I had a weak moment. In the book—The Book—there is a ritual… A ritual so dark that, if Grandmother was alive still and caught me looking at it, she would beat me with the book. I almost brought her back.
Of course, it would not have been her. I know this. Her energy has passed, moved beyond this word and through the veil. But I want her back here on this side of the veil with me. Until Grandmother abandoned my soul, I never truly realised how alone I am.
There is Dante. In a sense, I have him. But he is no Grandmother. He is not family. He is a wolf, spellbound.
Dante helped me bury Grandmother under her favourite flowers in the garden (dog-roses). Since that night, the roses have grown lusher than ever before. She must have had a little magic in her before her last breath.
I am in the garden now as dawn kisses the horizon. My fingers run over the soil that embrace Grandmother for eternity. But I am interrupted when the wood panels opposite slide to the side.
I look up; the wolf-in-human-skin slips through the gap and drags something behind him. An animal, hunted and killed.
Dante gives me a wolfish grin and heaves the animal behind him into my garden. Then he shuts the panels and secures them.
My gaze runs over the carcass. “A red stag,” I say and wipe my hands on my blue skirt. “You impress me.”
As nude as the day he was born, Dante stretches out his muscles and flexes his joints. After his turns, his body aches all over. He brings me prizes—today, the red stag—and I tend to his pain.
He crouches beside me and touches a fleeting kiss to my temple. “My lady asked for antlers, so antlers she will have.”
“Your lady?” I push to my feet and arch my brow at him. “I am not your wife, Dante. I am your … companion.”
“So be my wife,” he says with a wink. “And let us squabble within marriage.”
I do what I always do when he proposes marriage; “Name the day, and we’ll wed.”
Dante never names the day. We will never wed.
To hide from the truth that dares slip into our time together, Dante kisses me on the lips, as softly as he can manage after a turn. I swat him away.
“You have horrid breath and smell most wretched. Have you rolled in a dung patch of late?”
“Less complaining, more bathing me,” he demands.
I roll my eyes and lead him up to my home. In his human body, he has more trouble heaving the stag up the wooden stairs, but he manages. And as he always does, he dumps the prize in my herb room to be butchered later.
I boil water for his bath; the oils are already laid out on a tray to be massaged into him afterwards. Dante comes up behind me at the fireplace and wraps his arms around me. Together, we watch the flames lick up the base of the pot and wait for the water to bubble.
Today is not a day for my brews, concoctions or remedies. I do not open my shop on the days of full moons, and I cook enough to prepare for how demanding Dante is.
This time of month, his needs burn stronger than ever.
We have our agreement.
The full moon comes closer, and this is when his want to be around me heightens. After the moon, he will return to his home and there will be a fortnight in which we do not speak or touch.
Tonight, we touch and speak.
There will never be another future ahead of us.
Our lies are all we have and we need to live within that deadly comfort … two weeks out of every month.
The End.
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