The Lady in the Mist (The Western Werewolf Legend #1) (2 page)

Looking down, Sonja scowled at the inverted pentagram she found imprinted in her flesh.  Without thinking, she rubbed at the mark.  Where had the mark come from?  She scrubbed at the skin.  Surely, the woman was mistaken.

“The mark of the beast can’t be erased,” the old woman said quietly.  “Soon you will start to feel the effects of the change.”

Sonja’s eyes grew wide.  “Change?”

“Yes, as the earth turns the moon grows closer.  During this phase of the cycle, you’ll experience changes.”  She patted Sonja’s shoulder.

“What sort of changes?”  Sonja asked out of a strangled voice.  Aggravated, she shoved the woman’s hand away.

The stew she’d wanted so badly didn’t seem like such a good idea, as she only had time to lean over the edge of the cot before retching.  A slow wash of perspiration engulfed her.  Moaning, she lay back against the pillow.  “Sorry,” she whispered.

The witch clucked her tongue.  “Don’t worry, my child.”  Waving her hand in the air, the old woman mumbled something.  To Sonja’s surprise, the stench evaporated.  When Sonja rose up enough to look, the mess had disappeared as well.  Slowly her eyes tracked from the floor back to the woman standing in the middle of the small room.  Hortence continued to smile.

“What do you want from me?” Sonja asked with a quiver in her voice.

“Nothing, my child.  The question is what do you want of your life?”

When Sonja didn’t answer, the old woman sighed and picked up Sonja’s half-eaten bowl of stew before hobbling back to the small kitchen area.  “As the moon grows fuller, you will begin to evolve into a creature with great power.  Your teeth will grow sharp and your nails will grow long.”

With a shake of her head, Sonja tried to reject the words the woman said.  “I don’t believe you.  You’re crazy!”  Gripping the bed, Sonja swallowed the sickness that threatened once more.  She cut a glare at Hortence. “Get away from me, you old hag.  I don’t believe in such things.  You’re mad!”  Turning for the door, she yanked the handle.  The light of day greeted her as she raced out.  The nausea followed.

Sunshine flitted through a heavy cloak of trees.  Maybe she’d reacted too hastily.  Glancing over her shoulder, she wished she had a clue as to her whereabouts.  The old woman’s cabin sat nestled in the midst of an oak thicket, one unfamiliar to Sonja.

“How do I get home?”  Baring her teeth with her fists clinched tightly at her sides, Sonja glared into the watery eye of the old woman standing in the doorway.

Suddenly, the old woman stood right behind her as if she’d materialized.  “When you come to the fork in the road, take the path to the right which will lead you home.” With a sweep of her hand she touched Sonja’s cheek.  “You carry the gift.”  Her brief statement gave Sonja the impression the old woman expected her to understand.

“The gift?”

“Yes, you will be the one who leads the Guardian’s followers into the new millennium.”

“You’ve got to be kidding!”  With wide eyes full of shock, Sonja stared after the woman.  She might be imagining the whole thing.  Surely, the woman hadn’t said she would lead anyone anywhere!  She had trouble leading the goat out of the barn.  “Why are you babbling on about a Guardian and me leading his pack?  I don’t understand.  Trying for polite, she offered, “Perhaps you’re mistaken.  I’m a widow with a small farm I tend myself.  I have no plans to change.”  Her exasperation showed by the time she finished.  “I’m going home now that I’m feeling much better.”

Hortence scanned her face.  “You are changed forever, my child.  The place you call home cannot hold you anymore.”  She smiled with sympathy.  “With time, you will learn the ways of the wanderer.  His name is Guardian.  He brought you to me for training.”  When Sonja only blinked in response, Hortence added, “To lead his pack.”

Sonja couldn’t control the laughter.  The sound began as amusement but quickly evolved into hysteria.  The woman was mad, as mad as the hatter in Alice’s Wonderland.  Perhaps the whole thing was as simple as a dream, like Alice’s.  She was dreaming so when she awoke, she’d have a lively tale to tell her sister, Brianda.  Sonja fisted her hands while pondering what to do.  The need to leave made anxiety clog her throat.  To panic wouldn’t help the situation, but she wanted to run wildly down the path screaming out her frustrations.

Hortence smiled.

Wrinkling her brow, Sonja cut a dubious look the old woman’s way.  “You seem as cool as a cucumber.  Why?”

The old witch cocked a gray brow.

Still, she had to admit, something made her feel strange.  Her nerve endings were tingling.  Her sense of smell seemed heightened.  She could even hear the mouse nibbling on a crumb in the opposite corner of the cottage near the fireplace.  Trembling set in and she tamped down the urge to simply bolt.

Hortence continued to smile but said nothing.

Irritation mingled with the concern of where she found herself stirred in her gut.

“You will come again.”  The smile widened across Hortence’s face before she turned, disappeared, and then reappeared on the threshold of the small hovel.  The shutting of the cottage door left Sonja blinking as she stood alone in the dead leaves covering the forest floor.

Sonja swallowed.  Gratitude mingled with relief rose up and almost swamped her.  Glancing down at the bandage on her upper arm, she blinked.  The wrapping was neat, clean, and smelled of disinfectant.  Hortence had taken good care of her.  “Thank you,” Sonja whispered.  Glancing around, she jumped when Hortence’s voice came to her.

“No thanks are necessary.  Your visit was an honor for me.”  The old woman’s voice came to Sonja, startling her.

***

Waking, Sonja sat bolt upright, a tingling along her spine.  Unable to fathom what seemed wrong, she shook off the chill slithering over her skin.  The quilt provided some warmth, so she huddled under the weighty cotton cover.  “Oh God!  It had been only a dream.”  Her hand shook as she treaded her fingers through her hair.

Her gaze swept the room as relief flooded her system.  She recognized the tiny room as the bedroom she’d shared with her late husband, Robert.  Now, she sat alone trembling in her frayed flannel gown.  Robert had been dead and gone for more than three years, she reminded herself as she snuggled deeper in her blanket.

She’d had the dream again.  The strange tingling in her hands began once more as well.  She looked down to see her nails growing distorted and bluish-green.  Reminded of the first time the change had happened, she simply sighed, no dream was capable of such magic.  A tiny drop of something crimson clung to the nail of her index finger.  Sonja brought the digit closer to examine.  The droplet glowed in the darkness with only the light of the full moon to see by.  Giving her finger a good study, the witch’s words came back to her.  “As the moon grows fuller, you will evolve into a creature with great power.”

Sonja cried out in frustration.  She frantically snatched up the tale of her old gown to try wiping the droplet off. The stain remained the whole while mocking her effort.  The dream repeated itself more frequently of late.  The sensation of her blood coursing through her veins forced her from the warmth of the wedding quilt over to the room’s tiny window to look out on the small farm Robert and she had struggled to build.

Time seemed to stop as she considered the man she’d married the year she’d turned twenty.  Her mother had worried she’d be an old maid, but Robert Brooks had ventured into her life one bright summer day.  Before Sonja could reconsider, he’d asked her father for her hand.  The wheels were set in motion and they’d been married.

Robert had been a blacksmith by trade.  Saving every penny, he’d managed to acquire a small parcel of fertile bottomland in the foothills of Pennsylvania.  Their plans had included pigs, chickens, and cows as well as a goat for milk.  They raised their own food and sold what they didn’t need.  The farm would be an ideal place to raise a family.

Robert, being a determined man fed his dream well.  During the first couple of years of their marriage, their dream flourished.  Then The Civil War started.  Their world changed forever.  Robert had volunteered within the first days of the conflict between the Union and the “upstart” Confederates.  He’d assured Sonja the uprising would all be resolved within weeks.  Soon they’d get back to raising a crop and starting a family.  Three years had passed.  Sonja was now twenty-four.

The surging of blood in her veins drew her back to the present. Sonja leaned against the cool glass of the window to subdue the wave of anxiety, which gripped her when the sensation swept over her.  Oh why couldn’t she be rid of this thing trying to take over her life?  How could she remove the damned thing without killing herself?  Perhaps, she couldn’t.  Perhaps she’d become like the one the witch had spoken of, the one called “Guardian”.  Could her dream have been real?  The signs were all there.  Whenever she grew frightened or threatened, Sonja realized her fingers grew long talons at the ends.  She carried the healing wound of a dog attack.  Now she had the persistent stain, which wouldn’t leave her hand.

Sonja sighed heavily before returning to the bed once more.  What if she’d already become a werewolf?  What if she’d already changed without knowing?  She couldn’t completely remember what she’d done once she laid down to sleep?  Could she have walked in her sleep?  The witch had told her Sonja would be capable of terrible acts of violence and murder if she ventured out under a full moon.  If the words of the witch were more than a figment of her overactive dream world, then she could expect to change without any control over the act.  When the towns’ people found out she’d been bitten and now carried the curse of the werewolf, they’d hunt her down.  She would be trusted up and burned at the stake. Silver killed werewolves. She could count on  a great silver knife piercing her flesh, stabbing her through the heart.

She needed answers.  Panic started to swell her throat shut, sending Sonja off the bed and into her meager stash of clothing to dress.  Deciding to go to Hortence’s cottage again, Sonja shoved her bare feet into her only pair of boots before throwing a long cloak over her shoulders and leaving the warmth of her cabin.

***

“You’re a werewolf, my child.”  The old woman’s craggy features softened fractionally in the flickering light of the room’s lone candle. Her words, though spoken with sympathy, were of little comfort to Sonja.  Hortence, the witch, peered at her.  “There’s nothing you can do to stop the curse.”

The old hag hadn’t intended to cause Sonja more pain, but the statement delivered with unwavering sincerity stunned Sonja.  Denying the truth simply made the fact harder to deal with.  Denying the fact she carried the mark of the beast on her palm didn’t make the mark disappear.

Things had been happening to her.  The sensation of the blood coursing through her body started right after the attack.  For Christ’s sake, she could hear the low roar of her life source rushing through her veins!  She’d been terrified when her fingernails lengthened to claws before retracting almost as quickly.  Remembering the pain only made the incident worse.  Not two days before, she’d found herself lying in a wooded glade near her small cabin without a stitch of clothing on her body.  The next night she’d caught herself before she’d actually howled at the moon.  The events of the past several days did indeed frightened Sonja to the very depths of her being.

Now, with Hortence’s proclamation, Sonja’s own sensibilities were at their wits end.  This type of phenomenon made up the tales in children’s folklore.  A werewolf?  What would become of her?  Could she be going mad?

Hortence seemed daft, she mused.  Surely, her prediction would turn out to be the rambling of an old, crazy person.

Inching backward toward the door, she glanced down at the wound on her shoulder.  Sonja, who prided herself on her common sense, shook with denial.  “A wild dog caused these,” she murmured.  “I need your help to heal this dog bite.”  Trembling, she pointed to her wound.  After all, worry over the bite was the reason she’d sought out Hortence in the first place.  Blinking she realized the blood spot and the talons factored in her traveling through the woods in the wee hours of the morning.  Sonja couldn’t help the heavy sigh she released.  Certainly, the witch would debunk the idea the wound was anything more as fantasy.  She would give Sonja some herbs for healing, and then send her on her way.  Despondently, she looked at her shoulder again.