Excerpt 2
A longer excerpt this time, from the chapter aptly titled Wolf at the Window (Chapter 14 of Two Stones.)
In which Elensie, the servant of Rohan’s family, encounters a speaking wolf at the window who both terrifies her and yet appears less dangerous than she first thought, even though the news it brings is quite perilous.
If you enjoy this, thanks! I loved writing it, as always, with poor mousy Elensie showing her small courage in a scene that hints at both the deep mechanics of how this world works as well as one small mortal’s reaction to it.
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On her stool in the scullery, Elensie heard the wolves howl. Twice. With the master and lady already turned in for the night, she took the iron poker in the nervous grip of her mouse-hands and went about the house, checking on windows and doors, looking in at Hersinde’s room and the young master’s nursery, for she missed them both sorely, and him only just married this day!
Trembling, she laid saucers of yew water and some of her store of small iron buttons at each door and window and checked the locks and bolts a third time. Then, murmuring invocations loud enough that her voice sounded like another’s in the cold and heavy silence, she banked the fire, poured cups of water into Tumble’s and Bell’s dishes, fretted about what she would prepare for the master’s breakfast, and took herself to bed.
The full moon woke her. The shutters had opened in the night. Perhaps a slight gust of wind had slipped between them and slid them apart. She would have to get Hap to attend to that in the morning. The way the shutters swayed and creaked troubled her, as though spirits had swept into the room. Lying awake there, clenching her fists to tug courage down into her limbs so that she could get up and close them, she heard movement outside the window.
“Awake,” said a voice.
She bit her tongue hard, and the blood that warmed her mouth made her want to give up, to scream as though her life was being sucked out by wolves or Green Folk. I have been obedient to the master and lady! I have kept the gardenstones tidy! I have -
“Awake,” said the voice, as she grimaced. “Wake the master and lady also. There is little time.”
The voice sounded so - ! So unlike a bringer of death or witchery. Standing as though her legs were in another village and had to be yelled at to obey, she squeezed her eyes shut and waited. And when the night remained still and nothing happened, she opened them -
- to see a wolf standing there in her room, an enormous black thing that -
She screamed. With ears that were certainly not her own, she heard the master and lady stir upstairs. . . footsteps. The wolf spoke again. She scrambled her toes into slippers. If she were to die, she would make sure her toes were at least warm. Though the way the wolf dominated the room! Her humanity was like thin and torn rags flapping in the wind of his presence. She looked around frantically for something iron to ward against the beast, though she knew that a fling of yew leaves would have no effect.
“There is little time,” it said in a voice that slid deep into the crevices of her faltering courage like honey. Elensie didn’t see its jaws move. Someone running down the passage . . .
“Elensie?” The door of her room slammed open. The master held an axe. His feet were bare. The lady held a robe around her shoulders.
“Elderdale is threatened,” said the wolf, and Elensie saw shock rivet the master and lady’s feet to the floor. “Gather whatever you need against the cold and come now.”
The master found his voice. “A wolf!” he croaked. “Slap me, Lily, I’m dreaming.”
But the lady’s eyes seemed unafraid, as though she understood, and that terrified Elensie almost as much as the wolf. “The Menelfari!” the lady whispered. “So it is true!”
Elensie wanted to poke all her fingers into her ears to block out that awful recognition - The lady knows the wolf? In league with this wolf! No no no, it cannot be so. Hersinde would know what to do.
The wolf cocked an ear to a further noise, one Elensie could not hear. “The Talamhain!” it said. Its coat seemed to shimmer as it looked at the master. “This is thy choice,” it said. “Remain here and suffer a quick death at Ustakhi hands if they are merciful, or a slow one if they are not. The Talamhain approach to take you to safety.”
“And where are you taking us, wolf?” demanded the master, his courage scrappy as he spoke.
Ustakhi. Elensie knew that name and she was sure that she was spiralling into the maws of the nightmarish death at these creatures’ hands that her mother had warned her of as a child. There was no fear in the lady’s face though, no fear at all, and her hands were clasped lightly at her breast as though considering a cherished memory. Her eyes were closed. Elensie shuddered at the smile that curled on the lady’s lips.
“To the Gate,” said the wolf, turning towards the window and gathering itself for the leap. “Leave thine axe and follow now! For tonight thou wilt both die and be saved.”