Storm Wolf Page 14

  “Get my shotgun! Shoot the wolf!” the old man screamed as they hovered near the kitchen doorway.

  The wolf lunged at the old man’s throat and his demands were lost in the gurgles of blood that spurted down across his chest and across the kitchen.

  The wolf snarled at the brothers again and snapped another mouthful from Audra’s body before it leaped out the broken window.

  News of the wolf attack spread quickly through the town. No one could recall such a brazen attack by such an evidently desperate animal. Wolves attacked people alone, out in the woods or the fields. Wolves had never been heard of breaking into homes or attacking people inside buildings.

  And the wolf described by Audra’s brothers was not emaciated and starving. It was large. Its fur was sleek. It was not a mange-ridden, hungry animal or ill with rabies. Its behavior sounded mad, but it had not looked mad to the brothers who had watched it kill first their sister and then their father.

  Alexei heard the news from Dovydas and Amalija at the dinner table that evening.

  “Did you hear, Grandmother, about the great wolf that burst into Audra’s home and killed her in the kitchen?” Dovydas exclaimed before he had taken the first bite of food.

  Alexei dropped his spoon in shock.

  “A-another w-w-wolf attack?” he stuttered. “In someone’s h-home?”

  “Yes.” Amalija confirmed her brother’s news report. “Audra was in the kitchen with her father when the wolf burst in through the window and killed them both. Right in front of her brothers.”

  “They had come out of bed because they must have heard Audra screaming and their father calling for them,” Dovydas elaborated.

  “That’s another wedding that will not be celebrated in the next weeks,” Amalija went on. “Audra was to be wed shortly after Elžbieta.”

  “But now the one is postponed and the other will be a funeral instead of a marriage.” Aušrinė, her mother, shook her head sadly. “How can this be? In our town? We have not had trouble with the wolves here for many, many years.”

  “Why now?” her husband Adomas asked. “Twice now. In such quick succession. And both of the attacked girls were engaged to be wed. I am afraid to think what might still be waiting for the rest of us.”

  “Do you think the wolf is especially interested in girls engaged to be wed?” asked Amalija, horrified. “How could an animal possibly know the plans of his victims?”

  “If he is, then you should be safe!” Dovydas jeered at his older sister. “It will be years—if ever!—before you are engaged to be married!” He cackled gleefully. His sister glared at him.

  Alexei picked up the spoon he had dropped and noticed Vakarė watching him, her eyes quick and alert even as they darted back to her own plate.

  Little Edita spoke up, tired of being left out of the conversation. “But what about my friends, Agnes and Albertas?” she wanted to know. “I miss my friends! Has anyone heard anything new about them?”

  Her father Adomas shook his head. “No, I am afraid they are still missing, little Edita,” he answered quietly. “We organized a search party, looked through the fields for them. But there has been no sign of your friends.”

  “And now I hear that another child went missing this morning,” Edita’s mother added. Alexei paid closer attention. “A boy, Aleksandras from the farm over across the fields. Remember him? He is nearly ten years old, and he was sent to the general store by his mother. When he was late coming home, his mother sent his older brother out to see what game had distracted him with his friends, but the brother reported that the shopkeeper said the boy had never arrived. And none of his friends had seen him today either.” Everyone at the table shook their heads about the missing children.

  “I wonder,” Vakarė muttered. “Did those children just run off somewhere or has the wolf gotten them as well?”

  Later that evening, after the supper dishes had all been cleared away and washed, Vakarė found Alexei in the hallway alone.

  “You were as surprised as we all were to hear of another wolf attack,” she told him.

  “Yes,” Alexei agreed. It was true and pointless to deny.

  “But you were even more surprised than we, I think,” Vakarė told him. “I think… I think that you had done something that you thought would prevent another such attack.”

  Alexei was silent.

  “But what could you have done?” she wondered aloud. “The lantern has been burning at the crossroads all this time and yet this wolf has attacked twice. Does that mean it is simply an ordinary wolf, unlike the one the lantern burns to keep away? Or is it an even more extraordinary wolf than the one the lantern drives off?” She reached up to touch one fingertip to Alexei’s chin. “Or is it an altogether different sort of creature that you might have special knowledge of?”

  “What ‘altogether different sort of creature’ could I possibly have any special knowledge of?” Alexei wanted to know.

  Vakarė shook her head. “I cannot answer that question, my friend. But I did hear of the attack on Audra and her father earlier today and your name was mentioned. Some folk in town have not been afraid to mention that you arrived here in the cold and the night just before these children disappeared and the wolf attacks began.”

  “Surely, you cannot think that I had anything to do with these!” Alexei sputtered.

  “No, I do not, my friend.” Vakarė shook her head again. “But you should know that there are some in the town who think that you might.”

  Alexei stared at her in shock.

  “I say it only to warn you, my friend. Be careful.” As she turned to go, Alexei clutched her arm.

  “Wait. The lantern. You mentioned the lantern. The children spoke as if you had been there when it was first lit. What do you know of the lantern?” Alexei wanted to know.

  Vakarė studied his face for a long moment. Finally she answered, “I was a young girl when the lantern was lit to keep the monstrous wolf away from the town. Ever since, it has been my special responsibility to tend it and keep the oil replenished and the wick restocked so that it will continue to burn and bar the way to that monster.”

  “But have you ever found the lantern extinguished when you have gone to tend it?” he asked her.

  Vakarė shook her head. “No, I have not. Sometimes, I have found the wick short, nearly burnt down to a stub, or the oil surprisingly low, almost exhausted, but I have never found the light extinguished.”

  “But if you had,” Alexei persisted, “would it not have been enough to simply kindle it again with a new wick and add more oil?”

  “Perhaps,” Vakarė told him. “But I suspect not. There was much magic done when the lantern was first kindled—it took three old grandmothers to do it all—and I suspect that if ever the light in it was to die, then the magic first put into it would die as well. The lantern would have to be kindled and the magic would need to be infused into it again.”

  “But you saw what was done, did you not? Couldn’t you perform the magic and infuse the power into the lantern again?” Alexei demanded.

  She shook her head. “But I’m afraid that I was a very young girl. Yes, I saw what was done, but it was a very long time ago, and I was so young that I did not understand everything that I saw. I doubt that I could ever perform the rite again correctly by myself or rekindle the power in the lantern to keep the monster wolf away. No, I’m afraid that if the lantern were to ever be extinguished, there would be no way to keep the monster from us again.”

  Alexei felt the color drain from his face. His hand dropped from Vakarė’s arm.

  “What do you know of that lantern, Alexei?” Vakarė reached over to touch his chin. “Have you seen it, my friend? Is there some reason for you to think that it might have gone dark?”

  He swallowed. He could not bring himself to tell her of how he had knocked the lantern and left it, unburning, until after the report of the attack on Elžbieta and hearing the story of the lantern at the Christmas Eve supper.


  But Vakarė saw the fear in his eyes. She nodded. “You have seen the lantern. And you have seen it dark. But you have tried to rekindle it, haven’t you?”

  Unable to pull his eyes from hers, he nodded.

  “Then we must discover a way to rekindle the magic in it as well, my friend.” Vakarė turned to go. “I think you may know more about this than you care to admit. Or even more about how to do this than you realize. But I will think on it and pray about it and try to remember what was done when I was little to protect the town and keep that monster away. We will talk again of this, my friend.”

  Alexi watched her go and felt his sense of safety drain into the floor on which he stood.

  “I have brought that monster back into the lives of these good people. I must find a way to drive it away again,” he swore under his breath.

  It was before dawn the next morning that Alexei went into the barn. He struck a flint and lit a small candle he had brought with him.

  “Javinė!” he whispered, as loudly as he dared. Then he remembered that the sprite could only understand his thoughts, not his words. “Javinė!” he shouted in his mind, unafraid that anyone else might hear or be disturbed. “Javinė! Where are you?”

  One of the hens clucked quietly somewhere in the dark barn.

  “Javinė!” Alexei called again in his thoughts, demanding the sprite show himself. “Javinė! I need to speak with you!”

  “Do you now?” the old sprite cackled somewhere outside the ring of light cast by the candle stub. “What is it that could be so important that the great vilkolakis from Estonia would need to speak with lowly Javinė?” The sprite coughed and sputtered, hacking up what sounded like a gobbet of spittle, which landed in a pile of hay with a splat.

  “Javinė?” Alexei asked. “I need to speak with you about the lantern and the wolf it was kindled to keep away from the town.”

  The sprite stepped out of the shadows and into the small circle of light that spilled from Alexei’s candle. “The lantern? What do you want to know about the lantern, vilkolakis?” The sprite shuddered. “That wolf was very different from you, vilkolakis.”

  “How so?” Alexei asked. “You said that you have protected Adomas’ father and grandfather. You must have been here when the lantern was kindled. What do you know about all that happened then?”

  “It was a terrible time,” Javinė agreed. “But my power is limited to this barn and the farmyard around it. I cannot even go into the farmhouse. I only heard about the wolf and the lantern, since I could never leave the farmyard to see for myself what was happening. But I heard from the wind and the rain how the monster would steal children—”

  “Steal children?” Alexei interrupted. “Why would the monster wolf steal children? I thought he attacked and killed young women, young women about to be married?”

  “Yes, the monster would attack young girls nearing their wedding days.” The sprite glared at Alexei, continuing his report, “and would viciously attack them simply for the sport of it. But he would also steal younger children, children that he intended to transform into monsters like himself, the wind and the rain told me. His kind hunt for twelve apprentices between Christmas and Epiphany and transform them on the day after Epiphany. His kind are rare in this world, but the wind and the rain had encountered one or two of them before. But he was stopped before Epiphany, so he never finished his collection, and the children were never found because the townsfolk thought they were dead already, taken by the monster into the woods to be slain and eaten.

  “It was three of the last wise women of the town who discovered what the brute was: a vilkolakis of a sort, like you in that regard, but a vilkolakis so unlike you as to be another kind of monster altogether.”

  “So you think that I am a monster?” Alexei could not stop himself from thinking.

  Javinė spat again at the barn floor. “So ready to take offense are you, my friend? No, I can tell from your scent that you are a kind monster, a brute who seeks only to care for his neighbors rather than destroy them. I declare, they are a strange kind of vilkolakis that come from Estonia. But the vilkolakis that the wise women drove away with the lantern was a brute and a monster that not even the nightmares of Lithuanians had seen before.”

  Javinė spat on the straw-strewn floor again. “But why are you so interested, Alexei? I know the old grandmother in the house goes out each week to tend the lantern and that she has done so since it was first kindled. The three wise women entrusted that task to her because… well, it is no secret, I suppose… it was her two elder sisters who were the first and last victims of the monster.”

  The sprite licked his old, cracked lips and clearly had something more to say. Alexei waited.

  “But I heard her once, that old woman,” Javinė eventually resumed. “One morning. Before dawn. Here, in the barn. Saying her prayers away from where she thought anyone else might overhear her. Her sisters were the beast’s victims, but she thought she had opened the door to the monster by playing games with the nykštukas, the forest spirits. They had convinced her that they were the last of their race and needed a human girl to open the door to the Otherworld to bring more of their kind into the forest so she would still have playmates when they were gone.

  “So she did what they asked and—whatever the rite or song or whatever it was they asked her to perform—she thought it had opened the door to the Otherworld not only to let in the nykštukas but the monster wolf as well.

  “But you still haven’t told me why it is that you are so interested in all this, vilkolakis Alexei. Surely the old woman hasn’t let the lantern go out. Has she?”

  Alexei hung his head in shame. “I knocked against the lantern the night I came to this place. The lantern went out, but I thought it no more than a marker to guide travelers in the night.”

  “Fool!” exclaimed Javinė, scowling at Alexei and then spitting at his feet.

  “But now the monster wolf has attacked,” Alexei continued as if he had not heard the sprite. “Twice. I have rekindled the lantern but that does not seem to have stopped the creature. Vakarė thinks the same magic must be done again to empower the lantern to keep away the monster, but she does not think she can remember it all now or do it all herself—since it took three old women together to do it the first time.”

  Javinė coughed and sputtered with rage. “Fool! Jackass! Imbecile! How could you have been so clumsy and thoughtless! Who leaves a lantern burning at a crossroads without some purpose more important than guiding some oaf stupid enough to be walking along the road in the dark? You have exposed the whole town to this monster again! Could you have done anything more thoughtless and cruel?”

  “You have no idea what else I might have done that others would call thoughtless and cruel!” Alexei snapped.

  Javinė paused in his blustering and turned his head as if to study Alexei with one eye under his shaggy, arching brow.

  “Well. Be that as it may,” the sprite concluded at last. “The damage is done and you must find some way to repair it.”

  “And how might I do that?” Alexei wanted to know. “That was the reason I called you this morning!”

  Javinė reached up and scratched his head under his cap. “I cannot say, vilkolakis. But I will think on it and I will find you when I have something to say.”

  Alexei went about his daily chores on the farm—helping with milking and feeding the animals, brushing the horses’ coats, and repairing the plows and other tools in the barn—and thought the small handful of other farmhands seemed even more reluctant than usual to work beside him.

  He went into the town to buy a handful of kitchen supplies for Vakarė and saw housewives in the streets turn their heads when they saw him coming and lean close to each other, whispering as their eyes darted to him and then away again.

  “People do think I am guilty,” he realized. “Vakarė told me true. Others in the town do think that I have done something to harm those two girls.”

  He finished his errand
and hurried back to the farm. But as he made his way down the muddy road, he saw handfuls of men stop and stare at him, talking among themselves and pointing at him. The women had all seemed anxious to avoid his noticing that they were talking about him, but these groups of men refused to take their eyes from him, as if warning him that they were watching him and what he did. He could feel their eyes boring into his back as he passed them on the other side of the street and he hunched his shoulders up around his ears as if to protect himself from their threatening, angry stares as much as to shield himself from the cold.

  “I know that I harmed those girls,” he whispered to himself, fighting back tears as he hurried along. “Knocking out that lantern, I may as well have attacked those girls myself.” He stopped and shuddered, thinking of what he had done to his family and of the threat his presence posed to Vakarė and her family. “What if the transformation seizes me again, here, while I am among them, and I slaughter them myself? There is no need for a monster wolf to come past the lantern in that case. I must find a way to stop the monster and then get away from Vakarė and her family before I slaughter them all.” He closed his eyes, but was unable to shut out the memory of his wife and children and how their torn and broken bodies had been strewn about their house. How he had torn their bodies with his teeth and broken them with his own hands, tossing them about the house in his wolf madness.

  “I can’t let that happen again!” he promised himself.

  The man roused himself from his drunken sleep, shaking the locks of his greasy hair from his face and kicking the empty bottles of beer that littered the floor around the stained and tattered bed. The house, deep in the forest opposite the crossroads where the lantern burned with its ineffective light, was a ramshackle hut that did little more than keep out the bulk of the dead leaves in the autumn or the snow in the winter. The holes in the roof dripped half-melted snow even as dead leaves from the many autumns past were piled in the corners of the one room that served as kitchen, parlor, and bedchamber. A pot hung over the cold ashes on the hearth and the bricks in the chimney climbed the wall precariously towards both the roof and the sky. Patches of white lichen and green moss were scattered across the crumbling bricks.