I struggled to stop chocking on some stupid inner scream of terror. I pushed deeper into the house.
With a light tap, I pushed open the door to the bedroom. Cold air hit my face, raising goose pimples. The scent of lemons and wet dog fur was strong, but Granny Rose didn’t have a dog. She said she couldn’t keep pets out here because of the coyotes.
She lay on her bed, on top of the neatly tucked bedspread. She wore a velour tracksuit and a headscarf over curlers. The real TV, a flatscreen, was in here, and blared at a volume suited to the hard-of-hearing. Reruns of Bewitched. Her face tilted away from me. Her body was so still, a chill chased my vertebrae. It made me think of Mom, eternally sleeping.
“Granny Rose?”
I approached slowly. My feet sank in the plush carpet.
The bedroom had been decorated more recently than the living room/kitchenette. Mauve and powder blue and lemon yellow flowers covered everything. Kittens and kitschy quotes, embroidered by various goddaughters and framed ornately, fought for space on the walls. The most elaborate featured a Bible quote: “For the Lord sees not as man sees: man looks on the outward appearance, but the Lord looks on the heart.” – 1 Samuel 16:7. An air conditioner roared in one window even though it hadn’t been particularly hot today.
She still did not move, or turn to look at me.
I edged around the bed so that I stood before her. Finally her watery blue eyes moved to meet mine. A smile dimpled her wrinkled jowls.
“Hello, dear. I didn’t hear you come in.”
“I put the pies in the kitchen.”
“Pies?”
“For the bake sale?”
“Of course, dear. Of course.”
“Are you okay, Granny Rose?”
“I love this episode,” she remarked. Her eyes strayed back to the TV. “Darrin sprains his ankle and Samantha gives him magic powers.” She gestured dismissively. “He gives them back at the end.”
“All those sit-coms returned everything to the status-quo by the end of each episode,” I said, but my heart wasn’t in it. Everything looked so normal and felt so wrong.
Granny Rose never calls me “dear,” she calls me “dumbkof.” Also, why didn’t she ask (demand) to inspect the pies? Or offer a sharp tongued critique of my cooking? Or grill me about whether I used real sugar or some of that fake modern stuff she was convinced caused cancer in mice?
When I looked at her I saw a second image flickering over her body, not quite visibly. I started to sweat. I slipped off my red jacket. She looked normal. I slipped my jacket back on, and the flicker started again.
“You can’t ever have the status quo back,” she said. Her lip curled, showing yellowed teeth. “Once you have tasted true magic, you can never go back to what you were before.”
She met my eyes again, and hers gleamed like a predator’s in the dark.
I swallowed.
“Granny, why do your eyes look whacked?”
“I put some new eye drops in, to see you better, my dear.”
Her ears had long hairs growing out of them. The hairs were growing longer.
“Granny, what the heck is going on with your ears?”
“Didn’t I tell you? New hearing aides, to hear you better, my dear.”
For a fraction of a second, I saw a clear image superimposed over her body, like a movie projection on a screen: two souls fighting over her body. One was a young girl. The other was a wolf. The wolf was winning. As the inner vision of the wolf grew firmer, her real body began to transform to match it, growing thicker, furrier, more muscular.
Now, I began to have déjà vu. I mean, come on, Mom read me the fairytale about Little Red Riding Hood too. It still took me a minute to grasp. Sure, hindsight is 20/20, but I challenge you to go to your grandmother’s house and watch her start to transform into a wolf and not waste at least one minute telling yourself: “This is not happening.”
Her teeth elongated into fangs.
Me: This is not happening.
Her gnarly old-lady whiskers thickened into fur, which sprouted all over her body like a pelt.
Me: This is so not happening.
The two struggling souls wrestled more fiercely, until, at last, the wolf tossed the girl aside. A ghostly teenage girl tumbled out of Granny’s body. She had red hair and green skin, which immediately reminded me of Meredith Grom the goblin ghost, who had nearly squeezed my heart into a myocardial infarction. Though the Green Teen was as beautiful as Grom had been ugly. I had no time to worry about the Green Teen, though, because Granny turned into a wolf and jumped on me, jaws pinching around my throat.
Me: This is so fucking happening!
All those glib excuses my parents gave to make my sister and me practice jiu jitsu and taekwondo every day since we were three, since, “someday you may have to fight off werewolves,” didn’t seem so glib any more.
She came at me again and I grappled her head into a chokehold and tried to wrap my hands around her jaws. See, I didn’t want to hurt her. She was not a real wolf, exactly, but a wolf-headed, furry person. Wearing a tracksuit. Opposable thumbs seemed to be in working order, given the way she was strangling me.
I flipped her over onto her back, twisting out of her chokehold. She grabbed my jacket in her teeth and shook me like a squirrel. I think she was trying to rip off the jacket. I kicked her in the teeth. Hard. She shot of the bed. But she leaped right back at me, threw me over her head against the wall.
I hit hard, but staggered to my feet. I pulled my gun out. However, I held up both arms to show I was not an immediate threat. I promised, “I’m not going to kill you.”
“Kill it! Kill it!” the Green Teen shrieked from the side of the room.
Granny Wolf growled at her. “Get lost, ghost! You have no power in Midgard without a body!”
“I know what’s going on here,” I said.
“Oh, do tell,” sneered Granny Wolf. “What’s going on, Little Red Riding Hood?”
“Okay, I have no idea what’s going on here.”
The Green Teen rolled her eyes.
Granny Wolf advanced at a prowl. “I’m going to enjoy eating you, my dear.”
I backed up into the living room/kitchenette. Granny Wolf rushed me again, but I leaped into the kitchen and opened the refrigerator door into her face. Granny Wolf staggered back.
“Eat this, Granny!” I tossed out pies like Frisbees, hitting the wolf right in the snout five times in a row.
Granny Wolf howled in rage. Though, to be honest, it would have been scarier if she hadn’t had her head fur in curlers and dripping peach cobbler.
“Good, confuse the monster’s sense of smell!” shouted Green Teen. “If you’re too scared to kill the beast, at least run!”
“I’m not going to run or kill her! I just want to have a calm, rational conversation!” I bellowed.
“Maybe you should have thought of that before you stained my pink sweats with berry stains!” roared Granny Wolf. “Do you know how hard that is to get out?”
“The monster does have a point,” murmured Green Teen.
I did my best to ignore the ghost.
“Granny, look, you’ve obviously been infected with, uh, some sort of lycanthropic virus, and this is causing some hormonal changes that are confusing you…”
“Oh, you modern morons are rich. You think this is a disease, girl? You think there’s a cure?”
“I’m sure we can work out a system of, uh, managed care…steel cages on the full moon, perhaps a special diet of raw steak to quell the worst cravings…”
Granny Wolf laughed her snout off.
“Oh, for heaven’s sake!” said the Green Teen.
“Get lost, ghost!” I snapped at her. “I’m trying to talk to my Granny.”
“I’m Granny Rose, you dumbkof! That thing in my body is a ghoul!”
“The fairy does have a point,” sniggered Granny—not Granny?!—the Wolf. “I am a ghoul. But you’re right too, little girl. Now that I have a body of my ow
n to anchor me in this world, I am a werewolf. But I’ll be managing my own care and diet…”
“Wait, wha…?”
“You’re wearing the Clogyn, didn’t you see that ghoul throw my soul out of my own body?” screeched Green Teen. “Shoot it!”
The …wolf? …ghoul? … scary monster in curlers…leaped again and sank its jaws into my throat.
The ghost came up behind him and stuck her fist into his skull. I knew it couldn’t hurt him, but it would feel icy cold. His teeth on my neck loosened a fraction, and I ripped free.
“Run!” screamed Green Teen.
I ran.
“Into the basement!”
I flung aside the throw rug and jumped down.
“Lock it! Lock it!”
I threw the deadbolt. The trap door rattled above our heads. Green Teen had floated into the hole with me.
“It can’t get in,” she said.
“And we can’t get out.”
“Speak for yourself.” She thrust her hand through a wall to demonstrate.
“Great.” I climbed down the ladder. I expected a cold cement floor. Instead, my bare foot encountered something soft and squishy at the bottom. “Ew, what is…?”
I pulled the string on the single bulb ceiling light. A shriek (a very tiny shriek, not at all cowardly) may have escaped my lips.
“OH MY GOD, I’m standing on a…on a…on a…!”
“Will you stop caterwauling like a banshee?” the ghost demanded. “It’s just a corpse!”
Chapter 7. (Spoiler Alert) The Wolf Eats Her
“It’s all covered with blood!”
“The body isn’t covered with blood. The effluvium coagulated mostly just around the ax wound in the face.”
“I meant my foot! I stepped in it! Oh, God.”
“Don’t take the Lord’s name in vain.”
“I’m not being vain! My imitation Jimmy Choos now reek of effluvium.” I grimaced at the corpse, which had a bloody mess where his face should have been. It looked like someone had thrown a cherry pie at him. “Why is there a corpse in your basement?”
“He tricked me into letting him in by pretending to be a Forest Ranger. Then he tried to sell me a spot in a retirement home.”
“Blazing Sunset.”
“Right.” She snorted. “I hate retirement homes. And I hate solicitors.”
“I don’t like solicitors either, but I usually reign in my annoyance short of First Degree.”
She shrugged. “I also may have observed, out loud, that he was a werewolf. When he realized I knew the truth about him, he attacked. He couldn’t take the risk I might tell someone. He underestimated me. I killed him. But I also underestimated him. He’s not a baby werewolf. He’s been at this game a while, a century at least. I doubt this was his original body. So he was prepared to jump, and he jumped into mine. We were still fighting over the body when you arrived.”
“I thought only vampires could live centuries.”
“Werewolves and vampires are more alike than different.”
“Why is he naked?”
“Oh, he took off his uniform to kill me, so he wouldn’t get blood on it. While he was busy doing that, I found my ax and hacked his face off. The clothes are here too. He didn’t fold them, I did. He was a slob.”
I examined the neatly folded Forest Ranger uniform. It looked like a cop’s uniform, except in sage green and tan. The name on the bronze badge over one front pocket said “Cormac Huntsman.” I wondered if poor Cormac lay dead and naked somewhere in the woods. Or if the wolf had eaten him…ew. Better stop that line of thought.
“I’m still a little confused…”
“Your mother was supposed to teach you all this.”
“Yeah, well, that didn’t happen, for obvious reasons.”
“I know. I’m sorry.”
I forced myself to face her and drink in the sight, to really see her. She had shimmering red hair. Not strawberry blonde, like me, not auburn, and not Raggedy-Ann red, either, not all one color, like a bad wig. The gorgeous tresses began pale at the root and deepened to brilliant rose-red at the tips, and the wavy locks glistened the way a full blossom would with dawn’s dew. She had green skin, but it wasn’t an ugly, warty green like the goblin’s, it was smooth and fair like a spring leaf. The tips of her ears tipped upward. She also had antenna, as of a butterfly, and pellucid blue wings as of a dragonfly. Her wings fluttered thirty beats a second, wafting a subtle, perfumed breeze. No way those were mechanical or special effects or fake. They were part of her. They were real. Same with her hair and skin. Weird as it was, I knew it wasn’t dye or paint. That was flesh, that was hair.
“What are you?”
“What do you think, dumbkof?” she demanded. “I’m a fairy.”
“A fairy.”
“Yes, fairies are real. Get over it. Any other questions?”
“Only about a million. Is Rose your real name?”
She nodded. “It’s short for Rosemunde. ‘Granny Rose’ to you.”
“But you’re, like, fifteen.”
She rolled her eyes. “Fairies are eternally young and beautiful, duh. Can we please go kick some wolf ass?”
“So you are my godmother.”
“Yes.”
“And a fairy.”
“Yes.”
“So you’re my…Fairy Godmother.”
“Give the girl a diploma! She can be taught!” She clapped her hands together and bounced. She was already floating, so she didn’t jump up and down, so much as bob in the air. Intellectually, I accepted that she might be the soul of Granny Rose, but I couldn’t accept it in my gut. She looked too young, too insubstantial, too…fey. I felt more comfortable thinking of her as Rosamunde. Or Green Teen. Or even as my Fairy Godmother, although she didn’t look either motherly or godly.
“Can’t you use magic to fight the wolf?”
“Not without my body,” she said. “But you can. You did bring the other magic Talismans, didn’t you? Wand, Keys…”
“I know what you’re talking about!”
“Good! You brought them.”
“Uh, no.”
Rosemunde sighed.
“Right! I just remembered, I have a bit of magic that will work. I can get free.”
“What is it?” Rosamunde fluttered in eager circles around the basement.
I reached into my pocket. Yup, still there.
“The magical talisman has already been invoked!” I declared grandly in an exotic Romanian accent. I returned to Voice Normal. “It will take a while, though. Long enough for you explain.”
“Explain what?”
“Explain everything. Starting with…” I took in a deep breath and prepared to sound incredibly stupid. “Am I Little Red Riding Hood?”
“No.”
“Oh, thank goodness, because she is the lamest fairytale heroine ever.”
“I am,” Rosamunde said. “The first one, about whom the fairy tales are told. I was the to wear the Clogyn.”
“And you do what with it, exactly?”
“Fight werewolves and other ghoulies.”
“How? By being eaten alive? What kind of battle plan is that? While we’re on the subject, why does the woodsman sew rocks into the wolf? How did the girl and grandmother survive being eaten by a wolf anyhow? How do you expect me to believe that …that…fairytale?”
“Fairytales conceal a large truth inside a small lie. You have to look past the skin of things to the heart of things. The Clogyn gives you that power, but you must face the truth it shows you without flinching. Your mother and your sister and you are my direct descendants, my heirs, in that order. So, the Clogyn is yours now.”
“Mom is unconscious, but what about Bryn…hey, wait a minute, I just realized…” I felt something warm inside me glow. “You mean you’re not just my godmother, you really are my granny? Great-great-great, etcetera granny?”
“Yes, I’m your grandmother many times removed. That is why the Clogyn works for you. It
will not work for another, nor can it be taken from you against your will, whether you are wearing it or not. But if you sell it or give it away, you will lose it forever. Also, I will whoop you, so don’t. Keep the Clogyn safe and it will keep you safe.”
“You mentioned that term before. What’s a Clogyn?”
“The scarlet cape you wear. The exact shape it takes changes every few centuries to keep up with the latest fashions.”
“Meet Little Red Riding Hood, a regular Lady Gaga. You fashionista, you.”
“Be glad it has that magic. When I wore the Clogyn, it was made of scratchy wool and smelled like ram’s piss.”
“Ew. TMI, Granny Rose.”
“So you finally acknowledge who I am.”
“I guess. I’m still having trouble reconciling what you looked like before with, you know. GREEN SKIN.”
She waved a hand over herself and her skin turned a normal shade of human. She was still young and gorgeous, but she wore a Sixties style bouffant hairdo, a psychedelic flower print mod mini dress and white go-go boots. “Is that better?”
I pretended to block my eyes from the acid trip of color. “That might be worse.”
She admired her dress. “I loved the Sixties of last century. The 1860s, meh. Corsets—don’t get me started! The 1760s were pretty groovy, though in those days we would have said, ‘enlightened.’ I spent most of the 1660s trapped in the signet ring of some idiot who mistook me for a genie. Very annoying.”
“I know it’s rude to ask a lady’s age…”
“I was born in the year 634 of our Lord, in the Kingdom of Gwynedd. In Wales. My mother and grandmother reared me. My father died in the Battle of Heaveanfield, but his soul was not freed. My father was turned into a werewolf by the sorcerer king of Gwynedd. A mad beast, enslaved by a worse beast, my father turned on those he loved. He killed my mother and I fled to my grandmother’s cottage. He reached her first, and killed her too. I fought him, but I still loved him and wept to save him. Because of my softness, he nearly overpowered me. A woodsman heard my howls of rage and rushed to my aide.
Faery Realms: Ten Magical Titles: Multi-Author Bundle of Novels & Novellas Page 75
