Chapter 6

They marched for eight days and eight nights. As they walked, the Wolf-mother showed Alix useful herbs in their path and taught her how and when to harvest them, and all their uses. When it was time to hunt for their food, she was taken along and shown how to search for prey, how to stalk it and how to kill it. During the nights, bathed in moonlight, she was shown how to wield a blade, how to defend against an attack, and how to disable a knight.

On the morning of the ninth day, the pack came down into a valley, where a grand lake stretched as far as they eye could see. The so-called lost siblings were in full view, proudly guarding everything that they surrounded. The lake was nestled within the two twin mountains, one to the north and one to the south, and to the east it reached for the horizon, its waters mirroring the colour of the sky so effectively that it almost seem to blend into it.

"It's so clear!" a young man's voice said to her right. "Let's get in!"

Alix felt Mountain-Stream run past her, fur tickling the sides of her bare arms. "It's too early. It must be freezing."

"You should give it a try," Magpie approached her from behind, coming to take the space his brother had left empty. As the days had passed what she'd initially examined without rest she now took for granted: the telltale signs of her newfound abilities has become as common to her as the embrace of the dark, tall trees in the night. She didn't flinch at the rumble that emanated from her chest when she spoke, nor she looked too deeply into the sounds the wolves made, trying to find the line that divided them from human speech.

She walked to the shore. The world had gone silent as the wolves dived into the water. Their fur glistened under the gentle morning sun. The sound of the droplets of water hitting the surface of the lake stood out in contrast with the stillness of their surroundings, and it almost seemed to her like a cacophony. She divested herself of her shoes, her skirt, her shirt, her chemise, and left it all in a pile over a rock. Her breath came out in small puffs of steam, but she didn't feel cold or exposed.

Her feet crossed the threshold of the water and she gasped, expecting to feel icy tendrils taking a hold of her veins but finding instead a strange sensation in its place. As she walked into the lake the water began to pull her in, brushing against her skin almost like oil, soft and yet denser than she'd expected. Her brothers were playing in the shallow of the lake, nipping at the splashes of that strange water, but she left them behind and walked deeper until she was fully submerged.

She went in with her eyes closed, but soon found herself having the sudden urge to look above. When she opened her eyes she found herself floating in an inscrutable darkness, as if she'd fallen into the deepest recesses of the lake, where no light could enter. Part of her was gripped by panic, while the other was strangely calm. Something fluttered beyond the edge of her vision and she looked up; and found herself staring at the shimmering waters she'd entered, reflecting like a mirror the night sky.

A voice called to her from beyond the surface, and she swam up. Even if the distance wasn't great, it seemed to take an eternity, as the waters did their damnedest to keep her within their bosom. She fought against the current, against that strange, oily embrace, and finally emerged victorious.

"Yew-child!" Mountain-Stream frantically called her. "Come back!"

She stared, confused, at the small figures that were swimming towards her. The shore seemed so far away… so much more than before her immersion. Her realization brought upon her a new awareness of her body, and she felt like she lost her footing, and suddenly had to fight to stay afloat. The waters were not pulling at her any more, but nevertheless she felt herself sinking. She swallowed the lake's water in her desperation, and it was as if ice slid down her throat, choking her.

Magpie and Mountain-Stream managed to get to her before she sunk. She grabbed onto them and they swam with her back towards the shore, barking reproaches at her the whole while.

"I don't know how I ended up there," she said once they were back on firm ground. She shrank into her own embrace as she felt the air strike her damp body: the cold caused her to break into violent shivers.

"You should put your skin on," advised Magpie. Alix dressed herself again with her discarded clothes, feeling like their texture had gotten rougher. In spite of the warm embrace of the dry fabric, she felt uncomfortable, itchy, as if it was an extra weight she wasn't supposed to carry. Had it always been like that?

"The water felt weird," she said to the wolves, "it wasn't cold. And it felt smooth. Did you feel that?"

"Water is never cold!" yipped Mountain-Stream. "It always feels nice. Have you never been in the water, Yew-child?"

"I have, but only in summer, and even then it's cold…"

They joined the rest of the pack soon after. Wolf-mother accompanied her as they looked for something to eat. The forest was as still as the lake had been, and not a bird was in sight, nor a hare, squirrel or fowl. An hour had passed of them carefully looking for signs of prey when Alix sighed in defeat and turned to Wolf-mother to complain about their situation.

"Life is not always bountiful," the older woman said. "That's why you have to grasp every opportunity when it presents itself."

"It's too strange," Alix insisted. "I haven't heard any bird sing since we arrived at the lake. Everything is too still. It feels like there's something dangerous lurking..."

The woman laughed. "It's us, child. The forest is afraid of our presence. As we get closer to the Garden our footsteps become louder and louder."

Eventually, three unfortunate mice did not heed the forest's warnings and were caught by them. Wolf-mother refused to take her part of the bounty, assuring Alix she'd already eaten, and she just wanted to make sure she was hunting correctly. The girl proceeded then to run back to the two wolves who had now become like her brothers, offering each one of the mice she'd caught. They were so proud of her being able to hunt now that before even accepting the offering they jumped on her to lick her face excitedly, telling her how pleased they were.

"Tonight, we stay," Father told the pack as they settled for the afternoon. Alix welcomed the stop in their march; she needed some rest. She walked around the shore of the lake looking for the herbs Wolf-mother had taught her about, picking some to store in her pouch for later. It was common, the older woman had told her, for the wolves in the pack to feel indigestion, or to feel sick after some food. Some herbs allowed them to either relieve themselves of the pain or purge the bad food: it would be good for her to always have some at hand.

The exercise had her climbing up and down rocks and slopes, and sometimes going up into trees when she could spot some fruit or nut that she could nibble on. By the time the afternoon was waning into evening, she felt tired and sleepy, and went back to the clearing with the rest of the pack to settle down and sleep some.

The sun had long gone by the time she stirred. The cold breeze nudged her awake, as if to tattle on the absence of the warm bodies that had been surrounding her when she fell asleep. Sleep fizzled away quickly from her eyes, her mind becoming alert quickly as she realized that the stillness of the forest was no more. She could hear crickets singing away in the distance, the rustling of leaves as mice and birds went about their business. She stood up and looked around, and despite the darkness she knew that she was alone.

Something tugged at her attention, a familiar smell wafting from the direction of the lake. She moved silently as Wolf-mother had taught her, feet landing gently on the forest floor leaving behind a trail of uneasiness. The lake's waters soon came into view; their brightness as they reflected the full moon reached into the canopy, illuminating the silence behind the line of the trees.

It was as if the sky was looking at itself: the still waters reflected smoothly the great rift of the milky way, each star staring into its own perfect double. Next to the shore, a figure stood submerged to her waist, the dark lines revealing the naked body of who could only be Wolf-mother. She was still amongst the constellations, absorbing into her own darkened figure the glow from the stars around her.

Alix almost called out to her – but before she could open her mouth, Wolf-mother extended her arms. And then, a terrible growl echoed in the night, followed by the echoes of a thousand snarls. Dozens of paws pounded heavily against the ground, crunching leaves, snapping branches, destroying everything in their way. From the trees emerged an army of shadows. Fuzzy spots of black with red glowing eyes, they swarmed into the shore, heading straight for the figure of Wolf-mother. The water splashed cruelly about them, the sound echoing harshly and loudly in Alix's ears. One of them, the first to reach her, leaped with its jaws open and with a sickening crunching sound, it closed around Wolf-mother's head.

Soon the swarm had drowned her body in the darkness. The milky way was broken and dispersed by the ravenous bodies of the wolves. The waters trembled as the black figures, like locusts, bit and tore through their victim, leaving behind a grand dark stain on the surface where no star dared to seek its own reflection.

Horror had taken away Alix's voice. Incapable of doing anything but to try to get away from the harrowing sight, she fled back into the forest. Her agile body ran through the canopy, eyes drinking in the little moonlight that filtered through the top of the trees to find her way in the dark. Her steps were decisive, panicked, silent. She shunned the image of the dark figure crumbling under the weight of the thousand bites. In the distance, behind her, she could hear chatter and murmurs. Someone screamed her name, but she didn't pay heed to it; she kept running, without looking back.

Night slowly waned as she stumbled across a path. She followed it until she reached the threshold that separated the wild forest from a farmer's field. Her steps didn't stop: she ran past the silent hamlet of houses scattered around the hill, hearing the damning cries of a murder of crows accuse her of disturbing their sleep. She awakened dogs, swine, roosters and chickens as she ventured into the small town. She only stopped when she saw the imposing outline of the parish church at the end of the road.

More dogs sensed her presence, and she began hearing more and more desperate cries around her. Soon, she began to sense that their warnings had taken effect as shuffling sounds began to emerge from within the houses of the main street. In front of her, the door of the public house opened, and a man emerged from it in his night robes, carrying a small lamp with him. From behind a fence his dog jumped and barked nervously at her, clearly scared for his master.

"Are you okay, young woman?" asked the inn-keeper. Alix stared at him in fright and took a step back. Behind him, his wife soon emerged from the building, wrapped in a shawl.

"What happened to you?" she said, looking the figure of the girl up and down. "Where is your family?"

Alix's head swam around in confusion. She thought of the wolves at first, images of Wolf-mother and Father, and Mountain-stream and Magpie coming to the forefront of her mind. But then the forest receded and she suddenly felt overly conscious of where she was standing, in that trodden, beaten path, in the midst of stone cottages, feeling the weight of the church bells bringing her back into human skin. She remembered the bodies of her mother and her father, the soldiers that she'd escaped, and the brothers she'd left behind in the forest near her village.

She began to cry, incapable of controlling the surge of emotions. The woman rushed to her side, wrapping her in her shawl, whispering comforting words into her ear. Alix tried to explain, but the words came out jumbled, sharply erupting from her chest. She was taken inside the inn, given a cup of weak ale to drink. When she had no more tears to spill, she looked up to the woman who was holding her and murmured some words of thanks.

The innkeeper and his wife stared at her in bewilderment, and looked at each other. Alix thought she might have been misunderstood and tried to thank them again. She stopped mid sentence when her ear caught up with her words. She wasn't speaking a human language anymore.