The Heart of the Lone Wolf (6 page)

The Wanderer fell back on the sofa, trans fixed by what he’d found. He was surprised at the condition. Even after more than thirty years, it was healthy and plump, pink and fresh, the heart of a young girl when it was taken. Given the nature of the woman it came from, he would have expected it to be rancid and withered. The tissue was tender when he picked it up, the light aroma wafting to his nostrils. The sweetness made him swoon and the Wanderer brought it to his mouth to take a bite.

He stopped, horri fied by the urge. Yet he still had to force himself to set the heart down on the table. Then his craving began with a pain worse than hatred. His hollow pulsated with a hunger he never imagined possible, longing pressed against his ribs and drained his innards. The pink heart lying motionless and quiet looked so tender. He knew the taste would be delicious.

“What am I thinking?” he cried out. “Nothing could be more repulsive!”

The Wanderer doubled over, clutching his middle. The unseen assault on his belly squeezed without mercy, causing him to retch until there was nothing inside but bile. His hollow pulsated harder, spreading that need until there wasn’t any part of him that didn’t starve for that heart on the table. The agony was relentless and the Wanderer crashed to the floor. But there was no relief from the pitiless longing. He remembered her heart was already dead and that she’d given it up long ago.

“She’s going to eat my heart,” he growled. “Why shouldn’t I eat hers?”

The Wanderer had never hated anybody until he met her. He remembered the

night she sent him away. Again, he was overcome with that impulse to lunge for the kill, even though she wasn’t present and he was no longer a wolf. He could still see the icy wrath in her eyes as she’d held him off, not a trace of fear in those depths.

“If you kill me Wanderer,” she’d said that night. “Then what do you have?”

His hand shook as he reached for the heart. He knew his craving would be

satis fied as soon as he fed. He knew he would kill her. But that couldn’t be wrong. She was a predator.

Then the pulsating shifted into a throbbing that made the Wanderer howl. He rolled on his back and craned his head, staring up the tunnel where the whirlwind of blinking, spinning colors nearly drove him out of his senses. But he looked past them to the sky thick with the clouds of a coming storm, and beseeched the heavens beyond.

“Please, make it stop! How do I make it stop?”

He almost sobbed at the answer.

“Listen to your heart…”

It wasn’t just the voice of the Shepherd he heard. The mellow tenor blended with the depth of his grandfather’s voice, both harmonizing with the low alto of Ella Bandita.

Their collective voices made the most beautiful song he ever heard, their words in tune with the sound of his heart beating a soothing rhythm in the background.

Boom-boom…boom-boom…boom-boom…

Then the craving was gone. The throbbing faded in slow waves, making room for his pulse to echo inside him from far away. The Wanderer lay on the floor of the Caverns, catching his breath and allowing his relief to cleanse him. His heartbeat was louder and the resonance went deeper inside him. He was surprised Ella Bandita should intrude on his thoughts in such a moment, and tried to push her image away. But his resistance only served to drown his heartbeat with throbbing. He surrendered and let the memories flow.

Boom-boom…boom-boom…boom-boom…

He relived the animal lust he had for Ella Bandita, her hostility and silent ostracism when he refused to leave. He saw again the blank tension in her face, and those moments when her composure crumbled from pain. He remembered the look in her eyes that day at the pool, and her fingers letting go, dropping the crystal stargaze in the pile of clothes. Then came the days they spent making love, her long moans tinged with agony and the hungry ferocity of her glare.

“You are one lucky fool, Wanderer. You’re the luckiest fool I’ve ever seen.”

Boom-boom…boom-boom…boom-boom…

Then he realized the craving he endured for a few minutes was the same that she suffered in his presence all the time. He went back to the day he woke up to find her gone. But she left behind two dangling squirrels, skinned and ready to fry with his hash, and a fire that still burned when he came outside. The Wanderer remembered, and could hardly pull himself off the floor he was so ashamed. He sat down on the sofa and looked again at the heart resting on velvet. He was no longer hungry.

“I am so sorry,” he whispered. “Please forgive me.”

Boom-boom…boom-boom…boom-boom…

He recalled how his heart pulsed in her hand after Ella Bandita stole it, and frowned at the one lying still and quiet before him. He tried to think of a time the Bard told a story about how Ella Bandita came to be. But there was none. The Wanderer stared at the heart. If he could listen to his, maybe he could also listen to hers.

“Why don’t you tell me your story?” he murmured.

The Wanderer cradled the heart against his breast and settled back into the sofa.

He caressed it in a steady rhythm, reassuring the heart to take all the time she needed.

When she was ready to talk, he promised to listen. He thought something pushed against his fingers, but couldn’t be certain she moved. So he continued to give comfort. A wondrous sense of peace came over him, much like the way he had felt that night on the wharf when he surrendered to his grief and let go. Yet this was different, the Wanderer grew softer, his hollow swelling with something he couldn’t name. The sentiment was warm and gentle, and he kept stroking until he knew the vibration was consistent and the heart in his arms beat again.

Boom-boom…boom-boom…boom-boom…

“I can still feel her screaming.”

The Wanderer sat up. It was the voice of a young girl he heard in his mind. He couldn’t believe her heart had actually spoken to him.

“Tell me more,” he said. “How did you come to be here?”

Sometimes the mind forgets, but the heart will always remember.

I remember her screaming. Her cries squeezed me tight as she pushed me out, the screaming that went on without end. Then my mother brought me into the world and froze. I knew she’d slipped into the land of death from her silence. I wouldn’t cry when the midwife spanked me because I didn’t want to disturb her passing with my fear.

And I was afraid.

Then I remember his howling, his anguish shaking the walls of the house. I went to sleep and woke up to the sound of my father’s despair for a week. When I was old enough, the Cook told me the entire village was stricken from his grief.

A week and a day passed before I met him. The midwife thought it best to wait a day after he stopped his bellowing before she presented me to him. I don’t remember my father’s face from that morning, but I remember his smell. It hurt to breathe him in, for he held the odor of old sweat, musty clothes, and sorrow. He didn’t touch me, but I’ll never forget his first words.

“Look at those monkey features,” he said. “I’ll be stuck with her forever, she’s so ugly.”

I didn’t understand his meaning, but those words cut through me and I almost cried. The midwife pulled me close with her protective good intentions and calmed me enough that I did nothing more than whimper. She had a kind soul, the midwife. She stayed longer to care for me in those first weeks and probably kept me alive. Even if it was pity that moved her, she gave me the comfort I needed. I can still feel her warmth.

Then the Cook woke up to the miracle of a baby in the house without a mother, and the midwife was dismissed. The Cook had been married to one of the tenant farmers, but he cast her out when she did not bear him a child. That’s when she came to work for my father. People say she had been a pretty woman when she was young, but grieving the loss of her husband and the ghosts of children who would never be, she grew larger every year. By the time I came along, she was huge. I remember how her flesh smothered whenever she played with me on top of her belly, rolling me amongst the mounds. I never liked her and I don’t believe she liked me any better. But I gave her something she always wanted and she took good care of me.

My father made certain I was cared for. Besides the Cook, I had my own personal maid from the time I could walk, and there wasn’t a servant in the house who wouldn’t attend to any need I expressed. He hired both a Tutor and a Duenna, thus giving me the finest education for boys as well as girls.

My Duenna taught me to read and write, the classical arts, and all the languages of the continent. After my twelfth birthday, she changed her instruction to the dress, manners, carriage, and etiquette expected of highborn young ladies. She had the straightest back I’d ever seen, her graying hair always in a tight knot at the apex of her skull. She was a demanding taskmaster and I resisted these lessons the most. I preferred studying with my Tutor. He was young, but womanish. He spoke in a soft voice, his eyes limpid behind his spectacles. But he had a passion for knowledge. His lessons were far more interesting – history, astronomy, philosophy, and math. He never criticized how I held my head. He was only concerned with my understanding.

The Duenna disapproved of the Tutor, but that was tri fling compared to how she felt about my riding. But I had already started before she came. Papa had hired a gentle, patient man to lead a pony for me when I was only three years old. But I wanted to ride that pony, and it wasn’t long before I was cantering the animal without any help. The stable hand claimed I had that rare gift with horses and that his service was no longer needed, but Papa decided he would be well suited to lead the unruly boys who worked in the barn. So the stable hand gained a new post and I was left to ride horses as I pleased.

By the time I was ten years old I only rode the stallions. I sat in a lady’s sidesaddle as I’d been taught, but that didn’t stop me from running them as fast as they could go.

The Duenna absolutely loathed that and she wasn’t alone. As much respect as my father commanded, he was openly criticized for allowing me to ride the way I did.

“She rides better than you,” he would say with a shrug. “She rides better than us all. So how can you claim she shouldn’t?”

Of all that Papa gave me, I cherished that freedom the most. From the first time I sat in a saddle, I had a kinship with horses that can’t be described with words. These powerful animals would do whatever I wished. The thing I remember most was the sense of disappearing, dissolving into nothing when my horse was running. To forget myself in rhythm and motion was pure feeling, and to live without it was unthinkable.

My Duenna gave me formal lessons in storytelling through literature, but she couldn’t compare to the Cook. That woman loved to talk and her gift for storytelling almost made me adore her. I grew up hearing all about the mystical and fantastic every night, the Cook sending me into the land of dreams with tales about dragons, devils and witches, fallen heroes and distressed maidens. But the tales she told about the Sorcerer of the Caverns and his taste for virgin girls gave me nightmares every time she spoke of him. The Sorcerer was our very own villain. The oldest woods and longest valley in this region had been forbidden for centuries because of him. Nobody knew where he came from, but the Ancient Grove and the Abandoned Valley became his domain once he was here.

I knew one of the girls he brought to ruin. She was the elder daughter of the merchant who owned a clothing shop, bringing fashions to the village from the city. Her younger sister was my age and in my Sunday school, which was the only time I had to spend with other children. Both daughters thought they were above everybody, and the younger sister put on airs in class.

The younger sister didn’t like me nor did her friends, but at least they left me in peace. The butcher’s son wasn’t so fortunate. He was shy and spoke in such a weak voice he was scarcely heard, and the others tormented him mercilessly. I had no friends amongst them, but that didn’t bother me because I didn’t like them at all. I thought they were stupid and cruel, their high spirits and giddy laughter when they ran around proved that they were fools.

Papa knew I didn’t do so well with my Sunday school group, and sometimes he allowed me to ride to church on my own. I always picked the fastest stallion and arrived running the beast at a full gallop. Whenever I had the chance, I’d rein to a stop right before a group of kids I’d be in class with later. Their cheeks drained of color every time I did that, and I savored the fear in their eyes. They didn’t dare treat me the way they treated the butcher’s son. I was the Patron’s daughter. Of course, Papa always punished me. I’d lose the privilege of riding to church for scaring the other children, but only for a short while.

Even though I didn’t know her well, it made me sad when the Sorcerer got to the elder daughter of the fashion merchant. She was barely sixteen when she fell to ruin, and she was a beauty with her black hair and blue eyes, ivory skin and roses in her cheeks.

She was a fanciful type with too much pride. That’s probably how the Sorcerer lured her in. She disappeared at the peak of spring when I was ten years old and she was gone for several days. Her sister looked sullen at church that Sunday and barely spoke a word in school. That was the last time I saw her and I never saw her older sister again. She was finally found with the mark of the Sorcerer— the look of knowing in her eyes and a pulse gone silent— or so the Cook said when she told me all about it. Her family left the village soon after.

But my favorite stories from the Cook were about my mother. I knew my mother was a beautiful lady from her portrait, but it was through stories that I learned of her sensuous nature, her fluid grace, her taste for re fined pleasures, and her ethereal charm.

The Cook’s details were so vivid she brought my mother back to life in a sense.

Sometimes I thought I saw her roaming around the house, dancing in the western parlor with her skirts sweeping the air, or strolling through the garden with her head thrown back when she inhaled the scent of her favorite flowers. I devoured these tales about her.