The Eye of the Wolf

by Sadie Vanderveen

  “As his grandson, I learned that to be a king, a person must not only understand his place in his country, or the world, but he must also understand the people who live in that country. Those people are not subjects, but members of a world that is vastly different from everywhere else. He saw Amor as a small family that would continue to grow as the seasons change and to adjust to the world beyond our shores, but also remain the fairy tale it is seen as.” Will locked eyes with Mikayla, holding her gaze with his own. Infinite sadness shining through the gray and paralyzing her. “Amor shall never be the same again as she passes from beneath the reign of King James, but his light, the light that has called us all here today will continue to shine, brighter with each day as we hold the memory of him within our hearts. He would not want us to mourn. He would want us to laugh and enjoy our own lives as he enjoyed his own. He would want us to seek out the love that is ours to find and to revel in the fairy tale that he worked hard all his life to preserve.”

  Will paused and glanced over the heads of the people gathered. Then, his eyes returned to Mikayla’s, but she could no longer look at him. Anger, resentment, sadness, and longing burned within her.

  “He was a native to this land who traveled the world seeking adventure and freedom for all. We shall remember him always simply as James.” Will bowed his head and moved from the lectern to the seat beside his sister. All was silent in the church except for the faint echo of feet shifting along the stone floor.

  The man next to Mikayla sniffled and wiped his tears with a worn handkerchief. His knarled hands smoothed the ancient handkerchief on his knee, knuckles swollen from over use. The faded blue forget-me-knots embroidered so carefully years before were a symbol of an old lover who was not forgotten. He sighed heavily and shook his head. He murmured to himself that things would never be the same now.

  Mikayla swallowed stiffly. It was hard for her to imagine that the death of a man who had been sick for a very long time would affect the people so deeply. She knew that the death of the President of the United States would not affect the American people as deeply as the death of this king, except perhaps for President John F. Kennedy. She suddenly understood the difference between the ancient culture of Amor and the relatively new culture of America. It wasn’t a sense of independence since the people of Amor were free and had the same rights that Americans held so dear. It was the sense of belonging to something greater than what they were individually. It was a sense of pride in a nation that could withstand the world that was constantly changing around it. It was humbling to realize just how strong the people of Amor loved their leader and their island nation.

  Will looked down at his hands, clasped tightly in his lap. His heart was heavy with the loss of his grandfather, but more than that, it was the weight of the crime his own hand had hidden. He stretched his hands out in front of him, looking at the long fingers, unadorned, nails cut short and stained from the chemicals he used to develop his pictures. Tanned, they were not the hands of a future king, but they would have to be since he was a future king of Amor. He sighed heavily, wishing the burden on him was less. Wishing, for just one moment as he had done so often in the last three days, that they could go back in time to that awful day when Jonathan had been swept from the deck into the roiling waves. Wishing the clock would stop and would transport him back in time to right before he made that fateful decision that could never be erased. Wishing that they could go back in time to prior to his grandfather’s death and stop this horrific crime that had been committed against his family and against the people of Amor. A single tear coursed down his cheek, defying the solid exterior that had carried him through the day.

  Mikayla watched Will from her seat. She could see the back of his head, the fine hairs disarrayed after walking in the afternoon breeze outside. His head was tipped down, and he did not raise it, even when he stood for the final prayers and for communion. His broad shoulders, normally so proud, were slumped in defeat. Despite her internal anger, Mikayla felt sad for him. She was angry with him for lying to her about who he was, but her heart had opened enough to him in the two months of knowing him that she could feel sadness for a family member. She understood what it was to lose someone she was close to, even when it was expected. Somehow, a piece of her knew, he had never lied.

  Will lifted his head slightly. He could feel Mikayla’s cool blue eyes on him. He knew it was her, watching him through the crowded cathedral. He always knew when she was watching him, even if he didn’t always show it. He could feel the wall that he had broken through being rebuilt as he sat there, barely listening to the final prayers of the Cardinal who had come from Italy for this burial. His heart ached with the knowledge that Mikayla was, at that moment, shutting herself away from him. And he knew he would never be close to her again. She would never understand his reasons for not identifying himself beyond a simple name.

  Slowly, Will turned his head around until his eyes locked with Mikayla’s across the heads of the gathered mourners. Her eyes were sad, a sadness he hadn’t expected to be there. There was no anger, the one thing he had expected to see. What he did see, however, was a coldness that could have frozen the tropical island of Amor. The coldness froze him in his seat, making him cold inside and out. Mikayla never blinked; she never looked away. Instead, she held his gaze, freezing him with a look that had once held passion enough to melt him and make him hers eternally.

  Will swallowed, nodded slightly in her direction and then turned back around as the Cardinal ended the funeral mass and headed back up the aisle, the casket immediately following him. He ushered his sister from the seats into the aisle and held Victoria’s arm in his own, supporting her as tears coursed down her cheeks and sobs ripped from her, blending with the angelic chords of the “Ave Maria”.

  Mikayla watched them go, her eyes on his back, cloaked in an elegant navy suit, tailored to his toned physique. His head remained bowed as he walked from the cathedral, bearing the weight of his sister and her grief. She wanted to find him outside and hold him close to her, love him and share his grief with him. But she knew that could never be and so she bowed her head and exited the cathedral through the side door she had entered from. Her heart froze over as the heat of the sun beat down on her head.

  Mikayla moved through the crowded city streets towards her house. Although she knew they would now bury King James in the tomb within the Secluded City, Mikayla knew she couldn’t go. She couldn’t be that close to him. She couldn’t ever be that close to him. Now that she knew the truth, she wished she had stood her ground the night before when she asked him to leave.

  Mikayla walked around the house and stood in the sand, feeling the heat of the day radiating into her cold feet. She felt cold, the kind of cold that could seep into the bones. Her feet were warm; the sun was warm on her body, but still she was cold. Deep inside, her heart that had opened to the stranger from a tropical paradise was slowly closing, freezing over. She had allowed herself to open to him, to love him as she had never loved another. She had shared with him parts of herself she had never shared with another. And now, as she stood in the sand, the tropical breezes blowing her hair loose from its French twist, she cried. She cried not for the loss of a king but for the loss of her first true love, for she had allowed herself, in that one brief and shining moment, when his lips caressed her by moonlight to fall. She had fallen in love the moment her guard had fallen, and now,…now, she was yet once again alone because there could never be anything but that one night between them.

  Mikayla rubbed her hands over her arms, fighting back the chill that raised goose-bumps on her arms. She walked back to the house and let herself in. She would return to her original purpose. She had gotten side-tracked from that original purpose; her historical narrative would be completed in the next month, and then, she would leave. She would return to her life in Washington. She would return to the world of reality and forget about the fairy tale she had thought would happen on Amor. She would forget about the love that
gripped her heart.

  Mikayla dropped her skirt and blazer on the floor, not bothering to hang them up. She pulled on her favorite well-worn t-shirt and sweat-shorts. She pulled the pins from her hair that held the unruly curls in place and shook her tresses free. Suddenly, she felt free. Free of romantic entanglements that were always painful. Free of silly, childish ideas of princesses and knights-in-shining-armor. Free.

  She sighed. Okay, maybe not. Maybe, instead, her heart felt like lead sitting in the center of her chest, pushing on her lungs and blocking all air. Maybe all she wanted to do was curl into a ball on the bed and cry herself to sleep. Maybe all she wanted was for Will to come to her, wrap his arms around her, and leave her mindless with one kiss.

  What was wrong with her?

  Mikayla moved her shoulders restlessly appalled that she was thinking along those lines. Work was what she needed. She always immersed herself in work when the world looked like it was about to end. She moved into the office and flipped on a light. She had a stack of notes that needed to be transcribed. Plus, she was expecting an email from Carolyn who had been studying the strange letters she had found on the stone and the tapestry in the Crusader’s Hall. There was a lot of work to do; therefore, instead of feeling sorry for herself, instead of being angry when anger would get her nowhere, she would work.

  Mikayla stepped over to her desk and reached for the lid of the laptop as she reached for a book that should have been on the desk in one of her many neat and tidy piles but instead was on the phone stand. Her hand brushed the wood of the desktop and made no contact with the plastic case of the laptop that should have been there. Mikayla glanced at the desk to adjust her reach and froze. The book fell to the floor with a thump, and her hand flew to her mouth covering the melodramatic gasp that escaped.

  The desk was empty. Where once a top-of-the-line laptop had sat there was nothing except a few smudges in the faint collection of dust. Where once a stack of folders and notes from her research in the Hall of Records had sat there was nothing except a sickening empty space.

  Mikayla whirled around looking for her backpack. It was not sitting on the loveseat near the window where she had left it last. The room was bare except for the items that had been there when she first arrived.

  Mikayla pulled the drawers of the desk open, vainly looking inside for the research materials that should have been on the desk. Her heart raced, and her mouth was dry. Deep inside, she knew she would not find the materials in that house, yet she raced from room to room, down the stairs, and through the house, searching in hope of finding one thing, one small item that she could still use.

  She skidded to a halt on the wooden floor in the dining nook. Her breath whooshed out of her. On the table sat the diary, undisturbed as it had been the night before when Will had knocked on the door in the midst of the storm. She grabbed it from the table and clutched it to her, holding on for dear life.

  Mikayla whirled around and looked around the room, into the kitchen, and at the cellar door. In the darkness, she had felt a presence, someone watching her. Her heart stopped momentarily as she remembered the menacing presence in the darkness near the cellar door. Although she had not seen anything, she had known there was someone there, someone watching her. That someone had been near the cellar. In order for that person to disappear as they had, they would have had to have gone down the cellar steps, otherwise, they would have met Will as he came through the hallway to her aid.

  She paused. Her heart still. Unless Will had been the one to remove her research. It was a desperate, ugly thought that sickened her. Preposterous! Her heart screamed even as her mind simply mourned the loss.

  Mikayla swallowed, her mouth dry from nerves. She could feel those nerves jumping beneath her skin. She chewed the lipstick from her upper lip, an old habit she had fought hard to eradicate from her life. She took a deep breath and placed her sweaty palm on the door handle. She began to turn the handle but jerked her hand back and dropped the diary to the floor as the phone upstairs trilled through the stillness of the house.

  Mikayla looked at the door, waiting for her to open it, waiting for her to venture into the darkness. Cautiously, she slid the lock into position. Whatever was or wasn’t there would have to wait until later. She raced up the stairs and grabbed the phone on its last ring. Breathlessly, she spoke into the receiver, accepting the call from the operator in the Secluded City.

  “Mikayla?” Carolyn’s voice was far away and faint.

  “Yes, Carrie, I’m here.” Mikayla yelled into the phone.

  “Mikayla, I wanted to call you as soon as possible to let you know that I translated that rubbing you faxed me.”

  Mikayla pulled out a sheet of official royal stationary from the desk drawer. She gripped the pen from the desk in her hand. Her hand was sweaty and shaky. She stared at it briefly in wonder before dragging herself back to Carolyn’s voice. “I’m ready.”

  “All right. According to my best guess, since this is a language that even I’m not familiar with, I’m guessing that it says ‘Look to your mother’s hand.’” Carolyn tossed the notepad back onto her cluttered desk. She could hear the office staff just wandering in for the day, a day that would be busy with tour groups from the local schools and other important dignitaries. “I’m not sure what that is regarding to, but all of my research leads me to believe that that translation is correct.” Her voice faded out as static filled the line.

  Mikayla waited for the static to fade. “Are you sure? ‘Look to your mother’s hand’?”

  Carolyn nodded and made a noise of assent. “I’m pretty sure, but then I said I wasn’t sure about the translation because I didn’t recognize the language.” She ran a hand through her dark brown hair finding three pencils in the process, pencils she had absently shoved in her hair during the long night of work prior. Suddenly, she remembered their last conversation. “Hey, how’s it going with that handsome research assistant, Will, was it?” She grinned.

  Mikayla sank into the chair and felt the heaviness of her feelings and the discovery of the day. Silently, she berated herself for being such a fool, for not having seen it before. For falling in love with the one man in the world who would never look her way except as a fling, a distraction. Mikayla sighed.

  “I’m going to take it from that heavy sigh that things are not going well, Mikayla?” Carolyn’s voice was distant, but Mikayla felt as if she were right there, sitting on the love-seat, staring her down in that way she had. It always managed to get the truth from whomever was the recipient.

  “Let’s just say he wasn’t who I thought he was and leave it at that.” Mikayla responded, her voice sharp from the disappointment that was within her.

  “I’m sorry, Mikayla.” Carolyn’s voice was soft. She wished she were there to talk with her friend, comfort her and help her. She sighed as a fist knocked impatiently on her office door. “Darling, I have to go. Duty calls.”

  “Of course, Carolyn, get to work. I’m sure there’s a school group due any minute.” Mikayla wished there wasn’t the bitterness in her voice that carried across the telephone wires.

  Carolyn sighed. “If you need any more help, ring me up. I’ll talk to you again soon, Mikayla.”

  Mikayla nodded her head and listened to the click on the other side of the ocean. The line buzzed faintly in her ear as the tears she had fought all day traveled slowly down her cheek, the translation forgotten and only her own grief remembered.

  Chapter 16

  Dejeune nervously adjusted his tie. The neck of his pin-point oxford was choking him as he sat in the dim room of the tower, the only light the fire that burned low in the grate. His fingers nervously tapped the scarred wooden table in the tower, and his eyes roamed the room, looking everywhere except at the green glowing eyes in the corner that regarded his every move, coldly, calculatingly. Like a wolf hunting at night. Dejeune knew how a rabbit felt when it was caught in the wolf’s gaze right before the wolf struck. He cleared his throat and adjusted his ti
e again. He was positive he heard the Wolf snarl from his corner. Sweat beaded on Dejeune’s forehead.

  “Monsieur Dejeune,” the cool voice of the Wolf’s servant chilled Dejeune to the bone as he stepped in front of the fire dropping Dejeune into shadow. “It appears Doctor Knight has been doing an awful lot of research about the Eye of the Wolf. Can you explain that?” The servant’s hand dropped onto Dejeune’s shoulder, gripping it in a vise. Dejeune sank beneath the pressure, wincing in pain.

  “I…I don’t know what to say.” Dejeune whimpered. The servant’s hand smashed down on his hand tapping on the table-top.

  “What do you mean, you don’t know what to say? How did she learn of the Eye of the Wolf?” He wrapped his fingers around Dejeune’s hand and squeezed, cutting off Dejeune’s circulation until Dejeune cried out.

  “I didn’t tell her. I wouldn’t ruin everything we’ve worked so hard for. I…I” he stuttered, fear piercing him like a sharp sword. He looked up into the eyes of the servant and felt cold through to his bones. “I don’t know how she found out, perhaps she read about it in a book of legends. It certainly isn’t part of our modern history, not since the stone went missing.” There was bitterness in his voice even as he quaked.

  The servant squeezed the hand tighter, enjoying the fear in Dejeune’s eyes, enjoying the power that came with being the right hand of the Wolf. “And, how, pray-tell, did Doctor Knight find both the engraving on the stones at the mountain peak and the stitching in the tapestry? Mind you, we have been looking for that second marker, on the mountain top for three years.”

  Dejeune swallowed. His eyes darted from the Wolf’s eyes that glowed green in the darkness to those of the servant who pinned him to his chair, making his shrink. Normally, he was a tall, proud man who moved about the world with purpose, but before his Master, whom he had sworn to protect and serve, he was weak. “I believe she just stumbled upon the second marker. I was with her when she discovered the first marker, but I explained it away. I was positive she had bought the idea that it was a signature of the creator.”