Natasha Luepke - The Wolf Now Roams Among Fearless Lambs

“Now what?” Lir asks, looking into the horizon, the blood-red setting sun.
Shock has set in. Or perhaps merely manifested itself. Or perhaps it is not shock but indifference. “Let’s just go. Anywhere but here.”

Isabella, bring me home. I should have known better and I want to come back to Avon.

Silence. Nothing from Isabella, from Deor. I don’t know how to get home.

“Anywhere,” I repeat. “Let’s just move.”

If you look carefully, if you squint through the dirty haze, you will catch a glimpse among the dying leaves of a forlorn wolf-woman and her now-chattering, now silent crow.
The crow is large and dark, his feathers sparse now, a forgotten moth-eaten plaything. He suffers bursts of speech, chattering in both bird-calls and drinking-hall songs. Then he lapses into silence, scared. For he is scared of his companion, that she will eat him, that her darkness will eat him. That she will explode or implode: ultimately she cannot hold.
She is sweat-stained, blood-stained, tear-stained. Dead leaves form a dry headdress. Her step is steady, steady; her feet are sure while her head is not. She refuses to run. She cannot find her home and so will find a new one. A small stream of water guides her.
“This is part of the River of Despair,” the crow says.
“Awfully small…more like a crick,” she says.
“A tributary,” he says.
“The Tributary of Despair? When did you become so fearful?”
He does not answer.

In truth, I have no idea where we are. I am trying to get home - to Avon, to my other brother - but if I try to concentrate, if I pick a road and say “This is it,” I develop a headache and cannot continue. So there is no it, only walking. We are going north, though, rather generally; I can tell by the stars and the cold. Lir says he can tell simply because.

The wind screams down the hills, alerting the traveler with a terrifying battle cry. This wind, though, rips cloth to shreds, drills through skin and blood; is only happy cradling bone.
I did not think I would be on the road this long, so I have nothing with which to shield myself. I wrap my blanket around my shoulder, but before long I cannot hold it in place; my fingers are torn by this wind, the skin inviting the cold, trapping it, holding it.
Richard is a fine horse, loyal and determined; he keeps pace with me. Lir, though, I am starting to worry about him…
“I could sit on your head,” he says.
“What?”
“Well, humans lose most of their heat through their head. So if you want me to sit on yours…”
I hide my smile. “That’s okay…”

What’s odd are the periodic outbursts of plant life. We have not encountered snow, but the brown is a unified dead brown. But then there is a small square of vibrant life, and that is why I continue on. These small plants are not be defeated by the wind; neither will I.
“Lir?” I look at him perched in my saddle. His feathers are finally growing in.
He looks at me, his beak clicking in the cold.
“You see those green plants? What are they?”
He hops from the saddle and examines the ground. Just little green plants, nondescript, but there are so many…
Lir returns to the saddle with a mouthful of plants. “You don’t know what these are?”
I shake my head, from both ignorance and cold.
“They’re clover, Clover.”
I let out a breath. What a fool sometimes! “Of course, of course…”

Snow on the ground, a chill in my bones - a sign! An actual sign, warning us of the Eighth Kingdom.
“Clover, we should turn back,” Lir says nervously.
“No, I--” My frost-cracked voice is lost to the screaming wind.
“It’s dangerous. They don’t like outsiders, you know?”
“It’ll be okay,” is all I can think of to say.
“They turn people into animals.”
I laugh. “Maybe we can get you fixed.”
He shivers. “The woman who enchanted me was from here.”
The sign is behind us now. For a brief moment, the world stills. The sky is broken, spotted through, rotted through, with purple and white. Rain, snow, plague, any could fall from those gray clouds. The wind has finally ceased, though I still hear it circling around my ears. The snow is thick on the ground. We are nearing hills, though, and as the land slopes down, the thick snow thins and reveals swirled mud and dead grass. And the occasional flower. Lir has his mouth open; Richard is paused in mid-step. I think I can see my future, just…over…the…horizon. The wind picks up, now; I am lost.
“Lir, I am going to die here,” I say and know it to be true.
“Oh, Clover! Then we really should turn back.”
I keep walking, fighting - The wind is angry, piercing the soul, it is pushing, it is hard to walk - But I am being pushed forward.

Flowers line my path. Poking up through the white snow, standing against the gray sky, are brightly colored, star-shaped flowers. I can see the faint outline of a town in the distance.
“Lir - what are these flowers?”
“Buttercups.”
“But…but that’s my mother’s name.” And I have never seen them before, of that I am sure. The clover, I only forgot that, just for a little bit…
He nods. “It’s a plant, like clover. What’d you think it was?”
“I don’t know…a kind of food, maybe.”
“It’ll be night soon. Do you really want to spend it here?”
“We’ll be fine, Lir.” If I don’t freeze, I think. I am beyond shivering or trembling: I am quaking.

We are in the town now, cottages and shops huddled together; the streets are slick with water and ice. I place each foot carefully on the ground so I do not slip - Richard does the same and I am not sure who is copying whom. All I can hear, in fact, are my steady footfalls. I want to cut off my feet, the sound is so annoying. I cannot, in fact, feel my toes anymore, or my fingers which have long since frozen in place on my upper arms.
“How are doing Lir?” I watch my words linger in the air, frosty breaths that break the ice surrounding us. As my voice echoes against the buildings, people appear: sidewalks, street, window, as if they had always been there, appearing as silently as ghosts.
It is hard to breathe now; it hurts for my ribs to push in and out.

I think someone is following me. But when I manage to turn my head back, I do not see anyone. Or rather, I see people, but none of them see me.

And there is the faint outline of a castle on the hill above the town.

“Lir?” I ask again, afraid my voice will make the people disappear. They ignore me anyway; I am afraid I have disappeared.
“I’m okay, Clover. But, uh, I’m stuck, yeah?” Indeed, the blood on my shoulder has frozen fast to his claws. I chuckle and the cold pierces my lungs. I feel a presence again, hear the soft start of someone speaking in my ear, a human, though, not Lir. As I turn to see - the words, the actual sounds, are like the past speaking to me - that voice --

I miss my footing - I am falling, and I do not think I have any warm blood left to activate my arms, to save myself; I will shatter on the cobblestone street, my fragments joining the treacherous ice.
But suddenly I am righted; even Lir’s feathers remain in place. A young woman is my rescuer, a girl just a few years younger than I, swaddled in sweaters, warm, I am sure, in wool. She stares at me a moment; a few golden wisps of hair escaping from her hat. But her eyes - they are the mysterious blue of night time clouds illuminated by the moon, bright and dark at once. A cloud, in fact, drifts across those eyes, a shadow, just for an instant.
“Are you okay?” she asks. She quickly removes the cloak from her shoulders and places it around mine, covering Lir as well. “You really aren’t dressed for this kind of weather. Are you lost?”
Her voice was the one at my ear, the sigh I heard before I fell.
“I am lost, I think,” I say, my larynx freezing over.
“Clover, you understand her?” Lir says.
“What did your crow say?” the girl asks me. She reaches out, grabs my left hand, and begins to lead me forward.
“No, I am not lost at all,” I say. She is speaking my mother’s language. My…mother tongue.
“Well…But you’re certainly not from around here.”
I watch the ends of her braids bounce against her back. “How can you tell?”
She smiles back at me. “We don’t get many outsiders. And if you were from here, you’d be dressed better.”

I have a thousand questions I want to ask - Why are outsiders not welcome here, for one; where am I, for two - but the cold air freezes my very teeth, so I keep my mouth shut.
“What a strange place,” Lir says. “Are you sure about following this girl?”
“Maybe our luck is changing,” I say, watching the words dance on white puffs.
Lir nestles closer to my neck.
“Speaking a different language sets you apart, too,” the girl says. She gives a little laugh, but then her features darken. “You look like you’re about to drop.”
To drop…what I had been about to do when she grabbed me. But to just stop -- not just for the night, but to just quit it all. To open the first front door I can find and declare it my new home. To curl up under a pile of blankets or hay, to let my poor legs be still.
“How much farther?” I ask.
“Almost there. You’ll be okay.” She releases my hand and crosses to my right side. She puts her arm around my shoulders, over her cloak. To drop… I lay my head on her shoulder.
“Clover?” Lir says.
I realize what I am doing. But there is a pounding in my head, a sharp ache around the crown. I raise my head. Well.

To drop.

“My name is Iduna,” she says, he voice lightly sprinkling the words in the air. But her voice sounds very far away.
I look up at that castle, its pale walls glowing against the gray gloom. A snowflake falls in my path - it drops from the sky. To drop… I feel my knees buckle and throw my arm around Iduna’s waist.
“We’re almost there,” she says, alarmed.

Where I am? I reach my hand to my throat - my coin is gone! Who’s taken it from me? I gasp, I choke. I sit up, kicking away the blankets, clawing at my nightgown. Blankets? Nightgown? I take a deep breath.
I am in a bed, a soft bed that smells - yummy. It smells of geese and chickens. Speaking of which, where is Lir? I look around the small room, all light-colored wood with gray-colored light coming in the small window. Folk art dots the walls. Where? I ask my memory again. I remember dropping. Yes, nearly dropping twice in the street. That girl saved me. Iduna. And now I am in my mother’s land, a dark place she never spoke of.
But Lir said the Eighth Kingdom was bad - Lir -
“Lir?” I say, but my voice is hoarse, from cold or infirmity or both; I can barely hear it, let alone anyone else in the house. I place a foot on the floor, intending to dash out, out into what I do not know - but the bright wooden floor is icy; I fear frostbite. I burrow under the blankets.
The girl who saved me comes in, arms full of wood. She is dressed in a gaily colored sweater and a long, full skirt; it seems obscene compared to the paleness outside. Lir swoops in behind her.
“You’re awake,” he says excitedly, landing on the bed.
Following his voice, the girl - Iduna? - turns her head and sees me. Her face bursts into a smile.
“Oh, good - you’re awake,” she says, echoing the crow. “You’ve been asleep for nearly two days.”
“I feel awful,” I rasp out, putting a hand to my head.
She swiftly moves to a large rectangular object in the corner of the room, tall and brightly colored in patterns of red and orange and blue, mimicking her clothes. “Your crow has been keeping me company, though we are having trouble understanding one another.” She opens a door in the rectangle, puts in the wood, fiddles with it, and shuts a door.
She stands at my bedside and places a hand on my forehead. “You have a bit of a fever. I have some broth on the hearth in the other room--”
“No, don’t worry about me,” I say, voice cracking on nearly every word. “I should be back on the road soon.”
She laughs. “Nonsense.” She slips from the room.
I rearrange the bed clothes and catch sight of the nightgown again. She must have dressed me, she must know I am a wolf.
Lir is perched on the windowsill. “This is a dangerous kingdom. I…she kept asking me your name. But I didn’t think it was safe at the time, so I made one up.”
“Why?” I croak.
He ruffles his feathers. “This is a place of dark magic. There are spells, if you know the victim’s real name…it’s not safe. So I told her your name is Cordell.”
“What about you?”
He shrugs, as much as a bird can. “What more can happen to me? Dinner?”
I laugh silently.
Iduna returns with a tray, prettily set with a large bowl, a steaming cup, and a vase of flowers. I shake the icicles form my memory -
“Are these buttercups?” I ask.
She smiles as she sets the tray over my lap. “Yes, yes they are.” She then settles in at the foot of the bed.
I dip my spoon in and out of the broth she has brought me.
She stares at me. It makes my bones jumpy, her stare. What does she see? And I begin to panic. Are wolves safe in the Eighth Kingdom? Is she going to poison me and sell my pelt?
She passes a hand over her bright golden hair, held back in two fat braids.
“I don’t know how much you remember,” she says; she sounds as if she is nervous. “My name is Iduna. You can call me Dun. And your name is Cordell…?”
I choke on my broth, then nod.
“And I think your crow is Lir.”
“He’s enchanted.”
She nods. “There’s a woman in the town who specializes in that.”
I shake my head. “Curse.”
“Ohhh…”
I take a few more spoonfuls of broth, a few sips of tea. I can feel the beady black eyes of Lir, the moon-madness inducing blues of Dun…
“So, Dun, where are we?”
She looks away. “Well…officially we’re known as the Town With No Name. There was some…unpleasantness.”
I translate for Lir, so he won’t feel left out, then ask, “What do you mean?”
She plays with the coverlet. “Oh, well, generations ago - before my mother was born - there was, well…There was a war, and the threat of invasion, and…well, at the time, the king and queen lived in the castle on the hill. Most of the inhabitants wound up dead.”
“I saw the castle on my way in. Who owns it now?”
“The Crown, I imagine, though no one’s been there in years.”
I nod. As soon as I can leave, I shall head for that castle. From Wendell’s splendor to…a ruin filled with ghosts.
“Finished?” Dun asks. “You should get some sleep.”
“I can never thank you enough.”
She has already gathered up the tray is leaving the room. She looks at me and says sweetly, “Anything for you.”

I snuggle against the pillows; Lir joins me in the bed.
“Lir, what have I got myself into?”
He makes a little nest. “I think…I think it’s okay. I haven’t been able to pick up this language…The phrases my enchantress used, I have found out from Dun, were rather rude. The ones not used for casting spells, yeah?”
I smile at him, though I try to hide it.
“She would point to something, wanting to know the word I use for it, and I would do the same. She wanted to know about you.”
I sigh. “I don’t know if that’s good or bad.”
“At least it’s warm,” he replies.
I stretch - my left shoulder has been bandaged. “Well, she’s going to fix some of the damage you’ve caused. That’s enough.”
That’s enough. And I fall asleep.

It is dark when I wake up again. The room glows in the blue-black light. I kick my legs a little and hear an indignant squawk from Lir.
“Sorry,” I whisper. I slip out of bed, wincing as my feet hit the cold floor. I find the door and enter the other room.
It is lit only by the dying hearth and unventilated smoke. Dun is curled up in a chair before the fire, swaddled in blankets. There is a distinct chill in the air, I realize now, serving as an outline to my warm body. I stoke the fire.
“What are you doing?” a sleepy voice asks.
I finish and smile at Dun. “The fire was nearly out.”
She stands, blankest falling to the floor. “Goodness, I’m sorry.”
I shrug.
She takes me by the arm and sits me in the chair she just vacated. “Are you hungry? Or thirsty? Do you want to borrow my cloak so you can use the privy?”
I smile. “Yes, actually. To all three.”
She goes to the front of the room, and finds a cloak hidden in a shadow.
“I have a chamber pot,” she says as she returns. “I’m not a complete barbarian; please don’t think that. But this house is so small, and with two people in it…”
I smile as I stand. I struggle into the cloth as she disappears once more. Suddenly a burst of light - a lantern. In the weak fire, I can begin to make out the rest of the room: all wood; a fire hazard, to be sure. A table, chairs, sideboards and cupboards, a few books and scattered papers. The remaining darkness lends her a sweater.
“Ready?” she asks as she takes my arm.
“What?”
She giggles as she leads me to the other side of the fireplace, opposite from the door to the bedroom. “I can’t let you wander around out there. There are wolves--” She stops short. “Ohh. I’m sorry.”
I smell horse - Richard. Dun has boarded him in this -- storage room? It is as small as the bedroom, with meat and herbs hanging from the rafters and barrels of, I imagine, dried fruits and vegetables. I hope they are well protected from Richard. I give him a pat on the neck. “It doesn’t bother you that I’m a wolf?” I ask, peering at her out of the corner of my eye.
“Oh, no, no. There are so many strange things in this kingdom. A half-wolf? Now, then--” Here we have finally reached the door; the night air is a shock, like being pushed into a pool of water. The moon is bright, the blue of the sky the same as Dun’s eyes. “Now, then, I would never say a half-wolf is mundane…”
I can smell the row of privies long before we reach them. The entire block shares them, it seems.
“I won’t bite.”
She smiles again. “Here, then, I’ll be waiting for you right here.”

An outhouse. Cripes, as my brother would say. Well, our place in Rougefleur didn’t have indoor plumbing. I expect it does now, for the tourists… Not that I mind, having been so long on the road. A wooden hut is better than bushes, I reckon. This hut, though, is just a bench with holes cut in it. I carefully pull up the nightgown and cloak, all the while holding my breath. Luckily, the smallness of the privy and the amount of waste keeps it warm.
I emerge with a minimal amount of embarrassment. Dun is shivering and staring at the moon. I follow her gaze, then drop my eyes. There is the castle once more.
“Come on,” she says, taking my arm. That castle…
Now she follows my gaze. She swallows and pulls me inside.

Lir is sitting by the fire when we return. “You weren’t there when I woke up,” he says.
Dun takes the cloak; I sit on the floor beside Lir. “Just experiencing a little of the town’s hospitality.”
Lir chuckles.
Dun joins us, piling us with blankets.
“That castle, Cordell… It’s haunted. I can’t understand - It’s a bad place.”
“It’s calling me, Dun.”
She snuggles a little closer to me. “I wish you’d promise me to leave it alone.”
I tell Lir what she has said and he laughs.
“I see I can’t win,” Dun says. “The town is divided on what happened, but no one can dispute this: murder, incest, insanity.” She shakes her head.
“Most towns have those things in their past.”
Dun sighs. “Well, if you must go up there, I can’t guarantee you’ll even get in. And -just - promise you’ll stay here until you’re well.”
“Okay, Dun.”

Sleeping upright by a fire must agree with me; by morning my voice has returned. The phlegm has just disappeared. I reach across Dun and poke Lir.
“What do you think? Should we be on our way?”
“If you’re well.”
I smile. “Yeah.”
Dun has awoken in the middle of our conversation.
“Your voice, Cordell!”
“Much better, thanks to you.”
She stretches and then stands. “Well, I’ll make us some breakfast, and then--”
“Well, I thought I might get back on the road today.”
“Ohh! But Cordell…I mean…We’re only just getting to know one another.”
I put a hand on her arm. “I don’t want to impose on you.”
“You’re not. You’re not.” She turns her head away, then back. “Besides. You haven’t anything decent to wear.”
“I’ll buy something.”
“I washed your clothes. You have about three pennies.”
I run a hand through my hair. “I’ll think of something.”
She shakes her head again as she goes to a side board and begins rifling through jars. “I don’t even know - I mean, what’s your favorite color?”
I gather up the blankets. “Why do you want to know?”
“Because I lo-love to know these things.” She doesn’t look at me as she goes to the back room. I hear Richard whinny.
“What’s going on?” Lir asks.
“I wish I knew.”

Dun returns with some bacon. She prepares breakfast - bacon, cheese, bread, tea; hearty - and stares at me every chance she gets. I set the table for her; Lir resumes his position on my shoulder. As we wait for the meat, I feed him bits of cheese.
Dun sits opposite me. “I want to know everything about you.”
“What?” I sputter.
“Where did you grow up? Any brothers or sisters? Where are you going to go after the Town With No Name?”
I clink the edge of my tea cup with my spoon. “Well, Dun, what about you?”
She leans back. “I’ve been in the Town With No Name my entire life. I’ve never left its borders. It’s been ages since I’ve read or written anything… You are a stranger who can speak different languages. Your life must be more exciting than mine.”
“Lir, she wants to know about my past. What should I say?”
He digs his claws a little deeper into my shoulder - I can feel them through the bandage. “Lie. Make up a past for Cordell.”
Dun looks at me, hopeful.
“Well…after Wendell issued his, his - pardon, my brother ran away from home. Trying to, ah, seek his fortune. Yes. And I’m trying to bring him home. I took a wrong turn, and now I’m here.”
“Wow,” she murmurs. “What was it like in the Fourth Kingdom before the pardon?”

“Oh, well…life was hard. I was always hiding who I really was.” I cannot look her in the eye.
Dun nods. “I can imagine. Well, you needn’t do that any more, not with me.”
“Thanks, Dun.”
“You’re welcome, Cordell.”

Dun finds old clothes for me, a bright sweater and skirt like hers. She fills my saddlebags with food and water.
“Ohhhh, but be careful,” she says.
“Dun, I am forever in your debt. But I must be on my way,” I say, hugging her. We are on the street outside of her house, ignored by passerby.
“Wait! Oh, Cordell… If you will not murder me for my - my love - let me be your servant and come with you.”
Love?
“Dun, this is something I need to do on my own.”
“But - what about Lir?”
I smile. “Well, he’s been with me since the beginning. He’s on a quest of his own, though.”
Dun lets out a breath. “Well. Then. Well, then. Just be careful.”
I hug her again. We are back on the road!