A.N.D. - Wolf Woods

Wolf was in deep, dreamless sleep when the beating began. He jerked awake, snarling with residual moon-madness, but before he could lunge at his attacker, many hands pinned him down to the bed.

“What have you done?” Edwina screamed, flailing at him. “What have you done with that baby?”

“Dell?” His nose was bleeding, his face ground into the pillow, but one eye could still focus on the empty nest he’d made on the bed. “Dell? Dell?”

“As if you’re surprised, you disgusting brute!” a strange voice snarled at him, a fist pounding into his face. Oh, that broke his nose for sure! “There’s blood all over this bed!”

“I ‘as hunti’! De’! Weh De’!?” The pinioning hands were lifting now, dragging him out of the bed. Wolf wrenched an arm free, appealing to his sleeping wife as his abused nose gushed blood all over everything. “Vuhgi’uh!”

She didn’t respond. They grabbed him again, jostling her. With a boneless unconsciousness that never came from troll dust, she sagged limply and tumbled off the bed. Cinderella’s pendant flew free from where it had been tucked under her robe, the seed within pulsing in a golden light.

“Magic!” one of the strangers crowding the room shouted. “Evil magic! What have you done?” He made as if to smash the pendant, but Edwina stopped him.

“Leave that cursed thing be! Look what it has done to her-what might it do to you if you touch it?”

Wolf twisted desperately, trying to free himself, trying to get to his mate. But the humans crowded into his house, dragging him out the door and down the stairs.

etty peeked around the cellar door, terrified. She’d been down there all night, hiding behind a fortress of barrels while every horror story about crazed wolves replayed in her head. Every now and then she heard someone come in and out above her head, then what seemed like a whole herd of sheep clattered across the floor.

And then the screaming began.

She huddled on the stairs watching through the crack as a mob led by Edwina dragged a very bloody, confused Wolf through the house. “I stayed downstairs all night,” Edwina was babbling. “I didn’t know what a wolf might do, I stayed away. Oh, if only I hadn’t! If only I’d gone upstairs to check Lady Virginia!”

But you did. You left lots of times. Betty suddenly shut the door, holding the knob with both hands so it couldn’t be opened on her. She left lots of times, and I know it. She’s lying.

...The story is in motion, child... only your fate is not yet sealed for good or ill... Betty shivered at the memory. She still didn’t know where she stood. Wolf scared her. So did Edwina.

Outside, Edwina raved on. “I never thought he’d hurt the baby-not a defenseless baby! You saw the bed, all covered in blood, and his wife is under a spell, she must have tried to stop him...”

“Doh! Doh! I nebah hur’ a cu’! He’p Vuhgi’uh!”

As the commotion passed, Betty peeked out again. Edwina was still part of the mob, which was heading for the front door. Hoping to stay unnoticed, she slipped out of the cellar and then snuck out the back door.

The old lady was there, waiting for her. “They have the baby,” she said without preamble.

“Where?”

The disguised godmother pointed across town. “At the new butcher’s.” Betty ran off, barely hearing the last admonition. “Choose well.”

The butcher’s stand was closed, but a flickering light showed under the door to the butchering area. Betty snuck in. She still wasn’t sure which way she was supposed to go. Betray the Peeps or the wolves who’d welcomed her? Stand with her fellow humans or cast her lot with the animals who changed everything? Good and evil weren’t as clear cut in real life as it was in the stories after. Then it was simple. Good was the side that won.

A crowd of humans, their faces twisted in anger, looked at Dell, who was cringing on the butcher block. The charmed necklace was gone. His little face was distorted from the size of the gag they’d shoved into his mouth, his wailing muted into an ugly mewing. His tail was kinked in two directions it shouldn’t turn, and as he tried to crawl away from his tormenters, one arm wasn’t working. There was blood all over him, and she couldn’t tell how much was from the block and how much from him.

“We can’t have our fun too much longer,” the leader said regretfully. “This mutt has to disappear permanently before anyone catches us with him.” He picked up the long, throat-slitting knife.

Betty must have made a sound-the whole crowd turned to look at her with hard eyes, and she quailed in fear until the leader beckoned her forward. “Come little Betty Peep! Can you tell us how it goes with Edwina? Does she have the traitor Wolf in custody?”

“Yes. They just carried him off.”

“Pity it’s only to jail,” someone muttered.

Drawn by fascinated horror, Betty took another step forward, staring at the baby. Dell looked back at her through tear-filled eyes. He didn’t try to reach for her, though. His easy trust in the people around him must have shattered along with his bones.

“Want your chance to get your own back?” the leader asked gently.

“Yeeesssss...” Betty sighed, still not sure what to do. Then she cleared her throat and tried again, more strongly. “Yes! I never wanted to come here and deal with that creature. Wiping his runny little nose, cleaning off his bum-ew! Don’t have to do that with lambs where I come from!”

She had walked forward as she talked and now stood over him. Dell watched her with passive despair, his face a mess of tears and snot and blood.

Time to decide, Betty Peep! Which side are you on?

She reached for him and he flinched away, trying to crawl again. She grabbed his ankle and the crowd cheered her on. Gulping, Betty got a firmer grip as the infant tried to escape.

The cheering turned to gasps as Betty yanked Dell into her arms, dodged between the grownups, and ran out the door.

Littlebit’s meat-induced torpor was ruined by those annoying ghosts. “Bad humans!” the children screamed at her. “Bad humans!”

“Oh, go away!” She tried to roll over and ignore them, but now the gutted mother was in her face.

“Wake up! You must wake up! It’s happening again! It’s all happening again!”

“Wha-?”

“The humans rise! They’ve taken the baby! Protect your pack! Protect!”

“Dell? Someone’s hurt Dell?” It was hard to think through the stupor of overfeeding and the remnants of the full moon, but the threat to a cub of the pack could not be ignored. But that didn’t mean that the warnings made any sense. “There are lots of people protecting Dell.” She got unwillingly to her feet, brushing leaves off her skirt and starting to stumble towards home. “I’ll show you, he’s fine, he’s always fine...”

Her voice trailed off at the sight of the mob carrying Wolf out the front door. The ghosts fled at this reminder of their own deaths. Littlebit hid in the shadows, then tried to sneak in the back way to find out what was going on. Halfway through the back yard, her foot struck a pebble that glittered.

It was Dell’s pendant. That was never taken off! Littlebit bent to clutch it in a trembling fist. “Who?” She sniffed it deeply. Metal and glass didn’t hold much of a scent, and the smells she could pick up were all ones that should be there.

Frustrated, frightened, Littlebit clenched her fist around the precious charm. “I wish... I wish the gypsy curses were gone so I could track and find the baby and then fight to protect him!”

Suddenly an old woman stood beside her. “Granted! Take that to him-I cannot protect him without something to call me to his side!”

Not even bothering to question, Littlebit sniffed the air, the scents that had been so muddled for so long now suddenly as clear as the crystal in her hands. The trail she hadn’t seen was as obvious as if it was picked out in lights. Skulking low to the ground and running as fast as she could, Littlebit raced to Dell’s rescue.

Soon she didn’t even need the trail; she could hear the ghosts of the children crying and the spectral mothers throwing the only weapons they had at Dell’s abductors.

“I curse you, I curse you and all who hurt a cub! Bad luck to you! Bad luck to the end of your days!”

“Bad luck beyond your days! You will know no peace after your death, you will walk in these woods forever! You will see the fates of your descendants and be unable to help them! I curse you! I curse you!”

Across a field in front of her, Betty ran frantically for the woods, huddled over something in her arms. On her heels ran a pack of humans, baying like hounds for her blood. “Get back here, you little traitor! You’re as bad as them! A turncoat! Betrayer!” The voice was so familiar that Littlebit almost fell over. The big human ghost? No, the ghost couldn’t throw rocks. Where did he come from? Had one of his descendants snuck into town with the tourists?

No time to find out. Betty was just barely keeping ahead; Littlebit raced alongside her only long enough to tuck the pendant back in over Dell. As soon as she got a good look at what they’d done to him, the still moon-drunk wolf in her rose to the surface, howling for blood. She gladly lunged into the mob, snarling, biting, tearing with teeth and hands.

Someone in the pack threw another rock over Littlebit’s shoulder, this one catching Betty on the leg and throwing her to the ground, Dell spilling away from her protection.

With all the screaming, shouting, snarling, and threats, no one heard the quiet tink of broken glass.

Littlebit tore many of her enemies down, delighting in the wash of their blood and the ability to fight again after so many frustrating years. The big male was the hardest to bring down, stabbing her several times, but she finally got clawed fingers into his throat and pulled as he made one last jab at her.

The ghost of the human mother cheered behind her, but the ghost of the wolf mother sobbed in frustration. “Why? Why did you break my curse? It was all I had against the cub killers! Why?”

“Huh?”

“My curse would be broken when someone who hurt a cub died for a cub! Why? Why did you set them free of me?” The ghost pointed to Littlebit’s arm, and she stared uncomprehendingly at the gout of blood from the severed artery. Before she could even realize what had happened to her, she sank to her knees and passed out, the ghost still yelling at her, as the sun finally broke fully into the sky.