by Kat Bostick
Most nights they were totally alone except for a stray camper van or motorcyclists passing through. Even then, they could tromp around the woods until they found a place out of sight while they slept past dawn.
Tonight Mari was worried about seeping on the ground. The underbrush was the perfect home for a high volume of mosquitoes, ticks, and poison ivy. Maybe even a snake or two if they were really unlucky. Jasper didn’t share her concern over creepy crawlies or horrible rashes. He was itching to get out of the car the moment she shifted into park.
“You go ahead. I’ll stay here and keep watch.” Mari leaned in front of him and shoved the passenger side door.
Jasper raised his eyebrows at her. Kind of. He didn’t necessarily have eyebrows. When she still refused he growled. Mari was coming to interpret that as “no way in hell.” It also meant “stop calling me a dog” and “get your ass over here.”
She drummed her fingers on the steering wheel, yawned, then reached for her sleeping bag with a sigh. “If I get a poison ivy rash, I’m blaming you.”
Jasper became a fluid shadow, melding with darkness until all that was visible were two emerald moons. Mari paused at the tree line, silently speaking to the forest. She asked for protection—from outside forces and unsavory plants— and thanked Earth Mother for sheltering them.
Her journey through the understory lacked the predatory grace that Jasper displayed. Blackberry vines twined themselves around her ankles and roots jutted from the soil to trip her. The three inches of heel on her impractical boots didn’t help. When it took her more than five minutes to catch up to him, Jasper trotted back and pinched her calf with his teeth. He wasn’t so gentle-ish that time.
More than a little grumpy, she snapped “I’m going back to the car if you bite me again.”
He kept his teeth to himself after that. They stopped as soon as they found a space large enough for the two of them to lie down. The ground was soft and there were a few questionable plants she couldn’t identify in the dark but it would have to do. Though she wanted to gripe, Mari held her tongue and unrolled her sleeping bag on the soggy ground. Complaining wouldn’t fix either of their moods.
Jasper waited for her to crawl inside the blue canvas bag before flopping on the ground and burrowing his snout into the top of her sweatshirt. The moisture of his nose was cooling on her humid skin.
“Are you hungry?” She asked. “I don’t mind if you go hunting. There doesn’t seem to be anyone out here.” He responded by licking her throat. “As long as that isn’t you tasting me before you devour me in my sleep.”
Mari shimmied further into her sleeping bag and rolled so her face found the warm spot under Jasper’s neck. Though it was handy that he could feed himself when their options for food were limited, she was relieved that he stayed. Being alone in the dark was scary. Jasper’s presence was the only thing that made her feel remotely safe and even on rougher days like today, Mari was grateful that they were in this together.
With a tired sigh, she closed her eyes and wondered just how much sleep she had to miss before hallucinations took hold. Things were not going well for them. Now that she didn’t have driving to distract her, Mari felt the creeping tendrils of hopelessness taking hold on her like some constricting vine. Who was she to think she could locate a werewolf pack? Or free a werewolf from a curse? What did she know about curses?
“What if we don’t find your pack?” Mari questioned. His answering noise was heartbreaking. “Forget I asked. Of course we’ll find them.”
The vocalization of her worries only became chorus to his own internal fears. She could feel the agitation growing with each day. In some ways, it was worse now that Mari knew what he was. The wolf, which was once a valued half to his whole, was beginning to feel like a cage. The man within would go mad soon if he wasn’t set free.
“I’ll do whatever it takes to find them. I promise.” She was careful never to promise she would find them because the chance of that was becoming as fleeting as fireflies and Mari hated breaking promises.
Chapter 23
Mari
Pale hands twisted in front of Mari’s eyes as her vision blurred. A guttural female voice chanted in a foreign tongue. Every muscle in her body screamed with the agony of impotent rage. She wanted to kill the woman who held her with unnatural ties but her legs would not obey the command to lunge. An aura of acrid stink encircled her but even the need to sneeze was stifled.
Witch. She recognized the scent as magic.
The witch finished her chant and with its end a great stone wall was erected between her two halves. Man and wolf, once sewn together as one soul, were separated. Thin filaments of connection lingered, like the tiny threads stretching across a hole in worn denim, but they weren’t enough to make her whole. Wolf howled in anguish as the voice that was man, the voice that was reason and hope, was ripped away from her. All memory and thought that was not wolf became a distant murmur.
“Kill.” The acrid witch commanded, her accented voice deceptively mild.
Mari felt her lips draw back in a snarl that she didn’t control. She turned the snarl on a bound man in front of her. The gag in his mouth did nothing to hold back cries of terror. Fear scent wafted from his skin, collecting on his forehead in beads of sweat. The heady taste made her mouth water. Mari’s hind legs finally responded, propelling her forward as her jaws opened to bite into the weeping man.
No! The part that was man echoed from somewhere distant. She stopped abruptly, muscles straining with the effort it took to stay unmoving.
“Kill him!” The witch hissed.
“We do not kill man.” The words resounded in her skull. It was a command stronger than that of any witch. Even as the foul ooze of the curse infected Mari’s mind, she remembered she was not meant to kill those who were not prey.
The witch’s anger boomed like thunder overhead but her storm couldn’t match the fury of the beast. Warrior blood filled the chambers of Mari’s bestial heart. Indomitable and ancient, her strength was forged on battlefields of old by sires long dead.
Glass shattered around her body, slicing into her as she flew through a half-broken window. The pain was a welcome friend. It was the price of freedom. No one, no witch, no alpha, no goddess above or below, could rob her of freedom. She ran over battered asphalt and the rubble of crumbling city blocks. She ran atop frozen lakes, across vast fields of snow. Even when the pads of her paws were raw and bleeding she didn’t yield until her heaving, cursed body was obscured by the dim shelter of trees.
Yet she still heard the thunder of the witch’s voice. And what first felt like magic sinking into her brain was now like water trickling down her scalp. Like rain drops...
Mari sat up with a gasp just as lightning lit the surrounding forest with eerie light. She was pretty sure this night couldn’t get any worse but she wasn’t going to say that out loud and jinx herself.
Instead she said a few words that shouldn’t be repeated and awkwardly wiggled out of her sleeping bag. Slick mud gave under her palms and she face planted more than once. Finally standing and prepared for a mad dash back to the car, Mari realized Jasper wasn’t with her. She’d been dreaming his memory before she woke so he had to be near. Or so that’s how she thought dream magic worked.
Apparently he didn’t need to be terribly close because he wasn’t. She seized an opportunity during the next flash of lightning to quickly scan around her. There was no sign of him. Mari raced back to the car as fast as she could in near blackness, her unfolded sleeping bag dragging behind her. She fumbled through the glove box for a flashlight and ran back into the woods.
The upside to the unexpected rain was that the ground was soft enough for Jasper to leave footprints. A trail of muddy wolf prints travelled nearly a quarter mile to a bog. Huddled beside a murky pool was a drenched mass of red fur. Jasper’s hackles rose when he caught sight of her.
“What’s wrong?” She called over the thunder. Then she remembered the dream, the stink o
f the witch, and the hatred for her as his body was rendered motionless against his will. She heard the knowing voice in his head whisper “witch.”
“I am a witch, Jasper, but I’m not her. It’s Mari. You’re safe with me. I’ll never take your freedom.”
His lips gradually slid down to hide his teeth but he stayed shivering on the water’s edge. She knelt before him, bare knees squishing deep into bog muck, and lowered her gaze. When a massive form loomed over her, she squeezed her eyes shut and quieted her fear. Werewolves had an unsettling desire to act on the fear of other creatures.
With eyes closed, she drew on a song, any song that might calm both of them. A tune she was sure she’d sung before, though never quite consciously, came to her lips and she murmured the wordless music. With a shuddering sigh, Jasper rested his head in the crook of her neck. She let out her own sigh, cautiously trailing a hand down his back.
“It’s okay.” She cooed. “We’re safe.” A startling crack that reflected on the water with bright white light disagreed with her statement. “But I think we might be a little safer in the car.”
They were soaked to the bone when they climbed back into the Toyota. Rain crashed down in marble sized droplets. Mari plopped onto the front seat, water pattering onto the plastic mat beneath her feet.
“We’re going to figure this out.” She pushed wet hair from her forehead. “And I’m not going to cry about this.” She insisted through frustrated tears.
Jasper let out a despairing howl.
“Stop that.” She straightened in her seat. “You can be sad later. Right now, we have a pack to find. Ely is about thirty miles from here. That’s the next place marked on our map. Maybe we can find another resort. We’ll get cleaned up and regroup.”
The Corolla complained with an ominous grinding noise when she twisted the key but the engine turned over after a few tries. It took some skilled maneuvering to turn around and avoid sinking into the now very soft dirt road but eventually they were back on the interstate. Rain pelted the windshield as they drove, making it nearly impossible for Mari to see. The thirty-mile drive took double the time it should have.
The stars were out when they reached Ely, which was a welcome view since it meant the rain was clearing up. Mari was vaguely familiar with the town because of the International Wolf Center located there. There was a pack, just not the one they were looking for. Jasper seemed particularly insistent on that point. When they stopped at a gas station, he grew anxious and nipped at her repeatedly. He relented only after she agreed to find the next town on the map.
“Are we close? Do you recognize where we are?” She asked.
“Maybe,” was Jasper’s response, igniting a dangerous spark of hope in her heart.
“Maybe is the best we’ve had all month.” She forced a cheerful tone and turned onto the narrow road that stretched between Ely and Buyck.
A short twenty-two miles from Ely, they came upon a quaint town called Humble Springs. The sign announcing the sharp right turn came out of nowhere, nearly causing them to spin out when she took it. Mari’s map wasn’t entirely up to date but she was surprised this place wasn’t on it considering that it boasted over a hundred years of history on the welcome sign.
A cheesy painting of a burbling spring with a moose beside it greeted them, along with a plaque that proudly proclaimed a population of 1,162. Mari wondered if the place was called humble for the size of the springs or the size of their community. The only signs of recent inhabitation on Main Street were the empty boutiques and darkened coffee shops. From the outside they appeared just kitschy enough to please geriatric tourists without scaring off wealthy glampers.
The whole place was well put together for a middle-of-nowhere town known mostly for its outdoor recreation opportunities. Even the bars looked clean and inviting, despite the sadly blinking bud light signs.
Thankfully the first gas station they passed—which was also the only one according to her GPS—was open twenty four hours. She pulled up to the pump, fished a handful of wet cash out of her pocket, and trudged inside with squelching steps. They didn’t really need the gas but with any luck the attendant could give them directions to a motel.
“Forget your umbrella?” The man at the counter teased when he saw her soggy appearance.
Mari forced a polite smile. “My sunroof got stuck while it was raining.”
That didn’t explain the mud on her face but she was too tired to think of a better excuse. She didn’t even know why she was lying in the first place. It wasn’t like his next question would be “were you illegally camping in the woods with a werewolf?”
“That’s rough. What can I do you for?”
“Um, two...wait sorry, twelve,” she peeled wet bills apart and handed them over. “on pump four.”
“You betcha. Will that be all for you today, hon?” He had a friendly smile that made his eyes crinkle up with winter weathered skin.
“Actually, I was wondering if I could ask about the area. I’m looking for somewhere to stay, preferably with individual cabins or maybe a motel. Something private.”
“You’re in the right place, missy. Though with all the summer tourists, you might not find as much privacy as you’re hoping for. There are fantastic lodges in the area. We’ve got the Humble Springs Resort, which has a heated pool.” He plucked several brochures from a display stand on the counter and slid them her way. “I would also recommend Creekside motel if you’re pinching pennies. If you’re willing to pay for your privacy, there’s the Wolf Ridge Lodge. They’ve got nicer accommodations for a more secluded experience but it’ll cost ya.”
“Did you say Wolf Ridge?” Maybe it was a coincidence. Wolves were as common as loons in this part of the state.
“That’s right! It’s a ritzier place but it’s owned by one of ours. Not some big chain hotel. Here in Humble Springs we like to keep it local.”
“Locally owned, huh? Any chance of running into the owner if I book a cabin there? I love to know who I’m giving my business to.” Plenty of businesses had the word “wolf” in the name, yet Mari couldn’t shake the prickling sensation on the back of her neck.
The attendant wrinkled up his nose and said “Oh, I doubt it. I don’t know if he ever steps foot in there during business hours. Charlie is a recluse. I haven’t seen him around town in years. See his boy and their…companions from time to time, though. I wouldn’t recommend poking your nose in the business of folks like that.”
“Why not?” She flicked her gaze to the name tag on his red t-shirt. “If you don’t mind me asking, Rob.”
“I shouldn’t be telling you this. Folks accuse me of spreading rumors, y’know.” Rob lowered his voice conspiratorially and leaned across the counter. “Charlie and his aren’t too friendly. Don’t seem to like inquiries unless you’re interested in joining up. Even then, I don’t know if they take just anyone.” By the grin on his face, this was a story he told many times before and he was definitely not worried about being labeled a gossip. “It’s the deep dark secret of Humble Springs.”
“You have my attention.” Her lips managed a more genuine smile. Mari desperately tried to swallow the hope climbing up from where it sank in her gut earlier tonight.
“Not far from Downey Cemetery is a magnificent mansion. Built in the 1800s, they say. Place has a six foot stone wall surrounding it. A man named Charles Dunne lives there with his son and daughter. And his disciples.” He explained.
“Disciples?”
“Yup. Dunne runs a cult right here in Humble Springs. Bet that’s what the resort is for. Recruiting and funding their compound.” He scooped his baseball cap off and used it to scratch the back of his balding head. “Years ago, before the wall was built, couple’a goats from the neighboring property wandered onto Dunne’s land. Folks next door found the bloody corpses all mangled up and butchered.”
“You said his name is Charlie?” Mari was practically bouncing. It could be a coincidence or it could be the lucky break she and
Jasper deserved.
“Charlie Dunne. His family has lived here since the town was founded. Practically built the place.”
“Do they take visitors?”
“Doubtful. And I wouldn’t visit anyway, hon. Not the type of folks for a young woman to hang around. I just thought you might like the story.” His smiled faded when he noted her eagerness.
“Thank you!” She shouted over her shoulder as she rushed out the door.
“Don’t go getting yourself into trouble, missy!” Rob called after her.
“Does Charlie Dunne sound familiar?” Mari was breathless when she slipped into the front seat.