Maris
My mother is dead, and everyone knows it’s my fault.
I can still feel their eyes on me, burning holes in my back as I dig into the damp, packed earth. We hadn’t had rain in weeks, but yesterday it had poured as if the heavens had opened up with grief to join me in my sorrows.
Every breath rasps in my throat, the combined weight of tears and the dirt from shoveling the grave making it hard to breathe.
A tear escapes, trailing down my cheek to drip from my chin and I swipe it away, hand shaking uncontrollably. Grief is a strange creature that takes up residence and makes me think I have no more tears left to cry. That the well within me is dry from overuse, but apparently I was wrong.
Perhaps it’s from the pain in my hands? Blood weeps from the blisters on my palms, slicking the long handle of the shovel in my grip. I’ve been digging for hours, and the grave still isn’t deep enough for my mother’s coffin.
The coffin is made of plain oak without a single ornamentation, the one concession the town has made for her death.
My mother was a seamstress, a great one who worked even when her sickness began to take her, and she had served the people of this backwards little town faithfully for years. Right up until the day of her death.
That service, and the kindness she had shown everyone here, had been the only thing saving me. She’s dead now and without her… my time in the village is limited. Some day soon, they will find a reason for my own death, and my line will end with me. It will be as if I never existed at all.
With my mother gone, I’m all alone in a world that hates me.
A soft whine startles me, the shovel slipping through my bloody fingers as it clatters into the grave.
It’s just a hole now, I suppose, and will remain so until I’ve dug deeply enough to place Mother’s coffin inside.
For now, I’m standing in it. It’s nearly waist high on me, my shaking fingers resting in the bloody mud as I look up. A wolf stares at me.
“Hello, Gray,” I murmur quietly in greeting.
I can’t muster up the smile I normally have for her, but she doesn’t seem to mind.
The strange wolf I’d befriended, the one creature in the world who doesn’t hate or fear me.
We met years ago when she came to the cottage, filthy and covered in blood.
She was clearly starving, as was I. Now, food is even more scarce, and without Mother to help, there will be no help for me.
A starving wolf is a danger, but not to me. She stayed quiet while I tended to her wounds, only licking me occasionally, as if to thank me for my help. Even then, there wasn’t much food to spare, but I gave her what I could, and she’s been coming back ever since.
Gray whimpers softly and butts my hand with her nose, tearing me from my turbulent thought. I finally reach out and pet her, my bloody hands in her fur as my throat closes. Tears burn in my eyes, clinging to my dark lashes as I try to gulp them back.
She creeps closer, warm tongue stroking over my cheeks to wipe away the tears, and stays close, paws braced on my shoulders as I sob into her fur.
My head pounds as I disentangle myself from her.
Her eyes peer into mine as if she is searching my soul.
She has never acted as a normal wolf should, and this is just another occasion to add to the list, but I am grateful for the comfort nevertheless.
How pathetic, that my only comfort after my mother’s death is a supposedly wild wolf.
The other humans in my village hate me, but this wild creature who should fear my entire species, those who hunt wolves in fear that one of them might be hiding a human face, is the one who lets me hold her. Her warmth seeps into my skin, soothing my injured hands.
I’ve been digging for hours, the rough handle of the shovel burning my palms. I have no money to offer the grave digger, nor much in the way of food if that were an option; I don’t even have enough for myself.
Not that it would matter if I could pay. No one would take it. Just like no one will deal with me instead of Mother when we cross the short distance into town to sell what little our farm produces, as well as anything we can sew. If it wasn’t Mother who came to trade, nothing would come of it.
All my life, people have whispered about witchcraft in me, the flame haired daughter of a hanged man, and it has only gotten worse.
Werewolves, long thought to be extinct in these parts, are once more being hunted by the church.
One of the village elders is also a priest; I see his eyes on me often, searching for some fatal flaw, some sign that I am not like the others.
Without my mother to protect me, I am no longer safe.
Gray nuzzles my arm again with a soft whine. She seems to sense when I am deeply mired in my thoughts, which is all too often as of late. Her ears prick, eyes flickering over me, and I blink.
Her eyes are strange, unnatural in color.
One a rich tawny, almost gold, and the other a pale purple.
They remain locked on me no matter what I do.
Always watching. Not as a predator watches prey; I have never felt unsafe with her before, not once.
She never growls, never bares her fangs, although I can’t miss them when she yawns or whines.
She doesn’t act like a pet, as the folk of the village whisper. If anything, she seems almost… human.
I jolt back as Gray lurches to her feet, her fur rippling as hackles rise along her back. I whirl, the mud of the grave sucking at my boots, slowing my movements.
“Witch. Close with your familiar, I see,” Enoch sneers, his words punctuated by a rippling growl from behind me.
Enoch is not one of the village elders, although he dearly wishes it were so. I’ve always been of the opinion that he’s a little rat of a man, and apparently the disdain is mutual.
“She means me no harm, though I cannot say the same for you. Leave me to grieve in peace.”
As if to punctuate my statement, Gray snarls behind me.
Enoch cringes. His thin lips part as if he wants to say something more, only to press together as another growl rips from Gray.
He makes the sign against evil and backs away, refusing to turn his back until he’s well away. When he does, he practically runs.
The moment he’s gone, the growls from Gray stop, and I turn back toward her. There’s no doubt about it: she protected me. Wild or not, she’s the closest thing to a friend that I have, and I hate to see her go. But she has to, for her safety and mine.
More tears prick my eyes as I bury my fingers in her thick gray fur, holding her close. She whines softly. Her cool nose nuzzles my shoulder, the gesture almost questioning. My throat burns, tears blurring my visions. I don’t want to lose my only friend. I don’t want her to go.
“You have to go, and not come back. Enoch is a vengeful man, and he will not forgive this.”
Not Gray, nor me. He was humiliated by her snarls.
He will blame me, call me a witch. Or worse, he will try to punish Gray for trying to protect me.
Wolves are once again being hunted all over the kingdom, and it will take almost no effort at all on Enoch’s part to set a hunting party on her.
And her pack, if she has one. I can’t let them die because of me.
My luck, my life, is terrible, but I will not drag the wolves down with me.
“Go,” I say again.
I reluctantly untangle my fingers from her fur and push her lightly. She doesn’t budge, not even when I push harder. She’s bigger than I remember; it makes sense, since she’s been visiting me for years, and I’ve grown up as well.
My shoves don’t budge her at all, and tears bring more tears to my eyes; everything today is enough to make me cry, the feeling always just under the surface, and I hate the frustration flooding through me. I cannot even do this one thing right.
I’ve cried more today than I have the entire rest of my life combined, but it doesn’t matter. I will not be the cause of Gray’s death.
I shout at her, push her, do everything I can think of to get her away from me, to leave, but to no avail. She won’t budge.
“Leave!”
I snatch the shovel and swing it, my skirts dragging in the mud as I drag myself from the half dug grave.
My hands slip. My heart is pounding so strongly I can feel it in my throat, my injured hands burning as they tighten on the wooden handle.
Blood and mud slick my grip, but I jab the shovel at Gray with shaking hands.
She whines, shrinking back into a crouch. Her mismatched eyes watch my every move, but I grit my teeth and keep pushing, refusing to let any of my emotions show on my face. She’s strangely intelligent, and I have no doubt that if I show any weakness, she won’t leave.
And I’m right about that.
Because in the end, nothing I do can make her leave. I shout myself hoarse, swing the shovel, throw rocks… nothing works. Even when I turn on my heel and march into the cabin my mother and I once shared, she stays where she is, refusing to budge. She hunkers down, eyes locked on the door.
I remain where I am, hidden out of sight behind the window. We stare at one another, locked in a silent battle of wills.
So why, when she finally gives up and slinks off into the distance, do I feel like I’m the one who’s lost?