by David Leslie Johnson; David Leslie Johnson; Catherine Hardwicke Sarah Blakley-Cartwright
Drawn outside by the noise, Valerie looked around for Peter. She was angry that he hadn’t come by the cottage to comfort her, but she wouldn’t let him leave without saying good-bye.
She found him in the crowd right away, his dark hair and black cloak standing out against the white snow. Her mother’s words rang in her head. She wondered if it would be wrong for her to marry for love when her mother had not, for her to experience a greater love than her mother ever had.
Seeing her, Peter sidestepped into a shed. It was hard to tell whether his face had darkened when he’d seen her, or whether it had only been the dimming light. Pushing her thoughts aside, Valerie climbed down and followed him into the cobwebbed dustiness.
“Be careful,” she said, reaching her fingers to his. “I just lost my sister. I can’t lose you, too.”
She felt him pull back. Her hand hovered in the air and then dropped, fingertips tingling with want.
Peter looked at her, also aching to touch her but trying to be strong.
“I know. But, Valerie, this is all wrong.”
“What is?”
“We can’t do this.”
Valerie didn’t understand. All she saw was Peter’s tortured face. I will save him, she thought.
“You have to go through with it. You have to marry Henry,” he said.
Confused, she shook her head like she had tasted something bitter.
“But I want to be with you.” She felt like an idiot saying it, but she meant what she had said—she could not lose him, too.
“Your sister just died….”
“No. No, how dare you use that!” Peter hadn’t even bothered to pay his respects. And now he was trying to lay claim to Lucie’s death.
“Valerie. Don’t make this something that it’s not,” he said, hardening himself to her. “It was what it was. Nothing more.” He said it smoothly, with precision.
Valerie stepped back with the sting of the words.
“You don’t believe that,” she persisted, shaking her head.
He was unflinching, though, his face uncompromisingly austere. He refused to look at her. But he touched a strand of her long blond hair with one finger. He couldn’t help himself.
Feeling an angry wrench in her throat, she pushed him away roughly and burst back out into the crowd. She walked toward her cottage, but her body felt dead inside her clothes.
“Valerie, I’ve been looking for you.”
It was Henry Lazar. She met his brown eyes reluctantly, seeing the contrast between him and Peter. Henry’s eyes were open, giving, hiding nothing… or perhaps there was just nothing behind them.
Valerie glanced back and saw no sign of Peter. She tried to collect her shattered feelings.
“I made something. For you.”
Henry could tell that her mind was elsewhere, but he forged on.
“I’m sorry, I know this is the wrong time. What you’re going through… I should have waited….” He glanced over her shoulder and saw Peter melting into the crowd. “But in case I don’t return, I wanted you to have this.”
Valerie was set against loving Henry, against even liking him. His charm, his sweet uprightness, could never sway her now.
But he reached inside his pocket and retrieved a thin copper bracelet. It was simple and elegant, hammered into tiny pecks and delicate ridges.
“My father taught me to make this, to perfect it, to one day give to the woman I love.”
In spite of herself, Valerie was moved. It was something given in the midst of everything taken.
“You will be happy again,” he said with a slightly knowing air, clasping the bracelet around her wrist. “I promise.” Valerie felt oddly consoled.
Adrien approached, put a hand on Henry’s shoulder, and beckoned him into the rowdy pack of men marching out of the village. Henry squeezed her hand and then squared his shoulders to join the crowd.
Valerie stood with the other women, watching the men go. She couldn’t help bristling at this division of the sexes. Her fingers itched to hold a weapon, too, to do something, to kill something with her anger.
She spotted her father trudging soundlessly at the back, wrecked within the depths of his heavy coat. She hurried to him. His eyes were broken, like something shattered.
“I’m going with you,” she told him, trying to keep the pity from her voice.
“No.”
“But she was my sister.”
“No, Valerie.” He slung his axe over his shoulder. “This is not for women.”
“You know I’m braver than most of those men. I can—”
Her words were cut off in surprise as she felt his hand grip her arm. She hadn’t felt his strength since she was a little girl gazing up at him in his supreme fatherly heights.
“I will take care of it,” he said, his eyes wild. “You can’t go. You’re all I have left. Understand?”
In that moment, she saw her father and she admired him again. He was returned, in all his strength. And it felt good and right and safe.
She nodded.
“Good.”
He loosened his grip.
Then, like watching a candle die out, she saw the fatherly strength leave him, and the sad man who was left behind shrugged his shoulders and smiled his smile that for years had been saying, Yes, the joke’s on me, but at least I know it.
“If I never return, you, my daughter, are the heir to my bedpan,” he joked.
She couldn’t laugh. She watched him disappear into the group.
He can’t even swing his axe to meet a chink in a tree, she thought. How will he confront a ravening beast?
Valerie turned back to the cottage, thinking of the sage brew she had left in her satchel.
When all the women had trickled back into their houses and her mother was in the throes of sleep, thanks to a dose of Grandmother’s tea, Valerie did what she had to do. She tossed on her nubby gray cloak with the frayed bottom and scrappy leather collar.
She knew where they were headed, where the Wolf made its lair. She had seen bones on the trail to Mount Grimmoor and in the Black Raven Woods. Following the last of the men through the lonely village, she sidestepped into the lightless alleys to avoid being seen.
She listened and watched as she took a parallel path—seeing what men do when they’re alone together like a pack of wild animals.
Claude, bearing a pitchfork and a kitchen knife, appeared in the makeshift war garb he had assembled out of old pots and pans.
“I-I-I’m coming,” he said earnestly. As he spoke, his hands darted out to either side like flighty birds.
“No beasts allowed,” one of the men called out. The group laughed, nudging Claude away. Valerie wished she could go to him and was glad when she saw Roxanne come hurrying after to usher him home. Valerie felt sorry for Claude but agreed he should be kept safe at home.
She saw Cesaire catch up with Adrien at the front of the crowd. He looked imposing and angry, his boots scuffing along the snowy ground as he moved bravely forward.
“Fancy a nip?” Some spirits sloshed out of the uncapped mouth as he offered his flask.
Adrien held up a hand in refusal. Cesaire shrugged and took a long drink.
“Thank you for standing up for my Lucie,” Cesaire said.
“We’ll be family soon.” Adrien nodded. “You would have done the same.”
Valerie had never seen the two of them so companionable. Who would believe that the richest man in town and the town drunk could find common ground? She supposed even a drunk might have something a rich man wanted: a piece of property to add to the family treasure. Valerie’s cheeks flushed as awareness set in—I am only a thing to be traded.
Valerie’s eyes darted after a white rabbit, barely visible against the snow. She caught the flash of a pair of wet black eyes. Now, though, was no time for distractions.
She saw that Peter and Henry were treading sullenly along either edge of the path in a dead heat, neither willing to fall behind the other.
Moving quickly to keep up and stepping lightly to avoid sound, Valerie glanced up at the bulging crimson moon, pregnant with warning in the night sky.
She could not bear to lose anyone else tonight.
11
Sensing the black rush of crows lifting into flight from the shimmering white forest floor, Grandmother knew the men were coming. She stepped onto the porch to wait.
And soon they were there. The men looked up at her as if she were a fearsome goddess, the flames of their torches rippling the air as they either moved past or stood by, waiting to catch a glimpse of Grandmother. She was a legendary being, outside of time. She was beautiful and young for her years, though she’d aged some today with grief. Her hair was wound into dreads by gray cord, her tear-stained cheeks showing no wrinkles. It was no wonder people accused her of witchcraft. She climbed down, carrying a candle to illuminate the steps.
“Son,” she said to Cesaire, embracing him, “I heard about our Lucie.” She didn’t explain how. “Promise me you’ll be careful, my boy.” She handed him the pack she’d assembled.
“Don’t worry. The Wolf has no interest in me,” he said, smiling through his pain. “I’m all gristle.”
Grandmother ascended the stairs, her heart heavy. From her porch she was watching the group move on when one of the men, the last in the line, veered off and began to climb up after her. Grandmother could feel the creak of the wood as the figure set its weight on each step. He moved quickly: up, up, up. Grandmother shuddered as the uninvited visitor rose onto the deck.
Stalking up to her, the figure flung back the hood of his cloak and—
It was Valerie.
Grandmother shook her head, her tension uncoiling into laughter. “Sweetheart, darling, what are you doing?”
Valerie frowned. “Why shouldn’t I go with them? She was my sister.”
Grandmother sighed and took her in her arms. “You’re frozen already in this thin little cloak. I don’t think you’ll make it.”
“Well, no, I guess not,” Valerie said, shivering as Grandmother led her inside with a jangle of her charms and amulets.
It heartened Valerie to be there, in Grandmother’s wild tree home. Branches grew through the roof, and winter dandelions popped up through the floorboards, and there was some sort of nest in every nook. The tree house was packed with curious things. Valerie let her eyes roam through the small interior. Mollusk shells like giant ears, a pincushion inlaid with mother of pearl, a horn cup, dried yams, a vulture’s talon. The frayed hems of dusty peacock tapestries in faded pinks and blues brushed against endless rows of bottles topped haphazardly with cockeyed corks. An enormous kettle of tea quivered on the stove.
Valerie loved Grandmother’s way of life, even if it was the topic of local lore and ridiculed by the villagers. Even if the price Grandmother paid was that some blamed her for the Wolf’s presence in the village.
“You’ll need your sleep.” Grandmother handed Valerie a steaming cup of her sage brew.
Valerie neglected her tea and stood at the window, watching the men make their way through the dark forest. She faced the crag and saw the cold wind pushing through the trees, wet with snow, and heaving gustily like a young child blowing out birthday candles. The wind tugged at the men’s torches as the last of them jogged up the steep rock and disappeared into the cave. One torch belonged to her father, one to the man she loved, and another to the man she might have. All were reduced to points of light glinting in the distance. Feeling her stomach coil, Valerie stepped away from the window.
Who will come back? Will any of them? Another sudden gust of wind unnerved her. Frightened, she felt the ease with which it shuddered the foundation of the tree house, the thick trunk, and its heavy branches.
Nothing was right.
Lucie was gone.
Valerie could feel it, the absence of beauty. She knew Lucie was beyond the bounds of their loft, of the village, of the land and the world. That she was now in an else-place, a non-place.
“I’m her sister. I should have been with her,” Valerie blurted out, sinking into the couch.
“You can’t blame yourself,” Grandmother said, setting down a bowl of stew. Grandmother stooped to sprinkle some crushed bitter herbs over the bowl. They tasted like something that wasn’t supposed to be eaten.
“Of course, as my own grandmother used to say, ‘All sorrows are—’ ”
“ ‘—less with bread.’ ” Valerie filled in her half of the line she knew so well.
Grandmother tried to smile weakly. Valerie didn’t bother.
“Are you still cold?”
Valerie realized that she was.
Wordlessly, Grandmother left the room. Valerie watched as the snow-laden limbs swayed in figure eights in the sweeping wind. Grandmother came up behind Valerie and draped something over her shoulders.
“How’s this?”
Valerie looked down. It was a beautiful, bright red cloak.
“Grandmother…” Valerie had never seen anything like it. It was the red of far away, of fantasies, an overseas red, a red that Daggorhorn had never seen, a red that did not belong there.
“I made it for your wedding.”
Valerie looked down at her bracelet.
“The wedding doesn’t feel like mine. It feels like I’m being sold.” Peter’s words clutched at her, but she said nothing about them. She knew that her parents did not approve of Peter, but what if he avenged Lucie’s death, if he came back having slain the Wolf? She began to fantasize about his redemption. But then the sting of Peter’s words came flooding back, and she knew that none of that mattered now.
“There’s someone else, isn’t there?” Grandmother leaned forward.
“There was someone…” Valerie said slowly. “But maybe there isn’t now.”
Grandmother nodded. She seemed to be able to make sense of Valerie’s nonsensical explanation.
“I just can’t believe he’d give me up so easily.”
Grandmother sipped her tea. “Maybe there’s more to the story.” Valerie shook her head, trying to dismiss the thoughts.
“Maybe. I hate to think of it now, in the wake of Lucie’s death.”
“How I wish you could follow your heart,” the older woman said finally.
Valerie thought she saw a flash of anger cross her grandmother’s eyes.
“There’s little chance of that.” Valerie’s own face darkened in reply. “All my mother cares about is money, and my father’s too drunk to notice half of anything.”
Grandmother turned, a smile playing on her lips. “You, Valerie, were never one to mince words.”
Valerie and Grandmother soaked in the silence, letting what had been said with such lightness weigh heavy upon them. The bells Grandmother kept out front tinkled in the wind.
“When I was young,” Grandmother began, her voice soothing the tense air, “the Wolf would attack entire families. Lure them out into the wild.”
“How?” Valerie thought of the scraps she had found in Lucie’s hand.
“No one knows.”
“But the killings stopped when you started sacrificing animals to appease it,” Valerie said. The cup of tea was heavy and hot in her hands.
“Yes, but it was after a long period of brutality. It was then that we started the bells. Those four tolls. Every month.” She looked down, tears welling. “I thought those days were over.”
There had been a time when Valerie had no understanding of the significance of those church bells.
We were five or six. I was on the outskirts of the town square, waiting for Peter. But he wasn’t there.
“Watch your head!”
I looked up. Peter had climbed up the bell tower.
Angry that he’d thought of it before I had, I scrambled up the eaves of the church to meet him, refusing his help. We were so alike.
We were
small enough to fit under the lip of the bell. Our own private world. No laws. In the brassy shade, Peter said, “Ring it.”
“Just ring it?”
“Wolf death knell. Four times, four strokes.”
Peter always brought out the best and the worst in me.
I grabbed the clapper and heaved it against the side of the bell.
Dong! Dong! Dong! Dong!
The chiming threw the village into chaos, fathers setting their jaws as they pushed past frantic and unhinged women, mothers counting their children as they ushered them to the tavern.
Peter and I jumped out from under the bell at the noise. Someone spotted us.
“The woodcutter’s girl!”
I saw my mother searching for me down below, white with horror. I watched the shifting of her face from terror to disappointment to rage. My mother and father led me away from Peter, who kicked at the dust as the square emptied and the day’s work resumed.
Now everything had changed. Valerie let herself sink into Grandmother’s lap.
The middle of the night had arrived without their realizing it.
Valerie began tunneling into sleep, but she snapped awake at a noise.
Drip, drip, drip.
It was only a soaking wet rag hanging from a hook. Valerie breathed. Unprompted, floorboards shifted and creaked.
Grandmother saw that Valerie couldn’t sleep. Night, she knew, was the time when dark thoughts tugged at the psyche like strings.
“Drink, darling.”
“My sister is dead….” Valerie said, trying to accept it.
“I know, dear. Drink a bit more.”
The kettle was old, and it had left its iron taste in the tea.
Valerie felt her dry eyes becoming heavy and closed them, feeling the cool sting of her wet eyelids. She was thinking of Lucie’s death, staring down at it, like something that waited at the other end of a tunnel.
“The Wolf killed Lucie….”
She did not finish her thought, though, because sleep had taken her like death.
12
Inside the mountain, the boasting that had gone on in the tavern had given way to an anxious quiet.