A.N.D. - Wolf Woods

Wolf slunk out of his own house like a whipped puppy, scratching furiously at the side of his face. Cripes! He should have stayed in the Tenth Kingdom like Virginia wanted; Dr. Fraiser had said he could be in the delivery room there!

Outside, the Great Wolf and the mate to one of the female Wolfs waited for him. Wolf nodded politely to them, but turned to stare in desperation up at the upper windows. “They won’t let me be there!” he whined.

The second Wolf laughed at him. “You don’t want to be there. I tried to buck tradition and stay for the birth of my first litter. Look at the result.” He flicked a furry, notched ear.

“Huff, puff, the midwife bit you?”

He laughed again, tongue lolling. “No, my mate did, during a contraction! Said I deserved a little pain for what I was putting her through.”

Great Wolf nudged Wolf with his huge muzzle, almost knocking him over. “Come, we shall drink to a healthy birth. It sounds like it will be a quick one. That’s good.”

“But... Virginia...”

“Is in the hands of our mates, who have far more experience with this than we do. Come!” It was an order. Disconsolate, Wolf started to trail after them. The sound of Virginia’s screaming brought him running back to dither and wring his hands by the shut door.

The pain, the pain, oh God, the pain, she was losing the baby, the pain... Virginia gasped and twisted in panic until the midwife finally gestured to the Wolf women. Great Wolf’s Mate tucked her feather into her waistband, then took two decisive strides forward, grabbed Virginia by the shoulders, and pinned her down to the mattress.

“Look at me!” she snarled, and Virginia stared wildly at her. She was falling, falling deep into a sea of yellow, everything was yellow, the world was nothing but yellow.

“My baby! No... my baby...” Virginia fought the Persuasion, trying to shut her eyes. The other Wolf appeared over Great’s Mate, her eyes also golden.

“Shhh, all is as it should be.... Shhhh... you can do this... It’s hard, but not too hard... it hurts, but not too much, you can do this... it’s all right, it’s all right...” The soothing singsong of her voice was as Persuasive as her eyes.

Virginia turned for protection to the midwife, only to meet more yellow pupils. “Let it go, let it go, you can do this, let it go, trust us...”

With a last whimper of terror, Virginia stopped fighting and let the magic overwhelm her.

As the only submissive female of the pack, it was up to Littlebit to prepare everything while the dominant women concentrated on the expectant mother. Bed prepared for mess, yes; crib for child ready, yes; hot water to clean mother and child, yes (thank Snow that there was finally running water in the house!); soothing herbs for mother, yes, already steeping in the teapot; room warm enough, yes; clean clothing for mother after, yes, ready in the room; swaddling clothes for baby, yes in the crib; payment for midwife, yes, five chickens and a sheep were already killed and bundled up in the cold cellar.

Taking a moment to congratulate herself on a job well done, Littlebit spared a look at the cluster around the bed and was surprised at the stab of jealousy she felt. There had been no feathers or Persuasion to make her labor easier! What a world of difference it meant when the village valued the mother as much as the child!

Something flickered outside the window. Was Warren trying to climb in? It would be the sort of dramatic stunt he would try. She went to check. No, he was down on the street, staring hopefully up. She smiled at him and gave him an encouraging nod. His tail started wagging hopefully, but he didn’t release his death grip on the gate.

Something was wrong with his shadow. She peered at it, then jumped back from the window in terror. There was something wrong with every shadow! They were coming! The ghosts of the woods only followed her and the other halflings while they was among the trees; Littlebit had learned to accept their particular interest in her as one more unexplainable annoyance in her life. But now something was calling them out of the forest. Why now? What has called them?

Despite the Persuasion, Virginia shouted in pain and the shadows flickered closer.

Snow White protect us all! They want the cub! This was the first child to be born in New Sanctuary-and it was a wolf-human hybrid, ripe for the taking by both sides of the curses. Wolf had told her of the prophecy, and Gypsy Wolf had repeated it herself. At the moment of birth, the very moment of birth.

Frantic, Littlebit threw herself at the bed.

Once she realized what the wolves were trying to do for her, Virginia stopped fighting the Persuasion. Oh, but it still hurt so much! Nothing she had read had prepared her for this. And the women kept talking nonsense, something about it not quite being time for the feathers. Was this some bizarre blessing? Some magical curse? Why was the room growing so dark and why didn’t the others notice? Was she blacking out?

The midwife had just risen from between her legs and nodded when Littlebit burst between the women. They growled and snapped at her, Great’s Mate drawing blood, but Littlebit only whined and kept reaching. “The necklaces! Give me a necklace!”

“What is she rabbiting on about?” the second Wolf sniffed.

“Cinder. Ella. Necklace. Blessing. Round. Neck. Give. One. Baby. Birth,” Virginia panted between contractions.

“At the moment of birth, it must be at the moment of birth!” Littlebit insisted, still trying to burrow up to reach Virginia’s neck. With a disgusted snort, Great’s Mate reached down to hook a finger around the delicate chains on Virginia’s sweat-soaked neck.

“Only one, save one for her!” Littlebit pleaded.

Rolling her eyes, Great’s Mate complied. She pulled one of the glass pendants free and all but threw it at Littlebit. “Don’t interrupt again.”

“No, thank you...”

Littlebit disappeared from the side of the bed just as Virginia wailed in the grip of another contraction. Oh, God, she was too small, the baby was trying to come and she was too small, she couldn’t do this...

“Feathers!” The midwife nodded at the two women, who pulled the feathers out of the waistbands of their skirts and thrust them in unison up Virginia’s nose before she could duck. Virginia sneezed and felt something pull free. “Push now, push!” the midwife urged, as the wolves wriggled their feathers. With another mighty, outraged sneeze, Virginia felt the baby be born as the darkness surged around her.

“Good girl, well done!” the midwife crowed. She and the other women were all staring between Virginia’s legs, busy with towels and washcloths, which Littlebit handed over one-handed as she held the necklace against the baby. The sun suddenly shone brightly through the windows as Great’s Mate patted Virginia on the forehead.

Virginia smiled briefly, but didn’t have time for elation between the exhaustion and a new fear crowding in on her. “Why isn’t it crying? Why won’t it cry? What’s wrong with it?”

“Nothing, dear, nothing.” The midwife bundled something up in a towel and turned to her. “Wolf cubs don’t screech like human babies. Now you look at your lovely boy while I finish up.” She handed the bundle to Virginia, who turned back a corner of the towel. The midwife was doing something, pressing on her belly until she felt the mother of all menstrual clots pass. It didn’t matter. Nothing mattered. The sight of her baby riveted Virginia like a thousand Persuasions. She unwrapped him, inspecting every bit of his wrinkly red body. He already had black hair like his father scattered across the top of his head, and as he squirmed and yawned, she could see a tiny tail, rat-like from the wet. The necklace had been twisted around one ankle, sparkling in the rays of sunshine. He made a soft little sound that wasn’t quite a whine and wasn’t quite a cry; it sounded just like the little crooning noises Wolf made when he was very contented.

Wolf stared in equal hope and fear up from the street as Great Wolf’s Mate leaned out of the upper window. He could smell blood and Virginia and all sorts of things, too jumbled together for him to pick up the traces of a new baby. There had been shadows creeping up the wall, shadows he couldn’t stop no matter how he’d scraped and scrabbled at them. They were gone now, but he didn’t know where or why. Afraid to ask, he just whined.

The wolf woman grinned broadly at him before she pointed her nose to the sky and howled the good news to the town.