Carmine

“Oui…Yes, I have all I need…Mama, you’re getting frantic. Alright…I’ll see you at Christmas with Father…Oui, I’ll bring back cousin Wolfgang as well…Fare thee well, Mama!” Sparing a slight spurt of pride for his growing English skills, Anton sighed as he closed his slender phone and pocketed it, stretching with a yawn. Moving all the way from France was a rather big change for the young loup garoux, and Anton had had to make it with his rough-shod older cousin. Wolfgang seemed merely rugged and manly…an illusion, to be sure. But enough of those bitter thoughts…Anton yawned again and chuckled dryly, shoving the last few boxes off of his makeshift nest and pulling back the aged, much patched quilts.

He shucked off his baggy t-shirt…and sighing softly, loosed the mental hold he’d kept over his human form. Though the transformation happened in the space between one heartbeat and the next, it was beautifully ethereal. His back lengthened, bending forward as his arms and legs shortened, tapering into graceful paws. His neck stretched a little, his nose and mouth growing out to form the elegant muzzle of a gray-brindled wolf. Thick, dark gray and black fur rippled over his skin, ending in a great silver plume of a tail. Silver also marked the skin over and underneath his eyes, a stark, yet beautiful contrast to his regal black head, as well as forming a curling mane that began behind his ears and covered his chest.

Anton shook himself fiercely once, getting used to the wolf-skin he preferred over all. He shook his body and padded over to the nest he’d made up the moment he’d walked into the door, snagging the quilts in his ivory teeth and swinging them over his body as he lay down, curled up as though he were still against his mother’s warm breast. Falling into dreams of moonlit hunts and mysterious woods where his kind could still roam free, Anton’s green-blue eyes closed in contemplative exhaustion…

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Grumbling, Red flung the comforter violently up to her bunk, viciously yanking it every which way as she clamped her teeth tight against the retorts she so wanted to reply with. Amethyst deserved her room back, Amethyst didn’t want to see all this punk trash lying around…Amethyst, Amethyst, Amethyst! Her older sister, home from college…home for a month, and she had to take over everything, as if living in a dorm with other girls was such a trial, when she‘d shared a room with her younger sisters for years on end…Red sighed and rubbed her forehead, moaning a little from the headache. And tonight was the night she was supposed meet that really neat guy from Jonquil’s party…Suddenly, her head shot up as the joyful sound of female voices leaving, and she felt a grin, long suppressed, creep onto her lips. Amethyst and Mom…out for the evening!

Quickly, she grabbed her coat and shoes, shoving them on as she scrambled out the door. Outside was almost completely dark, but Red felt a shiver of excitement ripple over her skin as the moon brushed aside her cloak of shadowy clouds and brightened the night with a silvery glow. Red breathed deeply, filling her lungs with the faint tang of the impatient nightlife. She took off, feet flying down the dark alleys, body careening with careless abandon through the shadows and starlight. Memories of a childhood long ago spent exploring the rough world she called home now served her with an eerie ease, and she became a gray shade between buildings. Her long legs flashing, Red soon had her target in sight, a small club just outside the inner city cluster, up in the north end of town. She spared a glance up the street in case of traffic, and promptly tripped and rolled, landing at the bouncer’s feet in a now dirty, ripped-up heap.
“Oww…”

“You okay, miss?”

“Yeah…I think so…” She surveyed her clothes with distaste, fiercely brushing the grime off her skirt and coat, as he helped her up. “I don’t suppose you’ll let me in now, will you?” He sighed and shook his enormous head.

“I’m afraid not, miss…it’s a pretty strict dress code…and you look like you’d be better off going back home and getting those scrapes cleaned up.” She grumbled but nodded, waving goodbye as she stalked off, a new destination already in the forefront of her mind…

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Anton yawned and finally hauled himself up, grumbling silently as he pawed the rusty faucet and lapped up a cool, if iron-enriched, drink. Sleep had deserted him without remorse, and now he was restless, unwilling to change, but also unwilling to remain in the tiny cottage. Finally, he lifted the latch and let himself out, slipping over the dead fir needles with the ease of a zephyr. A twig snapped in the near distance and he crouched, eyes darting, ears pointed to the sound. Slowly, so slowly that he might have been nothing at all, he crept around to the south side of the cottage, lamp-like eyes aglow as they sought out the source of that unwelcome sound. He straightened as he made out a gray figure, hooded but obviously female, unless those slender legs and short skirt belonged to a particularly effeminate man.

She kicked a rock at the cottage, but only half-heartedly, and as he stepped closer to her, he could make out a rich alto voice muttering angrily, but about what, he didn’t know. If wolves could smile, he would have just then, though…he nosed her hand and mentally laughed as she spun around, frightened. She stared at him, and he could at last study her features. Dark hair, probably brown, framed her face in soft, loopy curls, spilling out from within her hood. Her face contradicted itself, with large, doe-soft eyes at odds with a long nose and thin lips, but it only served to make her seem a bit more ethereal. She’d frozen up, and he huffed out a disappointed breath, turning around to go on his way. However, he’d gotten barely a few feet from her when a breathless cry almost made him pause.

“Wait!” He kept walking, but slowed so that she could catch up to him. Anton resisted the urge to glance up at her, keeping his eyes on the path before them, moving almost instinctively into the moonlight so that she could see her way. It was a strange new association, this American girl, whom he knew nothing about, walking beside him in the quiet night…His wolfish mind told him to leave, to flee the human…but the human within him was intensely curious. However, he didn’t expect her to start talking, albeit softly, and soon he learned of her hopes, her dreams…her deepest insecurities…and the whole time, he didn’t even know her name…

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Red carefully felt her way through the overgrown path, trying to keep the dog in sight as she rubbed her rough throat. She’d talked more in the past hour than she had in ages…and she had the distinct impression that this dog was listening, with interest, no less, to every word. But that stream of words had dried up, and she dearly did not want to go home just yet. What to talk about? What to say? She just did not know…until she broke through the weeds and met the dog again.

“I’m not sure if I should stop talking or not…you don’t seem to mind too much. But then again, this is probably just me babbling on and on…” She sighed and plopped down on a mossy boulder, wincing as muscles unused to walking over such hazardous terrain cramped at the hint of a rest. She heard, rather than saw, the dog pad over to her, and though his nose startled her a bit, she welcomed his head nuzzling into her chest. He nestled his upper body into her lap, and Red giggled as a warm tongue lapped her cheek and chin.
“You’re certainly not like any other dog I’ve met…You‘re too handsome.” She pulled back enough to scratch his ears and above his eyes, and smiled as that big flag of a tail wagged across the fading leaves of autumn. Caressing his warm fur, she sighed, and sheepishly buried her head in his ruff. “You know…you remind me of an old rhyme that my grandmother told my sisters and I a long, long time ago…of course, she only told it to us after she told us her story…so…I guess it’s only right to keep with tradition.” She took a deep breath, then laid her head on the dog’s and closed her eyes, her grandmother’s careworn face and liquid brown eyes brightening as the memory strengthened in her mind.

“Once, long ago, when the forests and mountains belonged not to man…”

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Once, long ago, when the forests and mountains belonged not to man, but to the beasts of the earth, there lived a small village in the northeast corner of France. It is a mere memory now, a cherished time that no longer exists, but live it did, and in it’s gentle embrace grew a strong and kind family. A father and his sons, all fiercely loyal to their king and to their home, and a mother and her daughters, all lovingly kind to whomever needed aid. In times of great need, the men would all fair fly to the call, while the women drew the village into their great manse and protected them from famine, flood, and flame. The great stone mansion became known as ‘The Great Mill’, for it lay at the head of the Rhine River, and the men had long kept a mill in times when the villages around their home could not grind their own flour…

But, though these were the best of people, a family devoted both to Him and to their fief, there were two whom that life did not satisfy. The elder had long since retreated to the mountains, her disbelief in her daughter’s fervent conversion to Catholicism all too evident, for she couldn’t understand how such a child of the forest could give up the gods of earth and wind so easily. However, she could still pass on the old ways to another, for the seventh daughter of her own seventh daughter, her granddaughter, had long since shut herself away from the strict disciplines of the Church.

Lisel, and her grandchild, Carmine Dumoulin, weren’t reviled by many in the village, in part because the pair did share one formidable trait with their enthusiastic family; they were the local midwives, caring for all pregnant women around the area. And perhaps life would have remained the same for both women, only changing when Death arrived at last for their souls, had Carmine’s twin brother, Corentin, not killed the eldest son of the formidable Garoul family, who ruled above the forest’s bountiful reach. Corentin did not know what he’d done, though, and assuming he killed a mere wolf, cut off it’s head and skinned it, stretching the skin between two trees and cutting out a few good pieces of meat for his hunting dogs.

However, the dogs wouldn’t touch the meat he threw to them, and when he arrived back in the village, he was horrified to pull the head of a human out of his game sack, and thinking quickly, tossed the sack into the river. But the damage was done, and that night, a hundred murderous loup garoux stormed the manse, dragging everyone from their beds as they demanded repudiation for the murderer of their oldest son. Corentin and his brothers were lined up as the pack’s leader, Dominique, outlined the gruesome discovery they’d made on the mountainside, how his younger sons had scented the blood and howled their sorrow for the entire pack to hear.

He raged against the eldest Dumoulin, half mad with grief and ready to slaughter all in the village to repay the blood spilt. The father couldn’t believe that any of his sons would have killed the young man, for it was forbidden to slay any wolf in the forests of the north. He calmly where the boy’s head might be, for Dominique had mentioned that they’d found him beheaded. At this, it was not Dominique, or Corentin that spoke up. It was young Carmine, just barely budding into a woman, who’d witnessed her brother’s betrayal, and so she chose to take the blame from him, for she knew that the spirit of the slain would never rest even if his murderer died.

“I know who slew your child…but I cannot say their name, nor shall I. My grandmother and I know the old ways, the forest’s ways, and so we shall lay your son’s spirit to rest.”

“How can you know such things, girl-child?! You are human, and as such, know nothing of the earth!” Dominique roared, shoving all aside to face her small, determined form.

“She is of the ancient ones, the children of the forest who ceded the earth to the races of man and man-beast. She, with your youngest son, will save your bloodline, and will give birth to one who will unite our races truly-”

“Preposterous! But if you are willing to die in your man’s place, my girl, than we shall gladly oblige you…” As he spoke, all of the werewolves restraining her family freed their holds, circling around her, golden eyes aglow…when the sharp bark of the youngest son called them to attention. They took off, and the humans soon knew why, for the cries of men and horses soon filled the eerie silence left by the wolves. But it was Lisel’s cry that truly broke that painful span. Carmine had disappeared, and no one could go to look, for the knights that had arrived refused to waste men for a simple girl…Thus, Lisel retreated to her home in the high woods, dying in her old age with no one there…or so all in the village believed.

There were times, my loves, when the elders in that little village sit beside their warm fires and shiver, for they would remember nights of the full moon when a silvery figure darted through the trees, accompanied by dark, lupine shadows. Some said that it was Carmine’s lost soul wandering, forever chased by the enraged wolf pack, serving her brother’s penance…Others swore that it was Lisel, searching forever for her lost Carmine…But it was Carmine’s mother, Lisel’s seventh daughter, that swore upon all that was holy that the figure was that of the boy slain by her own son, that Lisel had taken Carmine far and away with the help of the loup garoux, far off to the west. On her deathbed, the mother bid her remaining children to gather around, to listen to the ancient riddle that would help them find their lost sister, that their mother had hidden away for decades…

‘Far across the waves, she lies

Past which the sparrow flies

Under those vermillion skies,

For the child of forest keeps

Of hallowed halls and deeps

Lies in the deepest of sleeps.

But only the call of wolf-song

Can break a sleep that long

And right all that was wrong,

For it was your brother’s sin

That robbed us of Carmine

And shattered our close kin.

Seek her soul in the shade

Of humanity’s ruined glade

Beneath which all is unmade,

For there lies the pensive key

To all that was wrought by thee

When we but thought to flee…’

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Anton held his breath as the last words rang through the night air; he’d heard them before, alright…from his great-grandsire, Dominique, shortly before the old wolf’s death. He knew too, what the riddle meant…humanity’s ruined glade, that was the enormous city she had always lived in…the pensive key, well…he suspected that it was him, but he could be wrong…He knew the story, knew the riddle, knew everything about it…and he knew too that Carmine had indeed survived, as had Lisel for a very long time. Both women were over one hundred when they died…could this girl really be Carmine’s grandchild? Somehow, he didn’t doubt it.

He suddenly pulled away from her, and taking her coat sleeve between his teeth, gently tugged at her. She had almost fallen when he moved, but quickly regained her balance and seemed to understand. He almost started to lope, then remembered that she was still only human and settled for a fast trot. She laughed a little as he led her away from the grove, and he couldn’t help the lupine smile that stretched across his face, for the night was melting away into a gray dawn, the moon drawing down low in the sky in preparation for the sun’s appearance. Soon, they’d circled back around to the cottage, and Anton waited patiently for her to catch up.

Just as she’d stumbled up to him, giggling from the exhilaration of the run, her laughter was cut short by a scream of absolute terror. To Anton’s horror, there stood Wolfgang, lips drawn back, snarling with blind rage. Anton leapt at him, scoring across his cousin’s muzzle and nearly putting a fang in his eye, but the cinnamon-touched mane around his neck hindered Anton’s efforts to make a pass at his throat. He yelped as those powerful jaws clamped down on his rear leg, and he took a chance, snapping down on Wolfgang’s forepaw. A satisfying crunch of bone signaled his success, and he sprang back, again between the girl and his monster of a kinsman. Wolfgang charged, all snapping jaws and razor claws, and as Anton retaliated, turning his ears to ribbons, he didn’t realize that Wolfgang was shoving him closer and closer to the edge of the embankment…

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Red scrambled up into a tree while the dog took on that monstrous wolf, not stopping till the tree swayed a little beneath her weight. She fought back a scream as the black dog got his leg bitten, but also had to stifle a cry of joy when they all heard the cracking of the wolf’s paw. However, the dog had placed himself closer to the steep river bank than he’d been before, and the wolf seemed to see that, for as Red watched in horror, he charged, shoving and biting the dog to turn him on his back, or worse, to topple him into the river. Her face hardened, and glancing around her little perch, she was surprised and deliriously happy to find a stash of acorns long forgotten by the squirrels.

Tearing off a strip of her coat, Red fashioned a small sling, and taking careful aim, shot off an acorn right at the sandy wolf’s rump. He jumped, startled, and the black dog took over, catching him beneath the muzzle and started to tear at the tender skin and muscle just above his throat. The wolf seemed to twist away, bleeding, but still fighting, and so she shot another one at him, giving her dog another chance. He took it gladly, pouncing on the wolf and turning him over, then viciously ripping out his throat, just as the morning light crested over the hills.

The black dog suddenly drew back, howling horribly, shaking his head as if to rid himself of the blood. Red slowly climbed down, scared now. The dog seemed almost rabid, for he staggered back and forth, rubbing his muzzle first in the dirt, then on a tree, mouthing leaves and large sticks, all to get the blood of the wolf off of him. Just as she touched the ground, he dashed into the cottage, and from a dog’s mournful howl came a man’s terrible scream. Frightened, she thought to run away, almost did, but she didn’t expect the supposedly dead wolf to stagger upright, and give one last leap at her, cracking the bones just below her neck with a snap. She screamed once, then collapsed, paralysis coming on fast. She never knew that the dog she’d come to care so much about returned to her when she cried out, that he, in his man-form, wept as he realized what had been done…

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Anton greeted her family kindly, but his eyes betrayed his depression, and Amethyst gently patted his arm. He led them into her room, then disappeared for a few hours as her mother read her stories, as her sister described her two children, two nieces that would never know their aunt as anything other than a comatose vegetable. At last, they left, and Anton returned to his mate’s side. He smiled as he took her hand, kissing it gently before cradling it to his chest, smoothing the thin skin over her frail bones.
“Do you remember the night we met, ma petite? When you were so upset…when I was just walking with you…You told me that story, remember?” He sighed and took a breath, closing his now darkened eyes. “That poem…that whole riddle…you wanted it to so be true, and I wanted to make sure…ma petite…I miss you so.” As his eyes closed again, the rhythm of the machines keeping her alive became the music to which he recited the poem…

“Far across the waves, she lies…

Past which the sparrow flies

Under those vermillion skies,

For the child of forest keeps…

Of hallowed halls and deeps

Lies in the deepest of sleeps.

But only the call of wolf-song…

Can break a sleep that long

And right all that was wrong,

For it was your brother’s sin…

That robbed us of my Carmine

And shattered our close kin.

Seek her soul in the shade…

Of humanity’s ruined glade

Beneath which all is unmade,

For there lies the pensive key…

To all that was wrought by thee

When we but thought to flee…

For I’ve traveled ‘cross the sea,

And in the shade of that glen…

In hopes of finding the one for me…

Was where I found my Carmine…”

Wow…First story in forever….and I really like this one. Red Riding Hood, of course…a definite difference from my usual ‘Ugly Duckling’ works…I await your judgment, my loves, so comment away!

Laters,

KD