by Tim O'Rourke
Wanting to wash away my own inner self doubts and confusion as much as the mud that covered me from head to toe, I headed out of the bedroom and along the landing to the bathroom. Placing the candle to one side, I peeled off my mud-caked clothes. As the pipes rattled and banged behind the walls, I waited for the water to run clear and warm before stepping beneath it to wash away those secret feelings of anticipation I felt on confronting the knowledge that I knew I would stay in Shade until I had discovered the truth and completed the adventure I come in search of.
Chapter Three
I stepped from beneath the warm running water. I had stood for so long in it that my hands had turned prune-like. Glancing down at them, I could see that the cut I had made in the palm of my hand was now nothing more than a scratch. Turning so my back faced the mirror, I glanced over my shoulder. The claw marks that I believed the wolf man had made were gone too. I cringed at the thought of how dumb I must have appeared in front of Rush as I’d showed him those cuts, only to discover that they had gone. But they had been there. I had seen them. I looked back down at my hand. Perhaps I hadn’t cut my hand as badly as I had first thought. It had been dark in the graveyard.
Snatching up a towel, I wrapped it about me and left the bathroom, taking the candle with me. The damp ends of my hair swished about my bare shoulders as I crossed the bedroom to the window. Why had I gone straight to the window? Did I fear that the wolf might have returned to sit at the end of the garden path like it had every night since I had arrived in Shade? Or was there a small part of me that was hoping it would be there? Whatever the true reason, I wasn’t disappointed. The wolf sat outside in the dark, its thick coat of fur almost seeming to shimmer in the constant downpour. Seeing the glow of the candlelight reflecting in the bedroom window, the werewolf glanced up. Again our eyes locked. The creature’s eyes burned fierce and bright as it watched me – as I watched it. Was it hoping that I might throw open the window so it could spring up into my room again? Was the creature going to shapeshift into that terrifying yet beautiful half-wolf half-man creature just as it had done so the night before? But tonight I wasn’t asleep and I definitely wasn’t dreaming like Rush had suggested I had been. No, I was awake. I could feel the slow drip of water from the bedraggled ends of my hair dripping onto my shoulders. I could feel the heavy thud of my heart in my chest as I locked eyes with the werewolf sitting at the end of the garden path. I could feel the warm glow of candlelight against my flesh. So was I going to cower in the darkness again? My reason for staying in Shade was to find out the truth about what was taking place here, and what had happened to my parents. Wasn’t it about time then that I started to be a little bit more proactive in my investigation?
So fixing the towel securely about me, I snatched up the gun and left the bedroom. Racing down the stairs before I’d had the chance to properly think through my actions and what I was about to do, I threw open the front door. A gust of cold wind swept into the hallway, ruffling the hem of the towel that was secured about me. The wolf still sat at the end of the path. It looked bigger somehow – more powerful and fearsome than it had from the safety of my bedroom window. With fear now making my skin prickle with gooseflesh, I raised the gun and pointed it at the werewolf. It looked at me, eyes bright as if on fire. Perhaps I should have thought this through. If I backtracked now, back into the house and closed the front door, I would look weak and vulnerable. I didn’t want this werewolf to think that about me – even if it were true.
Taking a deep breath and desperate to keep the hand that held the gun at the werewolf from shaking, I shouted over the roar of the wind.
“What do you want?”
If the creature could speak, it didn’t. It just sat and looked at me, head cocked to one side as if summing me up – checking me out in some odd way.
“What did you do to me last night?” I said, gun still trained on the creature. Again, the wolf sat motionless and looked at me. If it wasn’t for the way the wind ruffled its fur, the werewolf that sat just feet away could have easily been mistaken for a statue. “Why do you come and sit here every night?” I was beginning to feel exasperated by the creature’s refusal to show any kind of response. A howl or a bark would’ve done. “What happened between us last night? Did you make those scrat…”
But before I could finish, the werewolf turned with one quick whipping motion of its tail and sauntered slowly away and back toward the park.
“Come back!” I yelled into the dark. “Don’t just walk away.”
As I watched it go, I felt a sudden burst of anger well up deep inside of me. Those feelings soon changed to fury, which was unlike anything I had felt before. I shouted, “Come back, don’t leave!” But yet it didn’t sound like that. The words that came out of my mouth were in a language I had never heard or spoken before. The words sounded like nothing more than nonsense. I clapped my free hand over my mouth. What was happening to me? Had the sudden rage I felt inside made me mix up my words – speak so fast that they came out in nothing more than an incoherent babble?
Stepping backwards into the hall, I shut the front door. In the darkness, I made my way back up to my bedroom. I went back to the window and looked out. The werewolf was nowhere to be seen. My body trembled with rage. Why was I so angry? Why had the creature’s refusal to acknowledge me made me feel so mad? But was it more than anger that I felt? Had the wolf turning its back on me and walking away hurt me in some way, too? Was I so angry because I had been left feeling rejected? Why had I been left believing someone I cared deeply about had just turned their back on me and simply walked away? Reaching out, I pressed my fingertips against the windowpane. The window was locked. There would be no way the wolf-man would be sneaking back into my room tonight. Again I eyed the scratches that lined the window frame. And as I did, I had a sudden and curious thought. How long exactly had those scratches been there? Picking up the candle, I let the flame flicker just an inch from the window as I inspected the claw marks. Were they as fresh as I had first thought? Could they have been made many years ago? Could they have been put there before I’d even arrived in Shade and taken up residence in the small house?
With those feelings of rage and frustration slowly ebbing away, I turned my back on the window. Taking the towel from around me, I climbed into bed, pulling the covers up beneath my chin. Snuffing out the candle, I let the room fall in darkness. With the gun still gripped in my fist, I lay back and closed my eyes. At once I heard the sound of movement and I snapped open my eyes. The sound came again, and I peered through the darkness toward the corner of the room. I raised the gun. Through the window, I could see the clouds had parted in the night sky, revealing a crescent shaped moon. In the shaft of milky-blue moonlight, I saw movement in the shadows in the far corner of my room.
“Who’s there?” I murmured, so scared that I was barely able to speak. The gun wavered in my fist.
Peering over the top of the blankets, I watched the figure step from out of the shadows and come slowly toward the foot of the bed where I lay. It was the wolf-man, the same beautiful creature that had climbed through the window the night before. But how had he got into my room? The window was closed. I glanced across at it. The window was now wide open? But how? It had been closed just moments ago. My eyes had been shut merely a second. I looked back at the wolf-man as he climbed up onto the bed. The moonlight that poured in through the open window made his naked body and the muscles that covered it look as hard as stone. And just like the night before, his eyes blazed in a mesmerizing fashion as he came slowly up the length of the bed toward me. Although I still had the gun trained on him, I didn’t cower – I didn’t fire it either. Slowly, he closed his hand over mine. His touch was warm – gentle. He took the gun from me, placing it out of reach on the bed.
Slowly, he pulled back the blankets and leant over me. I looked up into his unnatural looking face. But yet it wasn’t so unnatural – it suddenly looked like the most beautiful face I had ever seen. His cheeks were covered in
bristling fur, like overgrown sideburns. His eyebrows were just as thick, meeting over the bridge of his nose. The wolf-man’s ears pointed upwards and his lips were red and full. He kissed the side of my neck with them. Trembling, I closed my eyes.
“Julia,” he whispered in my ear, before taking me into his arms.
Chapter Four
I snapped open my eyes. A shaft of washed out daylight flooded the bedroom. I sprang into an upright position on the bed and the covers fell away. The wolf-man had gone. I glanced over at the window which was now closed. Had it ever been open? Had the wolf-man really visited me again? If so, where was he now? Climbing from the bed, I stood in the strip of pale daylight and glanced back over my shoulder. There were no scratches – no claw marks that I could see. I wasn’t sure whether to feel relieved or not. Did their absence suggest that I hadn’t put up a fight this time around – that I had given myself to the wolf-man without a struggle?
“But he had called me Julia,” I whispered to myself, snatching up some clothes and pulling them on. I fixed my hair into pigtails where they hung over each shoulder. Did the beautiful creature really believe that I was Julia Miller – the school teacher that had once lived in this house? Had the wolf-man and Julia been lovers? But if so, didn’t he realise that I wasn’t Julia? Didn’t he know that Julia Miller was dead?! How could he mistake me for her? Even in the dark, he must surely realise that we were not the same. Rush had been somewhat economical with the truth about Julia because he hadn’t felt able to trust me. But trust me about what? Why had Rush felt the need to be so secretive about the woman who had once lived in this house? Did Julia hold some clues as to what had happened in Shade and the people who had once lived here? With my head spinning, I fastened the holster Calix had given to me to my thigh and slid the gun into it. As I left my room and headed downstairs, I couldn’t help but feel that burst of frustration that I’d felt last night as I confronted the werewolf. It didn’t seem to matter which avenue of enquiry I took in Shade, I came up against another bunch of questions. There seemed to be one massive knot of lies at the heart of Shade, and I didn’t have the faintest idea of how to begin unravelling it. Every time I thought that perhaps I was making some little progress, another twist – another knot – presented itself to me. But had my arrogance blinded me? Had I really believed that I could ride into Shade in my uncle’s beat-up old truck and simply discover what had happened here?
Shaking some more coals from the sack that Calix had brought me, I refilled the stove in the kitchen. I waved away the cloud of sooty dust with my hand and heated a pot of coffee. I cut a thick slice of bread from the loaf that was fast turning hard and stale and placed it above the glowing coals. As I waited for the coffee pot to heat up and the slice of bread to toast, I couldn’t help but wonder if some of the clues I needed to unravel the truth were closer to home than perhaps I’d first realised. Perhaps Julia Miller was an important piece of the puzzle I was trying to solve. Perhaps the wolf-man that came each night was looking for Julia? But why? What was the connection between them? I filled a mug with coffee and took a sip. When the toast was brown on both sides, I covered it with a thin smearing of butter. Sitting at the kitchen table, I munched on the toast, washing each mouthful down with a gulp of hot black coffee.
As I ate, my mind turned once again to Julia. How could I think of anything else? All I knew about her was what Rush had told me, and how much of that was true I really had no idea. He had said that Julia had travelled from Switzerland with him and the others as they had fled their home. He said at first that she had died of old age. But then he had suggested that perhaps she had been younger than he had first said. But if Julia hadn’t been old – what had killed her? How had she died and was she buried up in the graveyard? But Calix had also described Julia Miller as being old. Had Calix, Rea, and Rush concocted a story that was now falling apart? I knew only too well that if you were going to be a liar you’d better be good at it. I had slipped up myself. I had mentioned to Morten that I’d really come from Maze and not Twisted Den. I’d also let slip to Rush that I had an uncle, even though I had previously told him that all of my family were dead. I set the dregs of the coffee to one side and brushed breadcrumbs from my hands as I thought of the many children’s graves I had seen. Had the villagers of Shade blamed Julia for the deaths of those children too? She had been their teacher, right?
Pushing my chair back from the table, I stood up. I went to the living room, and with hands on hips I glanced about. There were no photographs of Julia. There were no photographs of anyone or anything. Turning my back on the room, I headed upstairs to the study where I had discovered the shelf crammed with books. Perhaps there would be something – any clue – that might shed some light on the woman who had once lived in this house – who had once taught the children of Shade. I pushed open the door to the study and stepped inside. I brushed my fingertips over the spines of the books that lined the shelf. I had previously inspected the books at length and nothing had stood out of any importance. On the opposite side of the poky room was a desk. There was a drawer set beneath it. I pulled this open. There was nothing of any interest that I could see, other than several pens and some blank sheets of writing paper. I pushed the drawer closed with my hip and turned around. Hanging on the far wall was a painting of a railway station with two platforms. It was raining in the picture and passengers stood with umbrellas up as they waited to board the two steam trains waiting in the platforms. In the centre of the painting, standing beneath a gas lamp, was a young couple. They had their arms about each other and they were sharing a kiss. Were they saying ‘hello’ or ‘goodbye’, I wondered, crossing the room to the painting. I stood before it, hands on hips. I could see that it was hanging lopsided against the wall. I reached out, taking the sides of the frame in my hands. As I started to straighten the picture, I felt something snag behind it. Carefully, I lifted the painting away from the wall. To my surprise, a hole had been made into the wall behind it. I set the painting down and looked at the hole. It was square in shape. Leaning closer to the wall, I peered into the hole I had discovered. I could see something hidden inside toward the back. Reaching in with one hand, my fingers brushed over what felt like a small book. Curling my fingers about it, I fished the book out and held it in my hands. It was bound in crimson coloured leather and there was just one word written across the front in gold. The word was similar in design to the writing I had seen written in Annabel’s schoolbook and across Calix’s chest, back, and arms. Did the one single word that had been written in Valais translate into ‘Diary’?
Sitting cross-legged on the floor, I opened the diary – if that’s what it was. Each page was covered in neat handwriting. But all of it was written in that strange and unreadable text. Even though I suspected I had found Julia Miller’s diary, I had no idea what she had written in it. But why had she hidden it, and who from? I sat and thumbed through the pages, and as I did something fell from between them. The photograph landed in my lap and I picked it up. It was faded and dog-eared at the corners. The picture was of a handsome-looking man. He had jet black hair that was swept off his brow. He had the darkest eyes that seemed to stare right out of the picture at me. His jawline was square and covered in dark stubble. His smile was subtle but warm. Who was the man in the photograph and why had it been hidden between the pages of Julia’s diary? Had he been important to her? I flipped the photograph over hoping to find a name written across the back or some other clue, but there wasn’t anything.
There was a sudden knock at the front door and I flinched with surprise. Jumping to my feet, I slid the photograph of the man back between the pages of the diary. The knock came again – this time louder. Was it Calix? Wouldn’t he just let himself in uninvited like he had done before? No, I had taken the spare key from him. The knock came again and this time I detected an urgency. I tucked the diary back into the hole, and covered it with the painting. Happy that the hole was hidden once again, I made my way downstairs and to the fr
ont door. Yanking it open, I was surprised to see Rush standing outside. The collar of his long dark coat was pulled up against the wind. It had stopped raining at least.
“Come in,” I said, stepping aside.
“There isn’t time,” Rush said. “We’ve got to go.”
For the first time since meeting Rush, he looked rattled somehow. His face was very pale and drawn – like he had been up all night and was in desperate need of some sleep. His sandy coloured hair was a mess and the lower half of his face in a desperate need of a shave.
Sensing that something was very wrong, I said, “Go where?”
“A village meeting has been called up at the church,” Rush said, turning away and heading back down the garden path.
“A meeting,” I said, stepping out of the house and closing the front door behind me. I pulled the hood up on my hoodie and went after Rush. “Why has a meeting been called? What’s it all about?”
At the garden gate, Rush stopped and looked back at me. “Something very disturbing took place up at the graveyard last night,” he said, before striding out across the park in the direction of the church.
Chapter Five