A.N.D. - Wolf Woods

Lord Anthony stayed for only a few days, and to Littlebit’s relief, tended to take care of himself. Soon after he left, things settled down into a regular, if exhausting, routine. Wolf dealt with all food issues, from fetching to preparing to washing up after. Littlebit was in charge of wardrobe and bedding; laundry and mending were her duties, with a little light housework when absolutely required. She also washed the baby. For some strange, unspoken reason, Wolf and Virginia both insisted that Virginia not bathe him. Virginia, still recovering from childbirth, fed and dressed the baby. They each took turns tending to little ‘Dell, who turned out to be a fairly placid, tolerant infant. There still were no extra servants, but someone ran down from the market as it opened and closed to bring them fresh food, and the midwife would drop by every now and then.

The few hours after lunch were the best part of the day. Littlebit would sit in what might someday be a back garden, rocking little Wendell’s crib with her toes while she embroidered one of big Wendell’s shirts. Dell was usually sound asleep after his feeding, Wolf and Virginia were getting a little couple time, and all was peaceful.

Today was perfect; bright, sunny, with just enough of a breeze to keep it from being too hot. Littlebit rocked and stitched in time to the song that she’d learned from the singing ring. She didn’t understand all the words, but it was catchy and had a howl in it, so it seemed appropriate.

“Awl I want is a room somewhere, far ahwai from tah cold night aiyre, wi’ won enormous chair, ahhhhwwwoooo dent it be luvver-lee...”

She was so calm and happy that when she heard a childish voice say “Humans come,” she just said, “Don’t bleed on the shirt, it’s the king’s,” instead of screaming.

“Humans come!” the little voice insisted, and Littlebit looked up with a sigh. The ghosts had haunted her so persistently that she had ceased to be afraid of them. The mutilated children surrounded her, but not too closely. She wondered if Cinderella’s charm, carefully re-wrapped around Dell’s leg after every bath, was keeping them at bay.

“So far, you’ve warned me about the baby’s grandfather, several merchants dropping off goods, and the king himself,” she chided them. “This town is full of humans, I really don’t need you to tell me about every single one.”

“Humans come!” the children insisted. “Bad humans!” “Hurt baby!” “Bad people!”

“I’ve only met one very bad person in this town,” Littlebit pointed out. “What do you know of a big man, twice as tall as the water trough in the square is long, with muscles like a blacksmith, brown hair in a short ponytail, blue eyes, and a foul attitude towards our kind? Have you seen him as you haunt around? Is he the new butcher, is that why he’s bloody?

The children jumped back, many of them starting to cry as they evaporated. “Bad!” the leader whimpered before disappearing.

Triggered by them, Dell woke up and wailed petulantly. “Now look what you’ve done!” Littlebit shouted at the space where they’d been. She picked up the baby and started to bounce him gently.

“What did you expect?” a woman asked from behind. The ghost of the gutted wolf mother walked by her, sitting with a damp squelch in a spot where she could see them clearly. “You were asking about the man who did all that to them. The leader of the human village.”

Littlebit shut her eyes for a moment, wondering what was crazier-seeing ghosts or talking to them. “Another ghost? Humans haunt these woods too?”

“That one does.”

“I trapped him.” This woman was human, much older, and in much better shape-if you could overlook the bit where her head had been caved in. She came to put a supporting hand on the wolf mother’s shoulder, facing Littlebit with pride. “My curse keeps him here.” She frowned at Littlebit. “How well do you know that king?”

“Not very.” Littlebit clutched Dell closer, a hand over his magical charm.

The human woman was the least bloody of the ghosts, but the look she was giving Littlebit was more frightening than all of the gore. “He will not be released before we are! I refuse to allow it! He will not go free!”

“Wha-wha-what do I ha-have to do with...?” Littlebit tried to stammer the question.

The gutted mother patted the human mother’s hand reassuringly. “Have no fear, that feckless king will never set her free, he wants her too badly. And if he ever thinks about it, well, my curse will get her first.”

More madness! “What did I ever do to any of you?”

“To me? Nothing.” The woman gestured at the gaping hole in her gut. “My curse is aimed at all who harm wolf cubs in these woods.”

Dell wailed as Littlebit crushed him to her chest. “I would die for this child!”

The wolf mother grinned, the smile of a predator about to pounce on a juicy dinner. “Yes, you probably will.”

Littlebit whirled, running for the door, only to be stopped by the big human. “Ask the king!” he demanded, eyes blazing. “Ask the king next time, you stupid, stupid bitch! Dumb animal, good for nothing, why didn’t you ask when he offered?”

“Ask wha-?”

“No!” the human was advancing, her fingers curled to claws. “You will not win! You will not! While I stay, you stay!”

Littlebit dodged as the ghosts flew at each other, the cold wind of their passing ruffling her skirt.

“Traitor to humankind!”

“Worse animal than the wolves!”

“You will never be free!”

“I will hunt you until the end of time!”

They raged around the yard, clawing at each other, tipping the cradle. Littlebit abandoned it and her sewing, running for the back door with Dell safely in her arms.

The wolf mother leaned on the wall right by it. “You know I wasn’t talking about that cub anyway,” she said, jerking her head at Dell.

Fear and the urge to protect combined into rage. Littlebit snarled at the ghost, letting her eyes flare. “Who are you to judge? What would you have done in my place? Is it true what they say, that your cubs survived their birth-that they were the last to be executed? If you had a chance, when your children were torn from you, what would you have done? If you had known what would happen to them, would you have wanted them to live that life?”

The mother broke the staredown first, looking away. “No. But I hardly had the time or foresight to make an elegant, complicated curse. It doesn’t take long to bleed to death, even though it seems like a hundred thousand years.”

Littlebit looked back at the two ghosts, still raging around the yard trying to kill each other again. “How do I break the curse?”

“Which one-mine, hers, or his?”

“Any of them!”

The wolf woman spread her hands and shrugged. Littlebit stamped in impatience. Wait... the ghost wouldn’t be eager for Littlebit to break the curse on herself, not if this ghost had put it on her. And if she couldn’t speak of the others-oh, yes! Everyone knew that someone under a curse could not tell anyone else how to break it. Hint, yes; hope, certainly-but help had to come, if it ever would, either from their own efforts or from a third, magical source. She knew that herself, after many false tries to break the curses the gypsies had placed on her. It’s so, so simple, and so unattainable. All I have to do is win a fight.

She blinked in sudden understanding. “You can’t talk about his curse on the wolves, can you? What binds them binds you too!”

“I am a wolf.”

“You are nothing! Dust and madness!” Littlebit bared her teeth in a parody of the other’s feral smile. She yanked the door open, holding out Dell’s leg with the charm. “Do not come in here!”

Once out of the shouting and the cold, Dell settled down to a quiet fuss. Afraid to take the chain off, Littlebit gingerly juggled him so that she could rub his charm along the doorway and the windows. Fortunately, one of Wolf’s favorite games was “juggle the baby” and Dell adored it, so he finally started to giggle at the poses he ended up in as Littlebit tried to spread his protection around.

“What’s happening?” Virginia called sleepily down the stairs.

“Nothing, the wind just came up suddenly so I brought him in,” Littlebit shouted back, her fingers firmly crossed.

She spent the rest of the afternoon in the kitchen, swinging Dell in a hammock she made out of one of her aprons. She didn’t dare go back outside until the wind had died down and Wolf came for his turn with his son.