"Ha ha!" I said, my voice and face cracking. "Glad I"m not the only one to have had some sort of mental break-down!"
She shook her head and grimaced with the pain. "It"s worse than you think," she said. "You shouldn"t be joking."
"Mm," I said, and shivered. I hadn"t been joking. I hadn"t even meant to laugh. The cold ate into me. "Oh G.o.d, Jennifer. I"m so sorry," I said. "I"m sorry about the outhouse. I"m sorry about crushing you in the door. I"m sorry about your leg and everything and I just don"t know what to think." even meant to laugh. The cold ate into me. "Oh G.o.d, Jennifer. I"m so sorry," I said. "I"m sorry about the outhouse. I"m sorry about crushing you in the door. I"m sorry about your leg and everything and I just don"t know what to think."
There was a silence.
"Is that an explanation?" she asked, eventually.
I looked back down again, focused on the dim sheen of moisture covering a cobble. "No. An apology."
"Would you be apologising if I was still locked in that little cell?"
"You attacked me."
"Anger does funny things to you," she said. "And I can"t help but wonder what you were planning to do with that axe if I hadn"t got out. Maybe crush my skull. Or sever my neck."
"I hadn"t thought that far ahead," I said. "Jennifer. Why didn"t you just kill me before I had the chance to lock you up? Why aren"t you killing me now?"
"I wouldn"t have killed you!" She shook her head again, exasperatedly. She had stopped crying now, and didn"t seem to be in so much pain. The bleeding had stopped. "There are so many fundamental things that you don"t understand. When I am human, I am human. I only change into the wolf when I choose to."
"You made the deal?" I asked. "You gave them your your soul?"
"Of course I did," she said. "You should have seen it, Jack, down by the lake. All of the music and dancing and the drinking and the laughing, and all of the s.e.x. The honesty. To be able to control it it"s a gift, Jack. Not to mention easier. Imagine how you"d feel if you came to one morning and found you"d been out killing people. If you"d made the deal, then you would have known what you were doing and you wouldn"t feel guilty. If you hadn"t well." drinking and the laughing, and all of the s.e.x. The honesty. To be able to control it it"s a gift, Jack. Not to mention easier. Imagine how you"d feel if you came to one morning and found you"d been out killing people. If you"d made the deal, then you would have known what you were doing and you wouldn"t feel guilty. If you hadn"t well."
"So why didn"t you kill me?" I asked. "If you could could change shape at any moment? If you wouldn"t suffer any guilt?"
"Why would I have killed you? I had no reason to kill you."
"For the house."
"I already had the house."
"But-" I couldn"t think of anything to say. A kind of heat emanated from within, like the precursor to some sort of life-changing wave of relief. "But so we"re OK? You can stay human if you want to?"
"I don"t know how human I feel right now," she said. "When I am human I am human, but you have hardly treated me like a human being, have you?" She showed sharp teeth through a humourless smile. "Besides. I don"t think this is over yet."
I took a step backwards.
"You"re trembling like an injured kitten, Jack," she said. "I used to have a kitten. It was one week old and tried to eat the food we put out for the dog. The dog didn"t even see the thing as he went to eat his food; just bit through it. His tooth went straight into the kitten"s eye. You"ve never seen such shaking. Was it fear or pain or brain injury, do you think, Jack? The end when we see it is a pitiful, trembling thing." injury, do you think, Jack? The end when we see it is a pitiful, trembling thing."
"I don"t understand," I said.
"Nothing to understand. It"s just a story."
"If you"re going to kill me, let me ask some questions first."
"You"re shaking, Jack," she said. "Why are you shaking? I"m not going to kill you. I"d have to wait for my leg to grow back, and that"ll be hours yet."
"Why did you say Balthazar opened the door?" The pain in my head.
"There is another world," she said. "He is a part of it. He is here, now. Look."
I followed the direction of her pointing finger to look behind me, and sure enough I saw the sad-faced mound of snow. Balthazar. He lifted a cold, numb arm, slowly, to wave.
"The house," I said.
"Belongs to our world," she said. "The other world. It is that simple. It is our house. Our kind have always been here. The Lord built it and it is His house and it shall be His house forever."
"The Lord," I said.
"He will take your soul in return for the gift," she said. "Or send somebody else to do it for Him. You know who He is. Even if you haven"t met Him yet."
"What do you mean when you say "soul"?" I asked.
"I don"t really know," she shrugged. "But I don"t miss it."
"Not yet," I said.
"I won"t ever miss it," she said. "How can you miss what you never knew you had?"
"What about Taylor?" I asked.
"Taylor made the deal too."
"Kenny," I said.
"Took me and bit me and we f.u.c.ked."
"But he"s a creep," I said. "You"re so much better than that."
"Sure, as a human he"s a creep," she said. "Time and misery and guilt had made his human aspect a creep. But when we"re wolves wolves, Jack. You have no idea what it"s like. Pure physicality. Pure emotions. No mediation, no guilt, no worry, no politics. All of us, when we"re wolves, are beautiful."
"You weren"t a wolf when we found you," I said.
"We were lost. We didn"t know what we were by that point."
I looked around at the mist. After a short while, I said, "Erin."
"Francis ate her."
"And Francis?"
"Francis loved me," she said. "But I didn"t love him back. Before you ask."
"You just f.u.c.ked him."
"Yeah," she said. "And now I miss him. And I miss Erin too."
From out on the fellside, the faint sound of a fiddle drifted.
"How can I make it better?" I asked.
She looked down and shook her head. "I have to be honest, this isn"t how I imagined things would end up. I don"t think you can make it better now."
"Jennifer," I said. "I"m sorry."
"I know," she said. "So"m I."
"One more question."
"What?"
"The Leaping," I said.
She looked up at me and shook her head slightly, narrowing her eyes. "I don"t know," she said. "What"s that?"
"The Leaping!"
"No," she said. "I"ve never heard of it."
"It"s terrible," said a wet voice from behind me, and I turned, and saw that Balthazar was standing next to us. He was tall and bulky and looked ill, because his head was too big and was covered in strange lumps. "It"s a contest. And woe betide the loser." He nodded at me, slowly.
"Why are you helping me?" I said.
"You both helped build me, after all," he said. "Helping you now is the least I can do. So listen to me: go. You both have to go now. As fast as Jennifer is able. I don"t know if you can escape it. But you have to try. You must."
"OK," I said. "Thank you." I went over to Jennifer to help her up, but she waved me away.
"We have to change," she said. "I"ll be faster that way."
"Won"t you attack me again?"
"Not if I don"t want to."
I didn"t say anything.
"Thank you, Balthazar," she said. "Now, Jack. You just close your eyes and let all the fear rise up. And let your-self grow, transform and shift. Break open. Split. Splinter. Crack and rupture. Open up and burst. Mutate. Fall apart. Change."
It rose up out of the earth and into me, ancient, like G.o.d.
Falling apart.
Coming back to myself, I realised that I felt badly put together inside. I tried to stand and choked with the pain, only managing to get half-way up. I felt something lodged behind my ribs, something restricting my breathing, and it was heavy and sticking into my lungs. I hit myself on the chest again and again, trying to dislodge it. I tried to stand a little straighter and felt it slip and fall into my abdomen, where it felt right. The pain eased and I stood up tall. I thought it was my stomach. And I knew that couldn"t be right, couldn"t really be medically possible, but the science that governed such things had been lifted from me and now I had this new freedom. No longer bound by natural law.
"Jennifer," I said, as she changed back beside me. I helped her up and she stood with her right arm around my shoulders. Her leg was coming back, but was not nearly fully grown yet. I thought back to the werewolf we had captured on the fellside. Maybe the speedy regeneration came with time. There was so much to look forward to.
I looked around and we were still in cloud, on a shallow rocky slope, still on the fell, or at least one of the fells, or at least still on rocky slope, still on the fell, or at least one of the fells, or at least still on a a fell, for I had no way of knowing how far we had run. The clouds there were not clouds so much as grey skies that just came down low. The whole world might have been beneath that cloud. fell, for I had no way of knowing how far we had run. The clouds there were not clouds so much as grey skies that just came down low. The whole world might have been beneath that cloud.
I wished I could remember how it felt to be the wolf, to be truly powerful and free. But that memory loss didn"t stop the steadily increasing flow of warmth and relief and hot light from flooding through me, growing inside me. I started laughing again, happy, relieved, happy, immortal! And Jennifer was still there, still with me, despite everything, and even if she left me, then maybe I would cross her scent on some gra.s.sy hillside on some summer"s day a hundred years from now or maybe a long-forgotten mossy pathway through deep green woodland where only the animals go. We could run together through the rocks, the fells, the rivers, the firs, the pines, the evergreens, the snow, the driving rain, the never-ending sun, the day, the night, the dark, the fells, the meadows, the flowers like stars in the earth, beautiful red deserts, the night above us, stars like wolves in the sky, great burning wolves with white fiery eyes howling between solar systems. We would run over the great plains, ancient and n.o.ble and wise and cruel and everlasting, and we would make love for days, bodies locked together, molten and eight-legged and snarling and animal, making love with the northern lights above us. We would run with our pack, hundreds of us, thousands, swarming over the forested peaks and the misty valleys and the bleak moors and the red deserts and the great plains and the verdant meadows and the green fields and the frozen rivers and the sleepy villages. We would howl and the sleepy villagers would rise up and join us and we would take on the towns and the cities and the IF NOT YOU, WHO? graffiti and the IF NOT NOW, WHEN? graffiti and the towering offices like old G.o.ds made of gla.s.s and stone. There would be snapped wires and broken windows and blood in the gutters and all things running through the streets and overturned cars and burning horizons and blackouts over and over again and then the dark. And we would move on. And I would run by Jennifer"s side. And she by mine. great plains and the verdant meadows and the green fields and the frozen rivers and the sleepy villages. We would howl and the sleepy villagers would rise up and join us and we would take on the towns and the cities and the IF NOT YOU, WHO? graffiti and the IF NOT NOW, WHEN? graffiti and the towering offices like old G.o.ds made of gla.s.s and stone. There would be snapped wires and broken windows and blood in the gutters and all things running through the streets and overturned cars and burning horizons and blackouts over and over again and then the dark. And we would move on. And I would run by Jennifer"s side. And she by mine.
And sometime, somewhere, would be the Leaping. The Leapings.
And the dancing, and the stars, and the trees, and the snow, and the fires, and the wolves, and the Lord, and the fiddle and the pack and the clean air and the clean earth and the open sky at night.
That was the world that we would usher in.
Taylor was sitting on a rock just in front of us, drifting in and out of my vision. He was tall and crooked. He had put his suit back on. His face was human although it stretched backwards, pulled backwards, and swept up into two black and pointed ears that protruded from the top of his head. Wolfish ears. His legs were crossed and he rested his right elbow on his right knee and his chin on his right fist. In his left hand he held some sort of ball and he was looking at it.
"Taylor," I said, my voice faint. "Taylor."
"Jack," he said. "Jack and Jennifer."
"Where are we?" I said.
"The sh.o.r.e," Taylor said. "We are on the sh.o.r.e."
"Of what?"
"Of the lake," he said. "What else?"
"Taylor," I said. "I had a dream about Erin."
He was silent for a long time.
"What kind of dream?"
"You know what kind of dream." Another long silence. The mist obscured him and then revealed him. The ground was wet and the stones shone.
"That kind of dream," he said.
"Yeah," I said. "But I don"t think dreams mean that much. I don"t think they mean anything whatsoever."
"I don"t know if what we think matters at all," Jennifer said.
"I just thought I should tell you." I turned to Jennifer. "I just thought I should tell him."
"I wish you hadn"t," she said.
"Erin was with me not too long ago," Taylor said. "Her ghost."
"What happened to her?" Jennifer asked.
"She moved on," Taylor said. "The ghosts move on."
"Where to?" I asked.
"How would I know that?" He looked at me and even through the pale haze his eyes glinted.