Wolfdark

by Isobel Robertson

  “Now,” she said, as businesslike as if this meeting was taking place anywhere other than my bedroom at dawn. “Marcus and I have been feeling rather left out. Something’s been happening with the wolf, hasn’t it? I demand to know everything. And then I want to know why you’ve been keeping us in the dark about it.”

  Knowledge

  “We can’t tell them the truth,” Theo said, pacing up and down across the floor of my room. He’d pulled his breeches on but not his shirt. Even in this disaster of a situation, I couldn’t help but admire him. Delilah and Marcus, thankfully, had returned downstairs to wait in my study. Theo and I were supposed to dress and prepare ourselves for company, but in reality we were panicking.

  “Maybe we should just tell them,” I said. “After all, I can help to catch the wolf. And what else will we tell them?”

  “Anything!” Theo said. “Make up a lie! We absolutely can’t tell them. Not now, not ever.”

  “Oh, so you expect me to keep quiet about this for my entire life, do you?” I asked, throwing down the petticoat I’d been about to pull on over my corset and chemise. “Will my magic always be a dirty secret, something you have to hide from all your friends? Will you eventually have to hide me as well, because you’re too afraid that someone might guess I’m a witch?”

  “Well, this is interesting news,” a sly voice said from the doorway. “Not that it’s exactly a surprise.”

  Heart sinking, I turned around to see Delilah, right back in that doorway. Couldn’t the woman do as she was told for longer than five minutes?

  Part of me wanted to shout her out of my house, to tell her exactly what I thought of her, and ensure I never saw her again. But a terrified part of me acknoweldged that she’d heard every word I said. She knew my secret.

  “Not exactly a surprise?” Theo said. His voice was tightly controlled, but I could hear the vicious anger simmering under the surface.

  Delilah shrugged.

  “Your fiancee’s heritage is an open secret in certain circles, Theo. Were you really so naïve as to think you could keep this quiet forever?”

  Theo was looking at her as if he saw her for the first time - and didn’t like what he saw.

  “You knew? All this time, you knew, and you didn’t warn me? And what do you mean, certain circles? What the hell are you talking about?”

  “Don’t talk to me like that,” Delilah began, but Theo was already shouting at her, and Marcus was shouting, and then Delilah was shouting too, and my room was full of angry voices. Poor Hemlock mewed pitifully and ran to hide under the bed.

  Enough was enough. This was my bedroom, my place, and these people were ruining my sense of calm.

  “Stop it!” I shouted, but no one even heard me as Theo and Marcus drew face-to-face, still shouting.

  I thought back to Gwyneth in the inn. Raising my hands, I pulled on my magic, and clapped as hard as possible.

  The result was not as dramatic as I remembered. Perhaps it required practice, or perhaps Gwyneth was far stronger than I. Regardless, a soft flash lit the room, and a boom sounded loudly enough to cut across the noise.

  Everyone stopped for a second. Shock appeared on Theo’s face, smug satisfaction on Delilah’s, and Marcus -

  Marcus lunged for me.

  Before I had a chance to react, he had me pinned up against the wall, the blade of a knife cold against my neck. I tried to breathe shallowly, all too aware of the light pressure on my skin.

  “Get your hands off her,” Theo growled, but he didn’t come any closer. If only I could see his face. But my vision was full of Marcus and his expression of twisted hate. I couldn’t believe I’d ever even considered his proposal, even if it had been two years ago.

  “I can’t believe I was ever fooled by you,” he whispered, as if echoing my own thoughts. “Who could ever have known how much darkness there was behind that pretty smile? But you won’t fool me again. And I’ll be damned before I work with a witch.”

  Delilah sighed exaggeratedly, as if she saw scenes like this all the time. She stepped into my peripheral vision - and, to my surprise, she made eye contact with me. She smiled; not the gloating expression I might have expected, but something rather more mysterious. Like Gwyneth’s smile. And then she clicked her fingers.

  The pressure on my neck was gone. So was the knife, replaced by a fluttering little blackbird that bounced off my cheek and flew desperately for the window. Hemlock darted out from under the bed and chased after it. Theo, no doubt acting on instinct, threw open the window, and the bird swooped outside.

  We all turned to look at Delilah. She smiled again, and this time, a small smile spread across my face in response. It seemed that Delilah Carrington had secrets of her own.

  Street Thieves

  “Keep up,” I snapped. My motley troupe trailed behind me as we marched along the street leading to Gwyneth’s inn. No, my inn. With any luck, Gwyneth and the mysterious old woman, whose name I really must learn, could tell me if Delilah truly was a witch, and if I should trust her.

  I could barely bring myself to look at Marcus, who was trudging along beside Theo. We had applied a little of my famous silencing powder to his mouth when he refused to stop screaming profanities, so he was now thankfully silent. Marcus and I had never been close; his proposal was one of dozens I received during my first London season. In truth, I had almost forgotten him by the time he was reintroduced to me as Theo’s friend. Still, it hurt that someone I had once considered a friend could suddenly treat me as less than human.

  I couldn’t stop myself from sneaking a glance at Theo, who stared dispassionately straight ahead as we walked. He claimed to love me, but he had been raised in the same way as Marcus. Would he ever fully accept the truth of my heritage?

  Heart heavy, thoughts elsewhere, I did not notice the change in the shadows. At least, not until it was too late, and the air filled with noise and movement and chaos as the wolf launched itself towards us. For a second - perhaps a fraction of a second - I watched it run. Its powerful legs bunched; wet mud flew up around its paws. I span to the side, moving faster than I had ever thought possible. Magic burned in my blood as the wolf whirled around to face me again. It bared its teeth. They flashed obscenely white in the darkness of the alleyway.

  Fumbling for the power whirling inside me, I pushed at the wolf. It twitched, but did not seem unduly disconcerted. Instead, it growled, and its muscles shifted as it prepared for another leap.

  But for all the wolf’s sudden stillness, the world around me was not quiet. I chanced a glance over my shoulder - to see Theo and Delilah pinned against the filthy wall of an old building, surrounded by a semi-circle of ragged men. Street thieves. Coincidence? I would get no help from them.

  The wolf took advantage of my distraction. It jumped again. I screamed and staggered backwards, slipping on the wet mud of the alley. My rubber band gun was in my pocket, and I fired it without pausing for thought. The band wrapped around the wolf’s front paws, halting its charge. For a moment, I felt the sweet relief of escape. Then the wolf shook the band off and stalked towards me.

  Perhaps it still did not plan to kill me. Perhaps I was safe. But nothing about those saliva-coated teeth or feral yellow eyes suggested safety. I stared at in horror, desperately trying to think of a way out. I backed away, but I had nowhere to go. The ground was too slick for fast movement, and my shoe stuck in the mud and slipped from my foot, sending me staggering off balance.

  The wolf pounced.

  Its paws slammed into my shoulders and I crashed backwards. My head hit the ground, and I was briefly grateful for the softness of the mud. The wolf’s breath was hot on my mouth, the stench of it filling the air. Its weight was heavy on my shoulders. I knew I should fight, knew I must do something, but fear paralysed every inch of my body. This was a predator, and I was the cornered prey. In my panicked haze, I could just about make out the shouting voices of Theo and Delilah. Had they fought their way free yet?

  No time to think
of anyone else.

  I stared up at the wolf, its muzzle only inches from my face. I wanted to look away, but I was frozen. I could not stop staring at those cold eyes.

  The wolf shuddered, a vicious, bone-deep convulsion. It shook its head as it half-howled, and hot saliva spattered across my face. For a second, the beast wavered, showing me the faint silhouette of a man’s body.

  My paralysis shattered.

  As the beast shook and moaned, I scrabbled backwards, freeing myself from underneath it. A knife was embedded in its belly, the source of the blood that gushed onto the alley floor. The wolf howled, a sound aching with pain. It turned and ran, moving more slowly than before. I knew it was weak and injured, that this might be our best chance, but I could not move.

  I turned to Theo and Delilah. They were still surrounded by the gang of thieves, apart from one who’d already crumpled to the ground - but something seemed wrong. The men froze, and the colour drained from them. My vision blurred, turning the world into a grainy mess of colours and dots. When the image cleared, the street thieves were gone, replaced by piles of dust that were already blowing away in the wind.

  Magic.

  I turned in the opposite direction, trying to work out what had happened. I met the eyes of Marcus, who crouched in the dirt of the alley. He straightened up as I looked at him, and my gaze flicked to the blood coating his hands. They were empty now, but I had no doubt that he had been the knife-wielder. It was Marcus who had stabbed the wolf. He had saved me.

  Wilderness

  "I need help," I said, trying to keep the panic out of my voice. Gwyneth, the old woman, and I were crammed into the stockroom at the back of the inn, taking a moment away from Theo, Marcus and Delilah.

  "You shouldn't have brought strangers here," the old woman responded, her eyes narrowed.

  I fought back the choked tightness that gathered in my throat.

  "The wolf attacked us again, and my magic did nothing to save me," I said. Did they not understand how close I had come to death?

  Gwyneth at least looked concerned, but the old woman just shrugged.

  "I freed your powers, but that is all I can do," she said. "You are not yet in possession of your full heritage. That is not my gift to give."

  "The wolf almost killed me!" I burst out, smacking my hand against one of the many wine barrels that lined the room. "If I hadn't been travelling with witch hunters, I'd probably be dead by now!"

  The silence in the room thickened. Horror hung in the air.

  "You brought witch hunters to our inn?" the old woman asked, her voice deathly calm.

  "One is my fiance," I said defensively. "One might be a witch herself. And the other one - well, he saved me."

  "How dare you," the old woman roared in my face. She seemed larger than before, as if the force of her anger could not be contained in her tiny body. "Consorting with the likes of them! Letting them know of our safe place! Any security we ever had here has been destroyed, and it's all your fault."

  She took a step forward, and I flinched instinctively. She did not touch me, but her face twisted in disgust. Abruptly, she spat at me, her saliva splattering across my face where I had wiped off the wolf's drool only moments before.

  "May you be cursed, Lily Gabriel," she hissed. "You'll certainly get no more help from me."

  Something about the horror of that spittle, my fury at the way she was treating me, my fear of a world spinning out of my control - my power fought loose from my hold in a way it never had before. And the fog began to grow.

  It spiralled out from my feet and my hands, filling the room with a thick white mist that was so familiar it made me sick. This fog had haunted my dreams ever since my time in Yorkshire - and yet now it was mine. My power, my fog.

  In less than a moment, it was so thick that I could barely make out the face of the old woman, even though she stood a few feet from me. But I saw as she began to choke as the fog squeezed the air from her lungs. She mouthed words at me, but the fog cut off all sound. Beyond her, Gwyneth's shape was just visible, hands outstretched as she fumbled for her elderly companion. But a thick drift cut her off, and it was as if I stood alone in a room full of white. The world around me vanished.

  And then the fog began to clear, lifting until only faint drifts clouded my vision.

  I was no longer in the inn. Instead, I stood in a place that had become all too familiar in my nightmares, both waking and sleeping. I was in the wild, unforgiving landscape of the Yorkshire moors. In front of me, where I would have expected to see the shape of the old woman, was a figure both familiar and unfamiliar to me. My mother; a woman I barely remembered, yet whose portrait I had seen every day of my life. I had thought that I had forgotten her, but as I saw her like this, scraps of memories from my early childhood came rushing back in a flood so powerful that I almost staggered. Her hands, kind and soft, her sweet smell, the sound of her laugh. She smiled at me, and for a moment I felt at peace.

  But her face changed. The smile slipped away, replaced by an expression of fear. She seemed to gesture at something behind me, but when I turned around, all I saw was miles of open moorland stretching into the distance as far as I could see. I turned back to her, trying to work out what she meant. She mouthed words, but I heard no sound. What did she want to tell me?

  I tried to walk closer to her, picking my way across the heather, but with every step I took, she took her own step further away. As I moved faster, she moved faster, until at last she turned and ran, and I chased after her across the wild Yorkshire moors.

  "Wait! Please wait!" I shouted, but the wind whipped away my words. She ran faster, her black hair streaming out behind her. I stumbled after her as quickly as I could, but roots and branches tangled around my ankles, and my skirts caught at my knees. I would never be fast enough.

  The moors seemed to grow wilder as the sun, already weak, slipped towards the cloud-wreathed horizon. With every step I took, the shadows grew longer, and my heart pounded harder. Night would soon be here, and I knew it was night that brought the true horrors of the wilderness to life. My fear clawed at my lungs, at my heart, at the edges of my vision, but I could not stop, not while my mother was still in my sights. But with every new pulse of fear, my magic flared brighter within me, and my steps became surer and stronger.

  And then the stone circle came into view.

  I slowed, feeling the steady pulse of those stones echoed in my own heartbeat. Blood called to blood. Wild magic called to wild magic.

  "Please come back," I whispered, but there was no way my mother could have heard me.

  Still, she turned. Standing beside the stone, she paused to look at me. For a moment, I felt a surge of hope. I could reach her. Then, still facing me, she stepped backwards, then again, and again. Even as I moved towards her, she moved away, until she stood in the very centre of the stone circle. Then she held out her hand to me and smiled.

  I rushed forwards, eager to take that hand - but I could not. I could not face crossing the line of those stones.

  "Come back," I shouted, but my mother's expression did not change. She still stood there, holding out her hand.

  Tentatively, I reached out to brush my fingertips across the stone. It was rough, porous, and surprisingly warm to the touch, almost as if some faint spark of life burned deep within it. My fingers still touching my stone, I looked at my mother. Then I stepped forwards. It took all my courage to take that final step.

  But my foot did not land on springy heather, or on damp earth. I stepped back onto the worn floorboards of Gwyneth's inn, as the world faded back into focus around me. The moors were gone.

  I blinked, trying to reorient myself to this space I had left only moments earlier. Or perhaps hours. I had lost all sense of time. Fog still lingered around me, but it was fading fast, and Gwyneth's face appeared through the mist as she stared at me.

  "What happened?" I asked, looking down at my hands. My body should somehow have changed, something should have changed, and y
et it seemed that my experience had left me unscathed.

  "You had a spirit journey," Gwyneth said, her voice soft. She and the old woman were both staring at me in open amazement, all trace of hostility gone from their eyes.

  "What do you mean?" I asked, still dazed. And then my natural cynicism reasserted itself. "You can't possibly know what happened," I said.

  Gwyneth smiled gently.

  "Young witches need to have their power unlocked, yes, but that is not enough for complete control. To truly come into their heritage, witches must venture on a spirit journey, and receive their true gifts from a female ancestor."

  She did know what had happened. I didn't want to believe it.

  "But my mother's dead," I said.

  Gwyneth shrugged and said nothing.

  "What on earth is going on?" Delilah said, pushing her way into the stockroom. Theo caught the door behind her as he ushered Marcus in. The expressions on the faces of Gwyneth and the old woman instantly changed, hostility radiating from them. But it did not seem to deter Delilah.

  "I sensed that power surge in the other room," she said. "Will someone tell me what's happened in here?"

  "Why should we reveal anything to the likes of you?" Gwyneth asked. Her face was harder than I had ever seen it before. I had not realised quite how much she distrusted outsiders.

  Delilah smiled, a slow transformation of her face, and that was enough. The two witches nodded in recognition.

  "You've done well to hide your secrets this long, child," the old woman said. "I know it's never easy for half-breeds like the two of you."

  For a moment, I was insulted. Half-breed? How dare she!

  But it was a reasonable enough description. Certainly, if someone told me that my father had also possessed unearthly powers, I would find it hard to believe. First my housemaid, now my fiance's previous fiancee. It seemed that magic touched everyone around me, and it was rapidly growing tiresome.