by Carol Wolf
“I told you I was sorry about the car. Did you find your gun yet?”
“That's not what we’re talking about,” Elaine insisted. “It's about your demon.”
“My demon? You mean my ex-demon?”
She shook her head. “You can’t pretend it's gone if you’re still turning into a wolf.”
“Oh, is that why I keep turning into a wolf?” I asked them. I wonder what my mother would think of that. And my father. And my brothers, and the whole great valley full of my kind.
“Don’t make fun. We’re going to help you.”
“The demon has nothing to do with my wolf nature.” I could see there was no point in explaining, but I tried.
“Then,” Elaine's eyes gleamed, “it won’t matter if we take it away.” She moved forward to tell me earnestly. “Do you know that you’re under a curse?”
I sighed. What an idiot. “Sometimes it sure feels that way.”
“We want to help you,” Curt put in. “There must be a cure.”
“And that's what we’re all going to talk about? You two, and Sarah, and me?”
“Yes,” Elaine said.
“And is sister Holly going to be there too?”
The two of them must have conferred in the mirror again. There was a moment before Elaine answered. “She can’t this time. She's out of town. But Holly says that as soon as we can get you to Cecil, Cecil will find the cure.”
“Oh, is Cecil back in town?” I was looking forward to meeting him. I turned around to the front. Elaine was up to something. I gave her a little space so she could get on with it, since I wanted it to happen soon.
“No,” Curt said, looking in the mirror again. “Where is old Cecil these days?”
Elaine's voice sounded distracted and a little strained. “He's still out on that yacht. He's trying to commune with the World Snake. He thinks he can talk to it.”
“Well, good luck to him,” Curt said. He looked in the mirror again.
And I just bet he was sure that my demon could help him with that. I was going to say that, but there wasn’t time. I would have known that Elaine was making her move even if I hadn’t smelled the chemical trace coming from the backseat, because the focus of Curt's eyes suddenly hardened. I didn’t wait. I changed, and as I changed I let loose all my anger and pent-up frustration, so by the time I’d turned around, I barely fit in the car. She had a syringe in her hand, and had raised it to stick in my arm or my neck, but instead of an arm or a neck, she was facing a really large wolf's head, with its mouth open, snarling so fiercely that spit was flying. Elaine gasped. Curt lost control of the car.
I’d made sure to make my move before we got to the freeway. I didn’t want to have a fight in a car going sixty-five miles an hour. Curt jerked left, really not a good idea, so I loomed over Elaine, who was screeching, and bumped the wheel with my forepaw and sent the car careening to the right. Curt yelled, grabbed at the wheel, I gave it another nudge and snapped at Elaine's head just to make her duck and jerk. She stuck the syringe in the upholstery and I snapped at her again to make her let it go, and nudged the wheel out of Curt's hands at the same time.
There was a bump as the car climbed up on the sidewalk, and then a crash that shook us all as we hit a fence, and then a breathtaking drop as I wondered if I’d aimed us at the river or something, and tried to take a quick look outside, but the windows weren’t sighted for something with its head pressed to the roof, and then we hit the ground, and Curt accidentally trod on the gas instead of the brakes and sent us roaring down the fake green hill of a golf course, over the rough and into the water hazard. I turned around and changed so I could use my hands, rolled down the window as we subsided into the pond, and changed again. Elaine was floundering in the back seat, trying to roll down the window, and then trying to roll it up again as the water poured through. Curt shouted something. He was having to fight gravity to try and get out of his seatbelt, and his seat, since his side of the car had listed downward. He was going to have to get past me, too, since my window was still out of the water. I wasn’t going yet. I hadn’t finished.
I leaned over the back seat. To ensure that I had Elaine's full attention, I took her head into my jaws. As she let out a mewling scream, clawing at me to no avail, and Curt shouted at me, I planted a huge paw on his chest, and then I let one canine pierce the skin on the back of Elaine's skull, until it touched the bone. Ouch! She shrieked at the pain. I didn’t blame her. That must have hurt a lot. I tasted her blood as it bubbled up fast, all warm and sweet. Yum. I let go, her blood still dripping from my lips as she wailed and clutched her head and stared at me aghast.
I changed. Wolves can’t talk. This wasn’t the first time I’d wished we could. I’m not nearly as impressive as a human, damn it all, or this wouldn’t have happened in the first place. I glared at her, my eyes yellow, and said, “If you touch me again, if you try and harm me in any way, I will tear your head off.” I turned to Curt, who was lying half in the water by that time, his chest still under my hand. He gaped at me. “That goes for you too.” Then I changed again, and hopped out the window.
The water wasn’t deep, but you’d think Curt and Elaine were already drowning from all the yelling they were doing. I stopped when I reached the trees and turned around to enjoy the sight. Elaine had finally rolled down her window and was trying to climb out of it. Blood poured down her head. Head wounds bleed like mad. She must have thought she was dying. But all she had was one little puncture wound. I still had three.
Curt grabbed at her, trying to climb up past her to reach the window himself. She saw me, sitting there watching them, and she screamed something at me before Curt grabbed her and pulled her back. They were only trying to help me, is what she seemed to have said. Hah.
Golfers were descending on the car from all directions, faces alight with interest, because nothing exciting ever really happens on a golf course. Some were shouting about the damage to the course, and some were shouting about the idiot driver, one was shouting about calling 911 and getting help, and a couple of people waded in to make sure Curt and Elaine didn’t drown. Meanwhile I, a blameless little dog, trotted away from the scene with a big canine grin all over my face. I followed our tracks back up to the street and changed just before I climbed through the broken wall.
My ankle was hurting again before I’d gone a block, and it was a long way back to Tamara's, but it was worth it. Many blocks away from the store, I heard distant drumming. When I came closer, I passed through a complicated ward and suddenly I heard it clearly, loud and bright, sharp and joyous, the rhythm calling me to join in. I smelled beer and wine, excitement, and frying meat, I heard laughter and talking, and the burble of a lot of people having a great time. If I did not like the noise, or would be offended by it, or could be expected to call the fire department at the sight of a bonfire in a city lot, I guessed that the ward would distract my attention, push my senses aside. But if I was the kind who should be at that fire tonight, who should be part of that joyful sound, then the drums would call to me. Tamara told me she and her friends were powerful warders. Now I understood what she meant. In the brief days Richard and I had had together, after the crisis was over, when we were lovers and friends, we’d come to a drum circle at the music store, just because we were cramming as many adventures and experiences into our time as we possibly could. I was doing it to save up a score of memories, and Richard came because he was mine and I wanted him to. Now I came up to the crowd of people, some of whom I knew to nod to, most of whom were strangers, who hugged each other, exclaimed, raised their glasses, shouted stories over the noise. I limped through the folks as though I were alone in the woods. I found a seat near the food tables, grabbed a cup of cider and a handful of chips and sat down to get off my ankle at last. And I prepared to sit out the celebration.
Back home, in our valley, the bonfire would be built in the field behind our back garden. People gathered from all over, sometimes arriving days ahead of time, staying with cou
sins or friends, or camping out in the woods. They gathered at our place in the afternoon. Aunt Dora would supervise the tables set up and decorated for the enormous potluck that would feed people all night. When darkness fell, my mom would light the bonfire while all our family watched. I remembered dancing with my dad, leaping over the fire with my brothers, playing with cousins and friends, and the howl afterwards that only ended when my mom and dad chased off into the woods together. Later, other dark pairs, in their human form, or their wolf form, left the circle and made for the woods as well.
Last Beltane it had been my stepbrothers who had chased me into the woods. I looked down as I felt the liquid run through my fingers. I’d crushed my cup. That was the night I’d decided I had to leave soon, because if I didn’t, someone was going to die.
As the sun went down, the drums were stilled, and people moved to form a huge circle around the artfully stacked wood of the bonfire. A group of women sang the four directions in haunting harmony. Tamara stalked into the circle wearing her robe of night blue scattered with stars, a black and purple turban wound tightly around her head and set with colored gems. She raised her arms, and the power that the singers had set into motion tightened and began to move widdershins around the circle of people. She invoked the Lady and Lord of the Dance, and invited them into the circle. She took the burning branch from Aaron, and touched it to the fire. The flames leaped with a woomph, and I gathered that the pyromaniacs in the group had liberally doused the wood with accelerants.
A buffalo drum sounded a heart beat. Tamara stood, silent and still, while it sounded half a dozen times. And then she stepped off on the beat, treading the circle, stately and fine, every motion a message cut in the air. Other dancers entered the circle, pacing the sound of the drum. Other drums joined the heart beat. The drummers watched the dancers, the dancers heard the drums, all the way through their bodies. Then one of the drums broke off, climbing a pattern of its own, talking back to the heart rhythm. One of the dancers began to bounce. More drums broke away, running up their own riffs, and coming back off time, on time, but always precise in relation to the heart beat. The dancers moved faster, moved up and down, side to side, made curvets around the fire. More drums joined in, until it sounded like a huge conversation all over the range of sound, sharp, deep, high, low, cacophonous and understated. Against this moving wall of sound other instruments set up their contrast. Rattles of seeds, rattles of metal, spoons beaten against a hand, bottles blown, fiddles screeched, flutes rose piercingly in their own stratosphere. Deep within the hammering of the drums I heard the uncanny susurration of voices, as though a group of people were talking distinctly, but far away.
The beat grew faster. The dancers leaped and clapped, throwing shadows that became a visual rhythm, in time to the rhythm of the drums, until the fire, the noise, and the dancers became together one wall of sensation, a complete cacophony that you could deconstruct down to the last tap and seed rattle, the last shout, shuffle and leap, but which altogether made a phenomenon so huge and compelling you felt it to your bones.
The crowd shifted, hopped, tapped, or gave in and joined the circle and danced. As darkness fell I sat on my corner of the bench, quite still, and alone. The drumming pounded through my heart along with the laughter and the noise. I couldn’t sit still anymore. The sound drew me, but not only the sound. The drumming, the dancing, the excitement, the joy, the leaping forms drew and combined with the magic that had been raised in the place over and over again, year upon year. The accumulation of that energy came together, spiraling upward, drawing every living thing it touched in its wake. The compulsion to dance grew as my heart sounded in rhythm with the drums. But I couldn’t dance. My ankle hurt as badly as it had the night of my escape. No point in damaging it further, especially when I’d been a fair way to healing.
In my own corner of the darkness outside the fire, I unleashed the pain and passion in my heart and changed, and as I changed I grew. I hopped up on top of the shop's roof and lay there watching the fire, tracking the spiraling energy, taking in the scent of sweat and joy, meat and alcohol. This was better. This was even enjoyable.
I spotted Yvette among the drummers, dancing as she drummed. I could hear the riff she laid down in counterpoint to the heart beat and the main rhythm, bright with joy, powerful and certain, as she threw her happiness into the air in sound, where all could hear it, where it became part of the magic.
Tamara stood now at the edge of the circle, wielding a shaker that rattled and cracked. The great bonfire roared, firelight reflecting on the dancers’ ritual clothing, the flickering gemstones, the flying cloaks and scarves. The moving bodies spiraled around the flames, while dancers joined and left again, drummers spelled one another, danced in their turn, or stepped out of the firelight, into the darkness to eat, drink and talk, and more people stood around the circle, clapping, drinking, driving on the dance. All around the world tonight, bonfires were burning, drumming and dancing raised the power of life and joy into the night.
The dancing changed. Tamara joined the dance again, together with a group of men and women who moved together with intention, shaping the spiral of energy they raised, knitting it with the power already in the air to use for their purpose. Ah, yes. They were going to stop the World Snake from coming. I lifted my lip in the darkness. Because they did not believe me. How earnest they were. How certain, how powerful. Well. I didn’t have to watch this.
Mindful of my wounds, I hopped down from the roof—after carefully checking my size, a lesson I had almost not learned in time not too long ago—changed and stepped on to two feet and limped toward the house. Two of the bears rose up in my path. They seemed bigger than usual. It took me a moment to recognize Jonathan and Sol, since their aspects had grown huge in the power of the night.
“Was that you up on the roof?” Jonathan asked.
“Who else?” I was not in the mood for conversation.
“Good view?”
“The best.”
“Cool!”
They left me, and I crossed the yard, walking slowly around the people standing talking or drinking at the edges of the fire circle, and went into the house. I took a long shower, changed to my wolf form, where human thoughts were muted, and human feelings simplified, curled up against the wall and slept.
I woke briefly when the sunrise brought the sudden silence of the drums. I cocked an ear to the ending of the ritual, when the singers thanked the Lord and Lady, sang the four directions, wound up the working and opened the circle. Those women could really sing.
I ignored the sound of Tamara and her guests wandering into the kitchen, and the smell of coffee and toast. Since I hadn’t actually taken part in the celebration, I didn’t feel obliged to help with the clean-up. When Tamara and her guests had eaten and wandered out again, I went back to sleep for a few more hours. I got up later on and on two feet limped across the lot toward the shop. People were wandering around, haggard with exhaustion, but still exalted from dancing and drumming all night, taking down tables and decorations, taking apart the last of the fire and dousing it effectively.
I hobbled up to the patio and settled on the bench and watched everyone's exhausted industry. I nodded to the three bears who were sitting on the wall nearest the shop door, sharing a big bag of chips. Well, sharing in the way that bears share. That is to say, all three were helping to hold the bag open, and all three were scooping chips into their mouths as fast as they could. I sat there appreciating their efficiency and grace. I am a great admirer of the bear kind.
“Tamara wants you,” Jonathan said, without stopping to swallow.
I nodded, thanking him.
“I think she wants you now,” he repeated, when the next handful of chips had partly cleared his mouth. Sol and Aaron nodded in agreement.
“I look forward to talking to her,” I said, but I didn’t get up.
When the chips were but a memory, kept alive by Aaron seizing the bag, tearing it open and licking the salt and
grease and tiny bits from the corners, Jonathan went inside. A while later Tamara came out with him, and sat down on the bench beside me. She showed her exhaustion from dancing almost all night, but she exuded energy, nonetheless. The working had fed her spirit as much as she had given herself to it.
She said, “I looked for you yesterday. Where were you?”
“I was there last night.”
“Yes. I saw you on the roof.” She gave me a disapproving glare. “I missed you earlier. No one knew where you were.” She glanced at the bears, who were pretending as hard as they could that they weren’t frankly listening in. They managed to look in all directions so I couldn’t possibly think they were the ones keeping track of me.
“So,” I concluded, “you did not in fact tell Curt Sondstrom that he should take me to meet his aunt Sarah and talk over our differences?”
Surprise cancels other feelings, every time. “No, I did not. Who told you I did?”
“Curt did. And so you didn’t know that Elaine planned to bring a hypodermic to stick me with in the car?”
“Of course not! When did this happen?”
“Yesterday afternoon, a few hours before sunset.”
“So that's where you went.”
“Madam Tamara, if your friend tries to harm me again, I will bite him.”
It is not a good idea to challenge a bear. All three of them turned and focused on me with such force that heads turned in our direction around the lot. But the sudden tightness in the air came as Madam Tamara straightened and glared down at me. It is really unwise to challenge a sorceress.
“You say this to me?”
I kept my voice soft. “We were not under your roof, so I dropped him in a pond. I didn’t hurt him. But I will not allow him to come at me again.”
After a moment, she nodded. I tried to let out my breath again without it being heard by the bears. Tamara asked again, “Curt told you that I said he was to take you away with him?”
