Sons of the Wolf

by Barbara Michaels

  Then there is Francis. Wolf does not know, yet, that his rebellious son is another weapon against me, in his hands. But he will find out. Those damnable ice-blue eyes can read my thoughts. And I think Julian knows. They will not hesitate to use Francis as they will use Ada.

  I could do it. I would do it-if the money were his only goal. I am not afraid of Julian; his sort of viciousness on infuriates me, and he is not really moved by my questionable charms. If he ever tried to touch me, I would scratch his pretty pampered face to shreds. But it won't be Julian.

  "It's a pity you aren't the heiress." I can hear Wolf saying it; I can see his face as he looked today, holding me. . . . The letter must have seemed to him like an answer to prayer. I wonder to whom-or what-he prays. It was bad enough then, but now . . .

  I cannot, I cannot do it. Not with Francis ... Oh, God-the door-

  I can hardly read those last frantic, scribbled words. But I will leave them as they stand.

  It has been half an hour since I scrawled that desperate I passage. I was on the edge of a hysterical attack; the I alternatives that confronted me were equally impossible. It was like being given a choice between hanging or drowning. I thought, in my frenzy, that I heard his footsteps outside. I heard the dog bound forward, growling. I staggered to my feet, stiff with crouching, and dropped the pen on the page-it has left a great black blot-and ran across the room. Consciously I have no memory of my intent, but I found myself before the window, tearing at the wooden panels with hands that felt neither cut nor bruise. If it had been open . . .

  I will never know what I would have done. For as the first plank gave way before my furious attack, a strange thing happened.

  Everything in the room vanished. I saw only blackness and felt nothing, not even my own body. I was outside my body, floating naked and alone in a starless void. A fainting spell? Perhaps; but all at once, like a scene that springs on the vision when a shutter is flung open, I saw my grandmother. She was sitting in her chair, as I had so often seen her-a dumpy little woman in a frilled white cap, her black eyes snapping under furled, scanty brows, a smile of contempt on her withered lips. Her lips moved. I knew she was speaking to me, but I heard not a sound.

  Then, as suddenly as it had come, the vision was gone. The cold tower room again enclosed me. I was standing at the window, hands clenched upon the stone sill, and the pain in my bruised fingers made me cry aloud.

  Was it the pain that brought me back from a simple fainting spell? I don't know. I only know that something had changed within me. I was still afraid-I am afraid now-but my fear is not the mindless panic that sent me running, like a trapped animal, to destroy myself. My mind is working clearly, my hands are steady. Whether that vision was sent to me from another place, or whether it came from the far recesses of my overstrained mind, it has served its purpose. I know her, as she knew me. She would not huddle, half fainting, while some villain overpowered her. She would not seek the sin of self-destruction as a means of escape-leaving others to face the consequences. She would have fought to the last breath in her body and the last cunning thought in her brain. . I am going to leave this room.

  How? I don't know yet, but I must get out. The boards in the window were loose; they are now looser. My hands feel as if they had been flayed, but I can, if necessary, get through that window. It is forty feet above the ground. I cannot climb down, the stones are too even. However, I may have to try. A fall won't kill me; there are bushes- probably prickly ones-below. But it is a forlorn hope. I would probably break a limb and be unable to move. I shall try the window only if all else fails.

  I have tested, again, all the stones of the wall and every plank of the floor. The only exit from this room is the door. Outside the door is the dog.

  I am deathly afraid of that dog. He will not kill me; I am too valuable to be damaged. But he is big enough to hold me fast if I try to pass. I am not afraid of what the dog will do to me-I am just afraid of him.

  Yet I must get him away from that door. Can I trick him? I think not. If I dropped something from the window it might lure him outside to investigate, but he would be after me before I had gotten ten feet from the tower. So I must kill him.

  Brave words. But how? I have been through the contents of this room and through my scanty possessions,; looking for a weapon. It was folly, of course. Only with a pistol could I damage him without endangering myself, and there is no pistol here. There is not even a knife. I looked, knowing full well that the beast could disarm me in an instant. I have not even a pair of scissors in my reticule. The contents of the bag lie scattered on the floor beside me-handkerchief, smelling salts, coins, drops-

  I should have thought of it earlier. There is so little time. . . . When will Wolf return? I have no idea how powerful the laudanum is or how much is required for an animal so big. I simply poured the whole bottle over the chunk of mutton which Julian left for my dinner. The hard part was opening the door. Despite my reasoning, I felt sure the beast would leap at my throat.

  He is fearfully alert-almost human. I can understand the tales the villagers tell about Wolf and those beasts- and understand as well why I keep referring to them as "he" rather then "it." He was on his feet the moment I touched the door handle, and I opened the door to find his eyes glaring straight up into mine. His teeth were bared; those fangs looked a foot long. Still he did not utter a sound. I could almost fancy that the servants' tales were true and that I was confronting Wolf himself, in his animal shape.

  I stood frozen for several seconds, meeting that feral stare. Then I pushed the meat through the crack and slammed the door. I was too cowardly to wait to see if he would eat it. That was fifteen minutes ago. Has he eaten? And if he has, will the drug have its effect? How long does it take to work? I will wait fifteen more minutes. I dare not wait longer. Wolf may come at any moment. I cannot think what has kept him so long. . . .

  Perhaps the drug will not affect the dog. Perhaps, instead of putting him to sleep, it will drive him mad. . . .

  Ten minutes longer. I will hide this diary before I go. Some day it may be found. If the worst happens, at least someone in the world will know what became of us. I feel an urgent need for some contact, however frail, with that outer world. This is such a lonely place. There is no light, no human sound, anywhere about.

  Five minutes. How quickly the time goes. First I will look for Ada, try to set her free. Then Francis ... If he can move at all, I must get him hidden-some more sheltered place . . . Then I will start running. I should follow the road; it would be easy to lose myself on the moors in the darkness. The other dog must be with Wolf. Darkness will be no hindrance to its keen senses. If I cannot reach help before they arrive at the ruins, the dog can run me down. That dog or the other-if he wakes too soon-if he sleeps at all-

  It is time now. I hear nothing outside the door. But there have been periods before when the beast was silent. . . .

  Two minutes past the appointed hour. I am going now. God help me, and all other poor souls who must battle tonight against the powers of darkness.

  Chapter Four

  April 17, 1860

  Today, as I sat in the morning room pretending to sew, one of the workmen came to the door. I heard him from where I was, asking for "the mistress," and I heard William's cold correction: "Mrs. Wolfson." William, at least, has not changed. He was reluctant to let the man in, so finally the poor fellow had to hand over his find. William brought it in to me, holding it fastidiously between two fingers. It was dirty and grimy, defaced by mold and cobwebs; but I recognized my old diary.

  I have scarcely thought of it since that night-can it be only six months ago? But then I have been-shall we say unwilling?-to remember anything about that night. No, let us be honest. The sight of any object that might recall that time has sent me into a ghastly state of panic-I, who prided myself on my control. They have all been absurdly considerate of my feelings. Sometimes it makes me angry when I see them whispering and looking anxious. But not very angry; I n
o longer have such strong feelings about anything.

  William, being totally without imagination, did not connect the grimy little volume with my "nerves." He handed it over to me, bland as an icicle, and I took it-with, I hope, equal coolness. It was not until after he left the room that I began to tremble.

  My husband would never have let me touch the diary, let alone read it. But then he never knew of its existence, or of its part in the insane events of six months ago, so he would have no reason to watch out for it-as he has watched out, successfully, for so many other "dangerous" objects. (I have seen him; he did not think I saw, but I did.)

  So I sat in my comfortable chair, with my sewing-on which I do so little, day after day-fallen from my lap, holding a fat, dirty red book in shaking fingers. It had been hidden, all that time, on a ledge above the window of the tower room. Today the workmen must have been cleaning that room and so come upon it. My name-my former name-is on the cover, in gold.

  The book smelled faintly of dust. It seems to have been rained upon, for there are spots of mold on the leather cover. The smell was more than a smell-it, and the very touch of the book, brought back that night so vividly that I could close my eyes and feel myself back in that dreadful room, with darkness thick outside and the fire dying. . . . Knowing that in less than sixty seconds I must open the door and discover whether I faced escape-probably only temporary-or a more immediate horror in the presence of the dog. I was there. I could feel it again, the silence, the cold, the terror. My mind seemed to hang, swaying, on the brink of a dark abyss.

  And stepped back.

  That is the only way I can describe it. It was as if I had faced the worst and found it endurable. I heard my own voice say aloud, "It is all over," and I knew I spoke the truth.

  After a few minutes I rang for William and asked him to fetch a certain box from my room. The key to the diary was in it. I remembered, now, that I had flung the key into that box, where I kept old trinkets that were too broken to use and too cherished to throw away. For months I have forgotten the very existence of that key.

  So I opened the diary and read it through, from start to finish. It has been a year since I wrote the first entry. Poor Grandmother and her sense of propriety. I did not even keep to a decent year of mourning for her. But there were other considerations which seemed more important than propriety.

  I read it through to the last hysterical pages. I was certainly in a wild state then. "Poor thing," I thought, and smiled to remember that the poor thing was myself. I-wonder what I would have written and thought if I had known that, up till then, I had only the faintest taste of the real terror of that night.

  It came to me then that I must finish the story. I could face my memories now, but I would never be completely purged of them until I had written them down-exorcised them-cleared my mind of the clouds of darkness that still fog certain regions. For the next few days literature, not fancy work, will be the morning occupation of the mistress of Abbey Manor. I can keep the diary hidden that long, I think.

  I close my eyes again, letting my fingers rest on the hard leather surface of the diary, and again the scene returns with sound and touch and feeling complete. The tower room was almost dark, the fire a bed of cooling coals. I could hardly see the last words I wrote. I remember that I wanted to go on writing-to take any cowardly pretext for postponing the opening of the door. But the final sentence was-final. There was nothing more to be said after that. I closed the book and locked it, putting the key into the pocket of my skirt. I looked about the room for a safe hiding place.

  As I fumbled at the objects on the table, I found something I had scarcely noticed, having no especial need of it-a candle, in a rough iron holder. There was barely enough heat in the graying coals to catch the wick, but then I had light, and the weak glow was heartening. Equally cheering was the conclusion I drew from the presence of the candle-they had not expected to return until after dark.

  Yes, but it was dark now and had been for several hours. I cast a startled look at the half-open window, and then I noticed the ledge above, higher than the head of even a tall man. I dragged the chair over to the window and climbed up. The ledge was just wide enough to hold the diary. I left it there; I could think of nothing better.

  Then the door. I will not try to summon up my feelings when I put my hand on the door handle. Once was enough to experience that.

  , At first I saw nothing outside the door but blackness. Then I realized that I was holding the candle too high; its light dazzled my eyes and failed to illumine the floor. When I lowered it, I saw the dog. It was lying flat on the floor, but it did not look drugged. The massive head had drooped forward onto its outstretched paws, as if it were dozing. I could not see its eyes.

  I knew, of course, that if the beast had been unaffected by the laudanum it would have been on its feet before this. But reason is a poor defense against fear. I had to step over the prostrate body in order to reach the stairs, and that one step took every ounce of courage I could summon up. I gathered my skirt up with one hand, lifting it high as if I were crossing a bog, and it was not until a trailing bit of petticoat brushed the dog's ears that I really believed the truth. I had won the first move. One part of my wild scheme had succeeded.

  Still I was afraid to take my eyes off the monster, and I nearly fell backward down the stairs in my mindless retreat. It was no small task to descend that narrow, headlong flight with one hand holding the candle and the other trying to keep my skirts from tripping me.

  The landing below, with its door, was my first objective. One glance told me that the room must be empty, for there was neither bolt nor lock fixed to the ancient slab of wood, only a rough iron handle like the one on the door of the chamber above. Yet I could not go on without making sure. I gave the door a push, and it swung inward with a screech of rusted metal that sounded like a shout of blasphemy in a temple. Silence and decay were the gods of that ancient place, and noise was a profanation.

  The feeble candle flame reached only a few feet into the vast darkness of the room, but I saw enough to know that I had been correct-no one had been in this room for decades, perhaps centuries. It was a copy of the room above, except that this one was bare of furnishings. Dust lay thick upon the worn planks of the floor, and cobwebs festooned the ceiling like low-hanging clouds. I backed out, pulling the door to behind me in an instinctive rejection of the I dark desolation of the room. Turning my back on the dog was bad enough; I knew I could not leave a gaping black hole behind me as well. Anything might come out of that room.

  The next part of the descent was even harder because of the wind that whistled up the narrow stairwell. I needed both hands to shield the candle, and twice I came near to stumbling over my skirts. The next floor was the vital one; it was the last of the habitable rooms of the tower, the lowest floor being merely an empty space with doorways leading to the moor and the cells. If Ada were not in this room, I would have to search for her among the cells where Francis was confined. At that moment it seemed impossible that anything as healthy and alive as Ada could be present among those deadly silent stones.

  She was there. I knew she must be as soon as I saw the door, for it was fastened-not with an ordinary bolt, but with a chain twisted around the doorhandle and a new heavy iron hook which had been driven into the wood of the doorframe. The splintered wood was so newly wounded that it shone white in the candle flame.

  I tried to call her name, but the silence froze my tongue; I could not produce anything louder than a whisper. It was the work of a moment to unfasten the chain but it took me two moments because I did not want to put the candle down. There was rattling and banging enough as I worked, yet no sound from within. That frightened me; I knew Ada must be there, but in what state? Surely not asleep. She must be unconscious, or worse.

  Forgetting caution in this new worry, I smacked the door smartly with my fist, and it swung slowly inward. Then, at last, another human voice broke the silence-a wordless, muffled cry of alarm. I rais
ed the candle high and saw her-alive, aware, seemingly unhurt-crouched against the far wall, with both hands extended as if to ward off whoever was coming. She saw me at the same moment and knew me-with the eyes of love, presumably, since I looked like nothing so much as a wild-haired witch, and I must have been the last person on earth she expected to see. Another cry, equally inarticulate but far different in emotion, and she rushed at me. Luckily the commotion extinguished the poor little candle, for I let it fall, unheeded, as I clasped Ada's shaking form in my arms. Whatever had happened to her, she was alive and sane. That was more than I had dared hope for.

  After I had controlled my own emotion, I held her away from me and gave her a gentle shake.

  "My darling, there is no time for tears. We must get away from here if we can. Tell me first-quickly-are you unhurt?"