Storm Wolf Read online

  Vakarė opened her eyes and was unable to focus at first. Then she recognized Alexei and smiled weakly.

  “So, you have returned my friend,” she whispered. “A bit late though, I am afraid.”

  Alexei shook his head. “I am so sorry,” he told her. “I was out hunting the monster, otherwise I might have been able to stop this. I will do everything…”

  Vakarė shook her head. “No, I think that if you had been here you would only have been hurt or killed as well. But I have remembered something and wanted to tell you. I did not know where to find you—”

  “I was hiding in the barn,” Alexei told her. “I wanted to protect you from the townsfolk who were hunting for me.”

  “Ah, yes.” Vakarė reached up, her fist tight. “But I wanted to tell you that I remembered something of what the wise women did when they kindled the lantern to keep the wolf from the town.” She opened her fist to reveal a small tuft of fur. “They burnt a tuft of the wolf’s fur that had been caught in a fencepost,” Vakarė told him. “And I was able to keep hold of this tuft of the wolf’s fur as it tore at me with his teeth and then threw me aside. You must burn it in the lantern to restore its protection of the town.”

  Alexei gently took the tuft of wolf fur from her and clenched it in his own fist.

  “Are the children safe?” she wanted to know.

  “He took them.”

  “All three? All three of my grandchildren?”

  Alexei nodded silently.

  “You must hunt him down and bring them back, Alexei,” she instructed him. “You must bring them back before anything terrible happens to them.”

  Alexei nodded silently again.

  “You must hunt him as he has hunted us. Save the children he has taken.”

  Alexei nodded silently for a third time and clenched his eyes shut. He could not bear to see Vakarė like this.

  She shuddered in his arms, and he opened his eyes again. “Goodbye, my friend,” Vakarė told him. “Drive the wolf away again and keep him from the town.” She shuddered and was racked with spasms in his arms and then lay still.

  Alexei was unsure how long he sat there and rocked her body. But he knew that he could not afford to stay in the house. He set Vakarė’s body down gently and hurried out to the small room he had stayed in. He found the wolf pelt where he had left it, still tied up neatly in a tidy but bulky package. He limped out to the barn, the wolf pelt under one arm and the tuft of wolf fur from the man in his fist. The early morning light was beginning to drive away the shadows. Epiphany had dawned.

  “Javinė! Where are you?” he demanded at the barn door.

  “I am right in front of you, vilkolakis! Open your eyes and look!” Javinė was standing before him, where he had not been a moment before. “I saw the man come out the window, onto the roof of the porch,” Javinė went on to say. “He had all three children with him. Jumped from the roof to the ground with them and then took them all, struggling and kicking, into the woods.”

  “I thought as much,” Alexei agreed. He set the pelt down.

  “He killed Vakarė,” Alexei announced simply. “Aušrinė and Adomas are injured but alive. The children are stolen.” He held out the tuft of fur Vakarė had given him. “But Vakarė was able to grab hold of this tuft of the monster’s fur as it attacked her. She told me that when the wise women first kindled the lantern to protect the town, they burned a tuft of the great wolf’s fur in it. Vakarė was able to keep hold of this and give it to me so that I could do the same.”

  Javinė shook his head. “It will not be enough to simply use the tuft of fur to rekindle the lantern and keep the wolf away. You must use the fur to track the beast to his hideaway so you can kill him and rescue the children he has stolen. Before tomorrow.”

  “How can we use the fur to track him?”

  Javinė lifted his cap and scratched his head. “Let me think about that.”

  It was not long before a small group of neighbors gathered in the barnyard, having heard the noise and screaming during their own predawn chores. The neighbors went into the house and shortly after they brought Adomas and Aušrinė out the door into the yard. Alexei and Javinė could hear them shouting to one another as they searched the rest of the house and finally brought Vakarė’s body out onto the porch. One man hurried off to fetch a physician to tend Adomas’ and Aušrinė’s injuries. Others stood about, and Javinė told Alexei that they were discussing the missing children. Eventually the physician arrived. Some of the neighbors went back into the house with Aušrinė and Adomas and the doctor; the rest of the neighbors drifted away to share the news of this attack.

  “I think I may have found a way to track the wolf,” Javinė finally announced. It was now late afternoon. The parade of the three kings had come past, more sedate and somber than ever before, inscribing the kings’ initials on the barn door as well as above the doors and windows of the house. Aušrinė and Adomas had not invited the kings inside to eat and drink, as was the usual custom, but no one had expected them to do so. Not today. As the kings and their attendants moved out of the barnyard and made their way to their next stop, Javinė woke Alexei, who had drifted into a nap in the hayloft.

  Alexei stretched and moaned, his ribs and shins and head still aching from the attack of the man-wolf. Javinė had washed the blood from him, but the pain and bruises remained.

  “How?” Alexei asked. He had stuffed the fur tuft as deep into his jacket pocket as he could and had folded the jacket up and placed it to one side of the hayloft to protect the tuft and prevent it from drifting away in a breeze or gust of wind.

  “It will not be easy,” warned Javinė. “You will have to bring your pelt with you, so as to be able to fight the monster, wolf-to-wolf, but you will not be able to use the tuft to track him if you are also in your wolf form. You will need your hands and feet to accomplish this and the going will be slow. Much slower than if you were in your wolf shape. But it’s the only way I can think of to do it.”

  Alexei sighed. “The going will be slow? As long as I reach his hiding place before tomorrow.”

  Javinė took hold of the brim of his red cap and held it out to Alexei, the crown of it hanging down like a small bag.

  “Put the tuft of fur in my cap,” he instructed Alexei.

  Alexei looked at the sprite and then at the hat.

  “How is that going to help us track the beast?” he asked.

  “Do what I say!” snapped the sprite.

  Alexei retrieved the tuft and dropped it into the hat.

  “Now, you must take my hat and carry it like this, with the tuft of fur inside it,” Javinė explained. “Hold it out front of you.” He demonstrated. “Maybe cup your other hand over it so the tuft doesn’t waft away.” He cupped his other palm over the inverted crown of the red cap. “Do you see?”

  Alexei nodded. “Of course I see! How could I not? What is the difficulty?”

  “My cap will lend a bit of life to the fur tuft,” Javinė explained. “The living tuft will want to reunite with the monster’s skin—where Vakarė tore it from. It will twitch and jerk about, seeking its home, and all you have to do is follow its twisting and jerking and not let it jump out of the hat or get blown away. It should eventually take you to the monster’s hiding place.”

  Alexei reached out to take the cap’s brim from the sprite. “Thank you, Javinė. I had no idea your cap was capable of such things.”

  “Just be careful with it!” snapped Javinė. “The longer the cap is off my head, the more my own life will leach away. You must be certain to bring my cap back to me, vilkolakis. Do you understand? If I am without my cap for too long, not only will my life drain so I can no longer keep the tuft alive, but I will be so weakened that I may not recover.”

  “But, Javinė!” Alexei protested. “The monster might kill me—we cannot ignore that! How would you get your cap back then? What would happen to you?”

  The sprite shrugged and looked away, over his shoulder. “If the beast
slays you, my friend, then it will have twelve new apprentices by the end of tomorrow and the town will have greater problems to worry about than the return of my little red cap.” He swallowed.

  “It is the only way!” Javinė turned back to Alexei and crossed his arms across his chest. “Take my cap and hurry after the beast. But go carefully, so as not to lose the tuft! Take your great pelt with you, and go! Go!”

  Javinė gave Alexei’s shins a push toward the edge of the hayloft.

  Alexei winced in pain and nearly lost his balance. “Very well, my friend,” he conceded. “I will take your cap to track the monster—and I promise to return it to you.” Alexei retrieved the great pelt and his jacket. He dropped them to the barn floor.

  “Just remember, vilkolakis,” Javinė reminded him as he slowly climbed down the ladder. “My life is tied up in that cap. If you need my help to fight the brute, I may be able to help you. Put it on your own head and you will share your life with mine and mine with you. But no one has ever borrowed a barn sprite’s cap like this before, so I don’t know for sure if it will work.”

  “Thank you, my friend.” Alexei didn’t know what else to say.

  “Go!” The sprite kicked a handful of straw at Alexei on the ladder. “Find Amalija, Dovydas, and Edita and the other children! Do not let the monster make them into his apprentices!”

  Alexei reached the barn floor. He put on his jacket, pulled the tuft of fur from the pocket, and dropped it into the upturned cap in his hand. Then, picking up and tucking the great pelt under his arm, he set out, holding out the cap and cupping his other palm over it while trying to keep the pelt tucked under his arm as well. Passing out of the barnyard, he turned down the road toward the lantern he had accidently extinguished on his first night in the area.

  “The wise women did not put the lantern there by accident,” he reasoned. “The wolf must have been seen by someone coming from that direction. So that is the direction I must go, at least at first.”

  Alexei made his way from the barn, down the road, toward the lantern at the crossroads. He could feel the tuft of fur twitching and twisting inside Javinė’s cap. Reaching the lantern, with the lamp inside glimmering in the gathering shadows as afternoon became evening, Alexei paused.

  “Should I burn a hair or two from the tuft?” he asked himself. “Just to insure that the monster cannot return to the village again? But will that be enough? How much of the wolf fur did the wise women burn when they first kindled the lantern?”

  He set his own great pelt beside his feet. The tuft of fur in the cap had grown more agitated, tugging the cap away from the lantern and toward the woods.

  “What if I lose the tuft altogether?” he worried. “What if it jumps out of the cap when I remove my hand?” But apart from the cap, it has no life, he reminded himself. If it did happen to fall, it would remain inert and lifeless until he picked it up and replaced it in the cap. He stepped over to the lantern.

  He unlatched the pane of the lantern and opened it. The flame inside stirred in the breeze and Alexei held his breath, afraid he might extinguish the light again and now he had no flint to rekindle it. He slowly pulled away his palm from the cap and the tuft nearly jumped into his face. It fell back into the cap and lay there, twitching like a nervous snake. Alexei reached into the cap and took hold of a strand or two of the tuft, gently shaking them loose to extract them. Gradually the twitching and jerking tuft pulled away from the strands he had gripped with his fingertips, and he turned, reaching into the lantern with the strands of wolf fur.

  The strands darkened and curled, but they were still not close enough to the fire to burn completely. As if feeling some pain from the burning strands, the remaining tuft in the cap gave a sudden jump into the air and fell to the ground. It lay there, stirring in the breeze. Would it blow away and leave him unable to track the man-wolf? It drifted lightly across the ground. He bit his lip. “Hurry! Burn!” he urged the strands in his fingertips. He needed to retrieve the tuft before it was lost.

  He inserted his fingers further into the lantern. The fire singed his fingertips and he reflexively dropped the strands as he jerked his hand back. The strands fell into the oil lamp, circling the wick for an instant before coming to rest against the base of the burning wick. They glimmered in the oil and then evaporated in a wisp of musky-scented smoke.

  Alexei heaved a deep sigh, releasing the breath he had not realized he was holding.

  “Will that be enough to keep the monster away if I fail to stop him?” There was no one to answer his question. It would have to be enough. He stooped over and trotted after the tuft, which continued to drift across the muddy snow along the road. He reached over and scooped it up in the cap, clamping his other hand over the tuft to keep it trapped. It threw itself against his palm and against the sides of the cap as if desperate to escape. He returned to the lantern and carefully closed the lantern pane and latched it, keeping his palm over the agitated tuft in the cap. He then gathered up the pelt from the ground, tucked it under his arm, and entered the forest, all the while keeping his palm securely over the tuft as it continued to struggle in the cap.

  The dark shadows of early evening were almost impenetrable under the trees as Alexei made his way into the forest. The tuft in the cap jerked and twisted, but not consistently in any one direction. Alexei kept tracing and retracing his steps as he tried to discern which way the tuft was ultimately trying to go.

  “It must be trying to reunite with the monster. Just as Javinė said it would.” He was trying to think out how the magic might be working as he limped and stumbled through the snow under the trees, struggling to keep hold of the pelt under one arm and the cap in his hand. Pressing the pelt against his side made his bruised ribs hurt all the more, and his breathing grew ragged. His trousers were getting wet from the snow and his shins now ached, from the cold as well as the bruises. Thinking out the magic was a way to distract himself from the pain. “It tried to reunite with the strands I plucked from it to burn. But those strands were close. It wants to reunite with the monster now, but he cannot be close enough for it to know for certain where to go.” He made his way back over ground he had just covered, the tuft pausing its antics as if sniffing the air to catch the monster’s scent again. Then it resumed its jerking about, and Alexei headed off under the trees in a new direction.

  Down here, in the forest and in the nighttime shadows, he was lost. If he had been able to don the wolf pelt and fly over the trees, he would have had some sense of where he was and how far he had come. But he had no idea of how far he had actually traveled or even how long he had been making his way through the forest.

  An owl hooted somewhere in the night.

  Then he heard it. Another sound, something besides his own rough gasps for air and the crunching snow beneath his boots. A small child was crying in the dark.

  The tuft in the cap lurched to one side. Alexei cocked his head, hoping to catch the direction from which the sound of whimpering was coming. The tuft lurched again, tugging strongly to the side again, and nearly pulled Alexei off his feet. As he stumbled, trying not to fall, Alexei thought he heard something like a loud slap, and then the whimpering continued, but more quietly.

  The tuft nearly pulled the cap from his grip. Alexei stumbled ahead in that direction and then he saw twin lights gleaming between the trees. He tried to make his way quietly, stealthily approaching what appeared to be a dilapidated cottage nestled between the trees. The twin lights seemed to be windows, through which he could see the light from the flickering hearth. It was hard to see details in the dark, but the roof seemed to be a patchwork of holes and shingles. The chimney on the side of the house seemed to be falling apart as well. There was a rusty cage alongside the chimney, full of dead leaves and drifted snow. The stench of the man-wolf filled Alexei’s mouth and he nearly gagged. He had found the lair.

  The tuft in the cap was wild with apparent excitement at the proximity of the monster’s den. Alexei crouched behind a tree
. His arm ached from keeping the great pelt wedged against his bruised ribs. He let the pelt drop quietly to the ground beside him. He peered through the trees at the tumbledown cottage.

  “Is he there?” Alexei wanted to know. “Are the children still safe?” At least one seemed to be, otherwise whose crying had he heard? He needed to know more before simply bursting into the cottage. Leaving the pelt by the tree, he turned the cap over onto it as well. He could see the frantic movements of the tuft continue inside the overturned cap atop the pelt, slowly knocking the cap in the direction of the cottage.

  Alexei crept to the cottage, aware of the gently crunching snow beneath his boots but hoping the man-wolf would be too concentrated on what was happening in the cottage to notice the sounds from the woods around the house. He could see now that one window was next to the door and that he would have to climb up the handful of stairs to the rotting planks of the porch to see inside it. There was another window, however, that he would be able to see into without climbing onto the porch.

  He arrived at the house. Avoiding the porch, which he was sure would creak and sigh beneath him, he made his way to the other window. He stood up and peered through the dirty window.

  Through the yellow grease stains and streaks of grime, Alexei could see a portion of the one room that seemed to comprise the interior of the house. He could see a handful of children, shackled one to the other, cowering before the large, greasy-haired man, who was standing with his back to the window. One of the smaller children was standing before the man, still crying.

  Alexei’s heart froze. One of the boys looked as he imagined his son might have looked in a year or two, had he lived. Had Alexei not killed him. Alexei felt sick.

  The man slapped the child’s face, snapping Alexei back into the present, and the child struggled to stop crying. One of the older boys shouted something in Lithuanian at the man, who stalked over to the boy and slapped his face as well.