Storm Wolf

by Stephen Morris

  He could hear the shouting behind him but it quickly faded. The men did not seem determined to chase him and he nearly wept with relief. He took a turn to go down a side street and stopped, his chest heaving and burning. Eventually he was able to look up and around, and carefully trudge back to Vakarė’s family farm.

  Few people were on the street, and the ones who saw him through their windows only watched the bloodied, beaten stranger make his way back to the farm where he had been staying.

  Seeing him enter the kitchen, Vakarė cried out and demanded to know what had happened. Getting water into a pot and putting it onto the stove to warm, she insisted that Alexei take a seat at the table and—as she washed his wounds and tied bandages around his bruised ribs—tell her what had happened. He did, his words coming in gasps and grunts, and Vakarė shook her head.

  “You are lucky, my friend,” she conceded as she finished her ministrations. “If they had chased you and beaten you, you would be much more badly wounded. You were lucky to escape so easily. Did I not tell you that there are those who think you responsible for these killings and disappearances? What drove you to go look through that house alone?”

  Alexei raised his head and looked Vakarė directly in the eye.

  “I need to find a way to track the wolf,” he told her.

  Vakarė shook her head and muttered under her breath.

  New Year’s Eve was a sober affair that night.

  “Everyone knows that you’ll spend the year the same way you spend the eve of New Year’s!” insisted little Edita as Aušrinė brushed Edita’s long hair and tied festive ribbons in her braids. “We should be singing and eating and being happy! Otherwise we will be sad and scared all year long!”

  “Yes, yes, I know,” her mother comforted her. “But it is too dangerous this year. Everyone must stay inside and stay safe tonight. This year, we must be careful until the men are able to hunt the wolf down and kill it. Then, next year, on New Year’s Eve we can go back to singing and dancing outside and visiting all our neighbors. That will be good then, right?”

  Edita sulked, but a grin escaped when her mother hugged her and kissed her on the cheek.

  What should have been a night of walking about from house to house, visiting and drinking with neighbors, teens playfully performing divinations to see who they were destined to marry or how wealthy they could expect to be, was instead a night spent by each family indoors and alone. The girls were afraid to play games to predict their weddings, afraid that such forecasts could mark them or attract the great wolf. Young boys were afraid to play games to predict their future wealth, afraid that these forecasts might also mark them as not-yet-adults, attracting the attention of the wolf who was taking younger children and probably slaying them in the woods. Older boys did play games to predict who would be faster, stronger, more agile, and more handsome, but these quickly lost their interest since there were no large groups to compete with. Once the brothers of a family had pulled straws or poured drops of molten lead into cold water, the game was over.

  The seclusion in each house was stultifying. Even the grand dinners for New Year’s Eve were subdued and quiet, no singing or clinking of glasses as family and neighbors recalled the good times of the past year or anticipated the good times to come. Even the food was more plain than usual, as days that should have been spent preparing the meals had been spent mourning or searching for the missing instead of chopping, slicing, and cooking in the kitchens. Everyone avoided talking about the recent wolf attacks because they knew that whatever was discussed on New Year would be the ongoing theme of discussions throughout the coming months, and no one wanted the wolf attacks to continue.

  Amailija hid her comb under her pillow as she prepared for sleep, like many other girls her age in the town were doing as they prepared for bed. At least that customary New Year’s practice could continue this year. The girls all hoped to dream of handsome young men who would arrive and take the combs from under their pillows to comb their hair; it was the young men they dreamed of doing this whom they would marry in the next year. If no man came in their dreams to comb their hair, then another year would pass without a wedding. Amalija knew that both Audra and Elžbieta had dreamed of their young men coming to comb their hair on New Year and had been planning weddings by the end of the harvest. She hoped that she might have a similar dream and see the young man who would come and take her from childhood in her parents’ house to womanhood in a farmhouse of her own.

  But now Amalija sat in her bed, huddled under the quilts and blankets that she had pulled up around her shoulders. She had been dreaming a strange tale in which a young man did creep into her room and steal the comb from beneath her pillow, caressing her shoulders and combing her hair as he whispered that she was so very, very beautiful and that he loved her; she had accepted the young man’s offer of marriage but was then running through the forest in the night, being chased by someone—or something, she knew not which—crashing through the underbrush constantly threatening to trip her. Somehow she knew that if she tripped, the man or monster behind her would catch her and kill her. But as the lower branches of the trees were scratching at her face and she was dodging and ducking them in her effort to escape the fiend, she had burst awake. Now the details of the dream were fading quickly from her memory and all that remained were the twin emotions of joy at the marriage offer and terror of the monster chasing her.

  But perhaps even more troubling, she could not remember who the young man was that had combed her hair and proposed marriage. How could she recount her dream to her friends the next day if she could not remember the face of the man who would become her husband? But she also knew that even if she could remember his face, she could not tell her friends about the chase through the woods in the dark and the urgent sense of danger that had driven her as she ran.

  Rocking in her bed, her arms wrapped around her knees, the blankets pulled up around her shoulders, Amalija was afraid that she would join the company of her friends Elžbieta and Audra, who had been engaged but then attacked by the strange wolf. Had they dreamed of the wolf as well, but not told anyone?

  Amalija shivered.

  Irena could not bear the thought of not spending New Year’s Eve with Jonas, her betrothed, and so had gone to his family’s home in the late afternoon before the sun had set so that she might be safe inside after dark. After dinner, she had played some fortune-telling games with Jonas’ sisters, and then the family had all gathered around the table to play a variety of card games to pass the time until midnight. But as the family was helping to clear the dinner table and prepare the glasses for drinking during the card games, no one noticed Jonas pull Irena aside and whisper in her ear. She blushed, her eyes twinkling. She bit her lip, glanced about them, and nodded. Jonas eagerly dashed down the hallway, pulling Irena behind him. He opened the door into the farmyard, careful to make as little noise as possible so that no one would notice the quiet click of the latch. Quietly giggling to themselves, they slid into the shadows, and Jonas leaned against the wall of the house right next to the door they had pulled shut behind them.

  “We can’t go far,” murmured Irena cautiously as Jonas pulled her into his embrace and nuzzled his lips against her neck. “What can happen here, right against the house and next to the door?” she thought, only really paying attention to Jonas and his romantic attentions to her neck and the base of her throat. She shivered with delight, feeling his embrace tighten.

  Irena thought she heard the quiet sound of the snow crunching in the yard behind them, but Jonas’ rough breathing was loud, and her own shuddering gasps of delight made it hard to concentrate on anything other than the physical sensations she was experiencing. She wrapped her arms around the back of Jonas’ head and pulled his face down into her breasts.

  The snarl of the monster exploded in Irena’s ears as she felt his teeth close around her shoulder and his massive paws pulled her from Jonas’ embrace. Irena screamed and Jonas screamed and the wolf howled.
His paws pinned Irena to the ground as his massive jaws snapped and tore at her throat. She kicked and flailed, fruitless attempts to throw off the wolf and escape her death throes as Jonas stood, pressed against the wall and frozen with shock, the screams continuing to pour from his throat as he clenched his eyes tightly shut.

  Shots rang out from the door beside him. His father stood there, a shotgun in his arms, spraying the wolf with pellets and slugs.

  The wolf roared in fury, irritated by the shotgun more than injured. He reared up and slapped the gun from Jonas’ father and then fell back onto all four paws. Snapping and tearing a bloody piece of meat from Irena’s now silent corpse, he turned and vanished around the barn across the farmyard.

  The next morning, as the sun was peeping over the horizon, little Rasa poked her head out the kitchen door. “Never go outdoors alone!” her mother had admonished her a few days ago. “Not even to go to the latrine. Do you hear me? Always get me or your father or one of your brothers or sisters to go outside with you, no matter what it is you must do outdoors!” The children had all been told to stay together, to watch and protect each other, and certainly never go out alone. Not even to the latrine.

  But now it was New Year’s morning and everyone was asleep and little Rasa was in desperate need to relieve herself. She stood as high as she could on her toes and reached as high as she could to unlatch the kitchen door. She opened the door just enough to poke her head out and look around.

  The farmyard was empty. Quiet. Streaks of deep rose were reaching out across the black sky and stars were disappearing as the dawn reached them. Rasa was so proud that she had learned not to wet the bed that she refused to think about relieving herself anywhere other than the latrine.

  No one was outside. No animals were moving.

  “The great wolf is not here,” Rasa told herself. “The wolf everyone is so scared of and worried about.” She looked again, turning her head from left to right and back again. “If I hurry, I can run to the latrine and finish and be back in bed and Mother will never know I ever left the house!” She hopped from one foot to another. “As long as I get to the latrine before I wet my nightdress!”

  Rasa shot across the yard and made it to the latrine without getting her nightdress wet.

  She trudged back across the yard and into the kitchen, pulling a chair to the door from the table this time to more easily latch the door behind her.

  She pulled the chair back to the table and went back to her bed.

  As little Rasa was trudging back from the latrine to the kitchen, the neighbor boy Petras was also looking into the New Year’s morning sky from the porch outside his family’s kitchen door.

  Petras was anxiously tapping his foot. He was able to unlatch the door without standing on his toes or climbing onto a chair because he was tall for a boy his age. But he had heard a noise in the kitchen and so had climbed out of bed and come down to see what it was. He had found the door unlatched and a kitchen chair out of place near the door.

  “Something is wrong,” he told himself. “I can feel it. What’s happening?” He looked around the farmyard another time. The dawn was not bright enough yet to see much, but nothing seemed out of place as far as he could tell.

  Yet he still felt that something was amiss.

  The man with greasy hair and yellow teeth took little Nojus by the hand as Nojus stepped out of the latrine behind the barn.

  “You say you have a big brother named Petras?” the man asked Nojus.

  Nojus nodded. “But he’s asleep now,” he told the man. “He’s asleep and everyone else is asleep. Don’t you know? It was New Year last night. Everyone stayed up late. Everyone but me.” Nojus hung his head in shame. “I fell asleep and missed the New Year at midnight. But everyone else stayed up late and said ‘Happy New Year!’ But I fell asleep and so I woke up early this morning and had to use the latrine.”

  “Yes, that does happen,” the man agreed. He took a step away from the house, his hand still holding tightly onto Nojus’ hand.

  “But I live over there!” Nojus pointed. “Now that I’m done with the latrine, mister, I have to go back into the house and wait for Mother to wake up and make breakfast.”

  “But wouldn’t it be more fun to play a game with some of your friends until it is breakfast time?” the man asked. “Wouldn’t you like that more than going back into the house and sitting in your bed by yourself while you wait for your mother?”

  “Yes!” Nojus nodded eagerly. “Yes! It would be more fun to play a game!”

  “Do you have a special friend who lives nearby you might like to invite to play?” the man asked.

  “Yes,” Nojus agreed. “My friend Rasa. She lives on the farm next to ours.” But then his smile faded. “But she is probably still asleep as well.”

  “Maybe she is, maybe she isn’t,” the man told him. “We can at least go by her house and see if she is awake and would like to come play with us and your other friends. You would like that, wouldn’t you?”

  Nojus shook his head eagerly again and smiled up at the big man in the patched and dirty coat.

  Rasa buried herself under the blankets of her bed, down where it was warm under the quilts and coverings. It was dark under the blankets, but she always liked hiding there. Sometimes she had to poke her head outside the covers for a breath of fresh air or sometimes she would make a small opening along the edge of the blankets, like a little cave, and stick just enough of her nose and mouth out so she could breathe more easily.

  As she snuggled down in the dark under the blankets and began to doze, she thought she heard something like a pebble rattle against the bedroom window.

  Was that a voice calling her name, she wondered.

  “Are you sure that is the correct window?” the man asked Nojus.

  “Oh, yes,” Nojus promised him. “That is the bedroom window where my friend Rasa sleeps!”

  The man, never letting go of Nojus’ hand, gently tossed another pebble against the glass and quietly called Rasa’s name.

  Rasa heard the window rattle again.

  “It must be the wind,” she decided, slipping further into her half-dream. “The wind is calling my name to wish me a Happy New Year!” She smiled under the blankets.

  “Come along, little one,” the man told Nojus after a moment. “I’m afraid you must be right. Little Rasa must still be sound asleep in her bed. Won’t she be jealous when you tell her that she missed a wonderful game that you had come to invite her to join?”

  Nojus agreed again as he hurried to keep up with the man’s long strides away from Rasa’s bedroom window.

  As Vakarė and her family were sitting down to breakfast with Alexei, a young man from one of the farms across town arrived to tell them that Irena was dead and Nojus was missing. Later that afternoon a group of neighbors appeared at the kitchen door and asked to speak with Adomas. After they left, Vakarė found Alexei resting on the bed in the small room they had let him stay in.

  “The townsfolk are organizing a night watch,” she told him. “They want Adomas to join them, and of course, he will. All the men in the area will be taking turns to patrol the streets at night to prevent any more killings and save more children from being taken.”

  Alexei nodded, peering at her with the eye that wasn’t bruised and swollen shut.

  “I should be joining them,” he rasped, his throat still scratchy and hoarse from shouting while being attacked. He pushed himself up onto his elbow. “I should be helping to hunt down the monster wolf.”

  “I think the men of the watch would not agree with you, Alexei.” Vakarė shook her head. “Besides, you are not well enough to go out hunting for the wolf yet. You must rest. You must wait for the bruises to fade and your ribs to heal. You will not be of much help, hobbling along the streets in the night with a crutch, even if the townsfolk were willing to let you join the patrol.”

  Alexei thought a moment and lay down again. “Yes. You are correct, my friend.” He closed his eyes. �
�I will rest. Tonight. But tomorrow I will join the patrol, even if I must patrol alone.”

  Vakarė stepped into the hall and closed the door to Alexei’s room.

  That afternoon, she steeped leaves from a plant that her grandmother had taught her aided sleep as she made tea for Alexei. She had often made this sleeping tea for her children and grandchildren when they were ill or even for herself when she had trouble sleeping.

  Alexei slept long and soundly after his cup of tea. The children even giggled, hearing him snore behind the door as their father went out after supper to join the night’s patrol.

  Alexei was still having difficulty getting out of bed in the morning or moving around the table to take his seat for breakfast. Adomas reported that the night patrol had seen no sign of the wolf. They had heard no reports of any killings or missing children, either. Alexei, with everyone else, breathed a sigh of relief.

  Vakarė steeped the leaves in Alexei’s tea again after lunch. He slept soundly that night while Adomas joined the patrol again. Another night passed without any sign of the great wolf.

  “Has the wolf run away to some other part of the country?” Amalija asked at breakfast. “Do you think the night patrol has scared it off, Father?”

  “We can hope it has,” Adomas answered his eldest daughter. “But it is too early to be sure. Two nights without incident does give me a reason to hope, though. But one thing I know for sure is that patrolling all night, two nights in a row, has exhausted me and the men I was on patrol with. I and the others are staying home to sleep tonight. Another handful of men will be out on patrol tonight and tomorrow, and then they will rest while I and the other watchmen take our turns again.”