciously makes that decision—not even whitewulfs. Because it isn’t a decision, really. The dark wood takes a little more of you every day that you’re out there, until things that seemed unthinkable a week ago suddenly seem acceptable. Or at least unavoidable. I don’t think the dark wood is just a home to monsters, Max. I think it’s the source of monsters. And I’m worried that it’s made one out of me.”
He set his bowl down again and took both of my hands. “No. Adele, no. What happened to Monsieur Colbert—I know that wasn’t easy. And I know you think there must have been some other choice to make. But there wasn’t. What the dark wood wanted you to do is irrelevant. You would have had to make that same choice if he’d found you and the pups here in the clearing. Or in the village. You would have had to do your duty, regardless of what the dark wood whispered into your ear. Because the loss of an entire family of guardians would have been more damaging to Oakvale than the death of one watchman. As cruel as that sounds.”
He was right. But I should have done it myself, rather than letting the pups take a human life.
Gran came in then, carrying an armload of split wood for the fireplace, and Max jumped up to help her. “Adele,” she said while he stacked the wood. “I need to patrol the path to Oakvale. Will you come with me?”
I hesitated for a second. I’d spent so much time in wolf form lately—I’d lost so much of myself—that I wasn’t eager to let go of my human shape. Of the ability to speak. But I wasn’t in the habit of saying no to my grandmother.
“Sure,” I said at last. “Max, will you stay with the pups?”
“Of course.”
“If they wake, tell them to change and give them each a bowl of stew. It’s been a while since they’ve had anything other than raw meat.”
He nodded.
“Adele, why don’t you change and meet me outside?” Gran said on her way out.
“When you and your grandmother return, I’ll head to Oakvale to tell your mother that you’ve come back. I’m sure she and Sofia will want to see you.”
“Sofia. We’re going to have to tell her something. If I stay here with the pups, we’re not going to have the option of waiting until she’s sixteen. At the very least, we’ll have to tell her about her betrothal.” Surely Mama and Gran would see that.
“I agree. And maybe with that much time to get used to the idea, it won’t hit her quite as hard—or as suddenly—as it did you.”
“I hope so. Why don’t you finish your stew? I’ll change, and I’ll be back as soon as I can.”
So Max returned to his bowl, turning his back, as always, to give me privacy while I took off my clothes and reclaimed my four-legged form. But before the transition was complete—when I was still stuck in the middle of it, unable to even rise from the floor—I heard a lupine snarl from outside.
Max rose and lifted the wooden shutter to look out at the front of the clearing. “Adele,” he whispered, closing the shutter. “Hurry. We have company.”
Twenty-Three
Max headed outside, leaving the door cracked open so I could follow. “Monsieur Laurent!” he called, his voice calm and even, yet loud enough to be heard easily. “Don’t make any sudden movements, or you’ll spook the wolf. Just slowly lower your axe and put it on the ground.”
Oh no . . .
I tried to reverse my transformation so I could help Max reason with our uninvited guest, but the tension in my grandmother’s growl made it clear that there would be no time for that. So I pushed through the familiar pain, and seconds later I stood on four paws.
I peeked through the crack between the door and the wall, expecting to see Simon’s father. Instead, I found Simon himself, my friend and my best friend’s fiancé, with his back to me. He was gripping an axe and facing my grandmother, who stood snarling at him in wolf form.
What on earth was he doing out here?
“Maxime?” Simon was clearly surprised to see him. His frame was tense, his axe raised and ready to wield. “Where’s your bow?”
And it would be, if he let Gran retreat into the woods to hide until he was gone. But Simon’s tight grip on the axe spoke volumes.
He was terrified. And he was not going to put down the weapon.
I nosed the front door open slowly, so that it wouldn’t creak. Though Max and my grandmother saw me sneak out of the cabin, Simon still had his back to me, and he did not hear my approach.
“That is no ordinary wolf,” he insisted, and my heart dropped into my stomach. “I was on the path, just inside the forest, when I saw her—Adele’s grandmother. She came out of the cabin. Then the wolf just . . . consumed her.”
Max frowned. “That wolf?” He pointed at Gran, who maintained her defensive stance, still growling softly. “You’re saying that wolf ate Madame Chastain?”
“No, it consumed her form.” Simon spoke so quickly that his words tumbled over one another, but his grip on the axe never weakened. He never took his focus from my grandmother. “She became that wolf. She is loup garou. Grainger was right.” Simon shook his head, fear and astonishment seeming to overwhelm him. “Oakvale has been corrupted by evil from the dark wood—evidence of the devil’s grip on this world—and the infection has spread beyond little Romy Paget. We have to contain it.” He raised his axe, as if he’d throw it, and Gran’s growling grew sharper. Louder.
My pulse raced so fast the world started to lose color.
Max frowned. “Simon, surely you are mistaken.”
“I’m not. Grainger tried to warn us, and we didn’t listen, but we can no longer turn a blind eye to the truth. Draw your weapon. We must save Oakvale from this witch. And her family . . . Adele is staying here, isn’t she? Elena was worried, so she asked me to come check on her, but she’s probably infected as well.” Grief flickered across his face. “This will devastate Elena.”