Chapter Eleven
He heard her shouting after him as he embraced his Bear. His heart begged him to turn around. A pang of regret hit his stomach. He knew she wasn't a part of this and the accusations he had made tasted bitter on his tongue. But the larger part of him held onto his anger and pushed away love.
Love would stop him again. Love would close his eyes. He needed anger, hate. It was necessary for his revenge. And without revenge, what was he? She was Paul Locke's daughter. He might as well have spat on Isadore's grave every time he kissed Mary.
Mary's voice cut out shortly after he entered the forest. His clothing shredded from embracing his Bear, fell off him as it caught on branches. The world seemed too silent without her.
The trees closed in around him, the last bits of snow absorbing the sound of his paws on the ground. Even the crashing of branches breaking against his bulk seemed muffled against the roaring in his ears. He would finish this, once and for all. It would finally end.
I either avenge my wife and child or join them.
Eve had only been six years old. She was afraid of monsters hiding in the darkness. Andre remembered making a big show of checking under her trundle bed when she went to sleep. He remembered sitting in the main room of the cabin, gluing hats and faces onto clothespins for her birthday party while Isadore sang her to sleep. He remembered the look of despair in his wife's eyes when Paul Locke closed in on her, knife in hand.
His body was not his own. The aches and pains vanished, leaving only a surging, seething hatred that coursed through his blood and pushed him onwards. He was following the trails he knew the Wolves used in their hunts. His legs moved on their own, driven by the blood he could already taste on his tongue.
Paul Locke dies today.
Only when his nose picked up a scent in the air did he break from his singlemindedness. He slowed slightly, swiveling his head this way and that, trying to pick up where the scent was coming from. It was Wolf, but sweet somehow. Faint traces of laundry detergent and homemade bread clung to it. Mary.
He slowed, heart racing, and stopped. Mary.
He shook his head and everything he had said rushed back to him. What had he been thinking? His words–a bitter taste crept up his throat. How could he accuse her of such awful things? He had to go back to her, beg her forgiveness before it was too late. He couldn’t lose her! What was life without her?
But what was his life if he did not avenge his wife and daughter? For years, he had only been able to move from day to day by reminding himself of how Paul Locke must suffer. Locke and his two oldest boys who had been with their father and helped him murder a child, helped him murder Isadore and Eve. Andre could not forsake his wife and daughter. He could not dishonor them by choosing his own happiness over avenging their deaths.
The forest was silent. It seemed to be holding its breath around him, waiting for his decision. He had to choose! One way or another, this had to end, right now. Revenge or Mary. I can't have both, but what do I choose? He closed his eyes. Oh, God! What do I do?
He inhaled deeply through his nose and caught the scent again. The Wolf was close, closer than Mary could be. His eyes snapped open and his head swung round to his left.
At first, his gaze glided right over the Wolf that lay crouched under a fallen tree. If not for the quivering of its body or the flash of a red tongue as it panted, he would not have seen it at all.
As his eyes found the Wolf’s face, his first thought was that it was Mary after all. They had the same shape of ears, muzzle, the same little nose that twitched in a semi-circular motion. But these eyes were brown, not green. The fur was brown, and instead of Mary's beautiful sleek roundness, this Wolf looked half-starved it was so thin. Its legs looked like twigs and its fur hung off its body in worried patches.
Not Mary. But still one of Paul Locke's children. He killed my child. And now he sends one of his own to spy on me. An eye for an eye!
He lunged towards the Wolf. It yelped, springing forward from under the log. It slipped out beside Andre as his paws came crashing down where it had been. Shock rippled up his joints and the log snapped in half. He turned, roaring. The Wolf ran from him, ears plastered against its skull, tail tucked up against its belly. Andre thundered after it, determined that this time it would not escape.
It yelped and howled as he gained on it, and his lips curled back over his teeth as the mutilated bodies flashed before his vision again.
I will give him back what he had given me.
***
A familiar Wolf's voice echoed in the trees. A howl of fear, a cry for help. Mary pushed herself as hard as she could, her Wolf paws striking the ground again and again. She felt like she was in some sort of nightmare. Though she was aware of the forest passing her by, it was like her legs were mired in mud. She struggled to move faster.
Andre, please don't do this, she prayed. Fortuitous Luna, don't let him do this!
The howling stopped and for a moment so did her heart. Images of a brother or sister lying on their back with Andre's massive jaws closing over their head flashed through her mind and she thought she might faint. Her legs stumbled, her head drooped, and a pain-filled howl broke from her throat.
A pause, and then a howl answered hers. One full of fear, begging her for help. Her ears sprang up and she changed direction fluidly, racing at top speed. As long as there's sound, there's hope.
She continued chanting the mantra in her mind, howling again. Hold on. Andre, hold on, you don't have to do this.
***
He recognized Mary's voice, and that was what saved the Wolf from the first blow.
One of its legs was pinned under his massive paw, and it clawed at the dirt, panting and whimpering as it tried to escape. He raised a second paw to crush its skull, but Mary's voice was clear and so achingly familiar. It broke through the red mist of rage blinding him and he hesitated. His paw still in the air, ready to strike or retreat. The Wolf he pinned froze a moment then lifted its head, letting out a shrill howl.
Calling for help. Calling for him to come.
The red mist settled over his eyes again and he snarled. Yes. Of course. He would bring the murderer to him, let him watch his child die as he had made Andre do. Make him suffer.
Andre lowered the paw poised to kill and leaned forward, mouth opening wide to encase the Wolf's shoulder. Call him again. Scream. Make him come so I can kill him.
***
Mary burst through two fir trees to see Andre bent over the prone form of a Wolf. His teeth glittered in the dim forest. The wind rippled up his spine and Mary could see the monster she had always been warned of. The cry in her throat became a scream as she suppressed her Wolf, reaching with human hands towards her soulmate. Her mind blank of all thought, just knowing she had to stop him.
Andre jerked as though the sound of her voice had skewered him. His head swung towards her.
Her fingers dug into his fur. Mary's head swam as she recognized the white markings on the Wolf's back legs. She wasn't moving.
Oh Luna, please no!
"Andre," she cried desperately, trying to drag him away from the still Wolf. "Andre, no, you don't have to do this. Andre, please."
The Bear stared at her as though he didn't recognize her. A threatening growl shook through his body and up Mary's arm. His head swung back around, towards the Wolf once more. The growl cut off and he shook his head, as though to chase away an irritating fly.
Mary didn't release him as she moved in front of him, her fingers dragging through his thick brown fur as she took his grizzly face into her hands. Her eyes frantically searched his. Was it uncertainty she saw in them, or something else?
"Andre, stop," she whispered. "Stop."
He shook his head again, eyes clearing as though he was coming out of a trance. He lifted his paw, letting the Wolf slip out from under him. Mary's heart nearly burst in relief. She smiled at Andre, nodding slightly to let him know that she was still with him, and turned.
The Wolf struggled to get to its feet, but it stumbled and laid still. Mary's relief cut short–Andre did this. The man she loved had very nearly killed one of her sisters.
She rushed to the Wolf's side, gathering her into her arms. Big brown eyes looked up trustingly at her as the furry body smoothly shifted into a girl, shivering, bleeding. Julia. The first of her sisters to be born.
Arms wrapped around her and terrified eyes turned to Andre. Mary held her tighter, protectively.
"Make it go away," Julia whispered.