Running With the Pack (28 page)

The creek had to be toxic, what in hell, Charles, his skin burning and his limbs aching and his bowels pinching, and he scrambled into the wide culvert, away from the headlights shining at the top of the deep ditch. Then all of his bones broke, every single one, and Charles couldn’t even scream from the agony of it, just the sound of the splintering bones making him throw up, except instead of ditchwater a long, dripping tongue spilled out of his mouth, dangling by his chin. Charles tried to stop himself from shitting his pants, as if that were somehow the worst part about dying, as if embarrassment hurt worse than real pain, but he couldn’t even scream so holding it in was futile. Then it
was
real pain, it
was
the worst part, and he managed to make his twisting, warping arms get his pants down to relieve the pressure.

The length of spine that had split out of the skin beneath his tailbone extended further without the jeans to constrain it, and that freedom was when the pain turned to pleasure, when Charles finally let himself acknowledge and believe what was happening to him. Not bad water, not exhaustion, not craziness—he was a werewolf, a real werewolf, and he could no longer control himself. He was going to forget himself, he was going to be a deadly beast hunting the crackheads and wannabe gangbangers and ghetto-callers, he would rip them apart and he would lick and he would drink and he would drink and he would lick and when he came back to himself the next morning he would be covered in scratches and bruises and no memory of what had happened, but when he saw a human finger or some bling in the toilet bowl he would realize that it was time to reset the old vegan clock, yes indeed, and every full moon it would happen and—

Charles realized it had finished, his body trembling but again complete and static, yet he was still himself. Mentally, at least—his eyes were sharper, as were his nose and ears and, flexing his paws in the drainage pipe, his claws. Trying to get up, Charles felt the faintest tinge of disappointment that children do when things do not go exactly as they expect—he was not some hulking, half-human lupine monster who could walk on his hind-legs, he was a wolf, and not even a very large one. Nevertheless, moving on all fours felt so natural and cool that Charles laughed, a raspy, alien growl. Standing at the mouth of the pipe, he licked his chops and looked up at the full moon, wondering if it had been the water in the footprint or the bite or simply his desire. Then he tried howling, and it came as naturally as walking had, and dogs took up the cry all over Tallahassee.

Staying to the channel, Charles marveled at how stunning the night was, the smells and sounds so rich he felt like he was gobbling them up, and he only left the wild of the filthy brook when streetlights began spilling down into the dark ravine. He waited until the sounds of cars were a safe distance off and scrambled up the side, the trickiest maneuver thus far. Then he crossed Orange and headed home by way of the FAMU campus, smelling and hearing any would-be witnesses long before they caught a glimpse of him, and if anyone working late at the university saw a large dog loping across the parking lots it did not make the paper the next day.

Southside was beautiful under the full moon, Charles realized, beautiful but sad. The scarcity of streetlights in this particular urban area allowed him to walk right up the middle of the street, his nails clicking on the rough pavement, and whenever headlights rounded a corner he cut into a backyard or under a house, most of them raised shotgun houses like his with plenty of room for a beast to hide until the car passed.

A silver hatchback was parked in front of one of the houses Charles ducked under, and he waited there until the trio of white kids came down the stairs, their fear stinking more than the dried-up pot in their pockets or the cigarettes in their hands. Charles kind of wanted the beast to take over then, at least to scare them, but one of the Holten Street Clique who had jacked Charles was with them, and even bristling with teeth and claws Charles was scared of the big thug—he had a funky, metallic smell about him that might well have been a gun. Otherwise the kids smelled the same, more or less, which meant something, Charles supposed.

Charles moved on as they jawed in front of the hatchback, and in a vacant lot he rested by a worn fence and watched three men pass around a glass pipe, their fingers the only parts of their bodies not shaking as they smoked the stinking, sour lumps. Charles realized with a single sniff that one of them was the father of the Holten Street bully who was with the white kids two blocks over, and he wondered if the boy knew his dad was a junkie. The kid certainly had nicer clothes than his father, but that wasn’t saying much.

Deeper in the night and the Southside he found a group of men and women enjoying a midnight grillout in a backyard, and further on a fenced-off yard where several pitbulls woke up growling at his approach, the dogs ripe with anger, their throats scarred from fighting, the stink of their dead fellows rising out of shallow graves beside the fence. Charles checked the address of the house to report them to the police in the morning. By then he was starting to fade, his tongue panting, his limbs sore, and he followed his own scent back to Holten Street, toward his bed.

His father was asleep on the front porch, an ashtray and the cordless phone on a stool beside him. Charles nosed the screen door open and padded inside the dark house. Hopping onto his bed, he curled up and fell into a deep and dreamless sleep.

“Boy, don’t you sleep naked in your gramma’s house!” Charles sat up in bed at his father’s voice, his head pounding, his whole body sore and scratched and bruised and his eyes watering from the ruthless sunlight. “Charlie, I don’t wanna call the police on you but you
cannot
be stayin out all night, not callin or nuthin. You don’t wanna go where I’ve been, Charlie,
trust me
. What’s wrong with you?”

“Sorry,” Charles blinked away the tears and saw his father had turned away from him in the doorway. “I was—”

“I don’t wanna hear it,” his father shook his head. “But this is it, understand? No more. One free get-out-of-shit card and you just used it, son—no more. I lied to my mom for you, Charlie, I told her you got in right after she went to sleep. How do you think that made me feel? I rented us another wolfman movie and you make me stay up all night thinkin you run off or got yourself killed with that smart mouth of yours. Where you get off . . . ”

Charles wondered if he would transform the next time the moon swelled. His father droned on, clearly taking satisfaction in the lecture, and Charles realized that he had been wrong about a whole hell of a lot of things. He was actually relieved that he had woken up human, and more than even knowing how the night-air of Tallahassee tasted or what the full moon smelled like, that was the most surprising thing about the summer that Charles became a werewolf.

THE BARONY AT RØDAL

PETER BELL

In Norway and Iceland certain men were said to be
eigieinhameer,
not of one skin . . . . The full form of this superstition was, that men could take upon them other bodies, and the natures of those beings whose bodies they assumed . . . and a man thus invigorated was called
hamrammr.

—Sabine Baring-Gould, 1865

The excursion to Norway was something of a new departure for Fraser, who had previously rarely travelled abroad.

It had long been his habit to spend his holidays visiting botanic gardens. Powerscourt beneath the Wicklow Mountains, storm-lashed Tresco Abbey in the Scillies, the Hebridean splendours of Achamore, Arduaine and Inverewe—Fraser had visited them all; as well as countless others, by no means all of which were open, officially at least, to the public; but, by fair means or foul—for he was not averse to trespass—he had ticked them off his list.

Now, with the broad plain of retirement extending before him, he was exploring pastures new: a cruise of the Norwegian fjords, courtesy of his daughter, Eloise. The stark northern climes of Scandinavia had never previously struck him as a likely hunting ground for exotic flora; but Eloise, who had worked for a time at Kristiansand University, assured him that the cherry trees bloomed prodigiously all along the grey banks of the fjords, hinting at treasure troves as wonderful as Kew, trees mightier than anywhere back home in Argyll. Fraser was not convinced.

As the coach traversed the mountains, they listened with exas-peration to their prattling Norwegian tour guide, Inge, a rotund, rosy-cheeked, middle-aged woman, with curiously idiomatic English, whose appearance reminded Fraser of a garden gnome.

“To your right you see the Grønnfjell.” She gesticulated towards the wooded slopes, adopting a melodramatic tone. “And here, in the forests, long ago there lived man-wolves and bears, and things that are drinking blood, including the terrible bloody fox . . . ”

“Like something out of Bergman!” Eloise exclaimed.

“Bergman is Swedish, my dear. I wouldn’t let our guide hear that, it’s like saying the Welsh are Scottish! . . . ”

“Well, a lot of the old Norwegian noble families have Danish or Swedish blood in their veins. They’ve all been united one time or another.”

Still the guide droned on: now it was trolls.

“ . . . and these trolls, they lived in caves up on the hillside, and hidden away in dark dells, and on a lonely dark night, if a traveller he meet a troll, then he might not live to see the day, or will go mad with fear . . . ”

There was something about the guide’s jolly, lilting Scandinavian vowels that, to an English ear, sounded vaguely comic, curiously and uneasily framing the horrors.

“This is as bad as Scotland!” declared Fraser. “Nothing but ghosts and legends! Where are all these wonderful gardens?”

“Stop complaining! You’re the one who’s always telling people Grandmother Campbell had second sight!”

They were entering a tunnel.

“ . . . and above here, in a high pass, there was a slaughter in the olden days, very bloody . . . ”

“She’ll be blaming the Campbells next!” he said.

“Not unless she’s a MacDonald!”

“Aye, they get everywhere!”

The guide’s history lesson continued, of questionable accuracy.

“Notice how she glosses over the War,” whispered Eloise. “Nothing but heroics. They’ve buried the past here, alright.”

Eloise was a historical researcher, her specialism Norwegian resistance in the Second World War. Indeed, her scholarship had won her the fellowship at Kristiansand, a post she had been reluctant to vacate, having unearthed previously unstudied material in the National Archives that shed new light on the Nazi occupation. It involved some of Norway’s most respected families. The picture was, however, incomplete; further research was needed, not to speak of circumnavigating the suddenly disobliging attitude of the university authorities. Fraser got the impression she had left under a cloud. The present trip, he suspected, was as much inspired by his daughter’s scholarly agenda as by a desire to indulge him in the botanical wonders of the North.

Eloise had arranged things so she would have time at the end of the trip to revisit the Archives in Oslo; and, beforehand, to network with colleagues from Kristiansand. Fraser had been left to wander the old university town alone, which had not been without its rewards. Meanwhile, Eloise had not wasted her time: an interview with a surviving member of the Norwegian Resistance, Evald Akerø, great-uncle of a former colleague, had left her quite excited.

“Akerø told me about a Resistance operation to help refugees escape to Sweden that ended in a massacre,” she explained over supper in the sterile luxuriance of the Bergen Radisson, “It involved one of Norway’s oldest families, the von Merkens. This ties in with hints in my own research. Some of these nobles were only too glad to sell out their people for the sake of a quiet life! Akerø gave me the name of an old servant who’s apparently still on the estate. Said he could tell a few tales about goings-on during the War when a certain Anders von Merkens was in residence.”

“Where’s that?”

“The
Baroniet Rødal
!” Eloise declared, smiling.

“That’s on our itinerary, isn’t it?” he responded. “You knew that all along! I thought this was a holiday!”

“Let’s call it a mix of business and pleasure!”

“So what’s this place, Rødal?”

“Oh, you’ll love it! An old Norwegian manor house with landscaped gardens. Over a hundred species of rhododendron—they should be at their best now—and ten thousand English roses! Rødal—the Red Vale! So called for its brilliant autumns.”

Later, in bed, Fraser studied the glossy brochure. Rødal was on the final day. Intervening visits were less alluring, though this was perhaps unfair: had his interests not been so obsessively botanical, there was much of promise, including a visit to Edvard Grieg’s house, complete with special piano recital; and a trip to the “magnificent island home” of another nineteenth century composer he had never heard of, Øle Bull, described as Hardangerfjord’s “best kept secret.”

He must have dozed, for he was awoken from a fearful dream which had seemed to be happening outside the window, as if something were scrabbling at the pane. It felt sufficiently disquieting and real for him to get up and check. Drawing back the curtains from the half-open window, he was startled by a fluttering commotion: a large bird, a raven maybe, flapped up into his face, its beady eyes glinting in the moonlight. He recoiled in loathing. It was some time before he could catch sleep again.

Next day began with a tour of Bergen, the most interesting feature being the Mariakirken, with a fine medieval triptych and a set of exquisitely carved wooden statues of Christ and his disciples. There was John, the only beardless one, denoting youth and not, as crackpot theorists claimed, Mary Magdalene. A model of a wooden sailing ship hung suspended above the nave, a routine feature of Norwegian churches, indicative of the country’s intimate connection with the sea; as were sarcophagi shaped like upturned boats. In the Museum of Modern Art they joined the gaping crowds before
The Scream
, Edvard Munch’s dreadful paean to human angst.

The highlight of the day, however, was Grieg’s villa, a few miles out of town. The great composer had chosen his domain well: the elegant wood-framed house was set in spacious grounds, with stunning views to the hills and across Lake Nordås. Everywhere there were trees. Inge was gathering them outside, like a fussing mother hen.

“Shortly, we are going into Grieg’s fine house, to hear his piano played. He lived here for twenty-two years with his wife, Nina. It was Nina who named the house
Troldhaugen
, the Troll Hill, for it is up here in the mountains that the trolls lived, where the ashes of Grieg and his wife now lie in the cliff above the fjord. You have heard
Peer Gynt
, which, of course, is about Norway’s legends? Peer, you know, is taken by troll maiden to the Hall of the Mountain King, where there is an orgy and, then, these troll girls, they want to kill him, for he is a Christian, but he is being too clever, and so escapes the terrible trolls.”

“There’s no end to them!” whispered Eloise.

“I think we’ve got one conducting the tour,” he remarked, too loudly.

The guide paused, thinking Fraser was asking a question, then proceeded, “Grieg’s grandfather, he came from Aberdeen in Scotland. And so, there are many saying his music is very Scottish, but it is the Norwegian inspiration really, all the hills and the forests. Many Scots they are descended of the Vikings, from when Norway was powerful. Nowadays, we are a peace loving people.”

The cruise around Hardangerfjord proved more rewarding than expected. At Bakke there were Bronze Age carvings, depicting fertility rites, the rocks hollowed out to catch the blood of sacrifice. At Eidfjord was Norway’s largest Viking graveyard, and a fourteenth century church built by one Ragna Asulfdatter to atone, so legend told, for the slitting of her husband’s throat. At Espevær they visited the
Baadehuset
, a stately residence of 1810, said to be haunted by the ghost of its creator, a conscience-stricken naval captain. Best was Øle Bull’s eccentric retreat on the wooded islet of Lysøen. The flamboyant, blue and white wooden villa, with its ornate fretwork and onion dome, was according to their ever-cheery guide the scene, on Bull’s death, of the most magnificent funeral ever witnessed in Norway. It was, nevertheless, with the satisfaction of reaching a long-awaited goal that they arrived, finally, at Rødal.

As they waited in the fine morning rain to be taken to the Barony, Eloise was like a racehorse stamping at the starting tape, keen to find her wartime witness.

“What are you going to say?” Fraser asked. “People are funny about the War, you know, here on the continent. It’s not like in Britain—all those jolly memories of the Blitz! . . . What did you say this bloke’s name was?”

“I didn’t. But it’s Jonas Nielsen . . . Must be well into his eighties.’”

“The family’s still here then?”

“The von Merkens?” Eloise gave him a thoughtful look. “No, no, not anymore. Anders disappeared after the War. No-one ever found out what happened to him. The Barony passed to a distant member of the family in Denmark—an absentee landlord, a playboy. A hideout for his mistresses, basically! After that, it’s the usual story. It fell into disuse, conservationists got going about national heritage, the government stepped in, and now it’s run jointly with the University of Oslo. Everyone who lived and worked on the estate had the option to stay including, presumably, Nielsen.”

The party was chauffeured up to the Barony through rolling park-land by minibus. The house stood in brilliant formal gardens; built of stone, painted white, with grey-tiled roof and mullioned windows; plain, unassuming, functional, yet with an elegant solemnity. It spoke of tradition, stability, of all that was fine and ordered, of continental gravitas; and, whilst calling to mind a baronial house of Scotland, was quintessentially Scandinavian. A park and lake stretched beyond, enclosed by woods. A stark mountain skyline completed the view. Fraser could hardly wait to explore.

First, however, there would be the conducted tour of the house. This he would have been happy to miss; they only had a few hours, and the last thing he felt like was listening to any more babble from the guide.

“It’ll probably only take half an hour,” Eloise protested. “Then you can wander round, and I’ll see if I can find Nielsen.”

The tour lengthened beyond the half hour, beyond three-quarters, beyond an hour. Thankfully, it was not conducted by Inge, who grinned and nodded throughout like a toyshop doll, but by an attractive young woman in her twenties, with brown, intelligent eyes and long blond hair, Solvejg, a heritage student from Oslo University.

“Keep your eyes off, she’s too young for you!” Eloise cautioned, as Fraser smilingly signalled approval of their new chaperone.

Solvejg spoke with an American twang, blending curiously with the Norwegian vowels. Though her command of English was occasionally eccentric, she gave a professional account of herself, and was remarkably knowledgeable, even when asked questions.

Except in one respect: her detailed history of Rødal’s owners, delivered outside in the courtyard, skated hazily over the War, leaving unmentioned its last and most controversial master; though the family’s earlier tenure was lengthily described, and much made of the rakish playboy and the conservation story. All attempts by the inquisitive Eloise to coax her were politely sidestepped behind a bland public relations smile; and by this process of attrition, as the party became increasingly impatient, not helped by Eloise’s insistent donnish manner, the matter dropped.

“Well, what do you expect?” he whispered. “Going on like an intellectual. People hate that! And I told you, continentals don’t like the War!”

Rødal dated from 1665 and was granted the status of barony, the only one in Norway, by King Christian V in 1675. The house itself was extensively rebuilt in 1745 following a terrible fire, attributed by local lore to an ill-advised marriage. The gardens and park were laid out in the 1840s, amidst inhospitable wilderness. The first owner, Ludwig von Merkens, scion of a Danish aristocratic family, had been awarded Rødal for ridding the area of brigands, associated with an ill-reputed nobleman of Swedish ancestry, ousted amidst great bloodshed in 1664. The name of this renegade was Cornelius Lindhorst, descendant of a family going back centuries, linked with all sorts of primitive superstition and atrocious violence. Here their young chaperone had lapsed into a dramatic manner worthy of the garden gnome.