His father’s voice filled with concern, “It had to happen one day. One of them was bound to come along. It’s like a magnet to them - his kind.”
“We cannot move from here, not yet, so what do -.” Her voice broke and then they were quiet.
He listened to the silence. He heard them, they were sobbing. In between the sniffs, he heard his mum say, “You try to keep them pure, teach them the ways, and then they get snared.”
“Are you sure he was taken with her?”
“Yes, they touched, or should I say, he touched her, then to make matters worse she offered him her hand and he took it. As I said, her mother was there, too.”
His dad sounded angry, “What about her, did she condone it?”
He heard his mum blowing her nose then she said, “I think not, as she was angry when she left, dragging the girl along.”
Jason struggled to hear as they lowered their voices, as if they knew he was listening at the door. He heard his mum’s voice again, muffled this time by her handkerchief as she blew her nose once more. “I feel it was my fault…know she was …inevitable…” She blew her nose then continued “…warning…secret kept too long… said this would happen one…a change…cannot afford…at a loss as to what we can do.”
She blew her nose, a dry sound and his dad asked, “How old is the girl?”
She cleared her throat and told him, “Not quite his age, maybe a good year younger, but she’s tall for her age, which is a typical trait for them.”
His father sounded hopeful. “Not quite ripe then. If that is so, then we have nothing to worry about.”
“Yes, but he has met her, he will want to see her again, Iain, he is after all only-.”
His father cut her off sternly, “That’s the problem, he isn’t.”
“We must seek advice.”
“I will, first thing in the morning.”
Jason moved away from the door, he made his way back up to his bedroom, the milk forgotten. He lay down and pulled the duvet over him, his mind in a whirl, What was all that about. What did his mum mean, ‘snared’? His kind? What secret? What have they got against Jennifer and what did they mean by ‘taken’. He did find Jennifer ‘nice’, she was ‘nice’ to look at, ‘nice’ to talk to and most of all, ‘nice’ to touch. He recalled the feeling as he held her hand in his, it was a warm feeling, it had enveloped his whole being, and it was something he yearned for and he fell asleep, her vision foremost in his mind.
Lucas.
The name, printed in bold letters on the door, read- L. Blackfield. Qualified Surveyor. But Blackfield wasn’t the real name of the man sitting at his desk. He was listening to someone on the telephone while answering quietly. His name was Lucas, and he wasn’t a qualified surveyor. He replaced the telephone in its cradle and leaned back in his upholstered office chair and thought for a moment, after which he picked up the telephone once more and dialled. He waited for a while then spoke, “Sorry, did I wake you?”...“I want you to leave straight away. I’ve spoken with Doctor Nielsen and he told me you have been accepted and that you may arrive whenever you wish, but you must leave now.”…“Yes, he will be there soon, but you must not reveal your identity to him.”…“There is something else, they have one of their people there.”…“No, just let things take their course, but if you see any others in the vicinity, hanging around, watching him, just dispose of them, but discretely.”…“Something is about to happen.”…“Trust me, just stay by him, protect him, and teach him all he needs to know.” He replaced the hand piece once more and smiled contentedly. He then rose up and left his office, locking the door behind him.
Jennifer and her friends.
Jason slept a dreamless sleep and awoke feeling fresh. It was 5.30 a.m. milking time. He pulled off his nightshirt and dressed in fresh underpants, jeans and a clean T-shirt; he laced his boots over his socks and ran down the stairs three at a time.
He found his parents in the barn, his mum was gathering eggs that Jessie sniffed out amongst the straw and his dad was cleaning the first cow’s teats. “Morning, sorry, I seem to have overslept.”
His mother smiled widely after greeting him, no indication of worry in her eyes, and his father said in his usual manner, “Good morning, Jason, just bring some hay down from the loft, half-dozen bales should be enough.”
“Where do you want them, in the cowshed?”
“Outside, you can distribute it between the sheep and the Alpacas.”
After breakfast, they spent time in the garden, plucking strawberries and other bush fruit until it was nine o’clock, time for school. It was maths first, followed by Latin and geography, with a break for lunch and then it was English grammar.
In the afternoon, he and Jessie rounded up the sheep in time for Doctor Venables, the local vet, on his monthly visit.
After the evening meal, eaten in an unusual silence, he left the house for a walk. As he made his way to the river he thought about the conversation between his mother and father of the night before. Why hadn’t they spoken to him about the incident? His parents had told him, We have no secrets here, Jason, if you want to know something, you come right out and ask. He’d had a mind to, but then he would have had to admit to eavesdropping, something his parents frowned upon, Eavesdroppers never hear good of themselves, Jason.
Jason arrived at the river and sat on the bank, his mind on one thing, the touch of Jennifer’s hand. The shadows lengthened, and he felt the desire to swim. He stripped off his clothes and after doing his breathing exercises he dived in. He chased the trout and annoyed several crayfish for a while. As he swam on, he remembered Jennifer telling him- See you some evening, maybe. He recalled her saying that she went swimming with friends by the ford. He decided to pay her a visit. She said they went in the evenings when the ford was closed to traffic, as all fords were at night time.
Still underwater, he swam against the current and soon picked up a companion - an otter. They startled several trout and after a while he increased his speed and left it behind to hunt alone and arrived at the ford in no time at all. He surfaced and gazed about him. He heard sounds of girlish laughter in the distance. He heard them playing, splashing about calling out to one another. He swam nearer and although he was still some way off, he heard Jennifer’s voice as she called out to the others.
He became aware of something drifting through his thoughts, the faint sounds of girlish laughter followed by whispers, “Oh, Jason, I knew you would come.” At first he thought he was imagining it, then he realized her voice was inside his head as she said, “You can hear me, can’t you?” then he heard her voice again, “I see you aren’t afraid, there is no need to be, is there?”
He swam closer and felt the pebbles beneath him as his hands touched the river bottom. He surfaced and stood up. The water came up to his waist and flowed gently past him. He gazed about him and saw Jennifer, sitting on the jetty behind a golden veil. It was her hair shining, glittering brighter than the stars in the night sky and glowing like burnished gold. It covered her gentle form, and lay spread beside her on the wooden platform. He waded towards her until the water fell below his knees. He stopped, as he saw Jennifer’s friends, all girls and as naked as the day they were born, laughing as they ran through the shallows, towards the river bank, splashing one another. The girls, all of them about Jennifer’s age, squealed in surprise at the sight of Jason’s equally nude form and stopped and stared at him for a number of seconds and he stared back. At a cry from one of them they ran off onto the beach and moved behind a large clump of bushes, where he imagined they had undressed.
Jennifer stood up giggling and he heard, “Oh dear, you have frightened them off.”
The dying sunlight bathed her body in an orange glow as she brushed her hair over her shoulders where it hung behind her like a shimmering bejewelled veil, leaving Jason standing there, unable to move as her eyes roamed over his face. He managed to say, “I, er, I am sorry, I, er, er, I only wanted to see if-.” He stopped, took a d
eep breath and said, “Was that you who spoke inside my head?”
He heard something tinkle through his thoughts, something light, then heady, and he heard her voice once more, a strange echoing sound, “Yes, it was, are you happy with that, can it be our secret?”
He opened his mouth to ask her something and broke off and looked beyond her as a light shone from a large house near the woods. Then he heard a man’s voice, loud. “What’s going on out there, Jennifer, are you alright?”
She glanced behind her and said to him in a loud whisper that sounded unnatural after hearing her voice inside his head, “It’s my father. You’d better go. Quickly, hide somewhere, hurry now.”
Without hesitation, he turned and ran through the shallows and dove into the current. He swam non-stop, his head full of Jennifer’s vision at the ford. He had nothing else on his mind as he swam, scattering the fish - one large pike included – on his way back to the willow tree.
She’d watched as his body hit the water with hardly a splash, and waited for him to reappear on the other bank. “Where is he?” She was about to call out in her mind to him; she knew she could reach him, for now they were a pair, bonded forever, but she hesitated as her father drew near.
He was carrying his bow, which was unusual at this time of day. “Who was that, my dear?”
She couldn’t deny Jason’s presence, not to her father, his eyesight was just as good as hers and she could see farther into the distance than a hawk, “A boy I met in town the other day.”
Her father was silent for a while, then he spoke, “Yes, your mother told me all about him. Come, it is time for our evening meal.”
She rose up and watched her father as he walked back towards the house. She looked back at the river, at the bushes on the far bank; gazing downstream from where he had swum to her. She stood there for a while then whispered, “Jason, Jason, where are you, why did you run from me?”
Chapter three.
Encounters.
Jason lay on the grass, sucking air deep into his lungs. He had, in his panic, dived below the surface and swum away without replenishing his oxygen supply beforehand, which forced him to surface twice for air.
After a while, with Jennifer’s words running through his memory, he rose up and walked over to where his clothes were. The sun had sunk below the horizon and the light was fading quickly. He paused in his actions as a strange, but pleasant odour assailed his senses. It was a smell he would remember, he told himself.
Standing still, he searched in the half-light sniffing the air and the odour, which was vaguely familiar to him, increased. He knew it to be an animal smell, mixed with something else, and he concentrated on its location. He sensed a movement some fifty yards away.
He felt the instinctive urge to run, but the sense of fear was absent. Then he saw a shadow, low on the ground, some sort of animal, but it was huge, much bigger than a fox, or a wolf. But wolves were strangers to these parts, they were only found in the Welsh hills or Northern England and Scotland, not here in Cambridgeshire. But the smell was, yes, canine, yet…something more. To his surprise the figure rose up and seemed to shrink, and then it vanished. He rubbed his eyes, expecting the image to rise up and float away, for he heard that such spirits often frequented the river at sunset.
He heard the crickets chirping once more and he picked up his clothes and put them on. After pulling on his running shoes and with one last look around him, he ran off over the fields, laughing to himself. He wondered about the effect he had on those other girls, some were as much as five years older than him, and more developed and they were tall and willowy like Jennifer. It was one of the older ones who had called out, causing the others to hurry away from him. He was probably the first naked boy they had ever seen, but Jennifer didn’t seem to have minded in the least as she stood there, her slender body shining golden in the sunlight and her hair a glittering cape of precious stones.
As he ran home, he imagined he could hear her voice, calling out to him in his mind, Jason, Jason, where are you, why did you run from me?
He arrived home, just as his parents were preparing a late snack in the kitchen. They said little after greeting him and he sat down with them at the table and they ate in silence.
He helped clear the table, after which he said, “I’ll go check on the chickens and -.”
His mum laid a hand on his arm. “We have guest, he is waiting in the parlour, and we would like you to meet him, for he has something very important to tell you.”
His father added, “He is a friend, Jason, and he is here to help you.”
Disclosure.
He walked into the parlour alone and the hairs on the nape of his neck rose up, a strange sensation as he experienced it for the first time. He could smell him before he saw him. He knew it was a ‘him’ by the smell as it reminded him of his own, only stronger. The man sat in the old armchair favoured by his dad, his features lit-up by the glow of the oil lamp hanging above him. His long hair was black with streaks of grey and tied up at the back. His eyes were so dark that Jason could not make out the irises. He looked directly at Jason and spoke, “My name is Lucas and you, Jason Longfellow, are a werewolf.
He let the words register as he stared at the man, “A werewolf!” he said. At first his brow creased, then he smiled.
The man’s words rang out, “You find the thought amusing,” and startled him.
He turned away, confused and frightened, the serious of the man’s tone had wiped the smile off his face, he heard his mum’s word’s, “…something important to tell you.” And he’d just said, loud and clear: ‘Jason, you are a werewolf’. He’d heard of these mythical beings, how they appeared as humans and would transform at the full moon into a blood-thirsty beast. Could it be true that he was one of these creatures, surely his parents would have told him themselves, why this stranger? He decided it must be true and faced the man once more. “No, not at all, sorry, sir, I er, I am surprised at your statement, I find it difficult to believe, but then again, something inside me is telling me it is true,” he paused then asked him, “Why are you telling me this now?”
“It is time you knew, Jason, you are nearing your time.”
“What happened to me, did a wolf bite me or something, is it serious?”
“No, you were born a werewolf.”
“That means my parents are…?”
“Are also werewolves.”
My parents are werewolves! His heart stopped for a moment. “Then why didn’t they tell me this?”
“The people who raised you are not your parents.”
The room swam before him, the words, “... not your parents,” echoed loudly inside his head. He steadied himself with his hands on the back of a chair and after a lengthy pause he said, “What did you just say?” He waited, and then he shouted, “Say it again!”
The visitor said calmly, “Mr and Mrs Longfellow raised you, but the woman you call your mother never gave birth to you. They are your foster parents.”
His past life flowed by in his mind; he could remember everything from his early childhood, learning to read at the age of two, then soon after, writing Latin and Greek. He felt betrayed, his anger mounted, “Who are you anyway?”
“I told you my name, and I am also a werewolf.”
He breathed in through his nose, the man’s scent; it was definitely similar to his and alien compared to his mum and dad’s.
His ire subsided and he said, “So, there really are werewolves.”
Lucas nodded.
“I thought that was a story used to frighten children.”
Lucas’ teeth flashed whitely, “Human children, yes.”
Jason walked over to the window; he saw the sheep sleeping quietly under the full moon. He had a suspicion that this was not all the man had to tell him. “My mother said you had something important to tell me, was that it then, isn’t there more?”
“Yes, you are in danger, Jason. A young female elf has shown an interest in you.”
>
“An elf!” he shook his head. “Now there are elves!” He stared at Lucas. “I suppose there are orcs and goblins and dwarves and pixies and even unicorns and dragons.” He held his head between his hands and laughed quietly, knowing how ridiculous it sounded.
“This is no laughing matter, Jason.”
He lowered his hands. “Why should an elf be interested in me?”
“I said a ‘female’ elf, Jason.”
Jason’s brow furrowed this time and Lucas continued, “You must leave this place for somewhere safer.”
He turned on Lucas. “Is this some sort of joke? I can’t just leave here, my parents need me,” he paused as he saw Lucas’ calm visage, and added quietly, “Where are my real parents then?”
“As to exactly where they are, I may not reveal to you at this moment in time.”
Silvermoon. A Tale of a Young Werewolf. A YA Novel. 12-18 Page 2
