Chapter 5: The Damned

Tate yawned and stretched himself out across his mattress.  Bianca had already risen.  Earlier he heard the clang of her dumping the pail of water back into the pot, then the thump of the door as she exited.  

He stumbled out of bed and felt his way outside.  His eyes were only half open, but he really needed to urinate.  He circled his house, looking for a good place to mark.  Sniffing, he stopped, alarmed.  Someone else had marked here, a woman!  “Idiot,” he muttered in response to his momentary surprise.  Bianca would have to pee somewhere.  He double-marked it, yawning again as he tried to wake up.

Both of them had stayed up late, waiting first for the beans and then the rice to cook.  Well, he couldn't completely blame the slow-cooking beans.  He had stayed up after Bianca went to bed, reading her notebook and thinking.  Something bad happened as he read; he fell in love with her all over again.  “No,” he thought, “Love wasn't the right word.  It was connection.”  He felt connected to her when he read her words, like he was diving into those luminous eyes and bathing in her synapses.

He shook his head hard.  This Spring was really doing a number on him.  Pulling his pants back up, he sniffed the air.  If he had to guess, he would say Bianca was over near the creek.  “Probably looking for the hot water tap,” he quipped, ambling towards the front door.

Once back inside, he prepared a quick breakfast, adding milk to the leftover rice in his bowl.  Just as he was taking a bite, Bianca threw the door open.  She struggled on the threshold to lift the pail of water.  

“That's a wolf’s job,” he stood and took the bucket from her, emptying it into the pot above the fire.

“I’ve never heard of wolves fetching water before,” Bianca was panting from exertion.  Instead of sweating, an odd mist seemed to rise off her.  “That creek,” she wiped her forehead with the back of her hand, “where does it come from?”

“Citadel,” he sat back down, picking up his bowl.

“Is it dammed?” she inched towards him, her eyes on his rice.

“Everything that comes out of Citadel is damned,” he chuckled at his own play on words.

Bianca pointed at his bowl, “May I have some?”

“No, go make yourself an egg.  I have to get to work.”

She frowned at him then pursed her lips, “You mean that, about the dam?”

“Well, it was ten years ago, but I remembered that dam pretty clearly.” He scraped his bowl with his spoon, trying to capture the last grains of rice, “I didn’t want to be registered as cursed, so I snuck into the industrial part of Citadel.  There are others like us there, you know.”  He stopped, uncertain if this was a story he should tell.

“No, I don’t know, Tate, and don’t stop like that.  Tell me the rest.”

He could feel his ears heat up from the eagerness in her tone.  “You ever wonder where all the people with skills in engineering, science, machinery, and electronics are?  Why Egregia is so backwards?  If you have technological skills and you get cursed, they keep you in this . . . work camp, I guess.”

“Prison,” Bianca breathed.

“No one paid me any mind once I was there.  They allow the cursed to do whatever they like, as long as they stay inside the camp.  After being there for a day, I took a risk and asked someone if anyone had ever escaped and how they did it.  You better check those eggs.”

Bianca looked startled, then removed her eggs with the ladle, “Keep talking, I’m listening.”

“It turns out that someone had made it out by climbing down the dam.  Unlike the gates, the dam was unguarded, but it turns out there was another reason no one else had tried it.  The curved sides of the dam don't look very steep from above, but climbing down them was the scariest thing I have ever done in my life,” he looked at Bianca thoughtfully.  She was leaning forward, her eyes wide.  Encouraged, he continued, “Once I got started I couldn’t seem to keep my feet in place.  They kept sliding down the concave sides of the dam while I had no more than a fingertip hold on the edge of a brick.  I was so frightened that tears were running down my face and I had no way to clear my eyes.

“When I reached the bottom, I was so shaky, that I lay there for a half hour, out in the open, drones buzzing overhead.  Remembering something from a movie about following rivers, I walked beside the trickle of water from the dam for five days.  On the sixth day I stopped, figuring I had run so far that the past would never catch me.”

The past sat on the floor and began peeling an egg, “So I should write a message to them as well, or maybe you should.”

“Me?  You’re the writer.  I’m just a timber wolf who really needs to get busy cutting timber,” he licked his bowl clean, setting it by his fiddle.  

Bianca was no longer paying attention to him, a look of deep thought on her face.  He barked a “bye” at her and exited the cabin.  Digging around near the woodpile, he retrieved a length of rope and some wedges.  He threw these into his cart, followed by the axe.  Towing his cart, he headed away from the market.  

He turned down a narrow path he himself had made, and snaked his way towards the end of it.  The going was slow, and he took his time gazing at the trees, making sure he hadn't missed any good candidates for firewood.  He stopped in front of a tree with a growth on the side, throwing the rope over his arm and removing his boots.  Using his claws, he scampered up the tree.  He tied his guide line and then shimmied back down.  

Once on the ground, he put his boots back on and started clearing two rough escape paths.  Logging was dangerous work, and he fully expected to someday give his life to it; either being crushed by a tree or taking an unlucky fall.  Whichever it was, he wasn’t opposed to dying that way.  Over the years he had arrived at a certain understanding of things.  He wouldn't say that he was religious, but the prayers his mother taught him seemed to hold a measure of truth to them.

Before making his first axe cut, he placed a hand on the tree and muttered the first prayer every child in Citadel learned, “Pins and string, pegs and rope, in You I rest, in You I hope.”  It was superstitious, but every time he said it, the tree fell where it was supposed to land.

Chapter 4: Luck is a Gentleman

This chapter contains sex. Just a fair warning.

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“Hey Familiar,” the witch batted her eyes at him as he pulled his cart up to an empty stall.

“Hi Amber,” Tate hefted a block of wood off the cart, trying to make it look easy.  He was dripping with perspiration and he hoped it didn't show.

A customer held up a bundle of rosemary.  “Seven blessings for that one,” Amber said smartly.  Tate shook his head.  Amber Kant took advantage of anyone she didn't know.  When he first met her, she was trying to sell flowers.  Even though her blossoms were beautiful, no one wanted to buy flowers from a woman with a greenish pallor and warts.  She had cannily switched to herbs after a customer asked her for a charm.  

Seeing that he was watching her, she pulled the elastic out of her red hair and shook it.  “Want to drop by my hut tonight, Hon’?”

“I can't,” he set one piece of wood on top of the other, “I have an unwelcome visitor.  I could have you for lunch though.”  He split the wood, then stuck the axe in place.  

“I might already have a lunch date,” Amber’s blue eyes sparkled.

Tate walked into her booth, standing next to her, “That would be a shame.”

“Quit your flirting.  Nobody wants to see that,” said a deep voice.  It was Lamar Helmer, the woodworker.  Like Bianca, his curse hadn't touched his physical appearance.  Much worse, as far as Tate was concerned, the skin of Lamar's head was too hot to be touched.  

“I fancy one of those big pieces of wood,” Lamar pointed at the largest piece, “What will you have for it?”

“I need a chair.”

“Well, I would normally charge two pieces of wood for that, but for you, only one,” Lamar cracked a grin.

“Take two,” Tate nodded, “and make it a chair that rocks.”

Lamar’s smile widened, “Help carry one back to my cart and you got yourself a deal.”

Tate and Lamar hauled the pieces of wood over to the woodworker’s booth.  After depositing the wood in the cart, Lamar offered Tate a pine rocking chair.  It was simple in construction, but crafted so well that it had a stately elegance to it.  It was perfect for Bianca.  He carried it back to his wagon, then dropped by another stall to pick up doughnuts.  

Returning to his space, he handed a doughnut to Amber.  She ate it silently, occasionally glancing in his direction.  Tate gazed back at her coyly.  He should be focusing on cutting and selling his wood, not to mention purchasing enough staples for two people.  He glanced at Amber again.  Should be, but he was distracted by the smudge of powdered sugar on her chin.  Before he was aware of what he was doing, he was standing in front of her, rubbing it off with his thumb.  She kissed him gently, and he could feel his body react to her touch.

With a surge of energy, he cut the tree round down into smaller pieces suitable for a fire.  More people trickled into the marketplace, and he sold out of wood quickly.  Not wanting to linger unnecessarily, he purchased a large bag of rice and smaller bag of dried beans.  

Amber was waiting for him when he returned.  “A friend is going to watch my booth for a while,” she offered.

He nodded and followed her meekly back to her shack.  She called it a hut, but it was similar to all the houses in Egregia; a small wooden affair with a hearth in the center.  Amber at least had a real bed, and she was pulling the covers off it now, neatly folding them at the bottom.  He wrapped his arms around her from behind, kissing and sniffing her neck.  She turned her head towards him, her mouth eager with kisses.

He took his time touching her, running his hands over the curves of her body, inhaling the scent that rose off her skin as she grew excited.  She ran her fingers through his fur, petting him, then removing his pants.  He pulled her shirt over her head, and she shucked the rest of her clothing, rubbing against him like a cat.  Picking her up, he staggered to the bedside.  They landed on top of it in a tangle of limbs, laughing.  Playfully, he rolled her onto her stomach and rubbed against her.  She moaned and lifted her hips to meet his.  He pressed himself into her, the heat of their bodies intensifying with their union.  He rocked his body against hers until their bodies seemed to meld.  Laying together, they kissed and caressed each other until the tie released.

Leaving Amber’s house, he felt a mixture of shame and satisfaction.  Instead of working, he had spent the day indulging every pleasure.  Everything he was, everything he craved, was something Bianca would look down her nose at.  He stopped in the market to buy milk and eggs, then reluctantly pulled his cart back towards home.  

The sun was just a sliver above the horizon by the time he reached his door.  He undid the latch and hoisted the bag of rice onto his shoulders.  He was greeted with the sight of Bianca sitting in his chair, writing in a loose-leaf notebook.  She barely glanced up as he walked in, absorbed in thought.

“I got us some rice,” he dropped the bag next to the bed, then went outside.  Retrieving the rest of the food items, he tried again, “Beans and milk and eggs.”  

“Oh yeah?” Bianca continued writing.

He went through the door again, maneuvering the rocking chair through the doorway.  He placed it next to the other chair.  When she still didn't look up, he sat in it.  “Bee,” he rocked the chair, “What are you writing?”

She looked at him, her eyes a wild constellation of emotions, “What did you say?”

“I asked what you were writing.”

“No, before that.”

“Beans and milk and eggs,” he pointed.

“After that,” she closed her notebook, “I thought you said ‘Bee.’”

He opened and closed his jaw with a click.  Had he really called her by her childhood nickname?  He was getting way too relaxed.

“Sorry, I must be hearing things,” she closed her eyes, “I’m writing down some ideas I have about the rights of the cursed.  If people in Citadel knew what exile was really like, they wouldn't be so eager to cast people out.”

He snorted at her, “They’d probably do it more.  You give people too much credit.”

“And you give them too little,” she rubbed the ink stain on the side of her hand.  “Do you know anyone who has a printing press?”

“Let me see it,” he pointed at her book.

She opened her notebook, her eyes moving as she read her own writing.  “It needs a bit of editing,” she bit her lip, then passed him the notebook.

No one can imagine the pain of exile until they’ve gone through it.  Torn not just from friends and family, but from the culture, lifestyle, and infrastructure that makes us feel human.  Not even given the dignity of an animal released into the wild, I was dumped by a drone in the middle of an Egregian road.  Unconscious from the fall, there I lay until Fortune picked me up and threw me in the back of a rough wooden cart, high technology in these parts.  

“Fortune, Bee?” he scrunched up his face skeptically.

“Would Fate be a better word?  Or Luck?”

“Luck is a gentleman and Death is a lady,” Tate recited the old parable without thinking.  

“You sound like your mother,” Bianca’s hand hovered over his for a second, before she tucked it in her lap.

“I’ll ask around next time I’m at the market, see if anyone has a printing press,” he handed the notebook back to her and stood.  “I, uh, I’d like to read more of that later,” he gazed into the fire, “but right now I’m really hungry.”

“Oh,” Bianca rose next to him, “I suppose cooking is part of this job?”  She walked over to the hearth and peered in the pot, “We’ll need to dump some of this water if we’re to cook rice.”

He couldn’t hide the horrified expression on his face.  

“Not like dump it, dump it, I’m not that stupid,” Bianca scanned the cabin.  “Do you not even have a bucket?”

“Hold on,” he went out the front door and up the path about ten feet.  A small trail snaked into the woods, and he followed it to the brackish creek.  It almost didn’t even deserve the title of creek, so small was the trickle that flowed through the eroded river bed.  If the bed was any indication, at one time it must have been a grand roaring river, strong enough to pull a horse off its feet.  Next to it, on the bank sat an aluminum pail.  He picked it up and headed back down the path.  The woods were dark around him, and he could hear the rustles of a racoon family playing in a fir tree.

Bianca was staring dolefully in the bag of rice.

“Lose something in there?” he asked, setting the pail down with a clang.

“Just my sanity,” she picked up the bucket and carried it over to the hearth.  She ladled water into the bucket, her eyes suddenly lighting up orange, “I can use the ladle!”

He shook his head and picked up his fiddle.  It always took newcomers awhile to adjust.  Having lived in Egregia for ten years made it hard to show patience in the face of such callowness.  He sat in his chair, toying with the frog on his bow while Bianca muttered to herself.  

There was an old song he had taught himself, a happy, tripping little tune called “What If?”  He played it while Bianca struggled to ladle out water and ladle in the dried beans.  When she finished, she sat down in the floor, the front of her shirt wet from dripping water on herself, a faraway look in her eyes.  

He closed his eyes and sang as he played:

“If the moon never rose,

If the sun never shined,

I would always be yours,

And you would be mine.

Darkest sky,

Sea of glass,

I always knew,

Love wouldn't last.

If the waves didn't roll,

If the tide didn't turn,

I would always be yours,

N’er again would I yearn.

Darkest sky,

Sea of glass,

What if I said,

Our love could last?”

Chapter 3: Second Love

When he finished playing, he noticed Bianca was leaning against the leg of the chair, her head partially in his lap.  For a second he was filled with panic.  Steadying himself, he moved his leg so that her head fell off his lap.  She jolted awake, banging her head on the leg of the chair.

“Tate Harper, you did that on purpose,” she rubbed her forehead.

“Yeah,” he carefully placed his fiddle in the corner behind the chair, “I did.”

Her face twisted and she scooted away from him, “I don't know why you act like you hate me.”

“Don't know, hm, maybe because you cursed me?” he stood and crossed the room to add another log to the fire.

“I-I’m sorry,” she paused, then took a deep breath, “I was young and I didn't know . . . I still don't really know, Tate, why you did what you did.  Not really.”

“The foolishness of youth,” he pointed at the mattress, “You can sleep over there.  I’ll stay up and mind the fire.”

“Thank you,” she stood rubbing her right leg and wincing, “Pins and needles.”

“Go unnoticed after the sewing,” he poked the fire with a stick.

“I never really liked that proverb,” she limped a few steps, then sank into his bed, “I like to think the fabric remembers even if we don't, and Tate, it's silly of you to not use your own bed.”  She rubbed her right foot again, wrapping the blankets around herself, “I’ll sleep on this side, you can have the other.”

He showed her his teeth, intentionally trying to spook her.  She glared at him, her eyes glowing orange.  “If you try anything I will take you out of this world so fast, you won't even manage a howl,” her own lips curled back as if in imitation.

He snorted at her, then approached his bed. He sat down, then turned around in place until he was comfortable.  Even with his back turned to her, he had the eerie sensation that she was watching him.  His fur standing on end, he glanced in her direction.  Her back was turned towards him, her body rigid.  “She’s still afraid of me,” he thought, “or maybe more so now that I’m more beast than man.”  

No sooner had he laid his head down, he felt the movement of his cart rolling behind him, the wheels rumbling in the ruts.  The dream was relaxing in its tedium, there was no Bianca, just the vibration of the cart and an endless stretch of road.  

He stirred from his sleep midway through the night, adding another log to the fire.  Settling back down into bed, he circled, sniffing his blankets and trying to get comfortable.  The scent of Bianca hung in the air, and tickled the inside of his nose.  “She smells,” he sniffed again, ”like blood.”  A sweat broke out across his chest, and he jumped up from the bed.  Pacing the room nervously, he grabbed his fiddle.  He could sit outside in his wagon and play.  It would be dark and cold, but he had a wolf’s eyes to see and a wolf’s coat to keep him warm.  

Once outside, he could feel his body relax.  The smell of the forest was always the same, the sharpness of pine, the more subtle hints of plants, the richness of the soil.  Climbing into the bed of his cart, he reflected on his dream.  He had ended the days of simplicity when he had stopped to pick up a body.  

Bianca had stolen his life from him before, and he couldn’t shake the thought that she was back to take it again.  “If,” he whispered, “If I don't accidentally kill her first.”  He pressed the strings on the fingerboard without bowing, humming the melody to himself.  Feeling the tug of song in his chest, he allowed his right hand to bow the strings. Though it was his hands that did the work of playing, he felt as though the music poured straight out of his center, each note filled with a longing he had no other way to express.  When he finished the song, he felt a sense of relief followed closely by exhaustion.  He lay down in the wagon, placing  the fiddle and bow above his head where he wouldn't accidentally bump it.

His sleep was so deep, it seemed as if only a moment had passed when he felt the cold hand on his shoulder.  Before he could even think, he jumped out of the cart, pinning Bianca to the ground, his jaw open, ready to bite.  He could see clearly it was her, the sun had risen while he slept and its rays sparkled off the dew on the grass and the whites of her eyes.

Bianca squirmed underneath him, then kicked upward sharply.  Her knee landed square on his groin, the stomach-turning pain spreading through his body.  Incensed, he snapped his fangs in her face.  

“Get off me, or I’ll kick you again,” Bianca twisted her arms in his grip, searching for a weakness.

“I should bite you and put you in your place,” he snarled.

Bianca let loose a string of profanities.  It was something he’d never heard her do before, and his anger turned to curiosity.  Her body relaxed as she swore, the fight draining out of her.  She raised her chin, exposing her throat to him.  He sniffed her neck.  Unable to get enough of her scent, he continued sniffing down her body.  She was trembling, her body quivering under his.  The scent of blood was stronger on her, and he was suddenly certain of two things; she was not injured and he had no desire to kill her.  Disgusted with himself, he moved away from her, retrieving his fiddle from the cart.

“I don't suppose you have any other place to go,” he offered her a hand up.

She shook her head and stood, ignoring his hand.

“Then you will tend my hearth while I work?” he blushed as soon as he said it.  “The hearth, I mean.  If it goes out I have to waste a match.  I try to bank it, but sometimes it goes out anyways.  I’m not saying that you have to, it was a question-”

“Tate.”

“-I know you don't want to be here and I don't want you to be here.  That came out wrong-”

“Tate.”

“-If you did have something else you liked to do, you could do it as well.  I’m not saying you have to stay in the house.  I’m not, you know what, I’m rambling.”

“Tate,” Bianca’s expression hovered between amusement and concern, “I understand the importance of fire.”

She walked past him into the cabin, and he followed her, puzzled.  “Was that a ‘yes’?”

“I will take the job of Hearth Tender.  My terms are that you feed me,” she put a log on the fire, “Now would be good.”

He reached into his sack, handing her the remainder of the loaf of bread.  “Here’s lunch,” he handed her two eggs.  “I’ll be gone until just before dusk.  I’ll bring more food then.”  Feeling a pang of guilt, he took the bottle of milk from the sack and thrust it at her.  Turning on his heel, he left the cabin and tossed his sack into the cart.  He grabbed the handles and pulled the cart part way up the hill, before realizing he was forgetting his axe.  Running back to the house, he retrieved it from the wood pile and placed it in the back of the cart.  He continued his upward course to where he had seen a fallen tree two days prior.

The trees and plants he passed were budding, a sure sign of spring.  “Spring,” he laughed out loud, “of course.”  The urges he was feeling had nothing to do with Bianca.  They were just a natural instinct, one he had occasionally indulged with some awkwardness.  There were some women who liked the human/animal hybrids in Egregia, even preferred them; but he never fully trusted his own desires.  

Ignoring the tightness in his lower body, he focused on the forest around him.  A squirrel chattered in a tree and he stopped his cart, hunching over and holding himself as still as possible.  He cleared his mind of everything but the chirping of birds in the trees and the flick of the squirrel’s tail.  It ran down the tree and stared at him.  His nose tickled and he fought the urge to scratch it.  The squirrel was getting closer, working its way towards the cart.  It skittered over the cart handle, its fur twitching.  Unable to remain still for even a moment longer, Tate pinned the squirrel between his paws, his jaw closing over it while it frantically scratched him.  He shook it until it stopped moving, then tore into it, licking the blood dripping down his chin.  

“If Bianca saw me now,” he thought.  It would, in a way, solve his problem.  She would run away from him as fast as she could, and he wouldn’t have to think about her for another ten years or whenever his mind felt like reminding him of her.  He ripped the last bits of meat off the bones, then cracked them to suck out the marrow.  It wasn’t much of a meal, but it would tide him over until he found something better.

Licking his chops, he lifted the cart handles and continued on.  The tree was where he remembered it, and he went to work cutting it into smaller pieces.  It was hard work, and he stripped his shirt off his sweating pelt.  Each piece of wood weighed about 50 lbs, and he managed to load seven of them in his cart.  Grunting, he lifted the cart handles and headed towards the market.