Nightwolf

Father and son set off towards the woods at the back of the house. They lived many miles from the nearest town and kept entirely to themselves, his parents only venturing to nearby settlements when they needed to feed, which wasn’t that often. There were no other houses near them in the narrow valley between alpine mountains, dotted with meadows, moss, and rows of tall, fragrant pine. It didn’t belong to them—nothing in nature did—but they used it as respectfully as possible. Wolf’s family felt they were as one with nature as any of the creatures that lived in the wild, no different than a bear or the deer that fed in the meadows.

As they walked through the woods, Wolf dragging the burlap sack for the mushrooms behind him, his father regaled him with stories. These were stories that Wolf had heard many times before, but he had always been with his siblings, gathered around the hearth. This was the first time he was the only one in the audience, and for that it felt like he was hearing them for the first time.

He listened, enraptured. His father told the tales with passion and reverence, a natural storyteller. He told Wolf about the Black Sunshine, a dark world he could visit when he was older, a safe and magical place where his elders would stay in the days of the relentless midnight sun. He told him about the evil king who lived in the arctic snow, surrounded by rivers of blood, a red world where the bad ones came from. He told him about how the creatures of the night, his brethren, came to be, drinking the blood of the living. These stories didn’t scare Wolf—and they weren’t meant to scare him. Blood was a part of their lives.

“First comes love,” his father would always say. “Then comes blood. For us, those are the two most important things in our long lives. You can’t survive without either one.”

But Wolf thought himself lucky. Though they lived far from town, a place he never went to, and though he’d only met a handful of people other than his family, he had all the love in the world. He would have the love of his father, of his mother, of his siblings, forever.

At least, that’s what he assumed.

His father had just finished telling a story about a family of bears that lived by the nearby river when suddenly the sun was blotted out from above.

Both father and son stopped walking in the woods and looked up to the sky that was peeking through the gaps in the tall pines. Ravens were flying overhead, masking the sun and settling on the branches of the trees. The big black birds peered down at them like curious gargoyles and Wolf thought of last night, how the headless man turned into them.

Suddenly he was very, very afraid.

“There’s nothing to be afraid of,” his father said, reaching out and grasping Wolf’s hand. “They’re just ravens. They’re like us. Misunderstood.”

But his voice wavered and from the way his father was standing, alert and listening, Wolf knew that for the first time ever his father was afraid too.

He stood there for a long moment, the fear strange and palpable.

“Wolf,” his father suddenly said in a harsh whisper. He squeezed his son’s hand and stared down at him with ferocity. “I need you to listen to me, carefully, okay? People are coming.”

Wolf blinked, not understanding. “What people?”

The ravens chattered above them, as if asking the same question.

“Men that mean to harm us,” he said quickly. He placed his hands on Wolf’s shoulders and held tight. “I can hear them even if you can’t. I can smell them. You need to hide.”

His parents had always told him that men were something to fear, especially the ones from the town. Their relationship with humans was complicated, they’d say. They needed people to survive, but in many ways the people were more dangerous.

“Why don’t we run away?” Wolf asked his father, his heart rate starting to rise. “You’re faster than the fastest deer. Faster than anyone.”

“Because I’m tired of running away,” he said gravely. “I’m tired of trying to keep these people away from my family. I need to stay, to face them. They’ll never leave us alone if I don’t. They don’t like what we are, Wolf, they’re afraid of us. Call us heathens. They call us murderers without even trying to understand why.”

“You don’t murder people,” Wolf said. “You hunt them.”

His face grew grim. “And one day you will too. We do it less and less and only to survive, no different than hunting the deer that live here. But humans will never understand, will never have to, will never want to. And they fear what they don’t understand. We will always be monsters to them, no matter what we do. They are more dangerous than us because they carry hate in their hearts, hate which corrupts and kills. Which is why this needs to stop. And you need to hide. Then, when it’s all over, I need you to run all the way back home and take your mother and brother and sister into the Black Sunshine with you. Your mother will know what to do.”