Natasha Luepke - The Wolf Now Roams Among Fearless Lambs

“Clover!” Lir startles me.
“What?”
“Not to alarm you, yeah? But your necklace, your love token…it’s, uh…”
My breath catches in my lungs, my throat, my stomach. No, no… I painfully loosen the grip my right hand has on the reigns. I splay my fingers at the hollow of my throat, and truly, it is that - hollow.
“Whoa,” I nearly whisper, and Richard, good horse that he is, stops. I have to, I have to, I have to - “I have to find it!”
Lir falls from my shoulder in my haste to dismount. I look back, to the path we’ve just taken; there is so much… Trees, grass, weeds, flowers, bushes, animals… For how many years did that coin hang from my neck, from how many rotted bits of leather, ribbon, and string, and now, finally… I put my head in my hands; it is too much!
“Clover? Clover? Say something.”
I take a few breaths. I will rip the green grass from the very ground if I must, I will find the coin. I drop to all fours to - to what? Sniff it out? Stalk it, hunt it? I growl. Whoa. I straighten up. “C’mon, Lir.”
I stay low to the ground, going back exactly the way we came. I plunge my fingers into the dirt, and prick them on the thorns of bushes. Lir looks through low tree branches, flying just above my head.
“So, ah, who gave you that necklace?” Lir asks.
I toss a fallen leaf aside. What if it had fallen into the fire pit? Wait, there was a stream by our campsite, what if…? I stop and shake out my clothes once again.
“Clover?”
Think, think, think… My last link to my parents, and I have lost it. I am also losing time by looking for it. Should I just move on? What would my mother think? What would Deor say? I’m sure his coin is safe in the post office.
The sun burns into my back. I am lucky, I suppose, that I have not been traveling for long.
“Clover, stop for a minute!” Lir lands on my shoulder, his claws bringing me back to the hot sun and annoyed horse. “Once you start, yeah? Take a break, we’ll find it. Such a single-minded girl.”
I fail at everything I do.
“I've got to keep looking, Lir. My mother gave that to me, before…”
“Mother?”
“Yes.”
He shifts on my shoulder. “We’ll find it, yeah? It’s okay, it’s okay.”
“Let’s keep looking.” I shrug him from my shoulder.

Hours have passed, I think; I know this bit of forest intimately, have made friends with the squirrels and rabbits. Lir finds it. It had simply fallen off, not far from camp. The edges of the ribbon have frayed; the knot had come untied. Such pain from something so simple.
I sit cross-legged, Lir at my feet, and hold the coin in front of me. I stare at it, twist the ribbon. A green ribbon.
“What happened?” Lir asks.
I tie it back around my neck, knotting it as many times as I can. “Oh, Lir… you don’t want to know. Come on; we’ve lost a lot of time.”
I return to Richard, my hand never leaving my throat.

“So what will you do if you find your brother?”
I stare at Lir. “I will find Wolf. And then we’ll go home.”
“And what waits for you there?”
I look away, across the road, into the trees. What shall I do? There is the library, always that. I wonder, though… After Deor returned to us, more refugees began to straggle into Avon, wounded from Beantown and other conquests of the trolls’. I never asked her, but I think Isabella led them to us. These were just normal people, who’d been hurt and had been walking for days. They'd thought Avon was a mirage.
We accepted these people, offering them space in our little hospital and then in cleared-out barns and warehouses. The basement of the post office, the library, provate residences. Isabella, Henry, and I took charge of the wounded. I learned all I could about healing-medicine, herbs, magic. We saved a lot of people and it galls me to say I was happier working in blood than stacking books. But every person we lost, every child, every parent, it ripped, tore, pulled at my heart.
Let them live, I would plead. I have suffered enough heartache; let these people go!
I began making a lot of bargains then.
“Lir, I don’t know what waits for me.”
He ruffles his feathers. “Surely you’ve thought about the end?”
“Well, what will you do when I find my brother?”
“Go on, yeah, go on. Still trying to be human. I miss having hands.”
I smile.
“But, but,” he says softly, “I will follow you to the ends of the kingdoms.”
“What is that?”
“I said--”
“No - what is that?” Bodies, I think, and something shining, something blinding.
“Wait a minute,” Lir says, taking flight from my shoulder. I sigh, rubbing the poor flesh, smearing the thin rivulets of blood.

I urge Richard forward, gripping the reigns tight not only because I fear falling, but because I am afraid I will be sick. It looks to be an ancient burial mound, these decaying bodies… The remnants of their clothes resemble knights from my schoolbooks, knights from the Golden Age. Such ugly death; such waste. Crows and vultures swarm; for a moment, I lose Lir.
What battle could have brought this? What could be warth this ancient frozen tableau?
“Good Sir Knight!” a voice calls, a melodic voice, a voice of summer. I shade my eyes and look up. The sun is blinding, but at least I no longer have to look death in the eye. A young girl sits high above me, seated in a throne on a glass mountain.
“Uh--”
“If you can rescue me, my fortune is yours.” She spreads her hands and jewels appear within the mountain.
“I’m not a knight,” I call back. “I’m…I’m not really anything.”
“Oh.”
I squint, trying to make out her features: her long white gown is as ancient as the corpses’ garb; her red hair shines in the sun; and a black mask covers her eyes. Her throne is draped in dark cloth.
Lir taps the glass with his beak.
“Don’t you want my fortune?” she asks.
“Not really.” Money won’t help me get my brother. Of course, it would pay for inns and food…
“This is a scavenger’s dream. A packrat’s paradise,” Lir says.
“Is there someone with you?” the girl on the glass mountain asks. She moves her head from side to side.
“Well--”
Lir taps the girl on her left shoulder. “I’m Lir,” he says.
She slips the blindfold from her face and stares into his avian eyes. He returns her gaze. At least a minute passes.
“Oh, no,” sighs the girl at last.
“What could possibly be wrong?” Lir asks.
She looks away. “As if being stuck on this hill isn’t enough, I am also supposed to fall in love with the first thing I see.”
“Have you?” Lir asks.
“Yes.”
They continue to gaze at one another.
“Would you like to come down?” I call.
“Yes,” she says sadly, “more than anything in the world.”
“Why don’t you slide down, then?”
She looks down. “Well, I… It’s not that simple. I have to be rescued. I think. By someone warthy.”
“Warthy of what?” Lir asks.
“Well, my love I suppose. These knights all died when their horses slipped coming up the mountain.”
I catch sight of a bleached skull and turn away.
“What is your name?” Lir asks.
“Shallot.” And they are back in their own little world.

I dismount. I gingerly pick my way to the base of the mountain. These poor knights only wanted to live Happily Ever After. “Forgive me,” I whisper, shoving a few aside. I run my aching fingers along the glass. Very smooth and very fine. There is a broken lance not far from where I am crouching. I take it up, and point the wider end at the glass, the end usually held closest to the body. I look through the glass, but all I can see is grass inside, bones on the far side, and the underside of Shallot’s throne. I take a deep breath, close my eyes, and thrust the lance forward.
Simultaneously, I hear glass shatter, Shallot gasp, and Lir call my name. There is a small hole now, and jewels and gold begin to form, like rich blood. I carefully reach in with my left hand and grab a small golden coin. It is my turn to gasp when I pull my hand out; it is covered with blood. It has been cut with invisible glass. I drop the golden coin and stand.
“Time to go, Lir!” I shout, wrapping my hand with the hem of my shirt.
“I’ll come back for you, I promise,” I hear Lir say.
I return to Richard, and rifle through the saddle bags, looking for my medicine kit.
“Oh, Clover, oh this is it -- ! When I saw you, I thought, you know… But her, well, I… So, I, I’ll join you on your quest, to save her.” He pauses for breath. “Are you okay?”
I finally find the bag. “Yeah, yeah.” I wind a strip of cotton around my palm. “A quest, huh?”
“Well,” says Lir, settling on the saddle, “I can’t just leave you, anyway.”
I shake my head. “Let’s go.”
I take one last look at the break in the glass. The riches have again disappeared. Well, obviously I was not meant for them, not pure enough of heart or whatever. Well.
Lir sits backward on my shoulder, staring at Shallot, the girl on the glass mountain, until long after she is out of sight.

Day is being devoured by dusk.
But forward is all I can think. Perhaps Wendell’s castle is over the next hill. Perhaps.
“Clover, Clover, it’s getting dark, yeah? We should stop and make camp,” Lir whispers into my ear.
“Just a little longer.” If the sky bleeds, there is still light. I am an animal; I follow that hope of life. “The horse isn’t complaining.”
Lir sighs.
“I am a wolf.” Such a simple phrase, I had meant to say it simply, simply roll it off the tongue - simple. But I find I relish it, I roll the consonants, I would show fangs if I had them, gore my claws in the dying sun. After all, I do not want to frighten him. But I do. Want to.
“What?” Lir replies.
“I live by night. See, I can keep going and never stop.”
“Clover--”
“The one good thing about a dual nature. You know.”
“You have to rest.”
I sigh. “I want this to be over.”

My left hand, the one cut on the glass mountain, is stiff. I can smell water and find a trickle, too small for a stream, almost too small for a crick, and unwrap the bloodied bits of cloth encasing my poor flesh. I carefully submerge my hand, trying to clean it without benefit of soap. The cuts, luckily, are not too bad, already beginning to heal at the edges.
I painfully wriggle my fingers. “Lir, can you cook?”
He appears at my side. “I can gather nuts and berries.”
“Better get started.”

After dinner, I make a bed of leaves; I can’t be bothered to pull out my blanket. I lay on my stomach, trying to rest my battered left side.
I study Lir in the fire light, feeling a sense of déjà vu. His tail feathers are shiny; the wind ruffles them… I reach over and pluck one.
He squawks and hops around indignantly. Richard is startled awake.
I twirl the feather between my fingers. Why did I do that? Because I can. I don’t mean to be cruel, I just… I feel as if my bones are going to jump through my skin. What would Deor think? I am tired of worrying about what others think; tired of being civilized.
“Lir,” I whisper, and extend my arm, returning the feather. Wolf was much better at this than I.
What’s wrong with you? my human half asks. I wish I knew.
“I’m sorry,” I say.
“All in fun, yeah? ‘S okay,” he says. He retrieves the misplaced feather and hops over to me. “I loose ‘em enough anyway. Add it to your coin.”
I sit up and undo the ribbon from my neck, carefully add the feather.
Soon after, it begins to rain.

It rains the rest of the night, the drops growing dense, a blizzard of water. We leave at dawn, fearing lightening. It finds us when we are still in the woods, bright yellow and white, and suddenly we do not fear wolves but tall trees.
Because of the sheets of liquid, I cannot find my way, cannot sniff out the trail, and our footsteps have long since been erased.

We circle, confused. Lir and I argue about which way we came; the rain makes it difficult for him to fly. The ground is slick; the rain makes it difficult for me to walk. Richard cowers at every thunderbolt. Wait, wait, wait! What was that? I look back, always a fatal mistake. There is fire, fire burns in this deluge. For a moment, I cannot breathe. Lightening. Heavy branches fall from this deluge of fire; they are cushioned by rotting leaves.
Limbs fall and Richard bolts.
“Lir, leave me!”
“But -- ”
I cannot grip him; his feathers are sodden. I push him from my shoulder, ripping my shirt. “Just go.” We shouldn’t all die. But I am not sure which I say in my head and which I say aloud.

I run, fire at my back. I run and do not look back.