by Jo Pilsworth
"Keep it safe for me." She whispered. "I have lived a long life, full of love and laughter, but you? You still grieve, my angel and protector. Keep it, and perhaps one day, you too will know love and you too will be able to laugh again."
She had given a soft sigh, as I absorbed her soul, her life fulfilled. In her memory, I will continue to wear her gift and I will treasure the memory of a young girl.
AN APOLOGY TO MY SON
Sion Jones
Dear Rhys
As I write this, I cannot but help look at you, asleep in your cradle. I regret that I may not be there to see you grow, and to see you become the Sentinel whom I could not be. I regret that you will think that perhaps I have chosen the easy option, of leaving you to be raised by the Pack. Perhaps grief has dictated my choices, but I hope that in time, you might come to understand that I did not make those choices without long and careful consideration and thought. So, this letter comes from the heart, my son, and I hope that you know this. If I had the courage to do what I must and then live for you, I would have done, but losing my Lili, losing your mother has changed me. Your mother was my Mate, and we had bonded as seemed so right at the time. Losing her is like losing the other half of my soul. Even as I watch you, as I hear again the words of my Pack-mates, telling me that you are as much a part of her as a part of me, even as the tears trace down my face, I wish I could be stronger.
The only consolation I have is that when you are given this letter, I know that you will be ‘a man grown’, an adult Cŵn Annwn, and I know that you will also have found your own Mate. I know that you will grow to be the Cŵn Annwn to which I might only aspire. I know that our Alpha, and my friend, Gavril, will have raised you to be a Cŵn Annwn who is a credit to our Pack. More to the point, I hope that when you read this, you will understand why I acted the way that I did.
Like me, your mother was born in Wales, and came out to our home in the Carpathians when Gavril found his own Mate, Aaleahya. We were both juveniles then, and as was the norm, we were raised with our age-mates, fostering the bonds which make us Pack. This land where Gavril chose to make our home was a beautiful place. I could recall stories told of when our home in Wales was more like this, maybe not with the woods in which Lili and I would run with our friends, but by the time we came here, Wales had changed. The Industrial Revolution had taken hold, and the new class of industrialists were gaining ascendency. It was the start of a toxic time for soul readers like us, when humans started … how would I describe it? They started to not just want more, because that has been a feature of humankind for generations. No, it was more that they ceased to care that they wanted more, that showing envy was acceptable or at least becoming more acceptable. Aspiration, they called it. Seeking to better oneself, to rise above the station into which you were born.
When Gavril suggested we come out to this new home in the Carpathians, Lili and I, along with our age mates jumped at the chance. It was a chance to be in a cleaner environment, both physically and mentally, and that was something that was essential for us as soul readers. At the time, I didn’t know that Lili was my Mate. That was yet to come. We were but juveniles ourselves, children in the world of the Cŵn Annwn, and there was still time for us to grow.
The humans in this world did not live an easy life. The Roma from whom Gavril’s Mate had come were seen as little more that slaves by the local landowners. They lived their lives bound to an estate, and were far from being the free spirits of our homeland. As local landowners, the Pack was expected to have similarly bound farm-workers on our estates, but it would have been against everything that mattered to us. How could we act as the soldiers of our Goddess if we were doing the very thing for which she would punish the human souls we harvested? So, we struck a compromise. To those around us, other landowners, who held the same rank in the human world as Gavril held, we held Roma slaves bound to our estates. But with us, they had the chance to be free, at least where others might not see them.
This practice was to prove invaluable to us in later years. I shall skip forward. There is no need for me to prattle on about the Great War, the war that was supposed to end all wars. Would that it did, because it would mean that I would not be writing this letter to you, and I would not be contemplating a course of action which would leave you without parents, to be raised by Pack.
…
I had to stop for a moment, because it hit me then what I was doing. I was leaving you, my child, to be raised by Pack, rather than being there for you, but I could not face my life without Lili at my side. I could not face a life without your mother, my flower taken from us both. And why? Why did Lili have to die? She died because she was doing what she felt was necessary, when the world around us descended once more into war. I wonder how history would be written about this war. World War II: a war which should not have happened. The Great War was supposed to end all that, but happen it did. The reparations forced on the Germans at the end of the Great War sat ill with many, and with the links between Romania and Germany as they were, there was support here for the German people, and a view that it was hardly surprising that the National Socialists came to power. But, I move slightly ahead of myself, because I should tell you more about your mother, about my Lili.
Without her, I would not have you, but now I am without her, and that is more than I can bear. Call me coward if it makes it easier for you to understand. It was like a thunderclap. Lili went from being the bubbly young female who had taken such pleasure in running with me and our other age-mates to something so much more. She lost the loose-limbed lack of co-ordination that is the bane of all young females and became something else. How can I describe it in a way that makes sense to you, my son? Her smile, her laugh. The light in her eyes when she met my gaze. The smile. Yes, that was the thing that everyone noticed, Lili’s smile. Then came the full moon when, instead of running with our age-mates, I plucked up the courage to ask her if she would run with just me, just the two of us. It was a cold night, and the snow was thick on the ground. Our breath made little clouds in the night air, as her tail flashed before me. The dance is old as time, and long after the moon had set did we return to the Hall. When the time is right, we know our Mates, and that night, the time was right for me to realise that Lili was the one with whom I wanted to spend the rest of my life.
Goddess, the rest of my life. That’s what we thought we had that night: the rest of our lives. We thought we had time aplenty to spend together, on that night when we confirmed our Mating through sharing the Mating Bond. In the winter of 1940, that was when my Lili and I realised that the Goddess had chosen the other to be the one soul in the universe to offer support and succour. It also meant that, as a male Cŵn Annwn, I could take a more active part in the soul harvests, now that I had my Lili to help me with the taint of evil that was part and parcel of our duties to our Goddess.
But now we come to the reason why I mentioned the Roma people who worked on the Negrescu lands. By 1940, these were the grandchildren of those whom we had known when we had first come to the Carpathian region. Their grandparents may have been born into virtual slavery, but the generation living in the time that saw Western Europe engulfed in war once more, they knew a different life. It was still not freedom, but they and their parents knew that those who made up the Negrescu tribe, as they chose to see us, would not hold them in bondage as their grandparents had been. Aaleahya had maintained friendships with members of her blood tribe, even if her own father’s death had meant that she had had to flee, until Gavril ‘married’ her, and her new rank assured her safety. It mattered not if they thought that it was Aaleahya’s rank which gave them the protection of her husband, and the greater level of freedom that they enjoyed compared to others. They were free, and that was important. Of course they knew that we were not normal, or at least not in the way that others of rank might be.
But all that would change. We both had many friends amongst the Roma communities, and as it became clear that the government were siding with the
Germans and the Nazi party, so their attitudes towards particular nationalities started to become apparent. We heard stories of pogroms, of attacks on Jewish communities, and the number of harvests that we had to carry out started to increase. Each time I returned, having delivered the souls I carried to Gavril, my Lili would lie with me, and her gentle light would clear the despair that might otherwise prove overwhelming. Lili feared for her friends amongst the Roma community and it was good reason that she did, for they, too, became a target for the authorities, keen to show their German allies that they shared the same disdain for those populations not seen to be pure.
We had to be careful ourselves, as Cŵn Annwn. Rumours started to spread, of how there were elements of the Nazi party who were interested in anything which might give them an advantage. Fears were kindled, deliberately, so that those with whom we might have done business in saner times, saw an opportunity to gain by guile what they could not gain honestly. Gavril instructed us to be cautious, and with good reason. We were but one Mated pair, but there were many more in the Pack, and each might be targeted: threaten one Mate to gain the co-operation of the other. So we were careful. We dealt with those whom we knew we could trust, and only because we had the advantage of being able to read souls.
It was not the best time for us to bring a child into the world, but these things happen. We hoped that despite all that was happening around us, that Lili was expecting our first child might mean that the war would end soon, that the hatred and intolerance, the belief that whole races should be exterminated would be consigned to history. We hoped, because we were young, and we wanted to believe that those around us were essentially good. We wanted to believe that we might be like any other couple deeply in love. We wanted to believe that we could be a family and watch our child grow to manhood.
I remember that Lili would take each little garment that she made for you, Rhys, and lay it carefully in a chest which I had made for that purpose. Each little shirt which she sewed for you was layered carefully with dried herbs, so that when the time came for them to be needed, they would bear a relaxing scent. Each little blanket, each sleeping robe went into that chest, in preparation for your arrival. Rhys, your mother loved you so much, even before you were born, because you were proof that our Mating was strong. You were proof of the blessing of the Goddess on our Mating.
I have never felt such pride when you came into the world, Rhys. My son. I had a son, who would follow in my footsteps, I hoped. A son to whom I might teach all that a male Cŵn Annwn needed to know, so that he might carry out the harvests that were necessary. Your hair is the same colour as your mother’s but other than that, the only thing that you bore of her was your smile. From the moment you were born, you smiled at us, waving your fists as if to say, “I am here!” There was no greater feeling of contentment for me that to watch you at your mother’s breast, as you took your nourishment. Lili would rest against me, my arms around her waist as she held you to her breast, and my hand would wander up, to stroke your soft hair.
She wanted to show you to her friends. I suppose it was only natural, and how were we to know how dangerous that might be. How were we to know? These were people we had known for years. These were Roma whom we had watched be born. They knew what we were but even with the suspicion starting to permeate the atmosphere around us, we did not consider that they would pose a danger to us. And they did not. It was not Lili’s Roma friends who posed the danger, but others, who saw your mother’s beauty, and would follow her as she visited her friends. It was others who were jealous that such beauty, her features being all that they saw as signs of racial purity. It was one other, who had watched Lili from afar, and somehow convinced himself that Lili should be his. The sight of Lili visiting with her friends, with you in her arms had acted as some sort of incendiary to this person.
I remember the day so clearly. Lili had come running back to the Hall from visiting her Roma friends. They didn’t live at the Hall, as their grandparents had done, so habitually, Lili would flash to a location close to their home, and arrive on foot. What had started as a happy day had turned to anything but a joyous visit. As she had turned to leave her friend’s simple home, this person who had put your mother on some sort of pedestal of racial purity saw that she carried a child with her hair, but with the features of another, with the eyes of another. For the first time, your mother felt the vicious hatred of another, and she had taken a step back, holding you closer to her, even though you were wrapped safe in a carrying blanket. Shaking her head, she had turned to flee, wanting to protect you, her precious babe. The man had grabbed her hair, pulling her to a stop, turning her around, and pulling the blanket from your face. The damning proof that she had lain with another. That was how the hatred which pulsed from this individual felt to your mother: you were the visible proof that she was no longer pure.
Your mother didn’t know how she managed to free her hair, but she did, and she turned to flee, aided by her friends coming to her assistance. Mindful of the danger both to you and to the Pack, Lili had still known that she could not flash you both to safety. I was away that day, harvesting the souls killed on a transport train. I returned to find her shaking, curled up on our bed, holding you close, her tears falling on your head. She told me what had happened, and we decided that it was no longer safe for her to take you with her when she visited her friends. But her greatest fear had been for those friends: Roma, who lived outside of the protection of a tribe, who were starting to be viewed with more disdain by the authorities. We had gone to Gavril, and he had agreed that her friends must be relocated to a place of safety. In coming to her aid, they had made a target of themselves. Lili’s eyes had flashed as she asked Gavril to understand why she could not abandon her friends, and Gavril had understood. Caution was still needed, he told us, perhaps more so now than before.
The following day, we made plans to evacuate her friends. By coming to her aid, they were in danger. Lili could not abandon them. Unfortunately, I had to join another harvest. Another train load of Jews, and more deaths. It seems strange that such things seemed to matter little an increasing swathe of their fellow man. Did they see them as a danger to them? They were unarmed. Was it just their race? Dark hair and dark eyes. The very antithesis of racial purity. Or was it greed, since if these people were deemed non-human, they could not own property and their monies might be seized. Either way, when Lili went to her friend’s house, hoping to bring her to safety, she went alone, leaving you at the Hall.
She never came home.
I returned from the harvest, heavy of heart from what I had seen, to find that you were in the care of the Pack Nursery. Aaleahya had rushed to Gavril, as had I. When my Alpha and friend had looked at me, I had known that what I had hoped was untrue was confirmed. My Lili, the flower of my love, my Mate, was gone. Dead. Her soul had returned to our Goddess, although the details of what had happened were sketchy. I had flashed back to our room, wanting to believe that it was some horrible joke, even though the echoing emptiness that I could feel through the sundered Mating Bond told me that it was no joke.
Therein lay the problem. I had passed the souls of the innocent to Gavril so that he might convey them to our Goddess, but I had also taken the soul of a train guard, who had laughed at the women he pushed onto a train, his rifle butt smashing into the head of her child, the blood on the child’s face telling his mother that the vicious blow had taken the life of her son. In taking the son’s soul, I had taken the guard also, a far from easy thing to do, given my level of experience, but I could not let him live when the blackness of his soul showed that this was not the first time he had killed and nor would it be the last. The faint taint of evil still lay within me, and it was coupled with my grief as I flashed to close to where I knew Lili had gone.
Her body lay in the smouldering embers of her friend’s home, the heavy smell of burned flesh telling a story of what had happened. Sobbing, I had gathered the souls of her friends close to me. My Lili was gone. I did n
ot even have the consolation of being able to hold her soul close to me. It was scant recompense to know that our Goddess had taken her into her arms already. What about me? What about our son? As I stood, planning to flash straight back to the Hall, I heard laughter. Incredulous, I had turned to find this creature whom Lili had encountered just the day before. He was laughing at the sight before him.
“This is the fate of anyone who betrays the race.” His friends had laughed with him. And that was when I discovered the horror of your mother’s passing, your mother who had only been here because she wished to help her Roma friends. He had attacked her, he had raped her, and then his friends had done the same. They had not been content to ‘just’ kill her, but they wished to punish her for her ‘crime’ of failing to maintain her purity. Even as I clenched my fists in anger, I could not kill them. I may be Cŵn Annwn, but I could not hope to beat twelve adult men on my own, and that made the man laugh even more.
“You are well rid of her.” He had said. Well rid of the other half of my soul?
He took a step back. They all did. I knew why, and this time, I laughed. My eyes had changed; they had not changed to the full red of the Cŵn Annwn, but they had changed. Like the cowards that they were, they had turned tail and run, and with a heavy heart, I had returned to the Hall. Delivering the souls I carried to Gavril, I also informed my Alpha of my mistake, of letting them see that I was not all that I might appear. I promised Gavril that I would deal with the matter, begging him that he might let me have this one thing; revenge for the loss of my Lili.
Gavril gave me his permission and that is why I am writing this letter to you, Rhys. I did not leave you because I did not love you. I left you because I knew that I could not bear to live without your mother, but also because I knew I had to protect my Pack from danger, and that danger was a group of males allied to party which would seize anything which might give them an advantage over their enemies. It was my mistake, my eyes which had changed, and thus, it was my mistake to correct.
