The Yuletide Woodsman

by Katie M John

  “This is so wrong!” he croaked. “You can’t stay here.”

  “What choice do I have?” I asked, fighting back tears. “You’ve said yourself that the woods are endless and the wolves savage. I can’t ask you to help me, not when your sister is here and so vulnerable to Queen Morag’s cruelty.”

  “I won’t forsake you,” he said, his voice thick with promise. “I’ll do whatever is in my power to get you out of her—to get you far away from him.”

  I bit down on my lip. Even if I could find the words to reply, my throat had tightened.

  *

  The sound of Eleanor returning stopped our conversation and I occupied myself by putting out bowls and spoons for the three of us, even though my appetite had been extinguished by the realities of my conversation with Stag.

  Seemingly happy she had returned not to find her brother with me in his arms, Eleanor began spooning out the soup and instructed us to sit.

  Supper was filled with chatter about Stag and Eleanor’s home; news about their mother’s slowly improving health, the level of the rations and other gossip about the village, all of which I listened to without interrupting. I needed as much knowledge of the world as possible, and I also had to admit I was curious to know more about Stag’s life.

  After I half-finished my soup, I gathered the bowls and washed them up before making my excuses. I stepped out into the courtyard for a while, both to let them have some family time, and to cool my body which had grown hot with Stag’s presence.

  I closed my eyes, desperate to try and make sense of the emotions Stag generated in me. I guessed it was not surprising I had found myself drawn to him. He was strong, handsome and capable—just what a damsel in distress needed, I chided. I’d always prided myself on my sensibility, and now I’d gone all weak-kneed and goey-eyed at the first brawny guy who had stepped into my path. I let out a slow puff of air and watched as it formed a small ghost in the cold air.

  From above me, a window opened, causing me to turn and look up. It was Queen Morag. I pressed myself against the wall to conceal myself. She was talking with someone and when the person replied to her question, the unmistakeable voice of Monsieur Bernarde floated down to my ears.

  “Does she please him?” he asked. Immediately, I knew the conversation concerned me and Prince Vargar.

  “You know how he feels about it. You’ve heard enough rows between us on the matter.”

  “Yes, but he understands this is his only chance to break the curse, and now she is here, so close and so…possible, he will come around,” Monsieur Bernarde said confidently. “It helps that she’s pretty. That will help weaken his resolve.”

  “Ha, I hope so. Perhaps she will manage to make him forget that he’s already in love,” she said mockingly.

  “Time is running out,” Monsieur Bernarde warned. “With each passing month, more wolves are drawn to the forest, called by Prince Vargar’s captivity and their desire to free him.”

  “They want to claim him for their own, ensure his transformation is completed. They’re growing increasingly bold.”

  “Yes, only last night one of the village children was found mauled to death behind the inn.”

  “It can’t go on any longer. The food stores are running low and no children have been born for nearly a year. We’re slowly edging towards extinction. Our plan has to bear fruit. We haven’t got time for a love-story. Already, the thought of a nine-month wait makes me anxious. Perhaps you could talk with him, tell him how his people suffer, and how he has the power to change it. He just needs to step up and be a man; do whatever needs to be done for the end goal. If we take note of the girl’s blood cycles, it may only need to be done once or twice.”

  “The boy has been trapped in a dungeon for almost two years,” Monsieur Bernarde said sagely, “Even if his human nature doesn’t prevail, his wolf nature will. She will be pregnant within three cycles of the moon, of that I am certain.”

  “I am sure you are right. His wolf nature appears to be growing more dominant with each moon phase.”

  “And let’s say our plan is successful and the girl should fall pregnant with his child, will you be strong enough to follow through and kill that child?” Monsieur Bernarde asked with caution.

  “You underestimate the depths of a mother’s love, Monsieur. Prince Vargar is my son, my only child, the product of a rare and precious love, and as much as it will break my heart to know I condemn my first grandchild to an early death, there is nothing I would not do to free Vargar from his curse.”

  “The child will be of your blood. You must guard yourself against sentiment.”

  “I shall neither see the girl whilst she is expecting, or the child once it is born. Stag will be ordered to take the baby into the woods and kill it, throwing the carcass to the wolves as a message that the curse is broken—passed on from father to son, and then destroyed.”

  “And what if the girl tries to stop you from killing the child?”

  “Then she will die too; she will have served her purpose. It will all be over and we can move forward.”

  *

  It was all I could do not to scream, to let my anger rage on the winds. What did it matter if Queen Morag heard me and had me murdered? Perhaps then at least I would not suffer the cruel and evil abuses she had planned for me. Not only to be forced against my will by a monster, but to be made pregnant and then have that child stolen from me and slaughtered.

  I clamped my hand to my mouth, tried to calm my heartbeat and get a grip on my senses. I needed to get away, as quickly as I could, before such wickedness could happen. My eyes fell on the tree-line and to the glimmer of several pairs of green eyes that floated in the darkness. The wolves were waiting. As if they could hear my thoughts, they began a plaintive chorus of howls. They were calling to their master. Another reason why Queen Morag had secured Prince Vargor down in the depths of the dungeons. No sound from the outside world could penetrate. Perhaps the sound of their howls would trigger the rest of his transformation. The window slammed shut above me. The Queen had heard the wolves, too.

  “There you are,” Stag said, coming up beside me and making me jump. “You should come back inside. It’s not safe out here.” His eyes turned to the tree-line.

  “I was just getting some fresh air,” I said, feeling sick from everything I had learned.

  “Aye, well it’s fresh enough, chick; you’ll catch your death if you stay out here—one way or another.” His eyes flicked to the wolf-eyes in the distance.

  I studied Stag’s face to see if I could read the truth of how much he knew about Queen Morag. He had seemed genuinely shocked when I had told him Prince Vargor was still alive—and I was sure he was no great actor. And yet, he worked for her. Was bound to her. She had sent him out to gather me from the woods, just as she intended to send him out to slaughter my child.

  But as I looked at him, I knew he would never engage in something so monstrous. I trusted him.

  “It was nice to see you today,” I said boldly.

  He cracked a smile. “And you. I just wish it were under better circumstances.”

  I nodded.

  “The weather has turned for the worse. Queen Morag will soon burn through the wood I have chopped today. She will call me back in a few days and I’ll hopefully see you then?”

  How I hoped I would see him, and that I wouldn’t chained up in Prince Vagor’s gloomy cell. In that moment, I promised myself I would do everything I possibly could to ensure I was still free and untouched until Stag returned; with luck, he would bring hopeful news. I smiled and jumped at the sensation of him taking my hand in his. I’d never considered myself to have particularly dainty hands until one of them was wrapped up in Stag’s great paw.

  “I will pray that will remain unharmed in my absence, and I will start working on some kind of plan—there must be something that can be done.”

  My chest clenched with the thought of Stag leaving and me being left here at the castle surrounded by mo
nsters. Tears welled in my eyes, but I wouldn’t let him see me cry. I wasn’t some simpering girl. I was stronger than that. I had to be stronger than that, otherwise I wouldn’t survive.

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  To my surprise and great relief, I wasn’t called to meet with Prince Vargar the next day, and I wondered if there was a part of the prince that was ashamed of the way he had behaved before we parted. I suspected there was, as I was still having difficulty believing the young man who had been so courteous and genteel in our first hours of meeting was the same as the monster who had threatened me so vilely in our last.

  I dug deep and tried to find compassion for a man cursed to be split between two selves; and I did feel pity, but not enough to suffer the abuses Queen Morag planned for me in order to cure him of such a curse—and certainly not enough to ever think there could be justification for murdering an innocent child—my child. The thought was almost too much. I was seventeen and becoming a mother was about the furthest thing away from my mind—only, Queen Morag wasn’t wanting me to become a mother, was she? She purely wanted me to carry the child who would remove the curse from her son; to grow a child who would then be sacrificed and thrown to the wolves.

  Although I was pleased I had not been called upon to visit the prince, the hours with no structure or tasks made the day drag almost unbearably, and in the end I headed towards one of only two places that offered any kind of distraction, the library.

  Far from making me happy, the beauty of the space thickened my melancholy and caused even more confusion in my heart about Prince Vargar. The difference between his two worlds was almost unbearable.

  I spent several hours pretending to read an unfamiliar novel that was illustrated with the most beautiful pictures of starry nights and rose gardens, and beautiful warrior women who rode dragons, whose scales had been tipped in gold. So much beauty and so much ugliness. Between page flicks, my attention was pulled out of the large picture window towards the cruel beauty of the snowy forest and I watched with a small glimmer of joy when I saw a small blue and yellow bird flitting in the skeletal shrubbery outside. It was similar to the blue-tits we had at home and a sudden wave of homesickness swept over me. It was another day closer to Christmas and another day further away from getting home. The thought of my family’s heartbreak added another layer of pain.

  “You’re homesick,” Eleanor said, causing me to startle. I had not heard her come in.

  “How did you know I was thinking of home?”

  She shrugged. “You’ve been stolen away from your loved ones, what else would you be thinking of?”

  I laughed, and there was me having thought she was psychic for a moment when really she was just smart and intuitive.

  “It’s only a few days until Christmas—Yule, I corrected. My mother will be distraught.”

  Eleanor surprised me by sitting down on the window seat beside me. “My mother would be heartbroken, too.”

  “Is she getting better?”

  Eleanor nodded. “Yes. Slowly. She doesn’t cope well with the weather.”

  “This isn’t the place for her then.”

  “It wasn’t always like this,” Eleanor explained. “When I was a little girl there were two seasons. The Snowing and the Sunning. Yule used to mark the change between the two but not anymore. Once, it was a time of celebration, but now, as the people starve and their bones grow cold, it’s just a painful reminder of what once was and now is no more.”

  “And all of this is because of the curse?”

  Eleanor shrugged. “Perhaps. It happened around the same time. Most people believe so. Prince Vargar was out hunting for reindeer for the Yule feast when he became separated from the rest of the hunting party. He was set upon by a demon wolf, a wolf split from his pack, which has grown bad with hunger and isolation. Some say it was the son of the wolf witch.

  “They carried the injured prince back to the castle and Queen Morag sat by his bedside for three nights. After the first night, she sent the physician away, and everybody thought it was because there was no hope—but that wasn’t the reason; Prince Vargar, far from dying was being reborn. No one knows what Queen Morag really witnessed but…” Eleanor sighed pitifully. “Something terrible happened. She declared her son dead and held a funeral when in truth, she had had him carried down to the dungeon, that would soon become his world.

  “Two guards were found dead—apparently a brawl gone bad, but I suspect they were the men who had known Queen Morag’s secret and helped carry the prince down the many corridors and stairs.

  “Yule came and went and the Sunning never came. The king had died soon after of a broken heart, and Queen Morag emptied the castle of its servants. The snow fell and settled and didn’t thaw. The food stores ran low. The wolves came, drawn to the village by the smell of food and the warmth of fires, and then the killing started.”

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  I had listened to Eleanor’s account, taking in every detail, thinking that somewhere in the story laid the answer that might save us all, and yet, by the time she had finished, I felt just as hopeless as before.

  “Do you know that Queen Morag snatched me so Prince Vargar might have a child?” I asked, wanting to suss out whether Eleanor knew of Queen Morag’s plans or not. From the look on her face, it was evident she had been clueless.

  “She wants you to fall in love with him?” she asked with distress. “To be his wife?”

  I emitted a shocked laugh at Eleanor’s innocence. “That’s not quite what the Queen has in mind. I think she intends that Prince Vargar gets me pregnant whether I love him or not.”

  Eleanor’s hand flew to her mouth and I suddenly felt guilty for polluting her delicate and innocent mind. “But that’s terrible—and the prince would never agree to such a thing. He’s not like that… he’s good and kind and gentle,” she protested.

  “Perhaps, but what about the monster that now lives with him?”

  Eleanor’s eyes were wide. “What are you going to do?”

  “Appeal to his better side, which is why it’s so important I know as much about the prince before his curse as I can.” I glanced around the library and took in the beauty of it once more. “The boy who conceived this space had a good soul, a heart full of higher values and noble intentions. I believe if I can connect with that side of the prince, I might be saved and somehow, we can fix things,” I said, suggesting I had more confidence in my abilities than I had.

  Eleanor nodded and her voice fell soft. “He was so beautiful, Neve. Kind, courteous, gentle, compassionate. I wish you could have known him then. All the girls dreamed that one day he might make them his bride.” She smiled weakly and I understood that not only was Eleanor one of those wistful girls, but she still carried affection for him, maybe even something more.

  “Did you love him, Eleanor?”

  She nodded before glancing nervously towards the door. “I think he might have begun to love me, too.”

  This part of her confession surprised me. “What makes you think that?” I asked, wanting to suss out whether this was just a part of her love-struck delusion.

  “We were meeting in secret. Then his mother found out and she wasn’t happy about it. She thought I was too young, and that I was beneath him; a girl from the village could never make a suitable bride. Vargar was teaching me to read. We used to spend hours in here. Now, Queen Morag keeps me here, by paying for my mother’s care, so that I can be the prince’s servant, reminding us both of my place and to punish me; she knows me seeing him like this breaks my heart.”

  I didn’t have anything to say to these revelations and so I fell quiet. The bell rang and Eleanor sprang to her feet. “I have to go. Queen Morag is calling.”

  I nodded and watched after Eleanor before returning to the magical escape of the book.

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN.

  With every step I took towards the dungeon door, my heart crawled higher up my throat and my stomach lower down my body. I had no idea whether I was ab
out to meet with a prince or a monster. I had no idea whether this day would end with me safe or wickedly abused.

  All night, I played through my potential reactions to an assault. Would I fight and rage and take the blows, or remain passive as I accepted my physical plight but safe guarded my mind, transporting it somewhere else; perhaps to the pages of the book I had tucked under my arm?

  It was the book that had captivated me the day before. I took it with me in the hope its beauty reminded Prince Vargar of all the other beauty he had created, and might continue to create—rather than…

  I trembled with the many darkling thoughts running through my head. If Queen Morag could see my shivering flesh, my pale skin, my tear veiled eyes, she didn’t say. I wondered if she felt any kind of remorse about any of this, whether she knew her soul was damned—if you believe in such things. I’d seen no evidence of a god in her world.

  With the sound of each lock that sprung, I flinched. I stood on the threshold of Prince Vargar’s room, willing my eyes to adjust to the gloom so that at least I might have a little more power. For all Eleanor’s storytelling in the library, she never did explain why the Prince must never be exposed to light.

  Like the day before, the prince’s head was hooded. He was standing in the middle of the room, his arms folded and his legs in an apex. A power position. He’d been waiting for me. My throat tightened.

  “Hello, mother,” he said steadily, almost with charm.

  “How are you?”

  “Better than I could have been. That fool Monseiur Bernarde visited earlier, I’m guessing at your behest, and I barely had a chance to get the hood on before he opened the door to him and his lantern.”

  “Oh, my goodness. But you are alright. You managed to cover yourself in time?” Queen Morag asked.

  “Yes, thankfully. Please be sure to remind him of the system.”

  “Incompetent fool! I’ll be sure he doesn’t make the same mistake again.” She moved me forward with a firm hand on the base of my spine. “I have brought Neve down to read to you.”