Werewolves of Wessex

by J Cameron Boyd

  ‘But it is very hard to keep the beasts of the field out, no matter what you do,’ Brunneis butted in, even though she and Luto had been left in the pasture.

  Claire’s eyes opened wide in wonder, then joined in the laughter.

  ‘Brunneis, you little imp,’ William laughed.

  ‘What … me?’ Brunneis responded.

  ‘Now, Will,’ Claire pressed him, ‘what was it that you might as well tell me?’

  William gave an exasperated sigh, and said, ‘Jorunn offered to help me back to my room, but I really am fine.’

  Claire shook her head. ‘Will, if you are fine, why do I feel like we should get a stretcher for you? You look quite pale.’

  ‘I just haven’t been out in the sun for weeks, that’s all,’ William insisted.

  ‘Well,’ Claire said as she moved to his side and wrapped an arm around his waist, ‘Maybe what you need is just a helpful nurse to snuggle in close to see if we can get your color up.’

  William gave Jorunn a self-conscious glance but did not protest. With a smile, Claire noticed that William was leaning on her a little.

  ‘Men and their pride,’ she thought, then quickly glanced up at Will to see if she had projected. Will did not seem to have heard anything, but Jorunn winked at her.

  ‘You could still use some practice in shielding your thoughts,’ the Lascion teased her.

  Deciding to ignore that, Claire asked, ‘Jorunn, why, after days of not being able to project, are Will and I able to do so today?’

  ‘You or Will … or both of you let go of whatever was keeping you from projecting,’ he said. ‘Mind-speak is something that should be commonplace for everyone. And it might have been so at one time. But now, with the narrow parameters of what we accept as normal, there are many reasons people don’t know they have the ability to project. With you two, there could be beliefs or emotions that have run interference. Many things could be doing that. I wouldn’t concentrate on that at all. It’s best just to learn how to get better at using what you now know how to do.’

  ***

  After Jorunn and Claire got William back in his bed, Claire examined his abdomen and pronounced it intact and doing well. After she finished, she was aware that, while she examined him, her thoughts had stayed strictly professional. ‘Wow, I have been able to do that consistently,’ she thought, feeling pride that she could move into her healing mode when she was in a situation that would be so easy to do otherwise. ‘Maybe I could use that ability to keep my projections directed toward the people I want them to go to.’ She considered the idea for a moment, then realized she had no idea how she was able to stay in the professional healing mode. ‘So how do I do that?’ she wondered.

  ‘Practice,’ Jorunn projected to her. ‘And speaking of practice … don’t you have some melons to split?’

  Leaving William to rest and recover, Claire and Jorunn walked back to the armory. Collecting a sword, she reluctantly stood in front of Jorunn resenting the idea that for the next hour she would be swinging her sword at something she knew she would probably miss.

  By the time she approached Brunneis for her riding lesson, something dreadful had shifted. Her greeting to Brunneis was not answered. Desperately, she tried projecting to the other horses. Nothing.

  “Seriously, you can’t hear them?” Jorunn asked aloud after his mind-speak was not received.

  Horrified by the sudden shift, Claire wanted to cry. And after several more minutes of frantically reaching out with her projections, she did.

  “Jorunn?” she wailed. “Why?”

  “I’m not sure,” he replied. “Something changed during that hour of combat training. That can’t be the problem. But—”

  Claire could not listen to a non-answer. She had to know to what extent her new found abilities had been damaged. She ran back to the keep. Bursting into Will’s room, she forced a thought at him. Will merely rolled over toward her.

  “Will?” she cried.

  “Mmmm?”

  “Wake up!”

  “I am,” he said, blinking blurry eyes.

  “Mind-speak to me,” Claire demanded as she stood beside his bed.

  William tried but to no avail. When nothing happened, he closed his eyes and tried again. “Anything?”

  “No!” Claire wailed.

  ***

  “All right,” Edyth began.

  She, Jorunn, William, and Claire had gathered under the apple trees after Edyth had found Claire sobbing behind the woodpile. Now she lay, drained and puffy-eyed, her head in Edyth’s lap.

  “I gather, from the rather disjointed story I got from Claire, that Claire and William had an incredible breakthrough today.” Here she stopped and handed Claire a handkerchief. “Then the breakthrough fell apart.” Muffled sniffling came from her lap.

  “I want to start at a place that will give you some background.” She stroked Claire’s hair. “Hopefully this is something that will make you feel better. First, let me say that I know everyone has a lot going on; lots of changes in their lives. Claire, you’re in a new home with many new responsibilities and challenges. And William, you who rarely have ever had a cold, have had your body wracked by a poison that no one has ever recovered from before. Plus, your wounds that are still healing. You are both tired and overwhelmed.”

  Edyth smiled at them. “With all the work and practice you are doing, your minds are working even harder. That’s because you are asking your minds to accept some very drastic changes. Changes that challenge what you have always believed. I think you have both been trying to do things without first doing the work that will help you to believe that you are able to do these things.

  “Today, those beliefs were overridden by … for you, William, exhaustion let you just give up, and you weren’t able to block what you’ve unconsciously been stopping from coming through. You couldn’t prevent what’s natural; your ability to hear thoughts. The horses, much to their delight, were able to open a path to you that you easily followed back to them.”

  “Are you saying that what I … we … experienced was a fluke?” William asked. “That until our beliefs that we can do this get stronger, we won’t be able to mind-speak?”

  “William,” Jorunn broke in. “Aren’t your beliefs stronger because of what happened? You have traveled a long way down the road to making mind-speak something that is very simple for you to do.”

  “Yes, William,” Edyth said. “Because of your connection to and with the horses, you were able to communicate with them. Then, you went beyond that. You were able to reach out to Claire and get through her patterns and mind-speak with her.”

  “To Claire’s credit,” Jorunn added, “she has been hammering on those barriers for a while now. Enough so that, she heard you and was able to respond.”

  “But now, the pathway that your thinking usually takes has gone back to what it was before,” Edyth said. “The beliefs that tell you mind-speak is not possible are still directing your experience even though you have evidence that says otherwise. But your pathways have changed enough that what you want is on its way.”

  “More practice then?” Claire asked.

  “Practice, yes,” the lady answered, “but, Claire, you mentioned that you lost the ability to mind-speak after your weapons lesson. Those lessons are something you don’t feel good about because they are hard for you. The healer in you also finds that harsh on your spirit. Working at something that makes you feel bad is a way that can keep you stuck where you are. If you can find a way to feel better about whatever is bothering you about that, you may find you progress faster in all areas of your life.”

  “But it’s not fun, and I’m horrible!” Claire wailed, ready to cry again.

  “I can see where you might think that,” Jorunn said. “But Claire you are missing the most important thing about your lesson.”

  “I am?” Claire sniffed.

  “You get to work with me,” Jorunn said seriously. “Do you know how many lasses around here would love
to change places with you just to see me flex my muscles as I swing a sword?” Claire smiled and rolled her eyes. “And when I wind up to throw those melons at you, half the women in the village would swoon. Claire, I tell you, if I were to take off my shirt when we’re practicing, you’d never be able to see me for all the females I’d be surrounded by.”

  Everyone was chuckling now.

  “That,” Edyth said, “is the perfect way to move a rigid belief and learn something new. Relax and have fun and let your inner knowing take over.”

  ***

  William was intrigued. Reading the minds of others, communicating with animals at a different level than he ever had, and that the animals could communicate with words, went against everything society and the church had taught him. It was unsettling for him, but he knew that the ability to mind-speak was a gift just as what he could do with horses was.

  He fell into a deep sleep with these comforting thoughts. A couple of hours later, he woke, his mind totally clear and aware. Listening to the sleepy world around him, he could find nothing that explained why he had awakened. He rolled over and tried to get back to sleep. That was fruitless as an urge to be up and moving stirred him from his bed. He pulled on his leggings and shoes and exchanged the warm air of the keep for the damp, fresh air of the spring night.

  Out of habit, William headed to the stables. Halfway there, he remembered that, while he was recovering, the horses were in the field. Feeling the best that he had in a long time, he set off for the pasture to find Brunneis, Luto, and the others.

  Reaching the stone wall, William could see movement; graceful shapes shifting back and forth at the far end of the field. Something was amiss. They should be sleeping or quietly cropping the grass during this time. He climbed over the stone wall into the pasture and started toward the animals.

  “I wouldn’t disturb them now. It would be cruel,” a voice said.

  William stopped and turned. It was Claire, he could tell from the voice. She, like the horses, was just a dark shape.

  “Why do you say that?” he asked, coming back to the wall.

  “They dance with the dark moon,” she murmured. “It keeps them whole.”

  William turned back to the horses. They did not seem troubled. Their movements were calm and steady.

  “Dancing with the dark moon?” he asked curiously. “And what would happen if I disturbed them?”

  “Nothing that you could see,” Claire answered. “But you would make it harder for them to work with you.”

  Intrigued, William swung his long legs over the wall and sat atop it. Claire joined him. “Tell me,” he said. “How is it that you know this?”

  She looked at his shadowed features for a moment as if judging whether he could hear what she was about to say, then began.

  “Another night of the dark moon, many years ago, I was collecting herbs in the wood that ran near the horses’ pasture. I was downwind from them, so they didn’t know I was there. They were dancing, just as these horses are. As I watched, I sensed others around me. Women with baskets of herbs had suddenly appeared out of the woods. They were druids. It just seemed natural to stand and watch the horses with them. Then one of the women asked me if I knew what the horses were doing. As I had never seen this before, she explained it to me.

  “She told me that all things of this world have a common force that runs through them. When a creature interacts with another creature that has denied that common force, the force of the first must hide away or it may become too broken of spirit to go on. During the dark moon, that spirit body comes out from its hiding place to dance with its physical body to renew it. To give it the heart to go on.”

  “Where does it hide?”

  “In the trees, in the grasses. But mostly in the stones,” Claire answered.

  “If this is the horse’s spirit that comes out of hiding,” William considered, “I take it that you are saying that it is the rider who denies that force.”

  “Ah, Will. I’m not saying you are wrong in what you do,” Claire said putting her hand on his arm. “You do well by the horses. Much of the time, you work with them in a way that allows their spirit to be there, too.”

  She took a moment to gather her thoughts. “This force makes it so that all that are allowing of the energy can work together.”

  “What is this force that you speak of?” William asked.

  “It is the force that makes it possible for a flock of birds to move through the sky as though they are of one mind. It also guides the fish in the sea back to the place where they spawned. It gives a knowing of the other to each that interacts with them. If a rider worked with it, it would let him know when the horse is ready to move to higher training.” She turned to look at William. “You are able to do that more so than I’ve ever seen in a horse master. You are one of only a few who works with the horse from the place of a quiet heart.”

  William thought about what he sensed during his time in the training paddock. In a way, it was like talking with the horse. Not in words but in … energy … he supposed. Many times, he felt as though the horse was somehow telling him what he needed to know to move the training forward.

  “I’ve watched you with the horses, Will. This is something you know. You allow your spirit to come to you enough that you can tell, not just by seeing, but by sensing when,” Claire hesitated, searching for an example, “when a horse’s back is strong enough to carry a rider without discomfort.” Claire turned to the horses in the field. “Look at them, Will. If you were not doing well by them, their dance would be more reckless, more forceful. Or they would move as ones that have lost hope.

  “I don’t have that with the horses,” Claire added. “But I do when it comes to the physical body. Bodies speak to me, plants speak to me. Not with words, but very clearly.” She looked up at him shyly. “It’s hard to explain.”

  “You don’t have to,” Will said. “I know what you mean. Now we just have to get to the point that we can receive that which can be translated into words.”

  The night grew late, yet neither Claire nor William moved from the wall. Using the horses’ dance as their excuse, they basked in the nearness of each other.

  Chapter 21

  Claire and William’s all-night conversation continued at breakfast. Both looked remarkably rested considering their lack of sleep. The topic of energy, which they were using as an excuse to be together, seemed to be adding vigor to each of them. William was finding a comfortable place with the topic and understanding how closely he worked with it without knowing he did. Moreover, by talking about something other than themselves, William was beginning to understand quite a lot about Claire and her fascination with energy.

  Claire’s knowledge of energy did not start with her recent work in Wessex as William had first thought. It had come to her when, at the age of twelve, she had seen a golden light begin to shimmer over an herbal poultice. The poultice had been placed on a rather nasty wound her grandfather’s shaman was treating. The patient, a woodsman, had driven his ax into his leg and was in severe pain. But when the light took on the glow of the midday sun, the man’s groans and writhing ceased entirely. The pain had left.

  Claire’s wonder at what she had seen increased when her question about the light around the poultice was met with blank stares and muttering. Thank goodness that, even at such a young age, she set more store by what she knew and saw than what others told her was true.

  That incident, for the young shaman, began her search into the etheric nature of life. Three years later, she knew a little of nature’s flow (like the dance of the horses), of how the mind rules the body, and of centers of whirling energy placed strategically about the human body. And just before her grandfather had sent her south, she began to develop the ability to sense the different energies in plants, wounds, and that which swirled, mostly unnoticed, throughout the lives of people.

  “Will, every plant and person is different,” she told him. “Sometimes I can sense the difference
with my hands. But mostly I see shadows, glows, and colors. Like your wounds … there was a color to your belly that radiated off the injured area. By picking plants and other ingredients I knew were of a similar nature, I was able to put together the combination your body was asking for.”

  “It sounds as if you think this energy you speak of is the underlying current in all things,” William looked at her questioningly.

  “Nothing is by chance. Nor is it random. It’s just that no one has shown us how to sense this thing that brings us all together,” Claire replied.

  “And you honestly think this … this talking with our minds is just as natural as seeing the energetic color of an object?”

  “I do now.”

  William did not miss Claire’s glance toward the head table when she answered him. He knew it had been directed toward Jorunn Thora, the individual responsible for bringing Claire into his life.

  Up until that point, William had been reticent to take all that Jorunn said as legitimate. But now, as Claire left for her morning session with Edyth, William’s curiosity began to grow. Who was this man, and more importantly, what was he teaching Claire?

  Spurred on by the novel feelings he was experiencing, William decided to take a second look, a more thorough look, at this Jorunn Thora.

  Outside of his muscular build, handsome features, and authoritative way of talking, William could not say he knew much about the man. He just thought Thora to be a family mentor charged with Claire’s safety.

  But with his curiosity peaking at the same time his convalescence allowed him to range farther and farther from his bed, William concluded that the best way to know more about Jorunn was to follow him around without his knowledge—to spy on him.

  What William discovered added to his curiosity about the man. Very intriguing to William was the interplay between Jorunn and the keep’s wolfhounds. To most, the animals were merely part of the keep’s defenses and for hunting. As William watched Jorunn from afar, he began to gather a different perspective on that and other things.