by Tim O'Rourke
I looked across the table at Calix but this time he broke my stare. I couldn’t help but remember how I’d once thought I’d seen through Julia Miller’s eyes – how I’d seen her making love with a wolf-man on the bed in the little house that I lived in on the edge of the park. But if those were Julia’s memories I was seeing, that love affair had taken place here, in Shade. But perhaps I was wrong about that? I couldn’t be sure of anything. Only an hour ago I’d believed I was human only to be told that all humans were dead and had been bred like cattle in a human farm. And if that was true – if all the humans were dead and I wasn’t one of them – did that mean I truly was a Wicce? And if my mother really had been having some secret affair with a Beautiful Immortal, then who was my father?
As my mind scrambled to make sense of everything I was being told and was expected to believe, Trent started to talk again.
“Seeing as Julia was pregnant, we told her the danger that she was in if she decided to stay in Shade with us,” he said. “We explained how the vampires were searching for us because we had broken into the human farm and it wouldn’t be long before the vampires found us. So, in return for giving Julia a home in Shade, she cast a spell over the town to keep the vampires out. All of us were safe – or so we thought.”
“What do you mean by that?” I asked him.
Before answering my question, Rea ground the butt of her cigar beneath the heel of her boot, then said, “During Julia’s time in Shade, she fit in well with us and we became good friends. Myself and Julia got on extremely well and…”
Before Rea had a chance to finish what it was she was saying, Calix pushed his chair back from the table and stood up. “I’ve got to get out of here.”
From my seat I watched Calix stride across the pub, yank open the door, and disappear out into the night. Once more, those gathered about the table shot a look at each other, then turned their attention back on me. Before I’d had the chance to ask the others why they thought Calix had left so quickly, Rea smiled at me and continued her story.
“The night that Julia gave birth to you, Mila, I nursed her in the room where you now sleep. Julia, just like everyone else in Shade was overjoyed by your birth. You were such a precious thing to us. Your birth was a sign – a sign of a new start and beginning for all of us. We were so happy that such a precious thing like you could be born into a world where there was so much hate and bloodshed.” She paused and wiped away a stray tear which had bled from the corner of one eye. She sniffed as if close to tears as she remembered the happy occasion of my birth, then continued. “Your birth gave us hope, Mila. We hoped that the war between the Beautiful Immortals would come to an end and we could at last – all of us – live in peace. Understandably, Julia, your mother, wanted to spend some time with you, so we left her alone with her new baby so you could both begin to bond and to get some rest.”
A pause fell over the conversation but now they had started and seemed to have told me so much already, I was eager for them to continue. I wanted to know how it was that I’d been separated from my mother and ended up being raised by vampires in Maze. “So what happened next?”
Knocking his sandy-coloured hair from his eyes, Rush looked at me and said, “I returned to the house later that night to check on Julia and the baby. I brought some food and stuff, but to my dismay they – you and your mother – were both gone. I could see that the furniture had been knocked over and the cottage was in disarray. To my horror, I suspected there had been some kind of struggle and I wasted no time in raising the alarm with the others.”
“We searched the whole of Shade,” Trent cut in, wringing his hands before him. “But we couldn’t find any trace of you and Julia.”
Trent glanced at Rea as she picked up where he had left off. “We heard screams and headed into the woods,” she said. “And it was there that we discovered the vampires. They were standing before a burning stake to which Julia had been tied. We saw that one of the vampires was holding the baby – was holding you, Mila – in his arms.”
“Didn’t you do anything to help?” I gasped, shaking my head from side to side in disbelief.
“Of course we tried to attack them,” Rush said, “but the vampire that had snatched you threatened to kill you if we didn’t break off the attack.”
“And who was this vampire?” I asked, wondering whether I might recognise the name. Which one of the vampires that helped raise me was responsible for my kidnap?
Rea looked at me from beneath her long, dark eyelashes and said, “The vampire called himself Sidney Watson. He said that if we ever tried to find you – come after you – the vampires would return and kill us all.”
To my surprise, Rea suddenly burst into tears. She covered her face with her hands. From behind her fingers, she spoke in spluttering sobs. “I feel… I wish… we had done more… if only we had tried harder to save your mother… to save you… I’ve had to live with that guilt…”
Reaching out, with one hand, I squeezed her shoulder. “Please don’t upset yourself, Rea. I don’t blame you for what happened. I really do believe that you tried to protect me and my mother. You have nothing to feel guilty about.”
“You’re very kind,” Rea said, taking her hands from over her face and sniffing back her tears.
While Rea wiped the tears from her face and blew her nose on a handkerchief that Rush had passed to her, Trent started to talk once again.
“Despite the magic spell your mother cast over Shade, the vampires somehow found a way in, and they would do so again, but this time in greater numbers. The vampires then fled with the baby – with you, Mila – and to our everlasting shame, we were powerless to come after you. The vampires were greater in number than us.”
As they sat and told me what happened that night and how I’d been snatched from my mother – how she had been burnt at the stake in the woods – my heart broke. It felt more than broken, it felt like it had been stamped on, kicked and beaten and twisted out of shape. As everything I’d been told began to sink in, I felt that rush of energy begin to pulse and surge through me. It bled through my now twisted heart, into my arms, and down to my fingertips. I made fists with my hands to stop that energy bursting out and turning the wolves sitting before me, the pub, the village of Shade, and the world beyond it to nothing more than dust.
Chapter Three
Mila Watson
A gust of wind roared along the alleyway adjacent to the Weeping Wolf. The flames flickered in the fireplace and nearly went out. Rush got up from the table and threw another log onto the fire, sending another flurry of sparks and embers up the chimney. The windows rattled in their timber frames and rain began to pelt against the glass. And in the silence that had fallen over us gathered around the table, I could remember seeing through the eyes of Julia Miller as she had stood bound to the stake in the middle of the woods, flames lapping at her heels, just like the flames that now ebbed and flowed in the fireplace just feet from me.
I glanced up from the fire and looked at Trent, Rea, and Rush. “I saw that…”
“You saw what?” Trent asked me.
“When the vampire – when Flint – tied me to the stake in the middle of the woods last night, I saw Julia Miller, my mother, burning to death at the stake. But last night I didn’t realise she was my mother and at first I thought it was me that was burning to death. But I saw something else, too…”
“What?” Rea cut in.
I stared across the table at them before saying, “I saw all of you. I saw werewolves circling Julia Miller, my mother, as she burnt to death. You were all howling.”
“We were howling in anguish at the loss of our friend,” Rea said, dabbing the corner of each eye with the hanky. She then set it to one side and took another cigar from her shirt pocket. Instead of lighting it, she rolled it between her long fingers. “We wanted to save your mother but were powerless to do so. By the time the vampires had fled the scene of their crime, your mother was already engulfed in flames.”
“And that is the strangest thing of all,” Trent said. “It seemed that in death your mother did in fact turn to stone and become a statue.”
I could remember how those people, who I had once believed to be my parents, had spent so much of their lives searching for the statue of a witch. I had no doubt that it was the statue of my mother they had been searching for. But why? I did not know.
“So where is this statue now?” I asked them.
Rush shook his head and said, “We have no idea. The statue disappeared soon after that night.”
“The people that I once believed to be my parents, my mother and father, spoke about that statue,” I said. “That’s the reason they came to Shade. But it would appear that they disappeared, too – just like the statue. Do any of you know why they would’ve wanted the statue so much?”
Trent, Rea, and Rush looked at each other somewhat mystified, then back at me.
“They were vampires, weren’t they?” Trent said. “Perhaps they wanted some kind of trophy of what happened that night. After all, the vampires had killed the last remaining Wicce – witch.”
“We’re hoping, Mila, after everything you have learnt tonight, you now realise how cunning and evil the vampires truly are,” Rea said. “Perhaps they wanted to put the statue of your mother in the centre of Maze so they could have a constant reminder of how they tortured and killed her. A reminder of how truly powerful the vampires believe they are.”
As the wind and the rain continued to hammer against the windows and rattle the door in its frame, I couldn’t help but wonder how Trent and the others could be so sure that I was indeed the baby that had been stolen away that night. They hadn’t seen that baby in nineteen years, so I could be anyone. Sure, my last name was Watson, just like that of Sidney, who stole me away and it would appear, given me to his brother and sister-in-law to raise as their own. But what was in a name?
“How can you be so sure that I’m Julia Miller’s daughter?” I asked them.
With a smile playing on his lips, which lit up his already handsome face, Trent said, “You are the spitting image of your mother.”
“Trent is right,” Rea said. “Apart from the difference in hair colour, you are blonde and she was dark, you look the same. You are so alike, and that is the reason why the villagers kept staring at you when you first arrived in Shade. To look at you is like looking at a ghost of your mother. And that is the reason why we were first so reluctant to let you stay, Mila, and become a part of our family. The warning that Sidney Watson had once given continues to ring in our ears.”
Rush spoke up and said, “Ever wonder why Calix was so hostile to you at first?”
“I guess,” I said, remembering how rude, cocky, and belligerent Calix had first been with me after arriving in Shade.
“Calix thought that the vampires had sent you here as some kind of spy,” Rush said.
“I’m no spy,” I gasped. “I came here looking for who I once believed were my parents. In fact, my Uncle Sidney gave me his truck, gave me a gun…”
“Was it him who gave you the silver bullets?” Rea cut in.
I nodded my head. “Yes.”
“Perhaps he was hoping you would finish what the vampires once started,” Trent said, “and kill us.”
I couldn’t believe my Uncle Sidney would want me to kill anyone, I thought to myself. Despite being a giant of a man, my uncle had always been very kind and gentle in his own way. After my parents – the people I believed to be my parents – had disappeared while in search of the statue, Sidney had taken me into his home and raised me like a daughter. I couldn’t believe that Sidney would have given me those silver bullets to kill werewolves unless for some reason I desperately needed to do so. There was only one other person I could think of that would truly know my uncle’s motives, and that was Flint.
“I’d like to speak with Flint,” I said, not so much as a question but as a statement.
“I think that would be unwise,” Trent said.
“Flint is my boyfriend, or he was once at least,” I said. “We shared a lot. We were raised together as friends and I still have feelings for him.”
“The only feelings that Flint has for you are ones of hate,” Rush said. Were his words an attempt to quash my desire to speak with my friend? I knew that Rush liked me too. I had told Rush about Flint. I knew Rush had feelings for me, as he had told me as much.
Looking right back at Rush, I said, “I can’t believe that Flint hates me.”
“It was Flint who dragged you through the woods last night and tied you to that pole,” Rea reminded me. “It was Calix – a werewolf – who saved you.”
“Don’t you see, Mila,” Trent started, “that Flint tied you to that post last night so the vampires who attacked Shade could cremate you like they once did to your mother?”
“I just can’t believe he would do that,” I said with a shake of my head.
Striking a match and lighting the cigar that dangled from the corner of her mouth, Rea blew smoke at me and said, “Mila, you need to believe that Flint and the other vampires were going to send you to your death last night. You really need to kill Flint.”
Chapter Four
Mila Watson
I pushed my chair back from the table and stood up. The sound of the chair legs scraping across the cobbled floor sounded like cannon fire in the close confines of the pub. “I’m not going to kill Flint. I’m not going to kill anyone. I’m not a killer.”
“But Flint is a killer,” Trent was quick to try and convince me. “It was Flint all along, with the other vampires, who snuck through the magic spell your mother once created over Shade and killed Annabel. It was Flint who killed a child in the woods – a child who had done no wrong. Flint and the others killed Annabel as a warning.”
I widened my eyes at what I was hearing. “Warning? What kind of warning?”
“A warning that if we didn’t send you back,” Rea said, “that if we let you stay in Shade it would lead to our deaths. You have to believe us, Mila. The vampires aren’t your friends despite having been raised by them. They are ruthless killers who will stop at nothing to get what they want.”
“Why do they want me?” I said with a shake of my head in utter bewilderment. “What makes me so special?”
Getting up from his seat and coming around the table to stand next to me, Trent said, “You, Mila, are the last of the Wicce, which makes you very special. Your mother had incredible powers. She would have been a great ally to the vampires.”
Turning to look at him, I said “So why did they kill her?”
Blowing cigar smoke through her nose, Rea shrugged her shoulders. “Perhaps your mother refused to help the vampires and that’s why they killed her and then stole you. The vampires could mould you, make you believe that you were one of them. Perhaps even get you to fall in love with one of them – someone like Flint – so if one day you did discover the truth, learn about the vampires’ treachery, your feelings would be confused. You’d be torn between what you know to be right and the right thing to do.”
“And what is the right thing to do?” I shot back.
Trent came closer still, taking one of my hands in his. The skin covering them felt coarse and rough. “Mila, the right thing to do is to kill Flint – to send a signal back to the vampires that you know the truth.”
“Stay here with us,” Rea said, a smile twitching at the corners of her full lips. “Keep Shade safe from the vampires just like your mother once did.”
Rush leant forward in his chair. “Protect us and yourself from your mother’s killers and those who have deceived you your whole life, denied you the right to know your mother.”
From behind a cloud of cigar smoke, Rea said, “T
he vampires showed your mother no mercy. Your friend Flint showed Annabel no mercy. She was just a twelve-year-old girl and he ripped her throat out.”
“You can’t be sure that it was Flint who did that,” I said.
“If not Flint, then one of the others,” Rush said. “But believe us, Mila, they’re all the same.”
I slid my hand from Trent’s and took a step away. I took a deep breath before making a sudden confession. “I dug up Annabel’s grave and I didn’t find a child’s body – I found a dead wolf,” I said. “And its paws had been nailed into the hard ground. Wolfsbane had been placed on top of the grave.”
Trent tried hard to disguise the look of surprise that now dominated his face. Or was it surprise that I could see? Did he not have a confession of his own to make? “Werewolves, especially the child wolves,” he started to explain, “have restless spirits and if they’re not nailed down, it is believed that the restless spirit of the dead wolf will break free and roam the world in torment. The wolfsbane also stops this – stops the dead wolf from climbing from its grave.”
“You said Flint was responsible for killing Annabel,” I said, “but who killed all the other children in the graveyard? I’ve seen a number of children’s graves.”
Crushing out her cigar between thumb and forefinger, Rea held my gaze and said, “Clarabelle killed them – Annabel’s twin sister. That’s why you only see Clarabelle out at night, while the other children are locked safely away in their beds. Clarabelle is restless, she has problems controlling her temper, and has killed some of the other children.”
“But despite what she has done,” Rush chipped in, “and how despicable her crimes might seem to non-wolves, we won’t give up on her. It is common for some wolves to struggle with the demon that lives inside of them. One day she will learn to master the monster that lurks within her, just like we have done.”