Epilogue
In the Still of the Night
O nce, the great black wolf had been a poor, scrawny animal, injured and half starved, desperate to survive a hard, bitter winter. Stumbling through the snow, he had happened upon an old farmhouse.
There, an old woman had spied him, and rather than run away in fear, she had treated him kindly, tending his wounds and feeding him slabs of raw meat.
Like all those of his ilk, he had understood she was a creature of the earth, one of the few of humankind who had not lost touch with the old ways, when man and beast had respected one another and lived in harmony with the land.
So, gratefully, he had accepted the woman’s ministrations, and when he had grown stronger, leaving her to make his own way again in the world, he had not forgotten her, but determined to watch over her and protect her always.
She had called him Beowulf, “because,” she had told him, “that’s who you remind me of,” and she had recounted to him the tale of the great warrior, while the wolf had listened attentively to the sound of her mellifluous voice washing over him. It had been a rich earthy voice that had pleased him to hear, just as he had delighted in the woman’s equally unbridled laughter.
Like her old tomcat, he had come and gone at the farm, and she had never tried to restrain him. But then, one day, after casting a magic circle and bewitching him, the old woman had been gone, and the wolf had known she had passed beyond the veil of gloaming only he and those who were one with the land could still see.
But she had left behind a granddaughter, and so it had become the wolf’s mission to guard the young woman, just as he had stood sentry over her grandmother.
Now, as he cocked his intelligent black head a trifle, his ears pricking at the sound of the young woman’s voice on the verandah, where she sat with her husband, Trace, and with her father and Aunt Gwen, the wolf could sense her deep happiness.
Life was good, Beowulf thought, and in his mind—for their thoughts were one and had been ever since the night Gram had cast her spell of enchantment upon them—he heard Trace silently agree.
Theirs was a special bond that they would share until death now, just as they would always protect Meadowsweet farm and all who lived there—especially Hallie, who held their hearts safe in her keeping and would forever more. Just as they were bound to each other, so they were bound to her. In the beginning, it had been Gram’s powerful spell that had enchanted them and drawn them to Hallie. But now, it was far more than that—a deep and abiding love for her that transcended the ordinary. She had trusted them both, given them her own heart, wholly and freely, and more—for she, too, had believed in the magic to be found at the old farm, and she had cast her own circle and made them a part of it for all time.
After listening intently for a moment longer to Trace’s thoughts about the power of love and magic, the wolf nodded in accord, then lowered his head to his huge paws, closing his eyes, content to lie at Hallie’s bare feet, where he knew he would always be warm and welcome.
ISBN: 978-1-4268-3465-3
FROM THE MISTS OF WOLF CREEK
Copyright © 2009 by Rebecca Brandewyne
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From the Mists of Wolf Creek Page 17
