By These Ten Bones

by Clare B. Dunkle

  “First to the right and then to the left,” he said as they turned down a side passage. A couple of hundred feet beyond the second turning, their tunnel widened and made a sharp bend. Someone had driven an iron ring into the wall at that bend and attached to it a stout length of chain.

  Carver set the lantern down at the beginning of the rough room. He walked to the chain and lifted it to reveal an iron collar at its free end. He fastened the large, unwieldy collar loosely around his neck, sliding a metal guard over the catch. Maddie watched him with interest, standing by the lantern.

  “You know what to do,” he reminded her.

  “I stay here in plain sight where the cave widens,” she recited. “I distract you until you change, and then I can leave.”

  “Be sure you don’t come any closer,” he cautioned. “Stay away from me. I can come to here.” He stopped about ten feet from her. He began pacing at the end of the chain as she watched from the passageway. “I wish it weren’t you, Madeleine,” he said. “I wish it were someone else.”

  “Does it hurt?” asked Maddie.

  “I don’t know,” he answered, walking back and forth in an arc. “I can’t remember anything about it. Except it’s like a nightmare, like waking up after a bad dream.”

  “Why do you need to be distracted?” she asked. He kept walking, staring at the ground.

  “Once I’m changed, my hands are too clumsy to work the buckle. But if I don’t have anything to think about before I’m changed all the way, I can still unfasten the collar,” he said. “If someone’s here, I don’t think to do that.”

  “Why don’t you just use a padlock?” the practical Maddie wanted to know.

  “And do what with the key?” he asked impatiently. “If it’s within reach, I might throw it away somewhere during the night, and if you take it, you might trip over a root and break your neck out there. Either way, I starve to death chained to this wall. Even if you come back without the key, I’m dead. You couldn’t get this collar off without it, and no blacksmith will let me go. He’ll find out why I’m like this and then kill me.”

  Maddie thought about that for a minute. “What do you change into?” she asked.

  “Don’t you know?” countered the young man, stopping to stare at her. “Didn’t Ned tell you what happens?”

  “Not anything that made sense,” she replied.

  “You have to not run away,” he said urgently. “Not till I’m completely changed, no matter what. I’ll come after you. I’ll kill you if you run away too soon.”

  “I won’t,” she answered defensively. He continued to stare at her.

  “Come here,” he said. And Maddie almost went. She took a step, then paused.

  “Why?” she wanted to know.

  “Because I told you to, you stinking brat!”

  Maddie looked at the young man in astonishment. He began pacing rapidly to and fro as close as he could come to her, staring at her all the while.

  “You smell,” he said, his eyes glittering with excitement. “You smell like sweat. You smell like blood. You spineless slug, you mound of mud, come here!” he shrieked. “Just three more steps, and wouldn’t you get a surprise!”

  Maddie blinked. A black shadow seemed to lie across his face. His eyes gleamed out through it, brilliantly green. She stooped and lifted the lantern to shine it full on him, but the shadow on his face didn’t move.

  “You blister,” he snarled, his voice harsh and rough. “You squashy bubble of blood. Just one little tug, and the bones come all apart. Just one little prick, and it all comes gushing out!”

  Shadow lay around him, spreading out and climbing up the cave walls. Those eyes were like lamps above her now, round and glowing.

  “Blood,” purred the shadow in a thick voice. “Salty, sweaty blood.”

  The black figure was indistinct in the dimness of the cave, flickering in the darkness. Maddie couldn’t see anymore where it began and where it ended. It seemed to reach out and engulf her little pool of lantern light. It swung its arms, and she heard a metal clashing, like big knives being sharpened.

  “Come here now!” it screamed. It bent over her in the darkness, and the lantern flickered and dimmed. “I’m hungry!” wailed the shadow in an agony of greed. “Warm blood! I’m hungry!”

  Gripping the lantern, Maddie tore off down the passage, the light forming wild patterns on the walls. She tripped over a boulder, and the candle flame guttered and sank almost to nothing. The darkness pressed in around her.

  “Come back!” sobbed that thick voice, echoing along the passage. “Come back so I can eat you alive!”

  8

  The opening of the cave was in sight before her, a narrow rectangle of cool gray twilight. Maddie dropped the lantern and scrambled out into the semidarkness. She ran until she thought her lungs would burst. Her sides ached as she stumbled along, the loch waters rustling beside her and the steep folds of the hills shadowing her way. On and on she ran until the hard, square bulk of the castle stood before her and the black mouth of its open doorway welcomed her in. She careered headlong up the stone steps in the darkness and flung herself into the friendly candlelight of Lady Mary’s hall.

  Lady Mary was sitting up in bed, her long white hair in a braid and the curtain by her head pulled back so she could read in the light of the candle. She gaped in astonishment at the girl who stood gasping on the landing, unable to speak.

  The old woman hurried over and steered her toward the light. Maddie collapsed onto a padded bench, her whole body sore. A minute later, a silver cup appeared beside her, and Lady Mary sat down on the bed.

  “What happened? Is it Black Ewan’s boy?” she asked, looking very worried.

  Maddie took ragged breaths and listened to the pounding of her heart. She thought about the wood-carver and her happy daydreams. Then she relived for just an instant what had happened in the cave, and her daydreams crumbled into revulsion. But she mustn’t give anything away. She had sworn on her soul. She had made a promise to protect him, no matter what he was, and she was determined to keep it.

  “I brought your food,” she gasped, “and I went down the path by the loch. I saw a thing, and I followed it. But when night fell, it put me in mind of that thing that attacked the carver. I came running back, thinking it was chasing me.”

  Lady Mary walked to the window. “What did your thing look like?” she asked, a hint of amusement in her voice.

  “It looked like a shadow,” answered the girl. “A big black shadow.”

  “Maybe you saw a werewolf,” suggested the old woman, looking out the window. “Tonight is the full moon.”

  Maddie sat still in shock. A werewolf! An evil creature that changed with the moon. When had she faced that hissing shape in the doorway? Was it a month ago that she had dreamed of her town littered with bones?

  “But it didn’t look like a wolf,” she whispered.

  “I don’t think they do,” replied Lady Mary, turning from the window. “People call them wolves because of their connection to the moon. I have a book about them around here somewhere, but I haven’t looked at it in a long time. You’d best be home, girl. Your mother will worry.”

  “I don’t want to go back out there,” answered Maddie, and that at least was the perfect truth. “Couldn’t I just stay on this bench? I won’t make a sound.”

  “Come up into bed by me,” proposed the old woman. “That’s where Kathleen used to sleep before she died and quit my service. I do miss that girl.”

  Maddie scrambled into the soft bed with Lady Mary and pulled the linen sheets up to her nose. Kathleen was Black Ewan’s childhood sweetheart. He missed her, too, said all the town widows. It was strange, reflected the tired girl, that the love of the same person could turn two people to hatred.

  The next morning, Maddie was up in the gray dawn to go to Mass. Lachlan’s mother was there, too, her face like a light. Her boy had woken up at last. He didn’t remember anything about what had happened the last two days, but h
e had eaten all the food she cooked him and begged for more.

  How fervent Maddie was in Mass that morning! God had spared her to look on another day. Safe in the damp little church, she thought about the evil shadow in the cave. Thank God it hadn’t gotten her. Pray God it never would.

  Ned spotted her as she gathered eggs. “You’re alive,” he called cheerfully.

  “I did just what you told me to do,” she said with a shudder, coming over to him. Mad Angus was dozing out of the wind. She looked around and lowered her voice. “Is he a werewolf?” she asked.

  “He is,” confirmed the Englishman. “Ugly brute, ain’t he? Ain’t a ugly enough name.”

  “Was he the same thing that came to my house?” she wanted to know. The old man nodded.

  “That was a long night,” he said. “I was afraid. Up all night. At last I decided he can’t get out of the cave. That’s when I heard him scream.” Maddie thought of the stone shards at the cave mouth. That’s what had made the crack wider.

  “But how is it possible?” she demanded. “That creature tore up Carver. It couldn’t have been him.”

  “It was him,” affirmed the Traveler calmly. “The farmhands say you hit him with something. You cut him, I think. When he smelled the blood, he can’t stand it. Then he cut himself.”

  The weather was gray and dreary, with a chilly wind. The men were still away from home. Maddie thought about the wood-carver all day long without meaning to think of him at all. Part of her was waiting for him to come back, and part of her was dreading it. She didn’t think she wanted to see him again.

  “I wonder where my poor, sick boy is,” sighed Fair Sarah as they ate their lonely meal. “I hope he’s warm. It’s good we got the grain stacked. There’s rain coming in from the west.”

  Fair Sarah’s sick boy didn’t come back all day, and Maddie couldn’t help wondering why. Maybe he had strangled on that chain, or maybe he had wandered away into the tunnels of the cave. Maybe he never meant to come back. Maybe he was ashamed to, now that she knew.

  Maddie thought about that, about how upset he had been that she would be there. Of course he must be ashamed. He hadn’t wanted her to see him. She remembered his handsome face and wary eyes, his low voice talking to her. He wasn’t the son of a chief, and he wasn’t perfect, either, but she had admitted that she loved him, and she had promised to protect him. She should find out what was wrong.

  After she took Lady Mary the evening meal, she made the walk down the path again. The cold air had settled to the bottom of the valley, and the wind whipped across the steel-gray water. It was growing dark when she reached the cave. She knelt in the entrance to light the lantern with the chunk of burning peat she had brought and crept cautiously down the narrow tunnel, her heart stopping at every shadow.

  A body slumped on the ground at the end of the iron chain, indistinct in the feeble light. Setting down the lantern, she inched fearfully toward the silent figure. She found no snarling, bubbling monster. The wood-carver lay shivering in the grip of a high fever. His lean face looked frail and pinched, and when she touched him, he moaned in pain.

  There’s no sense just standing here, thought the practical girl, and she set to work. She managed to unfasten the heavy collar and lift it from his neck, but he was unconscious, and no efforts roused him. She dragged him across the room before she realized that she would never get him home. Tucking his sheepskin blanket around him, Maddie puzzled over the problem of moving him out of the cave, but she could think of no solution. She hurried away into the cloudy night.

  The next morning, she was out of the house before dawn and down the path again. Her mother was gullible enough to think she was at morning Mass because Maddie had never deceived her before, but someone else was bound to notice her trips back and forth if she didn’t get him home soon.

  The wood-carver still jerked and cried out in delirium, but she managed to get him onto his knees and staggering a short distance. Time after time, she urged him up and helped him crawl a little, his progress lit by the lantern on the ground in front of them. At last she got him out of the cave and into the cold shadows of morning as a thin rain began to drizzle down. But the path was too long, and he was desperately ill. Maddie wrapped the sheepskin around his hot, shivering form, and then she tucked her own checked blanket around him, watching the tiny drops of rain trickle down his black hair. She hurried up the path again, thinking about what to do.

  “Father Mac,” she called as the priest left the little stone church.

  “Where were you, child?” he boomed. “You weren’t in Mass.”

  “No, I’ve found something, Father, and I’m needing your help.” She led the priest down the path by the loch.

  “What were you doing here so early?” he wondered, squinting into the rain.

  “Looking,” answered Maddie, thinking furiously. “I hoped Carver might be coming home, and then I found him.”

  Father Mac knelt down by the delirious wood-carver, eyeing the chipped and widened cave entrance with a puzzled frown. Then he picked the young man up with a grunt and heaved him across his shoulder.

  Fair Sarah was beside herself with anxiety and relief when her sick boy came home. “I knew he was wandering like Angus!” she exclaimed, stripping the wet shirt from him. “He’ll kill himself yet with this cold and damp. He’s raving again, just raving!”

  Maddie huddled by the peat fire to warm herself and watched her mother fuss over Carver. She sat next to the fire and teased baskets of loose wool that day, combing out the brambles while he groaned and whispered. It was just like it had been a month ago, but now everything was different. Before, she had been fascinated by the mysterious young man. Now she knew the mystery.

  Next morning, the wood-carver still shivered and shook, but he was back in his right mind. He waited until Fair Sarah went out into the dripping rain, and then he called to Maddie.

  “What did I do?” he asked her, just as he had before. She stared at him, thinking about what he had done. The insults. The hatred. The horror.

  “Nothing,” she said shortly. Then she realized she should say more. “I did what I was supposed to,” she elaborated, “and when you didn’t come back, I went and fetched you. Father Mac carried you home partway, but nobody knows except me.”

  “So I didn’t do anything? Nothing at all?” he asked, watching her guarded expression. Maddie shook her head. She was telling a lie, and they both knew it. She had told more lies in the last three days than in the three years before them.

  The wood-carver stared at the cobwebbed ceiling with hollow eyes, and Maddie turned to leave. “Wait,” he whispered. “Just a little longer.” She sat down on her mother’s stool and waited.

  “I had a name,” he began quietly. “My name used to be Paul. I was a MacLean, from the Island of Trees. Our house stood by a little mill over the water, away from all the other houses. My father was a wood-carver, his father, too, and he taught me and my older brother. I used to follow the cows and stay with them days while I did a bit of carving.

  “One night something happened. Something terrible happened. I woke up, and my sisters were screaming, my mother, too, and I heard my father shouting. I wasn’t very old, only seven or eight, and I didn’t go out to help. I crawled under the box bed, curled up as small as I could. Then no more shouts, just screams, even from my father and my brother. Ripping and crashing and other sounds—I can’t even think about them. Another scream, loud and long, a scream right out of hell. And then silence, except for breathing. My breathing, and something else breathing. And then something in the room began to talk.”

  The wood-carver turned on his pillow, cringing at the memory, and his anxious eyes found her face. “It was talking to me,” he said, almost in a whisper. “It knew where I was hiding. It said—but I can’t tell you what it said. I can’t ever tell you what it said. It dragged me out from under the bed, and I don’t know what it looked like, but it was big, bigger than a man, with big round eyes. It bit me o
n the shoulder with huge teeth, bit me so deep I thought it would bite me in half.

  “I don’t know what happened then. Maybe I fainted. But the next thing I knew, it was morning, and light was coming in through the door. I was lying in a puddle of blood. Not a puddle—a lake of blood. The room around me was torn apart. And my family—they were torn apart, too. Blood splashed up the walls and onto the blankets, it was just like slaughtering day. And next to me was a man I’d never seen, lying there sound asleep. When I moved, he woke and sat up, and his face was covered with blood. He looked at me, all confused, and then he burst into tears. He sobbed out loud like a baby, running his bloody hands through his hair.

  “Then Ned came running in, puffing—I’d never seen him before that day. But he burst into tears, too, and he and that man cried and cried, but me, I don’t think I cried at all. They took my shirt off to look at the bite, it was like the teeth of a trap had dug into me. Then Ned found our big butchering knife and gave it to the man, and he crawled off behind the oatmeal chest, and I didn’t see him again. Ned caught me by the arms and helped me out into the yard. He told me we were leaving, so I took my father’s carving tools from his bench by the door. Ned set the house on fire, and we walked away and left it, and I’ve never been back there again.”

  The carver took a deep breath and passed his hands over his face. Then he composed himself again, looking away from her.

  “Ned has places all over the country, hiding places for me when I change. We never stay anywhere very long so no one takes notice of us. Ned told me that day that I don’t have a name anymore because I’m dead just like my folks. The bite took my life away even though I seem alive. He said I have to stay away from the living because I can’t ever live again. My kind kills people that we love.”

  Maddie stared at that white face, too shocked to speak. She thought of the little boy left alive in a pool of his own parents’ blood.