"The Maiden and The Wolf"
[EDIT from the future: Finally Illustrated and Elaborated]
"Your birthday will be soon, in a few days time - aren't you excited?"
"Yes, Mama," she said blushing, scratching behind her ear. She snapped greenbeans into her bowl. The two them in their chairs with broad bowls in their laps, chairs her father had made with his own hands. He was away fishing. She knew he had taken the long way to the lake in order to pass neighboring homes; he would be inviting all he met to come for her birthday. Such celebrations were hardly secret and she squirmed in her seat, tapping her feet in happy anticipation.
Her mother glanced over, "I can see that, and you know we're going to be busy around here getting things ready. I think it would be a good time for you to finally visit your grandmother, and to stay with her until then."
The young girl paused in surprise. Her mother nodded, watching her own nimble fingers. "You're a young woman now; you can travel the woods alone. Besides, she would want to see you before your big day and she won't be able to make the trip here herself. It would be best for you go." She said this last with a tone of finality.
"Your brother will manage your chores."
---
She packed a napkin with bits of hard food and folded it into her sleeves. She took her father's walking stick and her mother's greatcloak. Her brother gave her his small collection of found flint arrowheads. She ruffled his tangled hair and kissed them all before leaving. Her mother pressed a folded letter into her hand, "Give this to her when you arrive. Stop for nothing." She held her gaze and peered into her daughter's open young face, fixing the image to memory.
Her father then braced her shoulders and smiled behind his shaggy moustache, "We'll see you soon, my love. You'll come back a foot taller, I just know it." His eyes twinkled. "Stay to the path."
Her brother tugged at her sleeve and hugged her tightly. "Please, hurry back. Mama said we can't have any of the cakes until you do." She whispered to him, "I'll share mine with you for doing my work."
Her family stood apart from her and waved. She looked back once before leaving the dusty yard at the edge of the forest. Her family stood small against a small house. A goat, some hens, an ax in the stump and split wood piled neatly. A garden. Gathering the thick tatters about her, she entered the wooded briars.
---
And was immediately swallowed up by the gloom. Above, the rustling canopy blocked out the sun, and all around her, even back along the way she came, the gnarled trunks crowded so thickly that she could see nothing but shifting, mossy gray bark. Small creatures darted ahead of her. Shapeless birds brushed by her ears. She pulled up her hood and kept her eyes to the path. It wasn't much of one, largely overgrown and patchy. She would follow the bare trail for a few paces and then look around to see where it picked up again. A few times she felt as though she had strayed, but then just beyond the next rotting log she would find the thread again.
As she picked her way through the brambles, her long cloak kept catching on thorns until she finally tore the low hem away into strips. She tied these around her hands and fingers to protect them. Still she bled from a hundred scratches. But she was away from home for the first time and so this was unimportant. She slipped on slick leaves and into sinkholes until she learned to use the walking stick to feel her way along.
Night came to the woods before the sun had even fully set and she considered stopping to rest. Her feet hurt, her legs ached, her knuckles stung with sweat and scars. Nearby was a stone under a sprawling oak. She was exhausted, but there she could sit and eat. As soon as she thought this, it was impossible to consider otherwise. Making her way to the boulder, she pulled out her napkin and leaned against the large stone, aching and sore. She had no idea how far she had come, nor how far she had left to go. Previously, when with her parents, the trip to visit her Grandmother was a pleasant day's journey. She recalled a broad well-worn path through these same woods and the view from her father's shoulders when he sometimes carried her. It was a sunny place then; full of flashing cardinals and butterflies and berries by the wayside.
Nothing like this. At least she wouldn't starve, she thought, unfolding the cloth. However, no sooner had she done so than two great shadows swooped down and startled her. It was a pair of crows. They squawked vigorously, pilfering the hunk of cheese and the black bread she had so carefully packed. Before she knew it, up they flapped with her meal. But they didn't fly away, instead they circled above her taunting and cackling.
Quick as a flash, she felt for her pouch and selected the largest sharp stone. She took aim and flung it, striking a crow out of the air. It dropped the bread it was carrying and the two birds then rose higher and away into the treetops, cawing and crying indignantly. "We'll be back fore yer bones, whelp!" She grinned and ran to where the bread had fallen. She crouched there in the underbrush and ate, hidden, ravenous, but wary now of any other eyes watching from above.
She was so busy gnawing at the quarter-loaf and looking out for the returning crows, that she didn't see the figure approaching from below until it was upon her. It was impossibly large and blotted out a massive shadow against dim dappled moonlight. How had such a thing crept up so close?
"An impressive throw," it growled lowly, by way of introduction. She yelped and fell back, stumbling. She turned over and scrambled at first on all fours, then to her feet, dashing back to the path, her cloak snagging and tearing all the way by brambles. It followed her; noisy, crashing behind her and snapping branches to splinters, thundering the earth at her heels. She reached the bare little line of dirt that marked the path, and it seemed even more dubious in the dark like this; less like a path than a chance gap between thornbushes.
The dark beast drew up short and reared over her, close enough for her to smell its dank earthy scent, rich as freshly turned loam. She caught sight of millipedes and gleaming black beetles seething among its bristles. Moss hung from its craggy haunches and rolling shoulders, each broad as bulls. It was the Wolf. He narrowed his yellow eyes and grinned toothily at her gasp of recognition.
"Yes, you know me. I've seen you before, here along the path holding your father's hand." He crouched before her and dug his claws into the dirt and rotting leaves, stretching languidly. He cleaved great furrows into the forest floor. She saw hanging from his mouth was her walking stick, small as a toothpick in its maw. He plucked it from his muzzle and gingerly placed it at her feet, "And I've heard what he's told you about me."
"To stay on the path, or the Wolf...y-you...would eat me." She shuddered but stared back evenly. Bending quickly she retrieved the staff and held it with both hands. The worn wood was still hot from his breath and she shivered as she curled her fingers around where his lips had been.
He rose and prowled around her slowly, placing his heavy paws delicately and stepping over the path with care not to touch it. Moving, the beast shed vermin off its hide like overripe fruit. Rank fetid breath curled into the air in hot moist blasts. He was steaming all over. He brushed against the thick ancient trees and they groaned and creaked but yielded as though flimsy green saplings. He noddded his head, large as a planet, and ground his terrible teeth, "And I still may. This path is merely a courtesy I extend to your kind."
"You lie! My father told me that you are forbidden to touch the path and those upon it," she pulled deeper into her cloak and coughed, gagging on his scent of rich woody decay. Weeds and wildflowers bloomed along the soil of his flanks, then were quickly consumed by a thousand caterpillars. The great Wolf circled her like this once before waggling his rump to make room and sitting down beside her. He came down with a loud boom and flatted small trees beneath him. He crossed his heavy forepaws and lowered his head to see her more closely. Leaves drifted around them like falling ashes and the forest grew quiet, holding its breath.
"Your father is a good man, and I see that he cares for you to tell you such things. It is comforting for a child to think this, but the way of the world is not the way of your small yard and smaller home. And this feeble scratch in the dirt that you follow so dutifully is no haven; it won't protect you from what lives in these woods."
"I was fine until I left it for the comfort of that rock beneath the oak. I was going to rest there and eat, but no sooner had I stepped off the path than those crows attacked me."
"I saw all that - most amusing. 'Fine' you say? Oh no, my dear. You've had hungry admirers ever since you first set foot in these woods. However, I persuaded them to leave you be. You see, it is not the path that protects you here: I do," he lowered his eyes humbly.
"But you're monstrous!" She exclaimed and he chuckled, growling into a shaking laughter. He rolled onto his side and thumped his giant tail, pounding the earth. The trees trembled, dropping leaves and dust and rats and snakes. Old limbs finally snapped, tumbling to the ground. It seemed as if the floor itself would split open and swallow them all as he laughed heartily, rattling her bones.
"How reasonable you make that sound," he chortled, finally calming and licking foam from his chops. His mouth was a cave of endless stony teeth.
The girl looked back down the path and then around her, scanning the darkness for any other threats, predators and the like. But she had seen nothing all day beside startled small creatures.
"I don't believe you. I don't believe you, and you are keeping me from my journey. Goodbye," She hoped that sounded unafraid and serious. She tried to sound like her mother but she was grateful the cloak hid her quivering. She set out purposefully, her stick before her, feeling the way.
The Wolf sprawled onto his back and bared his throat, belly, and loins. Moths and fireflies swarmed through the rising mist off his body.
He called after her, "Are you going home, then?"
She stopped and looked around, it did seem familiar, but it was so hard to tell now. She scowled and returned, passing him without looking and walking in the other direction. He grunted as she passed, still on his back, his paw idly scratching burrowed moles from his stomach.
He called after her, "That way's no good either, this isn't the same path you know. You've left it and now all ways look the same."
"If you aren't going to eat me, leave me alone. You frighten me and now that I am lost that is a distraction I cannot afford."
Behind her the wolf crumbled into a grassy pile as if he had never been, soft mushrooms already forming around the edges. He roused himself from the earth next to her as if, beneath the rotting leaves, he had been there all along. He shook himself free of debris and flung worms from his ears.
"I eat everyone eventually."
---
But she seemed to amuse him and he accompanied her through the woods the rest of that night. She did not want this at first, and ignored him, keeping her fear to herself and her eyes on the increasingly useless path. It forked as it had not done before.
"Where does that way lead?" She asked abruptly.
He shrugged, "Where are you going?"
She had not said and so he did not know. She learned two things: he was not a god and she now had a secret.
"Can't you see beyond this forest?"
"There is no world beyond this forest."
"But you've seen my family before, and other travellers?"
"Yes."
"If we just pass through this forest of yours; where do you think we come from, and where do you think we go?"
"You avoid my question."
"So do you."
And he was a wolf then, perhaps as large as an ox and muddy about the paws, but a wolf just the same, and simply so. She was not afraid of him and he was no longer fearful. As she watched, he flinched and scratched at parasites. There were scars about his body and he looked hungry. The trees were blocking sunlight again, not the weak moonlight from before and she could see that he made a rather pathetic figure. Recalling his initial presence, she wondered if it had been a dream.
"We should go this way."
---
They travelled in awkward silence. He avoided the path still, but kept pace with her. Occasionally he would stop, alert to something she couldn't see and sniffing the air. Then he would dart off straight as an arrow out of sight. She heard growling and savagery that frightened her. But each time he would return just the same, a little torn about the ears, panting and slackjawed. He grinned wearily to her with bloody fangs. "It was nothing, let us continue."
At intersections and forks in the path, they took turns selecting which way to go. He seemed to know, himself, but respected her instincts to choose as well and never questioned her decision. He didn't again ask her where she was going. She didn't ask him how he became so small. They travelled together for many miles that day.
In the end, he was about the size of a large dog. When he ran ahead to confront these things only he could see, he stayed away longer and longer each time and came back looking more and more ragged. It was her decision to stop for the night when she worried he might not survive another encounter.
They made to rest where the way split again. She had never again left the path and intended to camp on the road itself. He caught a rabbit and devoured it close to her. She ate berries she had picked along the way and watched him scratch and lick his wounds, her own itching in sympathy. He did not want her berries, and she did not want his game, but with a sharp stone and some care she plucked the ticks from his hide and used a stick to clean his ears. She spread her cloak on piled leaves and they slept soundly together, exhausted.
---
In the morning he was gone. She woke to the rustling of feathers and sat up to see two crows on the ground staring at her. One had dried and matted blood on its face.
"Rawk! Pretty thing you are," screeched one.
"We said we'd be back fer your bones," cried the other.
They shuffled closer, hopstepping as birds do, with menace in their voices. She saw that one held a dagger. They meant to intimidate her, snapping their beaks in the air. She rose, bare, her walking stick lay out of reach, her flints as well. She curled her fingers into fists; these were bullies, but she was older now. She had her own scars and her family to think of.
"I chased you off before, you are both fools for returning." They circled her, sizing her up.
"That wasn't you, we left because of him. And now he's gone because of us," said one.
"Though you helped weaken him," cawed the other. They both cackled at this. She lunged for the one with no blade, the one she had wounded before. It squawked in surprise and lept for the air, but she had her fingers in its feathers now and pulled it to the ground with a strength she had not known she possessed. They had puffed up their feathers to seem larger, but were truly quite frail. Under her rage thin avian bones snapped and the bird complained in agonized surprise. She put her knees to its chest and hooked her fingers inside its beak, prying it wide as if to tear the spread face open completely. It squealed and thrashed about, bucking and slapping its wings. Her strength came more easily than she reckoned and she could feel the jaw giving way.
"Drop your knife or you're next," she bellowed over the bird's struggle.
The other crow did so, dumbly, aghast.
"Stop it, yer killin' him!"
She hissed spittle through her teeth and held her grip, pinning the bird beneath her. It started to choke, eyes rolling up into its skull.
"Where is he? What have you done with him?"
The standing bird blinked and worked its beak, flustered and hopping from foot to foot. It hunched over and pointed to a fallen log nearby.
"There! We lef' him there - he's not dead! We were just gon' to scare you 's all. We couldn't kill him if we wanted tew.. Rawk! Get off'm! You've ruined 'im for certain, poor chicky!" The bird flailed its wings in the air, circling and diving around them anxiously. The indicated log was close, but off the path. She released the bird beneath her and stood up. Its partner landed and fretted over the mangled body.
She was covered in sweat and dust and feathers, her pulse racing with purpose. Without hesitation she fetched up the stick her father had given her. Scooping up the crows under her arms, she plucked out their pinions and tailfeathers. She tore a strip from her cloak and tied the large feathers to one end in a bunch as a broom. She took the fallen dagger.
And then she swept out her own path to the log. She cleared the leaves and stones away, and she cut back the brambles. As she went along, the treetops parted and sunlight flooded in through the canopy. There, beyond the rotting timber lay the wolf, bloody and scratched, more flayed than whole and already covered with flies. He was not dead, but he was severely wounded and his eyes had been pecked out. The crows could not have done this all themselves. She was looking around for an answer when he spasmed, coughing out blood.
"Is that you? Are you safe? There was another beast. I fought it back, but it left me so weak. The birds ambushed me..."
"Yes, I'm here," she knelt at his side and pulled his head to her lap.
"You are off the path," he whispered.
"I make the path," she replied and he chuckled, wincing and gurgling wetly.
"How reasonable you make that sound." He grew still, then became as the soil in her arms. When she was younger, she and her brother would follow her father behind the plow and inspect the freshly turned earth for treasure. They trod the rows as two giants crossing leagues, whole mountains with each step.
She returned to the main path and the two pitiful crows. The one held the other and looked up at her with wet swollen eyes, "We were just hungry and yew had food. We were cowards with a knife."
She pulled her things together and drew her mother's cloak around her shoulders. Gently now she took the birds into her arms.
"I am going to my Grandmother's. I know now that it's not far from here. We will find food and rest there and I will care for you both until you can fly again. Our account shall be settled. This knife," she said, "is now mine."
---
She emerged from the forest bearing her broom and her charges, her cloak ragged and torn. In the clearing was a hut, small and shaded beneath an oak. Her grandmother was waiting for her in the doorway, a cat by her ankles. The older woman ambled out to meet her and smiled. She took the birds and tended to them, nodding approvingly. She took the cloak and showed her how to mend it. She took the broom with an amused laugh and showed her how to fashion one properly. She fed her and listened to her story. She told her her own. In it, there was a wolf as well, grand and powerful and green.
She stayed until the crows were well. It could have been days, it might have been months. But when she finally decided to go home, it was to visit and not to stay. Her brother was older; he was behind the plow now. Her parents were streaked with grey. They finally had their celebration, and her birthday feast was long remembered by those who came, friends and family alike. She pulled her mother aside and handed her a letter from her grandmother, written in response to her own sent so long ago. The two women read it together and talked in private as close and knowing friends.
"Your birthday will be soon, in a few days time - aren't you excited?"
"Yes, Mama," she said blushing, scratching behind her ear. She snapped greenbeans into her bowl. The two them in their chairs with broad bowls in their laps, chairs her father had made with his own hands. He was away fishing. She knew he had taken the long way to the lake in order to pass neighboring homes; he would be inviting all he met to come for her birthday. Such celebrations were hardly secret and she squirmed in her seat, tapping her feet in happy anticipation.
Her mother glanced over, "I can see that, and you know we're going to be busy around here getting things ready. I think it would be a good time for you to finally visit your grandmother, and to stay with her until then."
The young girl paused in surprise. Her mother nodded, watching her own nimble fingers. "You're a young woman now; you can travel the woods alone. Besides, she would want to see you before your big day and she won't be able to make the trip here herself. It would be best for you go." She said this last with a tone of finality.
"Your brother will manage your chores."
---
She packed a napkin with bits of hard food and folded it into her sleeves. She took her father's walking stick and her mother's greatcloak. Her brother gave her his small collection of found flint arrowheads. She ruffled his tangled hair and kissed them all before leaving. Her mother pressed a folded letter into her hand, "Give this to her when you arrive. Stop for nothing." She held her gaze and peered into her daughter's open young face, fixing the image to memory.
Her father then braced her shoulders and smiled behind his shaggy moustache, "We'll see you soon, my love. You'll come back a foot taller, I just know it." His eyes twinkled. "Stay to the path."
Her brother tugged at her sleeve and hugged her tightly. "Please, hurry back. Mama said we can't have any of the cakes until you do." She whispered to him, "I'll share mine with you for doing my work."
Her family stood apart from her and waved. She looked back once before leaving the dusty yard at the edge of the forest. Her family stood small against a small house. A goat, some hens, an ax in the stump and split wood piled neatly. A garden. Gathering the thick tatters about her, she entered the wooded briars.
---
And was immediately swallowed up by the gloom. Above, the rustling canopy blocked out the sun, and all around her, even back along the way she came, the gnarled trunks crowded so thickly that she could see nothing but shifting, mossy gray bark. Small creatures darted ahead of her. Shapeless birds brushed by her ears. She pulled up her hood and kept her eyes to the path. It wasn't much of one, largely overgrown and patchy. She would follow the bare trail for a few paces and then look around to see where it picked up again. A few times she felt as though she had strayed, but then just beyond the next rotting log she would find the thread again.
As she picked her way through the brambles, her long cloak kept catching on thorns until she finally tore the low hem away into strips. She tied these around her hands and fingers to protect them. Still she bled from a hundred scratches. But she was away from home for the first time and so this was unimportant. She slipped on slick leaves and into sinkholes until she learned to use the walking stick to feel her way along.
Night came to the woods before the sun had even fully set and she considered stopping to rest. Her feet hurt, her legs ached, her knuckles stung with sweat and scars. Nearby was a stone under a sprawling oak. She was exhausted, but there she could sit and eat. As soon as she thought this, it was impossible to consider otherwise. Making her way to the boulder, she pulled out her napkin and leaned against the large stone, aching and sore. She had no idea how far she had come, nor how far she had left to go. Previously, when with her parents, the trip to visit her Grandmother was a pleasant day's journey. She recalled a broad well-worn path through these same woods and the view from her father's shoulders when he sometimes carried her. It was a sunny place then; full of flashing cardinals and butterflies and berries by the wayside.
Nothing like this. At least she wouldn't starve, she thought, unfolding the cloth. However, no sooner had she done so than two great shadows swooped down and startled her. It was a pair of crows. They squawked vigorously, pilfering the hunk of cheese and the black bread she had so carefully packed. Before she knew it, up they flapped with her meal. But they didn't fly away, instead they circled above her taunting and cackling.
Quick as a flash, she felt for her pouch and selected the largest sharp stone. She took aim and flung it, striking a crow out of the air. It dropped the bread it was carrying and the two birds then rose higher and away into the treetops, cawing and crying indignantly. "We'll be back fore yer bones, whelp!" She grinned and ran to where the bread had fallen. She crouched there in the underbrush and ate, hidden, ravenous, but wary now of any other eyes watching from above.
She was so busy gnawing at the quarter-loaf and looking out for the returning crows, that she didn't see the figure approaching from below until it was upon her. It was impossibly large and blotted out a massive shadow against dim dappled moonlight. How had such a thing crept up so close?
"An impressive throw," it growled lowly, by way of introduction. She yelped and fell back, stumbling. She turned over and scrambled at first on all fours, then to her feet, dashing back to the path, her cloak snagging and tearing all the way by brambles. It followed her; noisy, crashing behind her and snapping branches to splinters, thundering the earth at her heels. She reached the bare little line of dirt that marked the path, and it seemed even more dubious in the dark like this; less like a path than a chance gap between thornbushes.
The dark beast drew up short and reared over her, close enough for her to smell its dank earthy scent, rich as freshly turned loam. She caught sight of millipedes and gleaming black beetles seething among its bristles. Moss hung from its craggy haunches and rolling shoulders, each broad as bulls. It was the Wolf. He narrowed his yellow eyes and grinned toothily at her gasp of recognition.
"Yes, you know me. I've seen you before, here along the path holding your father's hand." He crouched before her and dug his claws into the dirt and rotting leaves, stretching languidly. He cleaved great furrows into the forest floor. She saw hanging from his mouth was her walking stick, small as a toothpick in its maw. He plucked it from his muzzle and gingerly placed it at her feet, "And I've heard what he's told you about me."
"To stay on the path, or the Wolf...y-you...would eat me." She shuddered but stared back evenly. Bending quickly she retrieved the staff and held it with both hands. The worn wood was still hot from his breath and she shivered as she curled her fingers around where his lips had been.
He rose and prowled around her slowly, placing his heavy paws delicately and stepping over the path with care not to touch it. Moving, the beast shed vermin off its hide like overripe fruit. Rank fetid breath curled into the air in hot moist blasts. He was steaming all over. He brushed against the thick ancient trees and they groaned and creaked but yielded as though flimsy green saplings. He noddded his head, large as a planet, and ground his terrible teeth, "And I still may. This path is merely a courtesy I extend to your kind."
"You lie! My father told me that you are forbidden to touch the path and those upon it," she pulled deeper into her cloak and coughed, gagging on his scent of rich woody decay. Weeds and wildflowers bloomed along the soil of his flanks, then were quickly consumed by a thousand caterpillars. The great Wolf circled her like this once before waggling his rump to make room and sitting down beside her. He came down with a loud boom and flatted small trees beneath him. He crossed his heavy forepaws and lowered his head to see her more closely. Leaves drifted around them like falling ashes and the forest grew quiet, holding its breath.
"Your father is a good man, and I see that he cares for you to tell you such things. It is comforting for a child to think this, but the way of the world is not the way of your small yard and smaller home. And this feeble scratch in the dirt that you follow so dutifully is no haven; it won't protect you from what lives in these woods."
"I was fine until I left it for the comfort of that rock beneath the oak. I was going to rest there and eat, but no sooner had I stepped off the path than those crows attacked me."
"I saw all that - most amusing. 'Fine' you say? Oh no, my dear. You've had hungry admirers ever since you first set foot in these woods. However, I persuaded them to leave you be. You see, it is not the path that protects you here: I do," he lowered his eyes humbly.
"But you're monstrous!" She exclaimed and he chuckled, growling into a shaking laughter. He rolled onto his side and thumped his giant tail, pounding the earth. The trees trembled, dropping leaves and dust and rats and snakes. Old limbs finally snapped, tumbling to the ground. It seemed as if the floor itself would split open and swallow them all as he laughed heartily, rattling her bones.
"How reasonable you make that sound," he chortled, finally calming and licking foam from his chops. His mouth was a cave of endless stony teeth.
The girl looked back down the path and then around her, scanning the darkness for any other threats, predators and the like. But she had seen nothing all day beside startled small creatures.
"I don't believe you. I don't believe you, and you are keeping me from my journey. Goodbye," She hoped that sounded unafraid and serious. She tried to sound like her mother but she was grateful the cloak hid her quivering. She set out purposefully, her stick before her, feeling the way.
The Wolf sprawled onto his back and bared his throat, belly, and loins. Moths and fireflies swarmed through the rising mist off his body.
He called after her, "Are you going home, then?"
She stopped and looked around, it did seem familiar, but it was so hard to tell now. She scowled and returned, passing him without looking and walking in the other direction. He grunted as she passed, still on his back, his paw idly scratching burrowed moles from his stomach.
He called after her, "That way's no good either, this isn't the same path you know. You've left it and now all ways look the same."
"If you aren't going to eat me, leave me alone. You frighten me and now that I am lost that is a distraction I cannot afford."
Behind her the wolf crumbled into a grassy pile as if he had never been, soft mushrooms already forming around the edges. He roused himself from the earth next to her as if, beneath the rotting leaves, he had been there all along. He shook himself free of debris and flung worms from his ears.
"I eat everyone eventually."
---
But she seemed to amuse him and he accompanied her through the woods the rest of that night. She did not want this at first, and ignored him, keeping her fear to herself and her eyes on the increasingly useless path. It forked as it had not done before.
"Where does that way lead?" She asked abruptly.
He shrugged, "Where are you going?"
She had not said and so he did not know. She learned two things: he was not a god and she now had a secret.
"Can't you see beyond this forest?"
"There is no world beyond this forest."
"But you've seen my family before, and other travellers?"
"Yes."
"If we just pass through this forest of yours; where do you think we come from, and where do you think we go?"
"You avoid my question."
"So do you."
And he was a wolf then, perhaps as large as an ox and muddy about the paws, but a wolf just the same, and simply so. She was not afraid of him and he was no longer fearful. As she watched, he flinched and scratched at parasites. There were scars about his body and he looked hungry. The trees were blocking sunlight again, not the weak moonlight from before and she could see that he made a rather pathetic figure. Recalling his initial presence, she wondered if it had been a dream.
"We should go this way."
---
They travelled in awkward silence. He avoided the path still, but kept pace with her. Occasionally he would stop, alert to something she couldn't see and sniffing the air. Then he would dart off straight as an arrow out of sight. She heard growling and savagery that frightened her. But each time he would return just the same, a little torn about the ears, panting and slackjawed. He grinned wearily to her with bloody fangs. "It was nothing, let us continue."
At intersections and forks in the path, they took turns selecting which way to go. He seemed to know, himself, but respected her instincts to choose as well and never questioned her decision. He didn't again ask her where she was going. She didn't ask him how he became so small. They travelled together for many miles that day.
In the end, he was about the size of a large dog. When he ran ahead to confront these things only he could see, he stayed away longer and longer each time and came back looking more and more ragged. It was her decision to stop for the night when she worried he might not survive another encounter.
They made to rest where the way split again. She had never again left the path and intended to camp on the road itself. He caught a rabbit and devoured it close to her. She ate berries she had picked along the way and watched him scratch and lick his wounds, her own itching in sympathy. He did not want her berries, and she did not want his game, but with a sharp stone and some care she plucked the ticks from his hide and used a stick to clean his ears. She spread her cloak on piled leaves and they slept soundly together, exhausted.
---
In the morning he was gone. She woke to the rustling of feathers and sat up to see two crows on the ground staring at her. One had dried and matted blood on its face.
"Rawk! Pretty thing you are," screeched one.
"We said we'd be back fer your bones," cried the other.
They shuffled closer, hopstepping as birds do, with menace in their voices. She saw that one held a dagger. They meant to intimidate her, snapping their beaks in the air. She rose, bare, her walking stick lay out of reach, her flints as well. She curled her fingers into fists; these were bullies, but she was older now. She had her own scars and her family to think of.
"I chased you off before, you are both fools for returning." They circled her, sizing her up.
"That wasn't you, we left because of him. And now he's gone because of us," said one.
"Though you helped weaken him," cawed the other. They both cackled at this. She lunged for the one with no blade, the one she had wounded before. It squawked in surprise and lept for the air, but she had her fingers in its feathers now and pulled it to the ground with a strength she had not known she possessed. They had puffed up their feathers to seem larger, but were truly quite frail. Under her rage thin avian bones snapped and the bird complained in agonized surprise. She put her knees to its chest and hooked her fingers inside its beak, prying it wide as if to tear the spread face open completely. It squealed and thrashed about, bucking and slapping its wings. Her strength came more easily than she reckoned and she could feel the jaw giving way.
"Drop your knife or you're next," she bellowed over the bird's struggle.
The other crow did so, dumbly, aghast.
"Stop it, yer killin' him!"
She hissed spittle through her teeth and held her grip, pinning the bird beneath her. It started to choke, eyes rolling up into its skull.
"Where is he? What have you done with him?"
The standing bird blinked and worked its beak, flustered and hopping from foot to foot. It hunched over and pointed to a fallen log nearby.
"There! We lef' him there - he's not dead! We were just gon' to scare you 's all. We couldn't kill him if we wanted tew.. Rawk! Get off'm! You've ruined 'im for certain, poor chicky!" The bird flailed its wings in the air, circling and diving around them anxiously. The indicated log was close, but off the path. She released the bird beneath her and stood up. Its partner landed and fretted over the mangled body.
She was covered in sweat and dust and feathers, her pulse racing with purpose. Without hesitation she fetched up the stick her father had given her. Scooping up the crows under her arms, she plucked out their pinions and tailfeathers. She tore a strip from her cloak and tied the large feathers to one end in a bunch as a broom. She took the fallen dagger.
And then she swept out her own path to the log. She cleared the leaves and stones away, and she cut back the brambles. As she went along, the treetops parted and sunlight flooded in through the canopy. There, beyond the rotting timber lay the wolf, bloody and scratched, more flayed than whole and already covered with flies. He was not dead, but he was severely wounded and his eyes had been pecked out. The crows could not have done this all themselves. She was looking around for an answer when he spasmed, coughing out blood.
"Is that you? Are you safe? There was another beast. I fought it back, but it left me so weak. The birds ambushed me..."
"Yes, I'm here," she knelt at his side and pulled his head to her lap.
"You are off the path," he whispered.
"I make the path," she replied and he chuckled, wincing and gurgling wetly.
"How reasonable you make that sound." He grew still, then became as the soil in her arms. When she was younger, she and her brother would follow her father behind the plow and inspect the freshly turned earth for treasure. They trod the rows as two giants crossing leagues, whole mountains with each step.
She returned to the main path and the two pitiful crows. The one held the other and looked up at her with wet swollen eyes, "We were just hungry and yew had food. We were cowards with a knife."
She pulled her things together and drew her mother's cloak around her shoulders. Gently now she took the birds into her arms.
"I am going to my Grandmother's. I know now that it's not far from here. We will find food and rest there and I will care for you both until you can fly again. Our account shall be settled. This knife," she said, "is now mine."
---
She emerged from the forest bearing her broom and her charges, her cloak ragged and torn. In the clearing was a hut, small and shaded beneath an oak. Her grandmother was waiting for her in the doorway, a cat by her ankles. The older woman ambled out to meet her and smiled. She took the birds and tended to them, nodding approvingly. She took the cloak and showed her how to mend it. She took the broom with an amused laugh and showed her how to fashion one properly. She fed her and listened to her story. She told her her own. In it, there was a wolf as well, grand and powerful and green.
She stayed until the crows were well. It could have been days, it might have been months. But when she finally decided to go home, it was to visit and not to stay. Her brother was older; he was behind the plow now. Her parents were streaked with grey. They finally had their celebration, and her birthday feast was long remembered by those who came, friends and family alike. She pulled her mother aside and handed her a letter from her grandmother, written in response to her own sent so long ago. The two women read it together and talked in private as close and knowing friends.