The Light-Bearer's Daughter

by O. R. Melling

  Good shot! It landed with a whump. The giant howled with fury and lurched toward her. The wolf cut off his charge. Dana continued to hurl rocks, but it was soon obvious that the wolf didn’t need her help. Snapping and snarling, dashing around at great speed, it appeared to grow in size the more it fought. As it mangled and tore, gnawed and clawed, it drove the giants back. Other than forming defensive circles, the Oakmen had no tactics to fend off their foe. In the end, they thundered away, dragging their clubs behind them.

  The wolf stood alone, jaws open, tongue lolling, great fangs dripping. Now it turned its yellow gaze to Dana.

  Rooted to the spot, Dana could only stare back.

  he wolf was still panting from its exertions and kept its jaws open. Paralyzed with fear, Dana stared into the dark-red maw. Her legs felt so weak, she thought they might buckle. In the bizarre way that shock affects the mind, she found herself remembering a time when she was six years old. A mad dog had wandered into her street, foaming at the mouth. When it went straight for her, one of her many canine friends broke its charge. The speed and ferocity of the fight had been horrific. The tearing and mauling. The snarling and biting.

  Her father had come running from the house to snatch her up.

  “It’s killing Prince!” she screamed, as the dreadful sounds continued behind her. “Do something, Da! Save him!”

  She had struggled wildly to get out of Gabe’s arms, to go back and help, but he had bundled her into the house and slammed the door. Outside, a siren wailed as a police car sped into the square. Too late, Prince lay dead on the ground. But not before he had torn out the other dog’s throat.

  Now Dana’s hand went to her own throat. The memory of the blood and the awful sounds told her what to expect. It would hurt. A lot.

  She was wrong.

  “Prince died to save you,” came a female voice, deep and husky. “A noble deed. Praise his name.”

  The wolf was speaking to her! Of all the strange things that had happened, this was surely the strangest.

  “H-h-how do you know …?”

  “I was there.” The wolf moved closer. “Do you not know yet?”

  Child and beast gazed at each other.

  What a beautiful face, Dana thought. The sleek snout was that of a thoroughbred. The eyes were pure gold, and the ears, elegant. Despite her fear, Dana didn’t back away.

  Again came the voice, as rich as wild honey.

  “Do you not know who I am?”

  Dana felt a thrill at the core of her being, but her mouth was dry. She couldn’t speak.

  The wolf’s eyes shone with a warm yellow light.

  “In the tongue of your ancestors, what is my name?”

  After a moment’s confusion, Dana realized what she meant.

  “You are the faol.”

  The wolf butted her gently.

  “Think, little cub. Why does the feeling of kinship conquer your fear?”

  Dana caught her breath. A surge of joy rushed through her as she realized the truth.

  “I am a Faolán. I belong to you!”

  The wolf growled her approval.

  “And I to you. For I am the totem of your tribe. The guardian of your clan.”

  Dana understood. Didn’t her father often speak proudly of his roots? He had told her how, in the mists of time, the earliest peoples of Ireland were named for the animals from whom they believed they were descended. The oldest families still had those names, anglicized now as the Irish language declined. Whelans. Whalens. Phelans. Phalens. All were Faoláns: of the Clan of the Wolf.

  “If you were fully grown,” the wolf continued, “I would savage your limbs and tear your throat. I would dismember you and then restore you. In doing this, I would take from you what makes you weak, what holds you back. You would be a daughter of the wolf. But since you are a cub, hard lessons are not called for.”

  Dana straightened her back. She had cried out to the gods of her people, and the guardian of her clan had come to guide her. It was an honor beyond reckoning. She stared at the wide jaw and the sharp canine teeth. Oh, Grandmother, what big teeth you have. But she didn’t feel like Little Red Riding Hood. Nor did she want a forester to save her. Instead, she would have fought the forester to defend the wolf. Dana thought about her mission. How hard it was proving. All the setbacks. All the things she had done wrong. She made up her mind.

  “I want to be a daughter of the wolf,” she said. “It’s not fair to count age. Go ahead. Tear me apart. Make me strong.”

  Bracing herself, she closed her eyes and clenched her fists.

  The wolf’s laugh began as a bark and ended on a howl. Dana opened her eyes, surprised. The beast loomed over her, massive in bulk. The great head hovered near. The fangs came so close it seemed she might grant Dana’s request. The gamey breath was hot.

  But she didn’t bite.

  Instead, she licked Dana’s face.

  When she spoke again, her voice was gentle.

  “Adults must be torn apart because life defeats them. They lose hope, they grow weak. They squander their inheritance. Children need not be torn, for they hold to their birthright. Their hearts are as wild as the hearts of birds. They have the courage of the wolf.”

  Dana knew her words were true. Gabriel was wounded and weakened by the loss of his wife. He had given up hope, stopped searching for her. Dana was stronger. That was why she had taken up the mission. She had to do what her father had failed to do.

  Once again the wolf breathed on Dana, a wild steamy breath.

  “Time grows short. We must go west, young cub.”

  Then she raced away, calling out behind her.

  “Follow the greenway! Run wild, run free!”

  For a moment, Dana hesitated. Would the nails in her shoes allow her to keep up? In her heart she knew they wouldn’t. Speed was not the question. It was a matter of being. When she ran with the deer, she had become one of them. Was she or wasn’t she a daughter of the wolf?

  Her guardian had already disappeared through the trees. If Dana didn’t move fast, she would be left behind. She felt the cry of the wild inside her. It rose like a pressure against her ribs, propelling her forward. Before she knew it, she was running as if she had four legs. A lupine force had invaded her limbs, powering every sinew and muscle. It wasn’t long before she caught up with the wolf.

  They sped together through the forest—a blur of leafy green—and headed upward for the ridge of Brockagh.

  To run with the deer was a gentle union with nature, harmony and light, sweet grass and sunshine. Blessed are the meek. To run with the wolf was to run in the shadows, merging with the dark pulse of life, the instinct for survival. A fierceness that was proud and lonely, a tearing, a howling, a hunger and thirst. Blessed are they who hunger and thirst. A strength that would die fighting, kicking, screaming, that wouldn’t stop till the last breath had been wrung from its body. The will to take one’s place in the world: to say I am here. To say I am.

  They ran into the west. The terrain was chiefly blanket bog, damp mountain grasslands of sedge and heather. Over Brockagh’s windy summit they flew and along the peaty ridge that headed north for Tonelagee. They were already in sight of Lough Nahanagan, glistening in the midday sun. Traveling downward through swaths of purple heather, they crossed the Wicklow Gap and arrived at the lake. Cradled in its corrie below Turlough Hill, the lough was shadowed overhead by the reservoir that sat like a lid on top of the hill.

  “We will rest here a while,” the wolf declared.

  Dana stood on the stony shore, hot and sweaty. They had come many miles in a few short hours. The wolf was already in the water, leaping like a dolphin. With a quick look around to make sure no one was there, Dana stripped off her clothes and plunged in. The lake was icy cold. She shrieked with the shock. Turning to swim on her back, she felt something moving beneath her. Before she could react, the wolf had tossed her into the air! Shrieking again, she landed with a great splash.

  They played for ages,
wrestling and diving and darting around each other. Dana laughed like a child without a care in the world.

  She was deep underwater when the memory came. The two of them in a lake similar to this one. Mother and baby with their arms around each other. White bathing suits like water lilies, immersed in the green sunlit element. Her mother’s skin was soft. Strands of her red-gold hair flowed all around them. Now they rose up in a shower of spray, both of them laughing and squealing. On the shore, a younger Gabe with thick dark hair called out to them to have their picnic. The perfection of the moment: a pearl found by chance inside an oyster. Her first full memory of her mother! The joy and the pain was overwhelming.

  Dana surfaced from the water to put her arms around the wolf. Burying her face in the soft fur, she hid her tears.

  They decided to have lunch on the lakeshore.

  “What meat have you?” asked the she-wolf eagerly, as Dana dug into her satchel.

  “None. I’m a vegetarian.”

  Dana spread out the curranty bread, cheese, iced buns, and fruit.

  “A herbivore? But you have the canines of a flesh-eater, as I do!”

  Dana mumbled through a mouthful of bread.

  “I won’t eat anything that had a face.”

  The wolf shook her head, mystified. After chomping on an apple and nosing under the stones for insects, she loped away up the nearby slope.

  Dana had finished eating and packed up her satchel, when she heard the cry. She raced up the hillside toward the sound.

  There stood the wolf over the remains of a wild rabbit. Blood smeared her snout and the heather around her. She was chewing raw meat.

  “The poor little thing!” Dana cried, thinking of her own beloved pet. “How could you? I thought you were good, not evil!”

  Finishing her meal, the wolf licked her chops. Then she trained her golden gaze on Dana.

  “I do not hunt on a full stomach, as your kind do. And I honor the creature who dies that I may live. In turn, my death will give life one day. It is the Great Round.” She growled low in her throat. “Climb on my back, little cub. I will show you evil so that you may know the difference.”

  Though she was still upset, Dana did as she was told. It was like riding a pony who ran like a racehorse. She held on tightly as the landscape sped past. They traveled north, leaving the mountains behind as they moved into the lowlands around Blessington Lake. Dana cringed at the sight of tilled fields and farmhouses, meadows with cattle, and pine plantations. She was afraid they might be sighted; but they passed no one, and she wondered if the wolf had arranged that somehow. At one point she was shocked to spot her own face staring back from a poster on a telephone pole.

  HAVE YOU SEEN HER? MISSING CHILD. REWARD.

  She hunched down on the wolf’s back as if to hide.

  They came to a forest protected by a wire fence and a gate with a sign: WILDLIFE SANCTUARY. With one great leap the wolf cleared the gate and landed on the other side. Dana slid off her back.

  They crept through the trees, the wolf leading the way.

  Dana heard the loud laughter before she saw them, and immediately hunkered in the undergrowth. Crawling forward, she came to a clearing.

  There were three men sitting on fallen logs, drinking beer. Empty cans were strewn around them, as well as cigarette butts and plastic cartons of leftover food. It wasn’t at the men that Dana stared in horror, but the cages stacked around them. All were crammed with terrified animals—rabbits, hares, squirrels, even cats. One cage held a fox that stared bleakly through the bars. Each animal was wounded in some way, its fur streaked with blood. Some were half dead, kicking feebly. Others lay still and would never move again.

  “Will they take them if they’re dead?” one of the men said, kicking at the fox’s cage.

  Beyond hope, the small creature didn’t react.

  “Doesn’t matter either way,” said another. “No questions asked. They’re skinned at the factory … kids’ toys and accessories.”

  As Dana gazed, sickened, at the cages, the wolf rested a paw on her shoulder. Images streamed through her mind, things she had seen on the television and in Gabe’s animal rights magazines: trucks jammed with cattle, sheep, and horses crossing Europe without food or water; battery hens crammed into boxes, laying eggs until they died without ever having seen grass or sky; scenes of the daily torture in the laboratories of scientists and pharmaceutical, pet food, and cosmetics companies. Her stomach churned. So many animals, countless numbers, strapped into machines with their innards exposed, trembling in the snarl of electrodes or suffering the agony of toxic testing. As well as the cruelty, it was the powerlessness that struck her. They could not fight for their lives, as was their right.

  “Where there is no respect for life,” the wolf said quietly, “there you will find evil.”

  Dana couldn’t bear it any longer. The poachers were gathering up their snares to set them again. Enraged beyond thinking, she burst out of the trees.

  “Can’t you see? What’s right in front of you? Can’t you see how much they suffer?”

  The three men jumped to their feet, dropping their equipment. They looked beyond her, for an adult, perhaps the game warden.

  Then one peered drunkenly at her.

  “It’s the missing kid from Bray!”

  Greed replaced the fear on their faces.

  “There’s a reward for her!”

  Dana was suddenly aware of how big they were and how many, but she had no intentions of abandoning the animals. As long as the silver nails kept her moving, she would open as many cages as possible before they caught her.

  The men stepped menacingly toward her. She was about to dash out of their way, when she saw the terror in their eyes.

  Behind her, the wolf growled.

  As the poachers ran screaming into the woods, Dana hurried to release the animals. The fox was gone in a flash of red. Many of the others scratched and clawed her in their panic to escape, but she didn’t care. She only wished she had gotten there sooner. But even those who were badly wounded and missing a limb managed to drag themselves away.

  As the last disappeared into the underbrush, Dana picked up a rock to smash the traps and cages.

  “We must go!” the wolf urged her. “The hunters will return with weapons.”

  “We’ve got to get rid of these!” Dana cried fiercely, breaking up a snare.

  The wolf was right. Somewhere nearby, car doors slammed. Soon the first poacher came crashing through the trees with a rifle in his hand.

  Dana scrambled onto the wolf’s back. A shot rang out. She screamed. In a gray streak of motion, the wolf raced away.

  here was blood on the wolf’s flank.

  “You’re hurt!” Dana cried.

  She kept insisting they stop, but the guardian wouldn’t halt until all sounds of pursuit had died out and the Wildlife Sanctuary was far behind.

  Dana slid off the wolf’s back.

  “We’ve got to get help!” She looked around wildly. They were back in the mountains. Out in the middle of nowhere. Not a house or telephone box in sight. She was wracked with worry and guilt. “It’s all my fault. If I’d—”

  “Peace. It is only a scratch,” the wolf said mildly. “His drunkenness threw off his aim.” She licked at her wound. “You were right to act as you did. It is when good people do nothing that evil thrives.”

  Dana was comforted. The graze looked clean and was no longer bleeding.

  They were about to set off again when the wolf suddenly pricked up her ears. She sniffed the air, nose quivering. A low growl murmured in her throat.

  “What is it?” Dana said, instantly alert and on guard. She could see nothing around them but rolling hills and bog.

  “I do not know,” came the answer, low and pensive. “But I can name its nature. It seems our lesson on evil has not yet ended. Follow me.”

  Once again Dana ran with the wolf, though she was mystified by her guardian’s words. She was also surprised that the
y were traveling southeast, instead of southwest where Lugnaquillia lay. The mystery deepened when they drew up on a height above the Wicklow Gap, overlooking the road. In the distance a jeep approached. Dana’s stomach lurched. Was it the poachers? But how did they get there so fast? And why would the guardian want to meet them? The wolf’s hackles had risen and she was growling again.

  Dana panicked. They were visible on the hillside. And in rifle range.

  “We’ve got to hide!”

  There was no cover on the grassy slope. The roadside ditch was their only hope. Dana raced down the hill with the wolf behind her. They had just tumbled into the wet hollow when the vehicle stopped nearby.

  Dana’s heart pounded as she heard a car door open and the tread of boots on gravel. Whoever it was seemed to be moving slowly. Was he looking around? Had he seen them on the hill? Afraid to raise her head, hunkering as low as she could, she imagined the man with his gun. What if he found them? She wouldn’t let him kill the guardian. The wolf’s lips had curled back in a silent snarl, but her breathing was steady. She wasn’t afraid. As the warm lupine body pressed against her, Dana’s courage rose.

  A man’s voice rang out, talking loudly on a cell phone.

  Dana’s heart jumped.

  Murta! Again?

  He was giving directions to his location.

  “Yeah, well, plans change,” he said curtly. “This is where I am. Step on it.”

  He lit up a cigarette, and flung the burning match into the ditch. It landed near Dana, hissing as the damp ground extinguished it. After a while, a cigarette butt followed. Then more matches and more butts. It seemed forever before the second car arrived, bringing another man. Dana was now determined to find out what was going on. Why was Murta wandering in the mountains? And what did her guardian want her to know?