by P. D. Kalnay
Uncomfortable silence followed before she went on very quietly.
“If you thought of me as more than a friend?”
I half expected the question, but it still found me unprepared.
“You wish,” I said, as casually as I could manage. “Those are just drawings. Practice for doing portraits in art class. It’s not as if there are any other girls around here for me to draw.”
Not totally true, but bullet dodged. Nice work, Jack.
Ivy let out the breath she’d been holding.
“Thank goodness,” she said. “I feared you wished for more than friendship.”
Her sincere relief was unmistakeably honest. I felt like something might have been ripped from my chest and trampled by a herd of wildebeests, but I tried to keep things light.
“You don’t have to sound so happy about it. I’m not Quasimodo or anything.”
“It’s not that I don’t like you, Jack,” Ivy said. “But I’ve other commitments that make anything more than friendship between us impossible.”
“You’re fourteen years old. What commitments could you have?” Then a thought occurred to me. A terrible, unthinkable thought. “Do you have a boyfriend back home?”
“My promise to your grandmother prevents me from properly explaining, but yes, there’s another boy. He is the one for me.”
Damn. I knew I should be grateful for finding my first real friend, but I found it difficult at that moment. Of course a girl who looked like Ivy would have a boyfriend already.
“I’m feeling a little tired,” I said.
Ivy got up from the chair. “May I ask a favour?”
“Yeah.”
“May I take a drawing from your book? For my room.”
“You can take any of them. They’re just sketches. The paper is perforated at the edge, so they can be torn out.”
Ivy set the book on my dresser and carefully tore out one page.
“Thank you, Jack,” she said.
Then Ivy left, taking with her some hopes and dreams I hadn’t fully admitted to having… even to myself. Curious, I got out of bed to see what drawing she’d chosen. It was one I’d drawn of her out in the garden in her big hat and flowered sun dress.
***
I pushed thoughts of Ivy’s stupid boyfriend to the back of my mind and determined to enjoy the last days of summer to the fullest. My time with Mr. Ryan was drawing to a close, and he’d be returning to his normal life soon. He was always telling me that I should be entirely present in the present when fighting. I decided to try to apply that principle to the rest of my day too. There were a tonne of vegetables to harvest from the garden, and Ivy and I filled bushel basket after bushel basket every afternoon. We dropped off the baskets at the kitchen door for Ms. Mopat and collected the empty baskets again later. What she did with what amounted to a small mountain of produce remained a mystery to me. The food we ate at mealtimes didn’t account for much of it, and I figured she must be canning or freezing the rest for the winter.
Ivy and I were good again, and I tried to pick only genuine classics for our last movie nights. She was even nicer than before our fight; a small part of me wondered if she’d believed me when I said I wasn’t interested in her as more than a friend. That same nagging voice suggested she might simply feel sorry for pathetic-old-Jack. I told that voice to shut up, and pushed on with enjoying my summer.
Chapter 17 – White Sword
Mr. Ryan was busy with a phone conference regarding his next contract. That meant I was on my own for evening sword practice. After most of a summer of building up my strength, I could do a full evening of katas with the heavy practice sword without getting sloppy by the end. I was nowhere near to Mr. Ryan’s level of smooth, fast competence, but I felt proud of my improvement. By the last week of summer holidays, the evenings were shorter. Darkness came earlier each day. I tried to focus on my form and ignore my nagging concerns about the imminent departures of Ivy and Mr. Ryan. High school started the next week—a whole other thing to look forward to. Gran would still be around, but we rarely spoke on any given day, other than to say ‘hello’ or possibly ‘please pass the gravy’. The house would be lonely and quiet without my two improbable companions. Ivy would return next summer. I knew that now, but summer was a whole school-year away. This summer had gone by far too quickly. My sword practice moved me from one side of the yard to the other. The tighter katas, suitable for practice in the basement, could be strung together into longer more far-flung combinations. Mr. Ryan had me fighting invisible enemies right across the yard.
As dusk was turning to night, and I was ready to call it quits, I heard Ivy scream from the forest.
“Jack, help me!”
I turned to the forest looking for her.
“Help me—please,” she called again.
She sounded like she was in serious trouble.
“Where are you?” I shouted.
No reply came. I ran to the edge of the yard.
“Ivy!” I shouted again.
“Jack!” she called back from the forest.
Ivy sounded terrified and desperate. She also sounded a good ways off. Without giving it any consideration, I plunged into forest. It had taken me all summer to do what I’d been so determined to accomplish on the first day. I rested the heavy practice sword on my shoulder and pushed through the underbrush in the direction from which Ivy’s voice had come. A few steps in, the undergrowth thinned, and the going became easier, but it was far darker beneath the tangled branches.
“Ivy!” I shouted.
“Jack!” she shouted back.
I was heading in the right direction and I picked up my pace, worried at what might have befallen her. After fifteen or twenty minutes of racing carelessly through the forest, scrambling over fallen logs, and pushing through dense thickets, I realised her voice wasn’t getting any louder. That made no sense… unless she was moving away from me.
“Ivy where are you?” I shouted for the hundredth time.
“I’m here,” her voice called out from up ahead. Now, it definitely sounded closer.
I pushed on, for I’m not entirely sure how long, before suddenly stumbling free of the grabby branches of the forest and into the middle of a wide clearing. I’d been moving in near darkness for the last while, and seeing the bright moon above was a relief. The downside was I was completely lost, and knew I couldn’t have found my way back to Gran’s house in the middle of the day. The clearing was covered in grass or some other low groundcover, and around me stood a ring of stones standing more than twice my height. They rose like an open maw of blunted teeth. To the best of my knowledge there were never any druids in that part of the world, and what I knew of Native Americans didn’t jive with what I saw.
“Ivy,” I shouted. If she was nearby, she might see me in the moonlight.
“Hello… Jack.”
I turned at the sound of her voice. What I saw was a huge wolf standing between two of the massive stones. The wolf was entirely black, except for its eyes which glowed red like two hot coals.
“Aren’t you going to say hello?” the wolf asked with Ivy’s voice.
I came close to wetting my pants then. If you’ve ever been surprised in the dark by the eyes of a predator, you know the primal fear that grips you. It’s an instinctive knowledge, deep in your gut, that your ancestors were once prey, and you’re are likely to be so in the near future. Now, multiply that by glowing demonic eyes and speaking with your friend’s voice, and you can imagine where I was at, emotionally. I also felt its hatred. It came from the monster as tangibly real as the sensation of strong wind on skin.
“Stop toying with it,” a gravelly voice said behind me, “Let us feed while time permits.”
I turned half around to see another red-eyed wolf between two stones, almost opposite the first. Unconsciously, I’d moved my practice sword to the ready position, doing my best to keep both sets of eyes in sight. The second voice more matched the wolf’s appearance and sounded
appropriately terrifying.
“Just kill it for now,” a third voice said. That voice was female, but not at all feminine. “We only have tonight. The other must also be taken for the full payment.”
That voice came from right in front of me. A half ring of seven wolves stood before me, filling the spaces between the stones. Every part of me wanted to run, but that meant certain death. Animals that run become prey by default. A lot of wildlife documentaries had taught me that, but they’d been scarce on facts about talking wolves.
“What do you want?” I asked.
That brought some very disturbing wolfish laughter.
“Time passes,” the female said.
She bounded towards me, covering most of the distance in a single leap. I was so surprised that I didn’t react. An arrow whizzed over my right shoulder from behind me, snuffing out one red eye in mid-flight. The huge animal landed in a heap, sliding almost to my feet before coming to a stop. The rest of the pack melted back into the forest, vanishing from sight.
“What are you doing out here?” Ivy’s voice said behind me.
I spun around, looking for an attacker. The real Ivy dashed out to join me in the middle of the stone circle. She carried her longbow, another arrow nocked and ready to draw. Seven or eight more were pushed through the tie of her striped bathrobe.
“I heard you calling for help,” I said, staring down at the dead wolf, “and I followed your voice here.”
“It was a trap.”
“I figured that out a minute ago,” I said. “This is crazy. That thing could talk. A talking wolf. How is that possible?”
“They’re not wolves, Jack.” Ivy scanned around us. “They only look like them. Now isn’t the time for explanations. We’re outnumbered and poorly armed.”
She wasn’t kidding. I had a sword with no edge and she had arrows with field points. The only way they’d be reliably lethal was through the eye. Ivy was good, but hitting eyes in the dark on moving targets was terrible odds.
“How did you find me?” I asked.
“I watched you practice from my room. Then you ran off into the forest, carelessly abandoning the protection of the wards. The mistress of the house and Mr. Ryan were nowhere to be found. These were sitting out.” She shook her bow and arrow at me. “I hoped to find you swiftly, and return you to the wards, but you moved quickly in so a short a time. Why did you think I’d be foolish enough to be out in this forest?”
“I didn’t think,” I said. “I heard you calling for help, and I just ran after your voice. It’s not like I could be expected to know there are freaky demon wolves out here.”
“They’re strongest within this circle. We must break free of it.”
I looked back at the gap we’d both come through. A set of red eyes now filled it. The wolves had taken the time we’d spent talking to properly surround us. There weren’t enough of them to block all the gaps, but more than enough to stop any real chance of escape. Ivy shot at the wolf without hesitation. It sidestepped the arrow easily.
“This bow is a toy,” Ivy said. “Not suitable for hunting rabbits.”
I wanted to tell her to run for it, while I distracted our attackers, but the chance never came. The pack attacked us together from all sides. The first wolf fell to my practice sword. A lucky blow to its head, as it lunged for my throat, dropped the creature at my feet. The sword didn’t have had an edge, but it was still three feet of steel bar. Another fell to my sword as it tried to wrench the bow from Ivy’s hands. My swing hit it just in front of the shoulder with a sickening crack, and it dropped, twitching on the ground. Powerful jaws had already snapped Ivy’s bow in half.
Snarls filled the night. My world narrowed to one filled with shadows and eyes as the pack swarmed around us. Then fangs tore into the meat of my shoulder. I swear I felt every tooth as it punctured skin and drove through muscle. If I’d been a fraction of a second slower, the wolf would have had my throat, finishing me quickly. Its hot breath tickled my ear, which created a bizarre counterpoint to the stabbing pain. I struggled to keep my feet as two hundred pounds of growling beast ripped at my shoulder. The three feet of steel in my hand, that had seemed pitifully short a moment before, now proved awkwardly long as I fought to defend myself. The wolf scraped its claws down my left arm and the side of my chest as I struck largely ineffectual blows to its head. I had to shake it loose, and fast—it wasn’t alone.
The wolf’s weight took a toll on my already tired and injured body. If I didn’t break free of its grip soon, another member of the pack was certain to come in for the kill. A tiny, exhausted part of me wanted to give up.
JACK!
I heard Ivy scream behind me, and I remembered that I wasn’t alone—but if I fell—she would be. A new strength flowed into my arms, and I attacked the wolf with berserk fury. Our angry growls blended until I couldn’t tell where the wolf’s began and mine ended. Again and again, I struck head and muzzle. My left hand pushed, punched, and scratched desperately at the coarse fur of its underbelly. Finally, it released my shoulder and backed away. Ivy had driven one of her arrows between its ribs. The rest of the broken shaft was still clenched in her blood-covered hand. We had time for no more than a shared glance before the next wolves came.
My fear gave me strength, and I no longer noticed the weight of the practice sword. I drove the wolves back a few paces, swinging around us in careless arcs. Four big and extremely angry animals remained. Luck, such as we’d had, couldn’t possibly continue. The remaining wolves attacked with more caution and purpose. As one distracted me to my front, another quickly lunged at my rear and ripped into the back of my leg. Ivy attacked it with an arrow in each hand, and the wolf danced back out of reach. My leg burned, and I felt blood running down my pant leg, filling my shoe. I still stood, but I wondered for how long.
The wolves harried us for what felt like an eternity, but were likely only minutes. They mostly focused on me. Blood ran into one of my eyes from a cut on my head, and sharp teeth had torn deep gashes into my left shoulder. All I’d accomplished was crippling the front leg of one wolf, and loss of blood was making me feel woozy. Amid the snarling, screaming, and blood I failed to see the woman arrive. Ivy screamed, and I spun about. She was on her back, desperately fighting to keep sharp teeth from her throat, each tiny hand full of black fur. The wolf had size and gravity on its side—Ivy was losing the battle. Not sure if I could hit the wolf without hitting Ivy, my now slow-responding brain hesitated as darkness crept in at the edges of my vision. Behind me, I heard snarls and squeals, followed by silence. You should do something Jack, part of my brain said. Before I figured out what that was… a new impossibility appeared.
From one blink of my eye to the next, a woman stood behind the wolf ravaging Ivy. With casual ease, she reached down her left hand and grabbed the wolf by the scruff of its neck. Then she picked the huge animal up and tossed it like a sack of garbage. The wolf flew a good twenty feet; its flight cut short by one of the standing stones. A wet crunch was followed by a bloody slide down the face of the stone. The image of a bug on a car window briefly flashed through my mind. Looking behind me, I saw the rest of the wolves were likewise dead. Two were cut clean in half, but I couldn’t tell how the last one had died. I shuffled over to Ivy’s side. She still hadn’t risen from the ground. That’s when I got my first good look at the woman. I didn’t know what she was… but definitely not human.
A regular woman could have dressed up to look like her, with a Hollywood makeup team to help, but looking at her, I knew. Not human. She was a slim woman about my height, which is tall for a lady, and she had long, straight hair that fell almost to her knees. Her hair was silver. Not grey, or white from age, or lack of pigmentation. Silver. It looked as if you could melt it down for jewellery or fancy cutlery. Her skin had a silvery sheen too, and her eyes had a distinctive slant. Minus those eyes she might have been an Asian lady in full-on cosplay. Her eyes made the difference. They were glowing golden in the moonlight, like a cat
’s, and the pupils were slit like a reptile’s. Old was the first word that came to mind when I looked into those eyes. The second word was dragon. It sounds crazy I know, but you had to be there. Subconsciously, I noted a few other things in that first glance: she was impossibly beautiful, in a cold, distant way, her dark scale armour covered her like a short dress, leaving arms and legs bare, and the longer I looked at her eyes the more fascinating they became.
After her eyes, I mostly noticed her sword. She had a really big sword. It was a long broadsword and completely white, possibly carved from the rib of a whale or something. Even the cross guard was white, and the whole thing had been etched with symbols, but they were hard to make out in the moonlight. Did I mention it was big? The sword was almost as long as the woman was tall. Something about the blade drew my eye and briefly held me mesmerised. Then my thoughts turned back to Ivy. She still huddled on the ground at my feet.
“Thank you for saving us,” I said. What else do you say to a dragon lady when you’re all hanging out at mini-Stonehenge?
“Move out of the way boy,” the woman said. Her voice was low and husky. “I’m here for the girl.”
“What?” I asked. I wasn’t feeling too great.
“Jack, you must run,” Ivy whispered.
I saw renewed terror in her eyes. My slow-moving brain was having trouble putting two and two together, but my body knew what to do. I stepped up between the woman and Ivy, painfully raising my practice sword to the ready position. The woman brought the white blade around in a slashing arc. She was so fast I couldn’t have reacted on my best day. The practice sword was torn from my grip, and I was knocked back onto Ivy. I heard my weapon land with a dull thud somewhere in the distance.
Chapter 18 – Summer’s End
“You’ve fought bravely boy,” the woman said. “Well beyond your years. If you give me your name, I’ll remember it, and grant you a merciful death.”
That didn’t sound like a very good deal. I tried to focus through the pain and blood loss; to remember what Mr. Ryan taught me. I looked the woman in her eyes.
