the wretched one's tale.

Conall

In the wolf's estimate of when he might return, as in all other things, he does not lie. It is possible he does not understand what it is to lie, let alone why anyone would do so. And thus, before the sun is at its apex, he returns: at first a distant dot appearing now and then at the crests of hills, then as a man-shape hiking back, and finally as a disgruntled, hot, sweating beast-man swinging a now-clean bucket from his hand.

In all the while he has been gone, Thomas -- misfortunate and charred fellow that he is -- has neither stirred nor woken. The wolf had not bothered to put him in the witch's bed, and certainly never would. Thomas lies on the dirt floor. He lives still, his breath rattling thinly in his chest.

Órfhlaith

When there is work to be done, the work comes first. Before she can rest, she must attend to the man whose body is mangled because no exorcism is ever gentle. So the witch works. She makes her poultice. She wets bandages with steam. She folds heavy green leaves into the bandages, slathering them with the poultice before meticulously covering Thomas's burnt flesh. She whispers while she works. Conall is not there to hear her, and Thomas is unconscious, but she is not whispering to them, or in a language either of them would know.

So then Thomas is bandaged, and she has folded up a fur to pillow his head, and she covers him with a cloak she has but never wears. Still she cannot rest. She undoes her circle, thanks the four corners before releasing them, sweeps salt into the fire, banks that fire, and then

and then

she all but collapses on her own bed, twitching slightly, jerking from exhaustion. A part of her whispers that she should not sleep yet, not before Con comes back, but

that part is stupid and silly. She lived alone for most of her life, before Con joined her here. So the witch succumbs to the much-needed sleep. When the wolf returns to the hut, the place he slept last night, he finds both of the beings inside resting heavily. Only one of them snores, but to be fair, she only does that every other breath.

Conall

Winter to spring and spring to summer, the wolf has lived here on the witch's small plot. Only since last night has he slept beneath her roof, though, and even now it does not feel quite right to barge in unannounced. No one ever taught him to knock, though. So he pats the door instead with his palm. When that fails to wake her, he simply walks around to the glassless hole that serves as a window, pushing up the heavy fur that shutters it to look inside.

Two beings inside. One bandaged, one hale. Both resting. He frowns at them a while, then decides to leave them be. He sets the bucket on the windowsill -- proof that he kept his word -- and departs again.

Later, when the sun has begun to edge toward the horizon, he again returns. This time he descends from farther upslope, where the hills begin to edge toward mountainhood. He brings meat: a pair of hares, swiftly killed, slung over his shoulder by their hindlegs. Again he looks in through the window to see if the witch sleeps or no.

Órfhlaith

Hours go by. The wolf spends it alone. It's no shame or hurt to do so; he has spent most of his life alone, and even most of his time with the witch. They seldom even conversed until strangeness came to them. They didn't even give each other more than a glancing touch until last night. Perhaps, if she were conscious, the witch would be gratified to see that he does not trespass the threshold of her home and her mother's home and her grandmother's home as though he had a right to be there, so soon after lying with her just once or twice. Perhaps she would also understand that he, too, values his solitude to some degree.

But she's deeply asleep, and does not notice when he comes back, and sets the bucket on the windowsill. She sleeps the entire day, making up not only for the working of her will that exhausted her most recently, but being wrapped up with Coll and half-drunk most of last night.

The sun sinks, and sears through the cracks in her house. She stirs finally, not to any noise but to the oncoming night. It calls to her. There are certain things that grow in the deep woods that only bloom under starlight. There are spirits that only listen to whispers after dark. And there is something in the light of the moon that stirs her, has always stirred her. So the witch opens her bright eyes, and sees that Thomas has not moved. She shuffles from her bed over to him, checking to see if he breathes, if he still lives. She checks under the bandage to see if the healing work has begun; it should be mending his flesh already. She layers new bandages, leaves, poultice, over some that have seeped. She knows he needs water, but she doesn't dare try to wake him yet.

She drinks, though, gulping it down. Wipes her mouth with the back of her hand and changes out of the dress she put on when Con told her someone was coming, slipping back into one of her shifts. It settles around her thighs. She picks up the wooden comb her grandmother carved out of wood herself, urging it carefully through her wild hair, and then she hears a stirring; looks over her shoulder and sees Con's face, peeking in through the window.

The witch's mouth moves slightly. She smirks at him. Nods her head inward, an invitation.

Conall

Indeed, the man's wounds are healing. They will scar. Such wounds always scar, though with her poultices the scars will be lessened. Unsightly, but short of hideous. The scars on his soul -- those will be another matter altogether.

It is not something for them to concern themselves with, though. Not now; perhaps not ever. For now, the wolf's concerns are simple: food, shelter, clean water. Protection, for himself and for the strange female he shadows. She is awake when he looks in on her again, smirking at him, wearing clothes the villagers would consider wholly indecent.

He blinks back. Then the furs fall back in place. A moment later the heavy door opens and he enters, his great size and -- moreso -- that indefinable crackle of his presence making her shelter seem small.

"I returned before noon," he says, as though this detail were important. "You were asleep, so I hunted. If you build your fire I will gut the hares, and we will have meat."

He sets the hares down on her crudely hewn table, picking up the knife she perhaps inherited from her mother, or perhaps traded for in the village. As he gets to work, he casts the unconscious villager a glance.

"He should not stay here long. His friends may come looking for him soon."

Órfhlaith

The witch is crouching by the fire. She's starting to stir it up again. Doesn't explain why; she doesn't need the warmth, this time of year. Maybe she has more work to do. But she looks at him as he enters. Looks him over. Flicks one brow, silently, as he tells her that he did, in fact, come back when he said he would come back. But she was asleep. So he hunted. The corner of her mouth, so given to its wry little twists, does it again. Perhaps he doesn't mention the fire, since he can see she's bringing it back to life. Either way, as he lifts the knife, she halts him.

"Outside, Con," she says quietly. "I do not think he should have anything dead near him just now." Her brow furrows; she cannot quite explain. "I have an odd feeling."

He tells her that Thomas should not stay, and the witch only shrugs one bare, freckled shoulder. She shakes her head. "He has not awoken. He has not moved. If we take him down, what do you think will happen?" She shakes her head again, discomfited. Her fire is unfurling, springing back to life, so she rises to her feet beside the fire, the cauldron, the injured man.

"One of us should go down. Carry a message. His people can bring a cart, or a sled, to carry him down. Or leave him with me until he is well."

Conall

The knife halts. The wolf, all heavy brow and heavy shoulders, frowns at the witch. Then, without a word, he acquiesces, picking up dead things in one hand and knife in the other. As he prowls toward the door, she speaks again, thus drawing another of those quick, feral glances.

"We go together," he says.

Órfhlaith

Her lips press together. She doesn't like that suggestion, for some reason or another, but she keeps her tongue. She goes back to her work, pouring water from a (clean) bucket into the cauldron, heating and loosening the paste so she can clean the whole thing out.

A bit of time goes by. Outside, the flesh of the rabbits is peeled away and their guts removed. He's never seen the witch use the innards of little creatures -- hearts, livers, brains -- in her magic, but that doesn't necessarily mean she doesn't. He knows, because he's seen, some of the various tools and charms she makes using bone, or fur, but he hasn't seen the ways these things are consecrated or cleaned. Perhaps it is private. Perhaps it is forbidden. Perhaps

it is like with the bees. You have to thank them. You must treat them all with respect, and deep care.

In any case, he cleans and guts the rabbits the way he would any other night. Sets them up on spits until the air around her hut smells of cooking meat. He sees her tie back the coverings of the windows and the door, so air can flow through and refresh her home. She comes out, not with the jar of blackberry wine but with the little wooden bowls they drink water from, sitting beside him as they wait for dinner to finish cooking.

Their arms touch.

The fire reflects in her eyes.

"I do not like the thought of leaving him here alone," she says.

Conall

Thoughts move behind her eyes. He does not have the skill to divine what they mean. He has been alone most of his life; it is a wonder he ever acquired language, let alone the unspoken understanding of others.

So, briefly and incompletely, they part. She works inside, freshening her home, while he works outside. For a while it is as though last night never happened. Yet as the hares cook she comes out. He is crouching by the fire, turning the meat on its spit. She sits beside him and so he sits as well. Even that passing contact draws his attention, his head turning, his eyes moving mutely to that touch.

Then up to hers as she speaks. He grunts, turns back to the fire.

"I do not like the thought of leaving you alone. Here, or down in the village."

Órfhlaith

"I have been alone far longer than not," she tells him. It has the tone of a reminder, but has she ever told him? Perhaps he asked once about this tool or that practice, and she mentioned her mother. Perhaps.

But perhaps not.

She is still looking into the fire, and still sitting close enough to him that she can feel the difference in their skins: his hot on one side from the fire, cool on the other from oncoming night, hers steady and moderate from being inside the hut. "If we go together, and he wakes here, alone, who knows what will become of him? If he should run into the woods alone, if he should become ill, if he tears apart my garden or kills my goat -- or even if he is simply afraid, and does not know where he is or how he came to be here, or why he is in pain. They are all terrible things."

She takes a breath, and sighs.

"I do not want you to go alone to the village in my stead. Nor do I want to leave you here alone with him."

So she is still for a few moments, and silent.

"If he wakes of his own accord, and he is healing, then we can take him home together. But not as he is now. They will go wild with fear, and no one will listen." She exhales. "I saw it in my dreams."

Conall

"I like it not," he mutters, "but I will do as you bid."

With that he lifts the spit from the fire. The meat is too hot to touch, so he presses palm to ground and stands, wiping dirt off onto his rough trousers after the fact.

"Let's eat inside," he adds. "Perhaps the smell of it will wake the wretched one."

Órfhlaith

There is nothing to like, for either of them. A strange man who hated her even when he was not possessed by some wicked spirit lies unconscious and wounded in her home, where no men slept for decades and yet now, two different men have in the last day. There is evil in the village below, or perhaps wandering in her woods and in the mountains, and she cannot see it and is not sure how to guard against it.

And then there are the humans, who loathe her kind and fear his, even if they do not dare to let themselves name what it is they hate, what it is that lives in their nightmares.

But there is meat, and this strange togetherness they've found. They are not one soul, one mind, one flesh. They still seldom touch. They disagree on how to go ahead. And their souls are as different as they are alike. She remembers this every time she looks at him, and knows in her heart that she does not want to keep the secret of what she is from him forever.

So they are together. She knows: she is with him. She does not doubt that he is with her.

They bank the fire and go inside, where 'the wretched one' still lies under her cloak, covered in that sticky poultice and all those bandages. The witch briefly checks on him, then sits at her table with the wolf. They have water and meat and some fruit she found earlier, little else. As she takes the meat he hands her, she pauses. Thinks of something.

"Thank you, Con," which she does not say often. Which she says to bees and dead rabbits and the moon and the water but, she realizes, she my have never in fact said to him.

What she means is for hunting. for heeding me. for being cautious. for letting me rest. for not killing when I told you not to. for helping me with this man, and the woman. for lying with me. for coming here at all, for I was lonely, and I did not even know.

And what she says is:

"For hunting."

Conall

She thanks him for so much more than hunting, but simple and straightforward creature that he is, that is what he hears. That, still, is unexpected. Enough so that he glances at her, disarmed and uncertain.

He looks back at his meat soon enough. Grunts some work or phrase of acceptance. It is not until much later, when she is no longer looking at him, that he smiles to himself in quiet delight.

Conall

If the witch allows him, the wolf sleeps inside this night. He shares her bed, and though it is colder by the wall he insists that she sleeps on the inside. He insists on sleeping where he can face the intruder, watchful and distrustful. Many times through the night he wakes, his eyes opening soundlessly, eyeing the injured man for any sign of aggression.

In the morning, grey light fills the witch's hut. Thomas, who spent the night stirring and moaning and sweating and feverish, is quiet now. His breathing is shallow but even. His burns do not looks so terrible as they did. The blisters have burst; the skin beneath, miraculous though it seems, has begun to scar over.

When the witch stirs, so does the wolf. And -- though faintly and weakly -- so does their uninvited guest.

Órfhlaith

A meal is had, and as the wolf cleans up the bones and bits, the witch checks on the man from the village. She pours a bit of water into his mouth, and he swallows on reflex, and she is satisfied. The fire is banked for another night. And when the wolf steps back to the opening of the hut, perhaps unsure of whether he is welcome or not, the witch looks at him

with those eyes of hers.

It is not hard to tell, in that glance, that he is allowed. So he sleeps beside her in that narrow space she calls a bed. This time she doesn't snore. On one of the occasions when he wakes, something in his tension wakes her as well, and she mumbles at him in some language he doesn't know. On another occasion, when Thomas moans, she leaves Conall's side and goes to check on him. Gives him more water, if he'll take it. Crushes up a herb and, muttering, sprinkles it over his bandages to dull his pain. Comes back to the furs and the hay and the warm, heavy arms that both pillow and cover her.

Only a couple of hours later, dawn creeps in through the cracks of the hut. The light rises, and the diurnal human begins to wake. Gradually, so does the witch, who walks between day and night. Then, finally, the nocturnal wolf who only pretends to be a man, lifting his head to peer over the witch's shoulder.

She leaves him again, returning to the side of the man and checking under his bandages. Most of them are stiff with fluid and sickly sweat mingled with the now-dried poultice. But she examines his flesh and exhales, with something like satisfaction. Then she brushes off her hands and walks out of the hut, leaving to relieve herself and get a fresh bucket of water from the cistern before coming back inside. She has started to stir the fire to life again when she sees Thomas beginning to wake.

"Con."

She's calm, when she says his name. She just wants him to be awake. Or near.

Conall

He is awake. His eyes are open, narrowed, watchful. It seems almost out of place that they do not gleam yellow the way they would were he in another shape. When his name is spoken -- the name she has given him -- those eyes flicker toward her.

Then he sits up. His bare feet touch the dirt floor. He throws the covering furs off, bits of hay falling out of his crudely hacked-short hair.

On the floor, Thomas twitches, grimaces, twists his head to one side and then the other. His eyes open. He looks about, groggy. All at once he recognizes the witch, the wolf. Realization is chased closely by fear. He utters some wordless, hoarse noise of terror; his heels scrabble at the floor as he tries instinctively to shrink away.

Órfhlaith

The witch rises to her feet as Thomas looks around, staying out of his arm's reach, even though he still lies supine on her floor, covered in her cloak. The first thing she sees in his eyes after he orients himself is not anger, as she worried; it's fear.

And despite everything, that fear takes her heart and twists it, wrenching in on herself.

So she does not go near him. She stays where she is. She lifts her hands, and shows him they are empty.

"Thomas," the witch says softly, "there is water," and she points towards the buckets, fresh from the cistern. "Drink if you thirst. I will warm some if you wish to wash."

Conall

Even the raising of her hands makes him startle. Makes him throw up his own in terrified warding, only to tear a poultice off a barely-healed wound. He cries out in pain. His eyes are wide and wild. They flash toward the buckets, but he scarcely seems to recognize them before his eyes flit on. To the wolf. To the witch.

"I am dead," he mutters. "I am dead. I have died and you have dragged me to hell. Lord help me, save me from these wicked sinners."

Órfhlaith

The witch drops her hands and stares at him, cocking her head to the side and pursing her lips. But for the shift she wears that bares her so and her wild hair and wilder eyes, she would look a bit like a disapproving nun.

"Enough of that," she says sternly. "I do not expect your gratitude, but you will not speak to me thus in my own home."

Conall

The wolf is even more direct:

"You're not dead, you fool. Best thank her and not your god, for he had no hand in it."

Thomas stares, uncomprehending. "But... I remember burning... the very fires of hell consuming my flesh..."

Órfhlaith

Pity in her eyes again. "You were burned, Thomas," she admits, gently. "An evil spirit attacked your flesh when it could not keep your soul. I have done what I can for your skin, and for your pain. But though you will bear scars, you did not die."

A brief pause. Then a flare of slightly petty discontent, again: "And my home is too sweet a heaven for a man of such bitter spite, besides."

Conall

From where he sits at the edge of her narrow bed, the wolf snorts a laugh.

That humor is lost on Thomas. The man flinches again as he does to near any sound or movement from either wolf or witch. His eyes race between them again. Cautiously:

"If what you say is true... if indeed I live, and am not condemned to hell, then let me go. Let me flee your cur--" he catches himself. Swallows it. "Your home. Let me go back to my family, and my -- "

Memory breaks over him, sudden and cold. His face twists, crumples.

"Oh, god. My wife. My Beatrice."

Órfhlaith

Of course the wolf laughs. The witch actually casts a sideways glance at him, smirking a bit. She knows something of the heaven he's experienced here, after all.

But she keeps most of her attention on Thomas. The man is scared, and sick, and she is not sure when he last ate. He begs mercy and she gives him that look again, frowning and disappointed with him. The witch shakes her head, about to tell him that they were going to escort him down as soon as he woke, but then

he mentions Beatrice. His wife. The woman that came here last. The witch feels a chill go over her.

"The woman you brought to me," she says, evenly. Then: "What became of her?"

Conall

"Do you not know?" The spite is back, and with it the hate. "You brought doom upon her; do not pretend you know it not. Oh, and a cruel doom it was, to make us believe she was well, to give us false hope.

"After we brought her to you, and after she woke, all seemed well. For seven miraculous days she was herself again, as sweet a girl as you could meet. She sang and she spoke again. She walked and danced and cooked and cleaned. Together we sowed the autumn seeds. Only by night did she seem ... not right. Only then, and only sometimes, did she shiver as though a shadow had passed over her grave. Thomas, she said to me one night, it is still looking for me. It is looking for me and soon it shall find me.

"And it did. On the seventh night, as I lay asleep, she gave a chilling cry the likes of which I never had heard. Thomas, she called, Thomas, Thomas, it has me, it has found me. All was dark; I could see nothing. I leapt from bed and ripped the curtain from the window, and by moonlight I saw her. I saw her, her body unnatural, bent, convulsing. She gave another cry, long and terrible, and spoke no more.

"But dear lord. The things that happened then. The things she ... did. The Devil's work, all through the night, until at dawn -- as though she could not stand the light of the sun -- she grew violently ill and vomited forth everything, everything within her, until dark blood erupted from her."

Thomas is pale. He rolls onto his side, slowly, painfully. He stares at the crack under the door. The wan light of the predawn there.

"That was the last I remember. I went to her in her fit. I tried to keep her from ... I don't know what it is I tried. I tried to keep her. Just keep her. I think she must be dead now.

"I hope she is dead. It would be a mercy, if she died then."

Órfhlaith

The witch is two steps from grabbing a bucket of water and dumping it over his head if he insults her one more goddamn time. But then he shudders, and tells her the story of what became of Beatrice.

For that, the witch just stands there. She listens. The wolf can see her shoulders slump downward, bit by bit, even as the hairs on her arms stand on end. She watches Thomas as he rolls over, sick with the memory. She does not try to share her own grief, her fear for what may have happened to Beatrice, her regret at not doing more to save the girl.

Beatrice was not, after all, her wife.

--

The witch takes a breath. She doesn't believe as he believes, that death is an unqualified mercy, that the world is one's spiritual and mortal enemy, that heaven awaits all who are pure enough on earth. She does not wish that Beatrice is dead. What she does say is this:

"I believe the being that took her entered you."

And this:

"It was in you when you came back here. I trapped it, and starved it, and it tried to harm you to stop me. I believe it is destroyed."

Then a deep breath, and this, finally:

"I fear there may yet be others of its kind. I intend to destroy them, as well."

Conall

As the witch slumps, bit by bit, the wolf rises from the bed. He moves to her. His hand moves toward her, but ultimately he doesn't know what to do. How to comfort. In the end he stands close to her, not touching her, and listens.

And when the dreadful tale is done -- when the witch makes the promises she does -- it is Thomas's turn to laugh. It emerges a creaking, hollow sound, little more than anemic breath given voice.

"Either you are a liar and a fiend, and toying with me," he says, "or you are a madwoman. What can mere men do against such power? How could a man destroy such evil?"

Órfhlaith

The witch does not even gift Thomas with a response. She simply raises an eyebrow at him, and turns away, towards the fire and the water heating in the cauldron. "I shall prepare myself, and we shall return to your village together. You may take water to drink from my cistern and nourishment from my garden, if you can avoid the plants that are poison."

She reaches for the edge of her shift. "You may want to go, lest your eyes be afflicted with the sight of a naked madwoman," she adds, in warning.