I've been meeting up with a local writing club in my area. I've only been twice, but I really enjoyed the people and the format. Each month the members agree on a new writing challenge to be completed and shared at the next month's meeting. This last month, we agreed to write 1500 words or less of some kind of speculative fiction. By speculative fiction they meant any kind of happening that isn't necessarily real, like ghosts (arguable, I know), werewolves, vampires, and so on. There's lots of fiction that one could write about that doesn't have anything to do with the esoteric. This month, we were asked to delve into that very side of fiction.
As you know, I usually share nonfiction, educational stuff focusing on plant medicine. I've had lots of story ideas in my head, but I never made time to give them life. This was a really fun challenge for me, and I finally aired out two characters who have been swimming around in my head for a long time. I thought it might be fun to share that story with you all. I'm not sure if it will become a full book, a novella, or just a stand-alone story. I can't even guarantee that further stories won't be somewhere else in the timeline, but I'll share them as I write them. This one is definitely a first draft, so, please, forgive any clunkiness! Here goes...
Evie and the Wolf
The space between folklore and superstition is like a muddy river. The distinction between the two is rarely clear. “Harvest the green mushrooms that glow at night only when the moon is at its fullest, otherwise their potency will be weak.” So said my grandmother, Sarah, countless times. “Never,” Sarah would go on to say, “never step within the circle that they grow in. Always collect from the outside. Certain plants like those mushrooms have a feyness that clings to them. To step inside the ring is to invite them to cloud your vision. Humans aren’t meant to see with fey eyes.” I loved and respected my grandmother. She was a renowned healer in our region, and I felt privileged to apprentice under her. But I considered myself a modern woman. My thoughts must’ve shown on my face, because Sarah tweaked my nose and said, “This is how it has always been done. There’s truth in the old ways.” I thought again of that muddy river. Many a time my regard for my grandmother alone kept me from blatantly rejecting the more esoteric aspects of her training. Much of her knowledge on herb lore was essential, but some of it sounded like pure superstition. To my mind superstition served little purpose, and belonged in the past where it came from. For example, I knew that the particular mushrooms that I was after that night glowed brightest under the full moon, and could be hard to find on other evenings. As for the “fairy rings,” well, they had more to do with nutrient deprivation in the soil than with wild fairy parties. In any event there was good medicine in them, and we were nearly out of our supply.
Sarah used to accompany me on these nighttime harvest runs, but she was getting older. Long treks often left her joints a bit achy. I insisted that she stay home this time and, with basket and walking stick in hand, I set off alone.
The chilly autumn air left me shivering in a way that my destination could never do. This was hardly a sinister forest that I was headed for. It served as a privacy barrier and a windbreak for the village. It was well coppiced, had footpaths that were lined with white rocks, and was only a handful of miles deep before ending abruptly at the caravan road. Deeper woods began on the other side of that road. Those I wouldn’t go into alone at night unless I had no choice, though this night’s journey was likely to take me near its border.
It didn’t take long to find the spot where the mushrooms I needed grew best. They could pop up all through the village wood, but tended to flourish at the far end where the woods met the highway. That’s where I was when I found a nice sized crop, several stands of mushrooms glowing in the moonlight in their usual fairy ring formation. I had hit the mother lode. I could see the dark forest on the other side of the road. I admit, it looked a bit creepy. I rushed to fill up my basket with a few mushrooms from each circle. Soonest done, soonest returned. In my haste to get the task done, I discovered that while reaching into one circle, I had stepped a foot and about half my body into another. “I’ve done it now, Grandma,” I said to myself in mock horror, sparing my crime no further thought.
Once I had gathered enough mushrooms, I stood up to go. I felt a bit lightheaded, and had to grab a tree to steady myself. That’s when I saw it: a shadow in the woods across the road, blacker than the forest around it. It wasn’t moving at all, but I could hear breathing. No, more like panting. I froze, staring at it. After a few moments the shadow moved closer to the road that separated us. The moonlight brought clarity, resolving the shadow into the shape of a wolf. A big one. With eyes that faintly glowed red. They were looking at me.
Crap, I thought, and grasped my walking stick more firmly. Strange red eyes aside, lone wolves were uncommon, but they did happen, usually females driven from their pack or who had struck out alone in search of a new one. They didn’t often attack humans unless they were hungry and desperate. This one had a desperate look.
I started to back away slowly, aiming for the path, the easiest way back to the village. In my head, perhaps stupidly, I thought that if I could just make it back to the village, the lights and the Night Watch guards would scare the wolf off. I kept glancing behind me as I went, trying to keep myself from tripping and keep an eye on the wolf at the same time. It had begun to move. This wolf was huge! There was no way that I could outrun it. I had my stick with me. Maybe I could scare it. I made it to the path, and looked back to see that the wolf was in the road. My fear had me seeing things. This creature looked bigger and rangier than any wolf I had ever seen. It moved differently. And it was just within the border of the village woods. I brandished my stick at it, yelling, “Go away, wolf! Go on!” This was the tactic that usually worked for the farmers when a wolf came to their sheep pastures looking for an easy meal. It didn’t work this time. In fact, the wolf laughed at me. That sounds crazy, and my head was still swimming and beginning to hurt, but I’d swear that I saw it shake its head and heard unmistakable laughter. Then it looked at me with those red eyes, mesmerizing eyes. I was like a deer frozen by a sudden light. The wolf was on the path now, no more than 200 feet away. It dug its heels into the dirt of the path, and with a groan seemed to grow and bunch at the shoulders and hips until it was impossibly long, taller than a man if it stood on two legs, which it then did. A moment of unreality washed over me, as if the moment was so unbelievable that my brain simply refused to accept what it was seeing and disconnected. I couldn’t move, couldn’t speak, couldn’t think! And then the creature launched itself at me.
My brain, or perhaps my survival instincts finally kicked in. I screamed, and swung my walking stick with all my strength, made greater by my terror. It contacted heavily with side of the creature’s head, knocking it into a tree. The double hit seemed to stun it. The wolf (werewolf?) stood unsteadily on four legs, shaking its head, runners of drool dribbling from its snout. It bled freely from where I had hit it. The creature looked up and caught me eye. Blue eyes? I was sure that they had been red. They were blue now, and familiar looking, human looking. My head was beginning to pound. I had to get out of there. Just as I found my feet, the creature roared in my face, a complicated howl that almost sounded like a word. Run? It sounded like run. I wasn’t fast enough. The wolf lashed out with a paw, clawing four deep grooves across my arm. I cried out, staggering into a near fall from the shock. It roared again, and again I heard that word buried within it. Run! Its eyes were changing, from blue back to glowing red. It looked like it was struggling to hold itself back. I didn’t wait to see any more. I rose, turned and ran towards the village lights, dropping stick and basket in the process.
After a few moments I heard the sound of a ground chewing gallop, and knew that my headstart was up. I ran harder. I could see my village ahead. If I could just reach the village, I thought, I’d be safe. My arm burned where the wolf had clawed me, my head throbbed, and my lungs ached, but I didn’t stop running. I could hear the that the impossible wolf was nearly upon me. I reached the opening in the shrubs that lead out of the woods, and sailed through it. I felt a strange sensation as I passed through, like moving through a thick, cold barrier. I’d passed through that entrance many times, and never had such a feeling before. My feet finally gave out on me. I tripped on an exposed root and sprawled headlong on the ground. I sprang back up, but the delay cost me. I turned to see the creature leaping at me, head bloodied, drooling jaws agape. There was no getting away.
I braced myself, expecting the impact, but it never came. Instead I watched as the creature hit some kind of invisible wall and fly backward, landing in a heap on the path. It lay senseless. The barrier that I felt? It made no sense, but I didn’t stop to analyze. I took the chance that I was given, and ran the rest of the way home, slamming the door behind me.
My grandmother took one look at the state I was in, and forced me into a chair by the fire. My clothes were torn, basket and stick were long forgotten, and my arm and side were covered in blood. I was hysterical by this time. I tried to tell Sarah what had happened, but I knew that I wasn't making any sense. My head was pounding, and now that I was out of danger, I had begun to feel dazed. She shushed me, and held my arm to the light.
"It was a wolf, Grandma," I sobbed out. She closely examined my wounds, and then looked at me in alarm. "Did it get into the village? Evie, answer me! Did it get beyond the forest gate?"
"No," I answered. My curiosity cut through the fog in my brain. "Grandma, what -"
"Hush, Evelyn. Let me tend this wound. It needs care right away."
I stayed in my chair, feeling exhausted and in a stupor, listening to my grandmother bustle about the kitchen and attached herbiary, gently scolding me all the while about how I had been told time and again not to step within fairy rings. How she knew this, I couldn't guess at the time. Sarah moved with the efficiency of a long experienced healer, boiling water, crushing herbs, making a poultice. I saw her add aconite in with yarrow and plantain, a strange addition for wound care. Ordinarily I wouldn't have failed to ask why, but that night, the shock was too much, and I could barely stay awake. I let her apply the hot poultice to my arm without questioning her, and drank what she later handed me. I couldn't tell what was in that cup, but it put me into a dreamless sleep.
The next day I woke to the sound of someone banging on the door. It couldn't have been much past dawn, judging by the light coming through my bedroom window. I groaned and sat up, hissing at the pain that I felt. Everything hurt! I minced my way down the steps to find my grandmother adding various herbs into a pouch. She placed them into a basket. A quick glance at the contents told me what they were for. "Who's hurt, Grandma? Was it the wolf again?" I asked.
"No, dear. That was Jason's sister at the door. Apparently he hit his head on the hearth late last night and has quite a knock on the head." Jason was the village blacksmith, a blue eyed, dark haired fellow who made just about every young girl in the town swoon at the sight of him. "You stay here, Evie, and rest. I'll handle this one." I noticed that she had added her jar of aconite into her basket. Again with the aconite.
"Grandma, why do you need that?" I asked, pointing to the jar.
"No time to explain, love. Jason's injury sounds serious. Rest!" she said, rushing out. I stared after her. For a moment I thought how strange it was that Jason should get a grievous head wound on the same night that I was attacked by that wolf. Maybe he heard me scream, and tripped, falling and hurting his head. Or maybe he was... those blue eyes... but no. Such thoughts are not only superstitious, but also flat out ridiculous. Clearly the mushrooms that I squished while stepping into the fairy ring had released their spore, which held some kind of hallucinogenic properties. I breathed them in, and it affected how I saw an ordinary, albeit large, wolf who was hungry enough to attack a human. That was the only reasonable explanation. I shuffled painfully into the kitchen to make a cup of tea, and took myself back to bed.
All images from Pixabay.
Author: Jennifer Capestany
Jennifer is a clinical herbalist and health coach, specializing in autoimmune diseases like rheumatoid arthritis. Her interest in plant medicine led Jennifer to spend years studying herbology, physiology, and nutrition. She works one-on-one with her clients via her herbalist and health coaching business, Prairie Hawk Botanica. Jennifer lives on a homestead in rural Texas with her husband, 2 children, and various animals. In her spare time she loves to be in her large herb and vegetable garden. Sharing herb knowledge and her love of natural healing with others is her calling. Steem and Bitcoin accepted.