Nadia's Children

by Steven E Wedel

  “Maybe.” Thomas’s voice said it was something he didn’t care to discuss. “I see it too often.”

  “Did you see her die? You were there when she died?”

  “No. The school teacher told me how it happened.”

  “So you see what was described to you. Nobody sees it. Why not? Why don’t we see that like we see the night the curse was put on the Old Ones? Have you ever talked to anyone who has seen the vision of how she – Katherine – died?”

  Thomas shook his head. “No.”

  “This has to mean something,” Shara said.

  “Morrigan is the Alpha,” Thomas said plainly. “We’ve long known that. It is right that she should see things that happened before she was born.”

  “I want to know if she can see Katherine,” Shara said. “Can she see that? And, can she see her own future? Can she see whatever it is that she’s supposed to do? If we know that, maybe we can know what Fenris is afraid of. Maybe there isn’t even anything for him to be afraid of.”

  “Perhaps,” Thomas agreed. “But, lass, must we ask our daughter if she’s seen visions of a child I fathered with another woman?”

  Shara pulled her eyes off the distant trees, growing dark as the sun hurried to the western horizon. She studied Thomas’s face, his black eyes and the soft wrinkles in the skin around them. sShe smiled and put her arm around his neck. “I suppose not,” she said. “But I think we should question her about other things. Find out how much she knows about the past and future.”

  “One of your American poets wrote about an over-soul,” Thomas said. “He said that there is only one soul, and that every person has a little bit of it in them. Maybe those of us with the Gift, or the curse, are like that. Maybe we all share a soul, and Morrigan is more connected to it than the rest of us.”

  “Maybe,” Shara said. “That makes as much sense as anything else I’ve heard lately.”

  “If we have to leave here, where will we go?”

  “I don’t know,” Shara said. “But I think we should make some kind of contingency plan, just in case. If Fenris’s people start moving, we have to get out of here. Or be ready to fight.”

  “Aye,” Thomas agreed. He was quiet for a minute, then said again, “We should get back.”

  “Aye,” Shara said, teasing him. She kissed his ear, then stepped back and let the wolf come. She darted away from him, but Thomas was soon at her heels as they raced toward home.

  Jenny

  Jenny followed the signs along the highway, taking the prescribed exits, until finally she found herself in the parking lot of Gunnison, Colorado’s Wal-Mart. She drove to the side of the store and parked the black pickup. By this time tomorrow, she knew, her cycle would be upon her. The truck might be noticed, reported as abandoned, and towed. The Wal-Mart parking lot, though, was the best option she could think of.

  She’d decided to spend her four-day cycle in the Black Canyon near Gunnison. She had never been allowed to hunt alone. Always, Fenris, Kelley, or one of Fenris’s other trusted lackeys was with her every moment she was a wolf. It had been annoying. Jenny looked forward to hunting all by herself in a new area.

  Inside the Wal-Mart, she bought a small backpack, black nylon with brown suede flaps. It was the kind kids carried to school, not the kind you took on a real hike, but she was traveling light. She added a plastic jar of beef jerky, a box of saltine crackers, three bottles of water, and a box of matches to her cart, then checked out, conscious of the security cameras recording her as she moved through the store.

  Back in the truck, she added to her backpack what was left of the supplies she’d brought from Fenris’s house and the food she’d bought along the road. She transferred the jerky from the bulky plastic jar to the plastic bag the cashier had put it in, rolled it tight and shoved it into the pack. Finally, she threw in the keys to the Silverado, just in case she wanted to come back to it … and it was still there.

  Jenny closed the door and walked away from the Wal-Mart. It felt strange to be walking. Driving almost halfway across the country, she felt she’d become pretty good at operating the pickup. She wondered where she might be when she turned sixteen and what her first driver’s license would look like.

  Main Street and the business district dropped away behind her. Jenny considered putting out her thumb and trying to hitch a ride toward the state park, but decided against it. She walked through quaint neighborhoods, into the outskirts of town, then beyond, into the peeking greenery of spring.

  At first, Jenny had thought she was driving aimlessly. The only thought she’d given to her destination was the possibility of returning home to Bozeman, Montana, but that would be the first place Fenris would look. So she drove east. When she hit Colorado, she slowed down, leaving the interstate in favor of smaller state highways and more scenic routes. At a tourism post, she’d stopped for maps and brochures in anticipation of her cycle, but already she’d realized she was kind of heading in the direction of Oklahoma.

  She’d heard talk in Fenris’s house. Joey’s mom and dad were from Oklahoma. They had land there, and there was always talk that they might try to come back to it. Jenny remembered how, about seven years ago, Fenris had gone to Oklahoma for something. She never knew why, but it had something to do with Joey’s parents.

  She wanted to see Joey. She wanted to ask him why. Why did he bite her? Why would he do this to her? And, she admitted, she wanted to be with someone her own age, someone who was like her, but not old. She’d liked Kelley well enough, and a few others she’d come to know at Fenris’s house, but always there was some mistrust toward them, and they never took her seriously. She was Fenris’s little pet, the baby werewolf. The pup. Almost a joke.

  Jenny sighed and hitched her pack up. Where would Joey be?

  Probably not in Oklahoma. Still, it might be a good place to start looking. Jenny wondered what Joey would look like now. He’d been cute, but that was a long time ago.

  Fenris thought Joey would grow up to do something pretty bad. He said somebody named Ulrik would make Joey a king, and that Joey would tell all the werewolves what to do, and would hunt down and kill the ones who refused.

  Jenny thought back to the sweet, wide-eyed boy she’d known in first grade. She remembered him getting mad sometimes when the teacher told him to do something he didn’t want to do. He’d pout. But would he kill someone? She didn’t think so.

  Within an hour, Jenny was out of town and deep enough into the woods that she could no longer hear the sounds of civilization. She found a rock formation that looked like a big mother boulder with two babies at either end, forming a sort of natural alcove. She dug through seasons of dead leaves and into the dark earth beneath, using her hands and a stick. Her backpack wasn’t completely underground when she left it, but it was covered with dirt, leaves, and one more rock about the size of her head to mark the spot. Her clothes were inside it, and it was zipped up to keep out the worms and bugs.

  Jenny took a deep breath and let herself turn into a wolf. The change still hurt, but she’d learned to make it all happen pretty much at once to get it over with. When it was finished, she wanted to raise her head and howl, but she didn’t. It was important she not draw attention to herself. There weren’t supposed to be any wild wolves left in Colorado.

  Dropping her nose to the ground, she went in search of something to hunt. Even as a wolf, eating a freshly killed squirrel or rabbit was something she didn’t want to do, but she loved the hunt and the chase. Fenris always berated her for letting the prey get away at the last second, or even after she’d caught it.

  He can’t say anything to me now.

  Keeping her nose to the ground, Jenny moved down the slope of the mountain, deeper into the canyon.

  Chris

  “Your son is special, but he’s not the Alpha.”

  “What do you mean?” Chris asked. “I thought everyone knew he is the Alpha. The first werewolf born naturally.”

  Cerdwyn added a few twigs to the small
fire they had built to cook the catfish they’d pulled out of the swamp water. Chris watched her, watched her slender arms moving, her long blonde hair slipping over her shoulder to hang before her, blocking the view of her breast like a silky drape. She looked up and caught him staring. Her bright eyes shone at him and she smiled with her thin lips. “You’ve been out here for a long time,” she said.

  “Yeah,” he admitted, then forced himself back to the topic at hand. “Why do you say Joey isn’t the Alpha? Ulrik was sure he was.”

  “Ulrik?” She smiled, almost laughed, then shook her head. “The great patriarch. He would assume the Alpha is a male. Of course he’s wrong. The goddess will always choose a female. Joey can’t be the Alpha because he’s a boy.”

  Chris studied her for a long while. Eventually she had to move and adjust the fish filets roasting on sticks over the fire. When she sat back he asked, “So, you’re saying the Alpha has to be a female?”

  “Of course.”

  “But, isn’t the leader of a wolf pack always a dominant male?”

  “The pack is led by a pair, a male and a female,” she said. “Because they live completely in the wild, the physically stronger of the lead pair is the pack leader. But, Chris, we do not live completely in the wild. We’re not completely animals. Are we?”

  “No,” Chris admitted. “But …”

  Cerdwyn shook her head again. “Is it so hard to understand?” She laughed softly, not so much at him as at something larger. “You have lived your life believing in only a male god, haven’t you? You have always had male presidents, male popes, founding fathers, et cetera. The goddess came first, Chris. Before any god, she was here. The Indo-Europeans, they began the patriarchal cults. They moved across Europe, breaking the goddess up into parts, renaming her and marrying her to their male gods. Then the Christians came, made some of the goddesses and gods saints, but did away with any trace of the divine they couldn’t attribute to their own male gods.”

  “The goddess is … the earth? Like, Mother Earth?” Chris asked.

  “Yes. Of course. You thought she only sold butter, didn’t you?”

  He laughed. “I haven’t seen that old commercial in forever.” His laughter died away. “Well, I’m not really religious. Of course, I know the Sunday school stories. And I know a lot about mythology. I never really thought about the stories in a historical context, I guess. Not like you just described.”

  “Do you doubt me?”

  Chris shrugged. “I don’t know. If I saw you on the street, or on some infomercial, I’d probably write you off as a nut and not think about it again.”

  “But because we’ve made love, it’s different?”

  Chris thought about how they’d rutted. Making love? It had been pure lust. She seemed to read his thoughts as she turned the filets, smiling at him. He’d spent every bit of his wolfish desire on her, and afterward lay in the wet grass, panting and watching the dark shapes of clouds pass between him and the stars above. Was it the sex that made him more open to her ideas? Or the exhaustion that was a result of the sex?

  “I don’t know,” he admitted. “Maybe I’m still stuck on the Joey part. Ulrik told him he’s the Alpha. Kiona believes he is. Shara … she told him he is.”

  “Shara,” Cerdwyn said. “I feel pity for her. She is so young to the Gift and yet she has experienced so much. For a while, I thought she might be the Alpha. Shouldn’t the Mother and the Alpha be one and the same?”

  “I have no idea.” Chris knew his bitterness was evident in his voice.

  “You should forgive her.”

  The statement surprised him. His attention snapped back to the other woman’s face. She looked at him intently, then broke her gaze away and handed him a piece of fish. “Why?” he asked as he took it.

  “She was raised in a patriarchal society. She thought she needed a male to protect her. She thought you were dead, so she turned to the next male.”

  Chris suddenly regretted telling his story to this new acquaintance. I was so drained, so exhausted and happy, I would have told her anything. He shook the thought away. “So soon, though?” he asked.

  “She was on the run, scared, searching for her son. Thomas was there for her. Did she become his lover too soon? It is not for me to say. Grief and love are different for everyone.”

  Chris bit into the hot filet. The meat was delicious, warm and full of a wild, invigorating flavor not found in store-bought fish. “You sound more like a preacher – a Christian preacher – than … What are you? A witch? Wiccan?”

  She laughed, and it was a merry laugh. She threw back her head, exposing her long throat and her perky breasts bounced with her mirth. Finally she stopped, but her eyes remained lit. “Wiccan is as close as you’ll come to it, I guess,” she said. “I listen to the Earth, and to the wolf, and I follow them.”

  “How?”

  “It takes years of meditation,” she answered. “You have to want it, deep in your soul. You listen with your heart and with your soul, not with your mind. Not many people have the dedication, or even the desire today.”

  “You seem very in touch with a spiritual side,” Chris said.

  “Not so much that I don’t enjoy the flesh, too,” she teased. Chris felt himself redden, which made her laugh again. He ate his fish, and she did likewise.

  “I’m surprised you’re eating meat,” he said at last.

  “Why?”

  “Well, wasn’t this fish one of Mother Earth’s creations?”

  “Of course,” she said. “So are the sticks we burned to cook it.” She smiled at him, then went on, “See how those who follow the goddess have been demonized and ridiculed? You think because I follow the goddess I won’t eat meat. Some who follow are like that, but it is because they are rebelling against something else more than they are following the goddess. The goddess provides. I do not waste. I wouldn’t take two fish and only eat one. I wouldn’t burn living wood, or dig up a root I didn’t need.”

  “That makes sense,” Chris said. “Conservation more than whacked-out environmentalism.”

  She shrugged but didn’t answer.

  “Why did you come looking for us?” Chris asked. “If Joey isn’t the Alpha, why bother finding us?”

  Cerdwyn smiled at him again. “Partly just because nobody knew where you were.”

  “But you found us. How?”

  “I listened, Chris. Like I said. I listened to the Earth, and to the wolf. They knew you were here. Every movement we make creates actions and reactions that impact everything around us.”

  “A butterfly effect?” he asked.

  “Exactly.”

  “And the … Mother Nature told you that?”

  “Yes.”

  “Okay. So, just seeing if you could find us was part of it. What was the other part?”

  “Joey is important,” Cerdwyn said. “He is the first of us born of woman, as Macbeth’s witches would put it. He’s different. And, everyone else is focused on him being the Alpha. Ulrik, Fenris. They both want him.”

  “Ulrik?” Chris said it before he could stop himself. His tone gave him away.

  “Tell me,” she urged.

  “I shouldn’t.”

  “Is he dead?”

  Chris dropped his gaze to the fire. “I don’t know. I … I shot him with a silver bullet. I suppose he is.”

  “Yes,” Cerdwyn said. “I think you’re right. This is something that is not widely known, though. Fenris doesn’t know it.”

  “How do you know? Did Mother Earth tell you that, too?”

  Cerdwyn laughed at him again. “No, Christopher. My spy in California told me that. The Earth and the wolf have told me two other things, though.”

  “What?”

  “I have not shared this information with anyone. I would not want Kiona Brokentooth to know,” she said.

  “Kiona.” Chris pondered his relationship with the Indian woman for a moment. “I never talk to her like this. With her, it’s all business, all the t
ime. She’s always so … I don’t know.”

  “She’s angry,” Cerdwyn said. “She thought she was meant to be the Mother.”

  “Yeah, I know that,” Chris said. “Is that why she acts like she does? Bitter?”

  “Some people are like that. They can only focus on the negative, so they give out negative energy.”

  “Even sex with her is more like a fight. She turned me into a werewolf against my will, too.”

  “I suspected that. But you like the wolf now.”

  “Yes,” Chris admitted, though it hadn’t been a question. “So, what do you want? You want me to get Joey and leave Kiona? Go away with you?”

  “Yes.”

  “Kiona isn’t one to just let us walk away.”

  “I know.” Cerdwyn dropped three more tiny twigs onto the fire. “I know something about an old friend of Joey’s. I think he will want to learn about that.”

  “Who?”

  “I think I’ll hold that one for now,” Cerdwyn said. “As to the other information, do you want to know, or not?”

  “Yes.”

  “You can keep the information from Kiona?”

  Chris didn’t answer immediately. Finally he said, “Yes.” Then, more confidently, “Yes. It’s time to leave her. I’m so damn sick of this swamp. Seven years of muck and water and bugs and living in a shack on stilts.”

  She laughed softly. “I was hoping you would choose me for a reason more substantial than my being a better lover.”

  Chris grinned, then laughed. “Well, for what it’s worth … No comparison.” He paused, then added, “At least, as a wolf.”

  “Later you can try me as a woman,” she promised.

  Chris tried hard to hide the flicker of excitement that brought. “What are your big secrets?”

  “Shara has given birth again. Seven years ago. She has a daughter now.”

  Chris nodded. “I thought she was pregnant. A daughter? You’re sure?”

  “Yes.”