SECRET OF THE WOLF

by Susan Krinard

  She coughed behind her hand. "Harper, you said you thought your friend was going to die."

  "I knew he was going to die," the soldier said hoarsely. "I saw it in the pouch. It came on me suddenlike. I saw him lying dead on the ground, with the tobacco spilling out, all bloody. And some other boys I knew—they were there, too. All dead."

  Though his voice remained calm, Johanna knew he maintained his self-command by the merest thread. "Remember," she said, "none of these memories can harm you now. You are safe. Would you describe this knowledge of your friend's death as a sort of vision?"

  "Yes."

  "Had you had such visions before?"

  "Yes." Harper's throat worked. "Lots of times, but never like this. Small things. I could tell where a horse had been traveling when I shoed him. I knew who Katie Young was going to marry when I held the ring her mother gave her."

  Johanna resisted the impulse to glance back at Quentin to gauge his reaction. "So you could see the past and predict the future."

  "Not always. Never as strong as when I saw Jimmy die. So I signed up with the Twenty-second and went south with the boys."

  "Did you think you could protect them?"

  "I don't know. I just knew I had to go."

  "And what was it like, Harper?"

  His voice dropped to a whisper. "It was hell. At first, my friends all were full of pepper and ready to fight. But then we saw how it would be. The endless marching through the mud and freezing nights, no supplies, shoes wearing out. Never enough food. And the battles. The noise." He lifted his hands to his ears and squeezed his eyes tight. "It never stopped. Jimmy tried to run away. They would've shot him as a deserter. I stopped him. And then I knew he was still going to die."

  All at once Johanna understood. "It didn't only happen with Jimmy, did it?" she asked gently.

  "No." Tears spilled over onto his cheeks. "All I had to do was touch my friends' guns—or their blankets, or their tin cups—and I saw what would happen to them. I kept trying to stop it. I couldn't." He clenched his fists. "They kept dying. Blown apart. Legs gone. Faces. Oh, God—"

  "You blame yourself for what happened."

  "I was the one who couldn't be killed. The bullets and shells never hit me. I hardly got wounded. And I was the one who should have died. I was—"

  "Listen to me, Harper," she interrupted. "You've done very well, but we have accomplished enough for today. Now you'll allow the past to fade, let go of the pain, and prepare to return to the present."

  "But I-I deserved—"

  "To die," Quentin said behind her. "I deserved to die."

  She pivoted in astonishment. Quentin's face was blank, his eyes staring. He gave no indication of being aware of his baffling declaration.

  Astonishing. Johanna momentarily lost her train of thought, shaken by the conviction in Quentin's voice. So deeply did he identify with Harper that he'd fallen into a trance himself, and what came so spontaneously from his unconscious mind was more distressing than she could have predicted.

  But this wasn't Harper's pain he was experiencing. It was his own.

  He needed her. He needed her now.

  Johanna rose from her chair and moved quickly to Harper's side. "Harper, you did not deserve to die. You did what you could to help your friends. You served with honor and loyalty. In time, you will come to understand why your memories bring so much guilt and unhappiness, and realize that you need no longer carry these burdens."

  "I won't do it," Quentin shouted. "You can't make me!"

  Johanna flinched. Quentin's anguish reverberated through her body, but she could not comfort him yet. She grimly concentrated on finishing the task at hand. "Harper, I will count backward from five to one. You will awaken, peaceful and refreshed, and rest until you feel ready to rise. What you remember of the War cannot hurt you, and you will begin to believe that healing is possible. Because it is possible."

  "Yes," Harper murmured.

  Johanna brought him out, watching carefully to make sure that he was conscious and at peace.

  She turned back to the man behind her. "Quentin—" She paused at the tortured expression on his face. "Quentin, it will be all right—"

  "No!" he cried. "I don't care what you do, I won't—" He tumbled from the chair and crouched on the ground, arms flung around his head. "I won't kill them!"

  Chapter 12

  Gott in Himmel. Johanna sank to her knees beside him, reaching out as if to hold him, letting her arms fall to her sides again. She could not, at such a crucial juncture, forget herself, no matter how much she wished to console him. He needed her to be strong.

  "Quentin, it's Johanna. You hear my voice."

  He pulled his head closer to his chest and whimpered, a lost, despairing sound.

  She locked her arms rigidly in place. "You do hear me, Quentin."

  "Yes," he gasped. "Don't let him—"

  "No one will hurt you. I will not let them." She hugged herself. "To whom were you speaking?"

  "I can't—"

  "He is not here now. Tell me his name."

  "Grandfather." He looked up, face wet with tears. "My grandfather."

  His grandfather. "He was something of a tyrant," Quentin had said. "I gave as good as I got."

  Maybe he hadn't.

  "Where are you now, Quentin?" she asked.

  "In the cellar. At Greyburn."

  She shivered with foreboding. "How old are you?"

  "I'm… eleven. Almost twelve."

  He was reliving his childhood—the hidden childhood she'd never gotten him to reveal in more than bits and pieces. For just a moment his glazed eyes shone with pride. "I can Change now."

  "Change?"

  "Into a wolf, of course. That's because I'm a man." The fear returned, wild with defiance. "That's why he wants me to—to—"

  "I'm here with you, Quentin. You can talk to me. What did he want you to do?"

  He chewed his lip so hard that she feared he'd tear through the skin. "The kittens. He brought the kittens from the barn." He hugged himself. "He says I have to learn. He says I should like it—"

  She didn't have to ask him again what his grandfather had wanted him to do. He'd already told her. "I won't kill them."

  What sort of monster would ask his grandchild to kill kittens on command?

  "You don't have to like it, Quentin."

  "If I don't do what he says—I won't—he locks me up in here. Sometimes I don't know how long. I get hungry. Not very cold—" He sniffed and wiped at his nose. "We don't get cold easy. But then Grandfather brings the ropes—" He broke off and crawled to lean against the wall, curling into himself.

  It was enough. She wouldn't force him to experience more of this… this torture. For that was what it must be. The questions could wait for another time.

  "It's all right, Quentin," she said. "You're going to be all right now."

  "Don't tell Braden." He stared at her almost as if he really saw her. "Don't tell him. He'll do something and Grandfather will hurt him. Rowena doesn't know. I make sure she doesn't find out. Promise you won't tell!"

  "I promise." She swallowed hard. "Take my hand."

  He did so with such immediate trust that she felt dizzy.

  "We're going to leave here, now," she said. "Can you do what I say?"

  His eyes—those rich cinnamon eyes overlaid with pain—gazed right into hers. "Yes."

  "Then I want you to remember another place, another time. The Napa Valley, and the Haven, and the room where I am talking to you. You've been here before."

  "I… can't."

  "You will. It's a restful place, where the sun shines and the air smells like green things. Here you cannot be hurt."

  "There is no such place."

  "At the Haven there are people who care for you."

  His face was utterly open, all hope and gratitude. "Do you… care for me?" he whispered.

  It had been possible until that moment to maintain some semblance of detachment. With that simple, guileles
s question, objectivity shattered along with her heart. She pulled him into her arms.

  "Yes," she said. "I care for you, Quentin."

  His mute sobs shook her body. He fought them, as any boy might fight such humiliating weakness, and yet he clung to her. His mind had journeyed back to his childhood, but his arms were still those of a man, strong and apt to wring the breath from her lungs.

  She stroked damp hair away from his forehead and murmured in what she imagined must be a maternal fashion, but she felt anything but maternal. His cheek rested on her breast. His breath burned through the fabric of her bodice. Soon he'd wake, and no longer be a child. What then?

  As if he heard her thoughts, he stiffened and pulled himself up. The child in his eyes still reached for her, but she could see it—him—fading away, subsumed by another presence. Quentin, coming out of the trance at last.

  But he didn't let her go. "You care for me?" he said, his voice nearly a snarl. "Liar."

  Her heart stopped. "Quentin—"

  "Don't call me that!" He shook her, just enough so that she felt clearly how much he could hurt her if he chose. "You think you can help him?"

  "I don't perceive your meaning," she said. She couldn't show any hesitation now, or uncertainty. "Please explain."

  They were knee to knee, chest to chest. Each of his harsh breaths rocked her forward and back. "He explains. I don't have to." He jerked her against him. She turned her head just before his lips touched hers.

  "Never again," he rasped. "It will never happen again. Do you hear me?"

  "Yes. I hear you."

  "He tries to shut me out, but I won't be buried." His fingers framed her face. "He won't take what he wants. But I will."

  He was going to kiss her. Not gently, not lovingly, but with the merciless drive to dominate.

  "No, Quentin," she said, planting her hands between them. "It's time for you to come back. I will count backward from five to one—"

  "No." He pushed her away. "No." Leaping to his feet, he flung himself against the wall like a caged animal, raking at it with curved fingers. His nails bit deeply enough to tear the wallpaper.

  "That's enough, my friend." A tall, lean shape passed between Johanna and the madman Quentin had become.

  "The enemy is gone," Harper said. "The War is over."

  Quentin swung about, teeth bared. He looked just as he had that night in the hall, more bestial than human, his features shifting into something almost unrecognizable. His eyes narrowed to slits, spewing hatred at the world.

  This was the wolf he claimed to be, the dangerous lycanthrope Johanna had assumed was a product of Quentin's wounded mind. This was the transformation he spoke of, and she didn't for an instant believe that he controlled it.

  She got to her feet and stood shoulder to shoulder with Harper.

  "It's safe to return, Quentin," she said. "You're safe. Come back to us."

  Whether it was because of her words, Harper's tranquil presence, or something within Quentin himself, he began at last to respond. The savage light left his eyes. His body went boneless, sliding along the wall to the ground.

  Harper knelt beside him. "Are you all right, brother?"

  Quentin squeezed his eyes shut and opened them again. "What?" He braced his hands on the floor. "Did I fall?"

  "You could say that," Harper said. He glanced at Johanna with a faint frown.

  She shook her head in warning. "How are you feeling, Quentin?"

  "Dizzy." He pushed at the wall to regain his feet. His face was expressionless. "Something happened… like before, didn't it?"

  Her memory made the leap to their first session, when he'd kissed her and promptly forgotten.

  "I'm not sure," she said. "When I was working with Harper, you entered a spontaneous trance."

  "Again?" He smiled raggedly at Harper. "Sorry about the interruption, old chap. I hope I didn't spoil it." He pressed his forehead with the heels of his hands. "I appear to be just a little too susceptible to the good doctor's expert technique."

  "You are extraordinarily sensitive to hypnotic induction," Johanna said. "I had thought, given our last few sessions—"

  "That I was safe?" He laughed. "My old friends in England would be amused to hear that I'm sensitive to much of anything." He looked from her to Harper and back again. "The way you're both staring at me, I suppose I must have stood on my head and recited Shakespeare. Or did I sing 'God Save the Queen' horribly off-key?"

  His jokes failed to conceal the real fear in his eyes. He suspected something of what had happened. His gaze found the torn wallpaper, and his expression froze.

  "I must have been very badly off-key." He yawned behind his hand. "It's all quite exhausting, really. I'm ready for a nap—if you'll both excuse me."

  Johanna's stomach twisted with the realization that she was afraid. Not of Quentin, but for him. She'd seen him transform from hurting, vulnerable child to an angry, violent man. Neither was a part of the Quentin she knew. Both were somehow connected to terrible childhood pain—and either might be the means of destroying him.

  The Quentin she knew would more likely harm himself than any other creature.

  "I would like you to go straight to your room and rest," she told him. "Will you remain there until I come for you?"

  "You'll be lucky if you can get me to wake up," he said. "Don't hold luncheon for me."

  He gave her and Harper a choppy salute and left the room.

  Harper let out a long breath and sat down on the edge of the chaise. "Was I like that when I was hypnotized?"

  "No." She moved behind her desk, trying to regain a sense of calm. "Thank you for your assistance."

  "What did happen, with him?"

  "I cannot tell you, Harper. Not for the time being." She shuffled a pile of papers. "How do you feel?"

  He cocked his head. "Better. Except that I don't really remember much of what we talked about."

  "That's quite normal. You will begin to remember things as you are ready to do so. We'll continue to work toward that end."

  He was silent long enough that she was forced to look up from her papers and meet his gaze.

  "It's funny, isn't it," he said, "how we're all hiding, one way or another."

  She searched for a response that wouldn't betray her. "It's the nature of the mind to hide from itself. But it is possible to come out of hiding, and find life again."

  "You'd know best, Doc. You'd know best." He stopped at the door. "You'll let me know if you need help?"

  With Quentin, he meant. With the unpredictable savage they had both confronted.

  "Yes," she said. "Thank you, Harper."

  Once he'd returned to his own room, she gave up all pretense of examining her notes and let the disordered tide of her thoughts wash through her.

  She should be glad. Today Quentin had made definite progress—exceptional, in fact. She was now convinced that the delusions he suffered must arise out of his childhood.

  But the complications of his condition only grew more formidable with every new discovery. She'd underestimated the extent of his illness. He'd illustrated his claims of lycanthropy by becoming someone—something—who possessed the ruthless ferocity of a wild beast, a barbarous taste for tyranny.

  Yet there'd been the child: innocent, abused, begging for help. And the man she'd come to know, who so willingly gave of himself.

  Where was the real Quentin? Which one was the man she had sworn to cure?

  An unfamiliar thread of panic lurked inside her—the very real fear that she wouldn't be able to handle his case.

  She had been too careless. What if he should turn truly violent and threaten the others?

  What if she were forced to remand his care to someone else, at a facility where he could be restrained…

  Sickness filled her throat. Yes, she might betray him—to people who knew nothing of the work she and her father had done, who'd put his sanity in even greater jeopardy with their ignorance and primitive treatments.

 
; She would not trust any traditional asylum with Quentin Forster. He mattered too much. As all her patients mattered. Until she had no other option, she would continue to treat him as best she knew how.

  That best must be better than she'd ever done before. The time would come when she'd have to be honest with Quentin about the dangers of his condition. As soon as she had enough information to devise a theory, and explain…

  "I must speak with you, Miss Schell."

  Lewis walked into the room, moving very much like a man with an important secret he was half-afraid to reveal, but determined nevertheless to do his duty. His chin jerked up and down several times as he came to a halt before her desk.

  "I must speak with you, Miss Schell," he said again.

  "What is it, Lewis?" she asked. "You seem concerned."

  He shuffled from foot to foot. Johanna noted the sweat beading his brow, and the fact that the long hair he kept so meticulously combed over his balding head hung loose and unkempt.

  "I am concerned—most concerned," he said quickly. "I tell you this only to protect us all from evil." He would not meet her eyes. "You must believe me."

  "Please, sit down—" she began, but he shook his head.

  "That man—Quentin Forster—I saw him in the woods this morning."

  She came fully alert. "Did you?"

  "Yes. I saw him—" He swallowed. "He was… unclothed."

  Johanna bit back a wild laugh. Lewis's sense of righteousness would find such a thing appalling, though that begged the question of why Quentin would be…

  Unclothed. She shivered. "Mr. Forster was in the woods, not wearing his clothing?"

  "It's worse. Much worse." He closed his eyes. "He… undressed, and then I saw him… I saw him…"

  "You may confide in me, Lewis."

  He gulped. "I saw him change… into a wolf."

  Mein Gott. At last Johanna remembered to breathe. "You saw Quentin turn into a wolf?"

  "Yes. I'm not insane. I saw it with my own eyes." He clutched at the lapels of his coat. "Evil. He must be evil. The devil's work—"

  Johanna stood, pressing her hands flat against the desk to quell her unsteadiness. How was it possible that Lewis had been pulled into Quentin's unconscious delusion of lycanthropy, when he could have no knowledge of it? When Quentin himself spoke of it only under hypnosis?