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BOOK 1 - WINTER

Women came and went about the square, smiling hi at the old weavers, who had brought their looms out, to work under the pale November sun. Past them, they ignored the compliments from the hunters, having their beer at one of the corners.

No boys in sight. Good. Maybe I’d be able to go get water from the well and be back to Teah’s place without incidents. Just in case, I tugged my sleeves further down and tightened the shawl wrapped around my head, to hide my white hair and as much of my pale face and my purple eyes as possible.

I breathed deep, eyes ahead on the well, and pressed on. But it didn’t matter how much I covered myself. The voices all around soon turned to hostile whispering. That was why I always tried to come to the well at sunrise, when I didn’t come across anybody. But Teah had used all her water on her tests, and she needed more, so there I was, with her two empty buckets, forced to expose my oddities to the whole village. Like I’d chosen to be as I am, or being born as I was.

I filled the buckets in a hurry, keeping my eyes down.

I was almost done when a bunch of boys came around, shouting and playing with their sticks. I walked away as fast as I could without spilling the water. Behind me, the voices of the grownups grew louder and one of the boys threw a stone, that whistled by just an inch away from my head.

“Die, you demon!” the boy yelled.

I kept walking, eyes straight ahead. Two more stones flew by without touching me.

“Abomination!”

“Bloodsucker!”

Several stones hit my back. I could hear them closer. I knew that if they got me, they would surround me to beat me and kick me. Their footsteps sounded like a stampede across the square. I dropped the buckets and sprinted toward the woods.

I tripped just a few feet away from the end of the village and fell to my knees, feeling a thrust of pain from my ankle. The boys pounced on me as I tried to get back to my feet despite the pain. I managed to get away before they caught me and stumbled past the last house. They resorted to throw stones again, pushing me to seek shelter in the woods while they still insulted me at the top off their lungs.

I limped into the woods, my back aching where their stones had hit me. I knew they would linger there, waiting for me with all the stones they could gather, until their mothers called them for dinner. So I didn’t even try to come closer. I would go back to Teah’s after nightfall, when nobody would see me.

I limped further south, following the sound of running water. Soon I reached the river, and walked upstream toward the clearing at the bottom of the cliff.

Water rushed down the ravine in the stone wall stretching out from the hills, and the tall waterfall fell in a shallow pond that gathered in the river that flowed north by the village, feeding the irrigation ditches and the square well.

My ankle ached so bad, the throbbing pain reached my knee. I dropped myself by the pond, pulled my boots off and sank both feet in the cold water, hoping the ankle wouldn’t swell too much.

I bent over to wash my face, bearing the pain as I still tried to catch my breath. It took me a while to stop crying. Those were the times when I wished with all my heart I’d died with my mother, still protected in her womb.

Some would say I should’ve gotten used to the hate and constant abuse after so many years, but there were things I refused to get used to.

The sun was setting, but I wasn’t afraid of being there at night. I was in the heart of the Dale. There was nothing to fear there. And my demon eyes, like they called them, would allow me to find the way back in the dark later on, once I was sure there was nobody ambushed in the alleys, waiting to stone me and beat me up.

I lay back on the grass, overlooking the cold creeping up my body from the freezing water. I slowly calmed down. It was getting dark fast so close to winter. Soon the first stars would show up, until the crescent moon came to outshine them.

It was then that I heard twigs snapping, with the unmistakable rhythm of four legs trotting. I sat up, startled, turning to look to the trail coming down from the cliff. A mountain lion? A bear? I felt around for a stone or a branch to defend myself. Like it would be of any use.

Then I smelled the unique essence of a wolf. I rushed to my feet. If they found me there alone, so late, my father would be in trouble. And I’d get a nice beating.

The lords of the Dale never limited our freedom. But as the guardians of our safety, they didn’t like us to put ourselves in unnecessary danger. Which was exactly what I was doing at night by the pond, where all the animals of the wood came to drink, predators included.

I pulled a handful of sage to brush against my face and hands. I knew I didn’t smell like the other villagers, and maybe I could mask my dull essence to the wolf’s keen nose. Then I jumped head first behind a bush and crouched there, against a tree.

My boots! I’d left them on the bank, in plain sight. I brushed the bush away quietly and reached out. I could hardly touch them, but not grab them. I reached a little further, and I had almost grabbed one when the wolf trotted out from under the trees with an elegant, confident gait despite its huge size, its fur jet black in the closing night.

The boot slipped through my fingers and fell the right way to push the other one into the water before following it down. Darn!

The wolf turned its big head toward me, ears up. I crawled back to stick to the tree and covered my mouth with my hand. They said wolves could hear a beating heart from a good distance. If they did, my heart surely sounded like a rampant drum.

The huge wolf sniffed the air and lowered its head. I held my breath when I saw it arch its back. It trembled from head to tail. The fur shortened and got lighter, turning into human skin before my stunned eyes. It rose on its hind legs and straightened up fully transformed into a man.

I covered my face, shaking in fear. It was forbidden to see a wolf in their human shape without their permission. And Teah had once suggested that watching them change was punished with death. I was wiping my tears when I heard him dive into the pond.

I kept my head down, my hand covering my eyes, my heart beating in my throat and my chest burning out of sheer terror. He would surely smell my fear and track me down. So I didn’t want him to find me spying on him.