The Seven Year Spell

And then, her friends started poking for holes in her mother’s story.

She could see brown-haired Yoshua scrunching up his nose, the turning gears in his brain almost obvious. He was about to ask a difficult question.

Pellard and Maya were in a whispered discussion, their voices so quiet that they must be reading each other’s lips.

Gerry, Bobby and Paxine were, without a question, scared. And by the looks on their faces, their mothers were terrified.

Kira looked at her own mother, at the same time perplexed that she had caught all the attention to herself and in also awe of this black-haired, rose-skinned, simple woman who despite being past her mid-thirties had captured and held captive the unwavering attention of not only her friends of ages thirteen and fourteen, but also their mothers and fathers of ages thirty to forty.

The fathers were intensely focused on her mother as well, though she seriously suspected that had not much to do with her story-telling talents.

“So the girl only became a werewolf on the full moon?” Yoshua asked her mother, clearly the first of a series of questions he had masterfully prepared to back the logic of her story into a corner, and at the end decapitate it. It was the way Yoshua operated.

“Obviously, Yosh” it was Maya that answered. “Everybody knows that”.

Larra, her mother, the evening’s kind host and storyteller extraordinaire, expressed neither agreement nor disagreement. Larra smiled in a way that those who agreed took for agreement, those that disagreed took for “that’s silly, dear”, and the men in the group took for something else altogether.

“And the man who the wolf bit,” Yoshua started.

But Pellard’s mother Pellunia interrupted, “It was a wolf that got bit, Yoshua”.

“Weren’t you listening, Yosh?” Maya threw in.

Yoshua gave both of them a glare, earning a scuff from his own mother.

“Right”, Yoshua said, “The wolf that was bitten, it changed into a man only on full moon?”

This time, Larra nodded. “Just so, Yoshua”.

“It’s a wonderful story, Larra, though a tad scary for children”. Pellunia interrupted Yoshua’s carefully prepared chain of questions again.

Pellunia continued, “To think of the state of mind of a wolf that suddenly became a man! Astounding! Pellard here has had fourteen years to learn the ways of the world and he asked me just the last day why a toothpick is called so when it doesn’t pick tooths”.

Teeth. She wanted to correct, but held back.

Yoshua glared at the whole group as they laughed good-naturedly. The only other one not in a good mood was Pellard himself. That was understandable.

She could almost sense her mother readying to gently reproach Pellunia for making fun of her son in a group.

But Yoshua interjected, determined to pit his logical brilliance against her mother’s after-dinner tale.

Only, it wasn’t just an after-dinner tale.

“If the werewolf girl was a human for the rest of the month when the wolf was a wolf and the wolf was a man when the girl was a werewolf, then how did the wolf who became a man and the girl who was a werewolf ever meet as people?”

The whole group went silent as Yoshua gulped in a deep breath. His eyes had almost popped out by the end there.

Kira glanced at her mother warily.

Larra’s eyes had gleamed dangerously for a moment at the disrespect in Yoshua’s tone. It might have been when he said ‘werewolf girl’.

Before she could answer, Yoshua spoke again, not wasting the breath he had so laboriously gulped in. “And since meeting as people was impossible by that logic, how could they have been married, or had a daughter?”

“What was that sound?” it was Paxine who asked, her voice like that of a mouse’s squeak. You’d think it was because she was particularly frightened by the horror of the story. But it was not. Her voice was always like that.

“It sounded like a growl”, said Gerry’s dad George. “It is getting late. Do you get trouble from animals at night, Larra?”

Of all the dads present, Kira thought George the most sensible. Of course, that didn’t meant he was exempt from that weakness of men whose eyes softened when they lay eyes upon her mother.

“Wild animals do come here from time to time. But do not be concerned. They know not to cause trouble”.

The growl sounded again, and her mother let out an exasperated breath, as if she had had enough foolishness for the night.

Larra glanced at Kira. She nodded.

“Well, my dears” Larra announced. “The lemon cake is ready, I’d wager. Hold tight, and I’ll be back”.

The group perked up. Her mother’s lemon cake was famous.

Gerry’s mother, Gina leaned to her husband. She could just make out Gina’s whisper, “Do you think there will be animals on the way home, George?”

George patted his wife reassuringly just as another growl sounded outside.

Something else answered, a commanding snarl.

“Think I’d better go check it –“ George was saying, when the sweetest of smells emanated through the room and a lemon cake entered the room on a tray held in her mother’s hands.

And then it was a blur for a while, the guests expressing their appreciation as ‘Yum’, and ‘Oh, by the Lord, that is good’, and ‘Compliments to the cook’ and many more of the sort.

Even Yoshua forgot his questions for a while, until, when she was ready and she had closed all doors and windows to keep the chill out, except one, to let the air in, her mother brought it up.

“To answer young Yoshua’s question”, Larra said, and everybody settled, as attentive as an audience to a masterful magician.

“The werewolf went back to the forest in search of the wolf, and they found each other. They were bonded, connected. They became companions in the beginning, teaching each other the ways of their disparate worlds. They spent years that way, until the girl, who was quite alone in this world, turned the whole wolf pack. They were a family.”

She paused, and let the idea of a family of men who were all once wolves sink in.

“But of course”, she continued, “they wanted more. The wolves quite liked being human. Loved the sensations and experiences. Loved the world and language and houses and beds. So they searched and searched for a way, until one day, she met a witch who offered her a way to let the wolves turn into men at will”.

“Oh, there’s magic now?” Yoshua asked.

“It’s just a story, Yosh”, Maya countered.

“Magic has always been there,” said Larra. “We just hadn’t found it yet.”

There were nods around the room, and Larra continued. “The witch offered a spell, and in payment she asked for the blood, bone and heart of thirteen humans”.

The night went deathly quiet.

Paxine gripped Bobby’s hand tightly.

“Now Larra, is that any way to tell a story to children?” asked Petunia.

Her mother nodded and smiled, though there was something wild in her eyes. She knew it was time.

“Right you are, Pellunia. But Yoshua did ask” her mother shrugged. “I believe it is time for a song, to lift the mood. Will you sing, Kira?”

Kira cleared her voice, and lit a candle as she had been taught.

In a clear, high voice she sang.

“Wolven bite and human meat,

Winter night and candle heat.

Blood to drink, bone to rend,

Heart to eat, curse to mend”.

A wolf howled as she paused for breath. It was long and loud, a call and a command.

A pack answered, their howls echoing from behind and front and all around the house.

Her mother smiled, and a wolf entered through the one door she had left open.

And then all was chaos.

Pellunia screamed, George stood in front of Gina and Gerry, and the rest of them either panicked or ran to the doors or windows, which were not only closed, but also locked.

The wolf snapped its jaws closed around Paxine’s throat, and she squeaked one last time.

More wolves entered, and tore into the people while her mother stood aside and watched, and Kira kept chanting the spell.

It was over quickly, until the black wolf paused before a whimpering Yoshua.

Her mother knelt before the fourteen year old, death and torn flesh all around them.

“You ask good questions, Yoshua”, she said. “You see, the spell that the witch gave the wolves, it only holds for seven years. So when they had a child, the witch taught her the craft, so she could do the spell for her family”.

“Wait, wait” Yoshua said. “I had one more ques-”.

The wolf tore into the boy.

Kira came to the end of her chant.

“Thirteen souls, payment paid.

Thirteen hearts, charm is made.

Walk as wolves, walk as men.

Sing the spell on year seven”

She blew her candle out.

Where wolves were, men were rising.

Kira smiled, “Hello, father.”