by Blythe Baker
His face hardened again.
“So I took matters into my own hands. Those hunters…when they weren’t following the rules, or were hunting for the fun of getting blood on their hands, I attacked. They deserved it, them and their friends. I wasn’t going to lie down and let them kill us all. No. I was going to fight back,” he said.
Revelation struck me square between the eyes. “So…you’re the one responsible for all the beast attacks in the forest…” I said.
He nodded. “And I’m proud of it.”
I just gaped at him. To talk about killing people so openly, regardless of the motive behind it…was appalling.
“That hunter the night that Gian and Ralph and I were on patrol was no different…” he said. “The guy had been drinking. I could smell it on his breath halfway across the forest. I knew him, too. Charlie Fields was his name. A right piece of work. He was abusive to his wife and kids, and only cared about losing all of his money in poker games and drinks on the weekends. When I saw him, I intended to move on, but he was just standing there in the forest, looking at some things in his hand. The way he looked around before shoving them in his pockets told me that he didn’t want anyone to see him pocketing them.”
Oscar’s face fell, then. We were coming to the crux of the story.
“Then Gian…Gian stepped out of the shadows. He’s young, and the shifting is still new. He’s not confident yet. Well, Charlie saw him, standing out there in a patch of moonlight like an idiot. It startled him, so he raised his gun and took a shot, not even bothering to consider what he might be shooting at.”
I thought of the sling on Gian’s arm, and how he’d told me it was from a hunting accident. He’d been telling the truth.
“So I took Charlie out,” Oscar said frankly. “Circled back and killed him after the other two wolves started for home.”
While he spoke, something over Oscar’s shoulder caught my eye. The bushes along the edge of the forest were shifting.
My heart jumped into my throat. Had Oscar brought other wolves with him? Had they all started to lose their minds?
“Well, now, Marianne…you know the truth,” Oscar said.
“I’m – I’m sorry all this happened to you,” I said. “I understand why you were so angry, but – ”
“See, this is why I didn’t want anyone to find out,” Oscar said, pulling a pair of zip-ties from his pocket. “Because this sort of behavior isn’t going to be looked at very fondly by our pack leader. While he was devastated by the death of his kin, he would never condone killing a human in retaliation. Well, I think he’s wrong, which is why I took matters into my own hands.”
He knelt down and wrapped the ties around my ankles.
“Hey, what are you doing – ” I said. I tried to move my leg, but he tightened the plastic around my legs faster than I could move.
Now my hands and legs were tied.
“Like I said,” Oscar said, kneeling over the side of the dock. He reached down into the water and pulled out a fishing net that was tied to one of the anchoring posts. The net was full of bricks, and it was clear he was straining to lift it onto the dock. “This was my confession. But now that it’s done, now that I admitted what I’ve done, I’m absolved of my actions.”
My heart started to race as I stared down at the bag. “That’s not how that works…” I said, watching as he untied the net from around the post.
He glanced up at me. “Oh, I think it is. I certainly feel better. But I can’t have you running back to Lucan. He won’t like what I did. He might even have me killed for it. He’ll never understand that I did it for the good of the pack. Now the rest of those hunters will think before coming after us.”
He slipped the end of the net through the ties around my ankles.
I tried to move, but I quickly lost my balance, and fell over onto my side on the dock.
He secured the net around my ankles and stood up. “Lucan will have to find someone else,” he said. “Someone who won’t be nosy, who won’t go looking for answers to things that don’t concern them. The ironic thing is that you did this to yourself. Curiosity killed the cat, right? Or at least this time…the girl with the silver eyes.”
He gave the bag a push off the dock, and it struck the water with a mighty splash.
It wasn’t more than a heartbeat before I was dragged in after it.
14
The water was colder than I expected. So cold that it leeched from my lungs the little bit of air that I’d gulped down before my head plunged beneath the surface.
The weight around my ankles was heavy. Incredibly so. It pulled me further into the water, faster than I’d ever be able to swim.
I struggled against it, trying desperately to kick my legs like a dolphin’s tail, but it was no use. I was going to drown down here.
I’d heard that drowning was a pretty terrible way to go. The suffocation was not necessarily painful, but the body would try its best to reject it. Then I’d lose consciousness, and not long after, I’d die from a lack of oxygen to my brain.
I wondered how long it would be before someone found me. Oscar wouldn’t tell anyone. Would it be weeks? Months?
Would they ever find me, my body swollen and rotting, so disfigured they wouldn’t be able to discern who I was?
A splash near the surface made me lift my head, the last few air bubbles escaping from my mouth.
A shape was making its way down to me, but I couldn’t see the face belonging to it. I wanted to reach up, to beg for their help, but even as I opened my mouth, no sound came out.
The shape swam past me, and I thought I caught a glimpse of copper hair.
Arms wrapped around my legs, and I could feel a sawing action beneath my feet. A moment later the weight dragging me ever downward was gone, and my legs were freed. The figure had grabbed me under one arm and was dragging me up.
I broke the surface of the lake and took in a great, deep gasp of air. I sputtered and coughed, water spurting from my mouth as I did.
I looked over, blinking water from my eyes as I drank in the cool autumn air, and found myself staring at Lucan.
“Dr. – Dr. Valerio – ” I coughed. “You – ”
“Come on,” he said, his brow furrowed as he helped me toward shore. “We need to get you out of here.”
We struggled to the shore after he cut the ropes binding my wrists together. There was some blood from the burns on my skin, but I ignored the soreness. I would have swum seven hundred miles if I knew I was going to end up in safety on the other side.
Lucan helped me up onto the shore. My legs were shaky, and all my muscles were stretched beyond their limit. Even as I put weight on them, my left leg muscles seized, and I collapsed against Lucan for support.
“You’re alright…” he said, the both of us sopping wet as we staggered away from the shore. “You’re fine now. Don’t worry.”
Gently, he lowered me down beside a tree, helping me to lean up against it.
I was still taking in grateful gulps of air as I stared up at Lucan. He was bent over, his hands on his knees, breathing deeply, too.
“You…you saved me,” I said, trying to stifle the coughs welling up in my throat.
He looked at me, and his smile returned. It warmed my heart, and a weight I hadn’t realized I’d been carrying lifted from my shoulders.
He said, “How could I let anything happen to you, Marianne? I’d never forgive myself…”
“Lucan – ” I caught myself as I massaged my newly freed wrists. “Dr. Valerio, I – ”
“Please, Marianne…” Dr. Valerio said. “Call me Lucan. Dr. Valerio feels too…formal now, after all we’ve been through.”
Despite the fear coursing through me, and the adrenaline making me dizzy, my face flushed with delight. “O…okay,” I said. “Lucan, I’m sorry…about everything. About being so senseless as to pry into your private affairs, and make accusations about your family – ”
“No, Marianne, I must thank y
ou,” he said. “I may not have liked what you had to say…not at all, in fact. But because of what you said, it made me turn and look at those in my pack and question whether or not any of them were capable of some sort of heinous crime…like murder. I never would have believed it, and have been blinded by my trust in them, my affection for them…”
He straightened up and stared down at me with those warm, golden eyes. A shiver ran through me that had nothing to do with the fact that my clothes were drenched all the way through.
“I heard everything he said…” Lucan said, staring off in the distance. “I have a great deal to think about, and I think I’ll have to do some reevaluating of those in my pack, and how much power they possess…”
His hands balled into fists.
“But I must go, Marianne. I should join the others in our search for him.”
“The others?” I asked. “There are more wolves – ”
But even as I spoke, my eyes widened as I watched Lucan’s body blur in front of me, as if consumed in a mist. It shimmered in the pale afternoon light, and quickly was swept away as if by a strong wind.
Standing before me was a wolf with golden eyes, with a tail wagging slightly.
He stared long and hard at me before taking off along the shore of the lake, letting loose a howl that echoed across the water.
I stared after him, my heart racing.
I feared my mind was about to explode, trying to take in everything that had just happened. I sat there, against that tree trunk, soaking wet, stunned into silence.
Being kidnapped. Hearing Oscar’s confession. Lucan coming to rescue me after I’d been thrown in the lake to drown…
I reached up and grabbed my throat, the feeling of my lungs filling with water still too easy to recall. Panicked, I forced myself to take deep, steady breaths, reminding myself with each one that I was safe, that I was above water and on hard ground.
I decided I wasn’t going to go swimming again for a while.
Eventually, I dragged myself up to my feet. No one else was going to hop out of the trees to help me back home.
It was a long trek back to the cabin. My shoes were completely soaked, and squelched with every step I took. My jeans, which the wind cut through with every gust, were chaffing so much that my legs felt raw. My thin shirt hung off me and stank like pond scum, and my jacket kept drizzling water from places I had no idea water could drizzle from.
By the time I got home, I was more annoyed about the state of myself than the attempted drowning. At least that was what I told myself.
What happened to you? Athena asked, sitting straight up as I trudged in through the front door.
Peeling my sopping clothes from my frigid skin, I related to her everything that had happened. By the time I was done talking, she’d followed me into the bathroom where I was standing under a hot stream of water in the shower, and I’d nearly gone hoarse.
The Valerio’s gardener? Athena asked. I’d never have guessed someone like that.
“I’d only ever seen him once,” I said. “But I’d been paying attention to Gian, who he was talking to. He seemed to think that I would have figured him out eventually, but how? I didn’t even know him…”
Fear will make people do strange things, Athena said. And so will love.
I sighed, leaning my now aching back toward the stream of hot water, letting it gently massage my muscles. “I need to call Sheriff Gardener,” I said. “He needs to know what happened to that hunter, and get his men out to help in the search for Oscar.”
What if this Oscar has shifted? Athena asked.
“Lucan and the others will find him,” I said. “Maybe they’ll manage to scare him toward the humans. He can’t get away. There are too many people looking for him, and after talking to him I could tell he’s not a mastermind criminal. Just a sad, troubled man who’d been hurt one too many times…”
Don’t tell me you actually feel sorry for him, Athena said.
I frowned. “I do, in a way…” I said. “He’d lost loved ones. They were murdered. More than anyone, I can understand that kind of grief – ”
Marianne, he tried to drown you, Athena said with disdain. There is a difference between feeling grief and taking reckless action because of that grief. What he did was unforgiveable. And what he did to you? If I’d been there, he never would have been able to lay a finger on you…
I smiled. “Thanks, Athena…that means a lot. And you’re right, you know. I shouldn’t feel sorry for him. He wanted to hurt me. I think he really lost all sense of what was right and wrong. The lines are too blurred for him now…”
You always try to see the best in people, Athena said more gently.
I hopped out of the shower and dried off, grateful for towels and clean, dry clothes. While my tea kettle heated up on the stove, I sat down on the end of my bed and called Sheriff Garland.
“Sheriff? It’s Marianne Huffler,” I said as soon as he answered. “It’s urgent. I know who killed the hunter in the woods.”
“This again?” Sheriff Garland asked. “Marianne, I thought I said – wait. You know who the killer is?”
“Yes,” I said. “His name is Oscar Marino. He’s a gardener for Dr. Lucan Valerio. I heard his whole confession less than two hours ago, and – ”
“Whoa, girl, easy…” Sheriff Garland said. “Slow down. Start from the beginning. How do you know all this?”
“Oscar kidnapped me when I went to visit Dr. Valerio. He dragged me out to the lake, where he told me he was tired of me snooping around. He told me that he knew I would figure him out eventually, and he said that he was the one who killed that hunter in the woods,” I said.
“He just came out and told you all of that?” Sheriff Garland asked. “Why do I get the feeling that you’re leaving information out?”
“But he took off,” I cut in, avoiding the very accurate observation that I was leaving some parts out of the story. “Dr. Valerio ended up seeing Oscar kidnap me, and so he followed us. He waited for Oscar to confess before trying to confront him. Oscar shoved me into the lake with a weight tied to my feet, and after Dr. Valerio rescued me, he took off after Oscar. If you get your men out in the woods, you might be able to find him before it gets dark.”
“Well…” Sheriff Garland said. “There seems to be a lot of holes in your story, Miss Huffler, but I’m going to write it off as shock. You can bet I’ll be calling you back with more questions after we manage to capture him. Now, I’ve never met this fellow before. Can you give me a description?”
I gave him as detailed a description as I could. “And be careful,” I said. “He’s armed.”
“Will do,” Sheriff Garland said. “Alright. Thank you, Marianne. I’ll be in touch.”
I hung up and sank back onto the bed, letting my phone fall out of my hand.
“Well…there’s nothing left to do but wait, I guess,” I said, looking over at Athena, who I’d carried to the bed. “I can’t do anything else.”
No, and you shouldn’t, Athena said. You need to rest, too.
“Says the one with the injured leg…” I said with a smirk.
I glanced out the window at the lake, where the waves were rippling innocently.
A chill ran down my spine. “I hope they find him. And quickly.”
15
I spent a relaxing afternoon by myself. I called Abe and let him know what happened, and he demanded that I take the rest of the week off. He asked me a hundred questions, most of which I couldn’t answer. He told me more than a few times to go to the hospital, just to be sure I was okay. I told him I was fine, and that with some rest, I’d bounce back in no time.
With the prospect of a few days off, I curled up with Athena in our living room and popped on an old television show, a favorite of mine, to try and forget about the day’s events. I’d been attacked before. I’d been at death’s door before. But this time felt like the closest I’d actually come to dying.
I had always loved the water. I lov
ed spending long days during the summer at the beach. I loved swimming in rivers, in ponds, in swimming pools. My mom always told me that I was a fish out of water, or a mermaid who’d grown legs.
I debated calling her and telling her what happened, but quickly decided against it. There was no sense in worrying her…especially when I was fine now.
After eating an oven baked macaroni and cheese both for the comfort and the ease of clean up, I was starting to get sleepy when there was a knock on my door. I’d know it was coming, because Athena sat up, her ears perked toward the door seconds before I heard anything myself.
I grabbed my bathrobe that I’d tossed over the back of a chair, and slipped it on, as I padded over to the door.
I pulled it open, and found Lucan Valerio standing there.
“Lucan,” I said, my face flooding with color. I was very aware of the fact that I looked less than presentable; hair in a messy, wet knot on top of my head, no makeup in sight, pajamas with little woodland creatures on them… “What are you doing here?” I asked, pulling the robe more tightly closed around me.
“I wanted to let you know that we found Oscar,” he said. “We’ve delivered him to Sheriff Garland.”
“Oh,” I said, relief sweet and refreshing. “That’s great news.” I glanced over my shoulder. My cabin wasn’t exactly ready for guests, but I knew how Aunt Candace would scold me about not inviting someone in. And I wasn’t exactly unhappy about the idea of spending a few minutes with Dr. Valerio… “Would you like to come in?”
“Sure,” Lucan said with a smile.
I stepped aside and let him pass.
“This is quite the cozy place you have here,” he said, looking around.
“If by cozy, you mean smaller than a normal person’s closet, then yes, I’d agree,” I said.
He grinned at me. “I think it’s comfortable. Even though most of my pack lives with me, sometimes that house feels too big.”
My heart burned as he looked at me with those smoldering eyes. I quickly turned away. “Can I get you anything? Some tea, perhaps?”
