Wolf's Choice

by Laura Taylor

  Silas self-consciously put a hand on his scar, a long, jagged line running from his left eye to his collar bone. He barely thought about it any more, so used to seeing it in the mirror every day, but it must look horrific to someone like her. “I had a fight with a very bad man. He was hurting a lot of innocent people. He tried to kill me.” The memories were still raw, even after so many years. Not so much because of the fight, but because of the cause of it…

  “You don’t like thinking about it, do you?” Tansy said, and Silas was surprised at the unexpectedly insightful statement.

  “Not really, no.”

  “I have things I don’t like to think about, too,” she confided in him.

  What the fuck was he supposed to say to that? “Goodnight,” he said awkwardly, heading for the door, not knowing how else to end the conversation.

  “Goodnight,” she replied, and then added, with a politeness that was strangely out of place, “It was nice meeting you.”

  Silas padded out the door on silent bare feet and headed for the stairs. When he reached his room again, he let out a long sigh, not knowing what to think of the odd encounter. She was not what he had been expecting at all.

  CHAPTER SIX

  October 24th

  Early the next morning, Tansy followed Heron into the library. They’d had breakfast – another feast in which Tansy had been allowed to eat toast, eggs, bacon and orange juice – and then Heron had told her that they needed to have a meeting with Baron and Caroline to discuss some details about the estate.

  She’d met a few more people over breakfast; Kwan and Aaron, two boys who were around her own age; Mark, Alistair and Luke, three young men who smiled and laughed, but actually made Tansy horribly nervous, all three of them being fit and athletic in a way that made her feel small and weak; Raniesha, another of the women in the estate, who had dark skin and was a good friend of Caroline’s. And she’d seen Silas again briefly. He ducked into the room, glanced around at the crowd, then grabbed a bread roll and an apple and hurried off again. He was an odd one. For all his tattoos and scars, he had a strange quietness about him, like a dog that had been beaten once too often. And like a dog, Tansy had the strange idea that if provoked, he could be dangerous, but if spoken to softly and shown a measure of kindness, he would prove to be the most loyal of friends. She’d been terrified last night when she’d first seen him, convinced he was going to hurt her. But then he’d reacted so strangely, seeming almost afraid of her, and it was so odd for a man to be scared of someone like her that she found herself quite curious about him.

  Inside the library, Tansy sat down beside Heron, Baron and Caroline seated opposite them across the table.

  “I’d like to begin,” Baron said, once she was settled, “by saying that I’ve spoken to everyone in the house, and they’re all very glad to have you here. You’ll be introduced to everyone individually later, but for now, just keep in mind that you’re very welcome to make this your home, and if you need anything, you only have to ask. Heron’s told me she’s going to help you buy some more clothes, and that you’d like a computer of your own. Is there anything else you need?”

  There was, actually, but Tansy was feeling a little too overwhelmed to think of everything right now. It was only after she’d woken up this morning and the reality of what she’d done had sunk in that she’d started to remember all the things she’d left behind. “Some books,” she said meekly, feeling confused and disoriented. She’d run away from home! That was just… outrageous. Her father would be furious. And his friends… they would have been so angry when she didn’t show up last night. Tansy felt a thrill at the thought of disappointing them all, gleeful at the idea that for once, she’d messed up all of their plans.

  “No problem,” Baron said, in reply to her vague request. “Heron can help you find the ones you want online, and we can order them today. We’ll show you around the estate later, as well. It’s a big house, and there are some rooms that are private, but there’s plenty of space for everyone to feel comfortable.”

  Tansy just nodded. Baron was staring at her with a serious sort of frown, and it was making her nervous. He looked fierce, not like Silas, who just wanted to be left alone, but like her father, who liked to take charge of things and tell people what to do.

  “Now, the next thing,” he went on, “is that we have to tell you a few things about the estate. You’ve probably realised by now that we’re not a normal family. We have lots of different people with different backgrounds. But we all live together because there are a few, very important things that we all have in common.”

  He nodded to Heron, who took over the explanation. “Yesterday in the park, we were talking about magic things,” she began, a strange tangent to the conversation that had Tansy frowning. “We talked about magic lions and whether fairies could make you invisible. And when we left, you asked me if I was magic.”

  Tansy nodded, in two minds about the whole idea. On the one hand, it was stupid. Magic wasn’t real. Fairies didn’t exist.

  But on the other hand… Well, it was hard to explain. She’d seen enough movies, read enough stories to believe that there was something else in the world besides what people could see and hear and touch. Some people called it God, or angels. Others called it Fate. And still others called it magic. “You showed up just when I needed you to,” Tansy explained, feeling awkward. “And you took me away from all the horrible things. So that’s kind of like magic, right?” She waited for Heron to laugh at her…

  “It certainly is,” Heron said seriously. “So let me ask you a very important question: how would you feel if I told you that it wasn’t a coincidence that I was in the park yesterday. What if I told you I had been looking for you?”

  Tansy was immediately on guard. “Are you magic?” she asked again, repeating her question from last night. She had an odd sense that something important was about to happen, a strange kind of premonition that she was on the verge of a great turning point, not just in her own life, but, as ridiculous as it sounded, in the whole history of the world. She glanced at Baron, and then at Caroline. Both of them were watching her carefully.

  “Do you really want me to answer that?” Heron asked, an odd note in her voice.

  “Yes,” Tansy said. “Are you an angel? I’ve heard that angels sometimes come and help people, and they look like normal people, but they’re not.”

  Heron glanced at Baron, a look that seemed full of significance, and that odd feeling of premonition got stronger. “I’m not an angel,” Heron said. “But we are different from normal people. We can do things that most people can’t. And the truth is… we’ve been watching you for a little while. And we think you’re the right sort of person to learn to do what we can do.”

  “What can you do?” Tansy asked, nervous, and curious, and excited and terrified all at once.

  “Do you like dogs?” Heron asked, another odd turn of the conversation.

  “I think so,” Tansy said. “I’ve never really spent much time with them. But I’ve seen videos, and they seem nice enough.”

  “Okay,” Heron said. “Well, I have one that I’d like you to meet. She’s quite big, but she’s very friendly. Is that okay?”

  Tansy nodded, so Heron got up and went to the door. She opened it, and a large wolf paced into the room. It sat down on the floor a few feet from Tansy, and she stared at it in awe.

  “You can talk to animals?” she whispered, trying to guess what the animal had to do with magic and angels and strange abilities. “That’s a wolf, isn’t it? Can you speak to animals?”

  “It’s a little more complicated than that,” Heron said, watching the wolf, though she didn’t take her seat again. “Watch carefully. And remember, you’re perfectly safe here. Nothing bad is going to happen.”

  Tansy nodded, turning her full attention to the wolf.

  It watched her, a strangely human intelligence shining in its eyes. And then its fur crackled with a strange blue light, like a thousand tin
y strikes of lightning. The wolf blurred before her eyes, and when its form cleared, Tansy was shocked and amazed to see that it had become a human. Raniesha. The woman she’d met at breakfast.

  All of a sudden, Tansy burst into tears. She leapt off her seat. Turned to face Heron with wide, accusing eyes, her heart thudding in her chest, her lungs gasping for air as she suddenly realised that everything she had ever been told about the world was wrong.

  “It’s you!” she blurted out, Raniesha forgotten on the floor. “You’re the fairies. You’re the magic fairies. And I’ve wanted you to come and get me so many times! But I didn’t know where you lived, and I didn’t know how to find you… but you live here! And you… You came to get me. How did you find me? How did you know where I live?”

  Heron reached for her cautiously, as if not sure whether she was going to run away. “It’s okay,” she said, putting her hand gently on Tansy’s shoulder. “You’re perfectly safe. No one’s going to hurt you.”

  Tansy darted forward, catching Heron in a fierce hug, as if by holding onto her, she could make sure this strange dream would never end. “Don’t ever make me go away,” she sobbed into Heron’s shoulder. “Let me stay here with you. I can be a wolf! I could be a really great wolf. I want to be magic, like you. Let me stay here forever!”

  Heron wrapped her arms around Tansy and held her close, and Tansy felt herself shaking with fear and relief and a hope so strong it made her dizzy. “You can stay,” Heron whispered into her hair. “You can stay here forever.”

  Later that morning, Heron sat on the sofa in the manor’s lounge, Tansy by her side with a laptop balanced on her knees, Raniesha on Tansy’s other side. They were looking at an online store, the screen displaying a range of children’s clothing, and Tansy was slowly working up a sizeable collection of things she wanted to buy. She was wearing her blue top with the dolphin on it, along with her childish jewellery, and with her tiny figure and long hair pulled into a ponytail, she looked like she was about twelve years old.

  “What about this one?” Heron pointed to a top with a fairy on the front, but Tansy shook her head.

  “No. Fairies are small and silly.” She scrolled down the page, then found one she liked better, a brightly coloured unicorn on the front. “What about that one?”

  “Oh, that’s very pretty,” Raniesha said enthusiastically. But to Heron’s surprise, Tansy’s face immediately lost its playful smile.

  “No,” she said, moving on. “I don’t think I like it.”

  “These are pretty,” Heron said, pointing to a pair of jeans with butterflies on them.

  “No!” Tansy said, her tone exasperated. “Not like that.”

  “But you liked the t-shirt with the butterflies,” Heron said, confused by her seemingly random tastes. “You said butterflies were nice.”

  “But I don’t like those ones,” Tansy said stubbornly, scrolling down the page. At first, Heron had thought it fairly easy to work out Tansy’s taste in clothing. No skirts or dresses. Bright colours only. Glitter was especially good, and while she might tolerate a few items in blue or green, she preferred the pinks and yellows. She was, as Caroline would have put it, a ‘girly girl’, unicorns and butterflies and flowers decorating the vast majority of her choices.

  But now they seemed to have hit something of a roadblock, with Tansy suddenly rejecting half a dozen items that Heron had expected her to like.

  “What don’t you like about it?” Raniesha asked carefully. Since her demonstration of her shape shifting abilities, Tansy had taken an immediate shine to her, inviting her to join this shopping session and seeming to take her opinions seriously.

  Tansy sighed, a scowl on her face. “I’m not pretty,” she said darkly.

  “Oh, that’s not true,” Heron said, alarmed by her apparent lack of confidence in her physical appearance, and wanting to bolster her self esteem. “I think you’re very pretty.”

  The laptop suddenly went crashing to the floor, Tansy leaping off the seat and rushing across the room. “I’m not pretty!” she shouted, facing them both, angry and scared, arms wrapped around herself defensively. “Don’t call me that!”

  “I’m sorry,” Heron apologised automatically, mystified by her distress. “I didn’t mean to offend you.”

  “Why do people have to keep saying I’m pretty? I’m not, and I never wanted to be, so why can’t you just leave me alone? I never wanted to wear those dresses, and I tried to cut my hair, so I wouldn’t be, but he wouldn’t let me have short hair!”

  In a rush, Tansy ripped the elastic band out of her hair and ran out of the room.

  Heron and Raniesha leapt up, dashing after her. They caught up to her in the kitchen, Heron letting out a startled cry as she saw the pair of scissors in Tansy’s hands, but Tansy was too quick. In two or three decisive strokes, she’d hacked off her hair just below her ears. The long strands tumbled to the floor. She tossed the scissors carelessly onto the bench, then angrily grabbed the handfuls lying on the ground and shoved them into the bin. “I hate my hair! I hate wearing dresses.” The destruction wasn’t satisfactory, so she grabbed the scissors again, plunging them into the bin and massacring the hair that lay in a big clump, cutting and cutting until it was all in tiny pieces. “I hate him!”

  “Okay, okay…” Heron approached her slowly, took her hand and gently removed the scissors, worried she would accidentally hurt herself with them, and then cautiously put her arms around her. While Tansy was understandably wary of anyone touching her, she seemed to accept physical contact from Heron well enough, and Heron was relieved when she sagged against her, breathing hard. But no tears were falling, and the girl seemed more angry than upset.

  “I’m sorry, Tansy,” Heron said, rubbing her back gently. “It’s okay. No one’s going to make you do anything you don’t want to do.”

  But Tansy suddenly pulled away. “Don’t call me that,” she said angrily. “I hate that name. I hate the way the men said it, and my father… He always said it like it was an order. ‘Tansy’, like I was a dog or something. I want a different name.”

  “Okay.” Heron nodded slowly. She was feeling out of her depth, but Tansy’s reasons for disliking her name were sound. “What would you like to be called?”

  Tansy stood still and thought for a minute. “Skip,” she said finally, looking uncertain about it. “That’s the name I go by online. And it doesn’t matter what you look like online, because no one can see you anyway. And I’m good at stuff with computers.”

  “Then Skip it is,” Heron agreed. “That’s perfectly fine.”

  The newly appointed Skip nodded, though there was still an angry scowl on her face, and Heron waited patiently, Raniesha hovering just behind her.

  “Can I ask you something?” Heron said carefully, once Skip had calmed down a little. “I don’t mean to upset you, but… did your father used to tell you you were pretty? Is that why you don’t like it?”

  Skip nodded, her lips pressed together in an angry line. “His friends always said I was pretty. I hated them. But I wasn’t allowed to go away. I had to stay with them, and they…” She stopped, lip quivering, a flood of dark memories overwhelming her, and Heron was suddenly fighting back tears at the stark reminder of what this precious young woman had had to live with for so long.

  She stroked her hair softly. “You don’t have to have long hair,” she said firmly. “And you don’t have to look pretty any more.” Heron immediately resolved never to use the word again in Skip’s presence, and also made a mental note to inform the rest of the Den of the need to avoid it.

  Skip nodded, and wiped her nose on the back of her arm.

  “Shall we go back and look for some more clothes?” Heron asked.

  Back in the sitting room, the search went more successfully this time around. Heron found a jumper with a kitten on the front. “Oh, that looks very… girly,” she said, fumbling for a word which showed her approval, but avoided the dreaded description of ‘pretty’.

 
“Yeah,” Skip agreed. “It’s cute.” With a click of the mouse, she added it to her selection.

  “And I like this one,” she added, finding a light blue t-shirt with a pale grey wolf on the front.” She glanced up at Raniesha with a mischievous grin. “Cos wolves are awesome,” she said slyly, then turned back to the screen.

  After Skip’s impromptu ‘hair cut’ that morning, Heron took her down to the local village to get it cut properly, a stern-faced Silas in tow. And, understanding the need for a bodyguard, Skip found she didn’t really mind having him around. There was something oddly wounded about him, and while she was reluctant to get too close to him, he didn’t scare her the way some of the other men did.

  She struggled to sit still while the hairdresser did her hair, though not from any nervousness. She was getting a real haircut! For the first time in years. And as the ragged mess gradually took shape, fluffy on top, shaped nicely around her ears, Skip could barely contain her excitement. When it was done, she spent long minutes staring into the mirror. She could barely recognise herself. Short hair, bright clothes, the chunky necklace around her neck – not the sort of thing her father would ever have allowed her to wear – and the smile on her face… it had been so long since Skip had had a real reason to smile. On the way home, they’d stopped at a café and picked up a chocolate brownie for her and a muffin for Heron, and Skip felt like her world had been flipped upside down. So many things she was allowed to do now, that she hadn’t been allowed to before. She made a point of thanking Heron for the unexpected gifts, and then turned to Silas, shyly thanking him too, for giving up his time to come with them. He looked startled at the display of gratitude, making Skip wonder why no one had been polite to him before, and she resolved to always remember her manners around him, delighted with the crooked, bashful sort of smile on his face.

  Now, after a long day of so many new surprises, it was dinnertime, and Skip followed Heron down the stairs and along the hall. She was hungry, looking forward to another meal, so she wasn’t really paying attention as they reached the dining room. She took two steps inside the door, glanced around the room… and froze.