Chapter 1:The Body

At first he thought it was just another dead body.  It was lying inconveniently across the path, blocking him from wheeling his cart back home.  He rolled the body off to the side, pausing as the dark hair flipped back from the face.  He knew her.  Well, he had known her, when he was younger, before he had grown white fur, before his nails turned to claws.   

He lifted the cart handles.  There was no sense in getting sentimental.  Those luminous eyes were closed forever and the slow rise of her chest … the slow rise of her chest … she was breathing!  No, it wasn’t possible.  He had felt the coolness of her skin when he had moved her.  No one could be that cold and still live.

“Fool,” he growled to himself.  He set the cart handles down and hefted the body onto the cart with a grunt.  Before he could change his mind, he resumed pulling the cart along the dirt road.     

Overall, it had been a good day.  He had sold all the wood in his cart, except what he had bartered for eggs, bread, and milk.  Those staples were carefully tucked into a sack in his wagon, jostling along next to Bianca.  He shook his head hard, as if he could shake her name straight out of it.  Bianca, of all people.  

Finding her on the road could only mean one thing; she too had been cursed.  “What goes around, comes around,” he jumped at the sound of his own voice.  The road he was taking was deserted, running a downhill course through the woodlands that provided him shelter, warmth, and income.  

At the lowest point in the road was his cabin, built with his own hands.  It was a rude structure, caulked with a mixture of clay and dung.  The roof was the worst bit, and in spite of many patch jobs, still leaked in the rain.  But the faults of his house mattered little to him.  It was more his home than Citadel ever was.

He pulled the cart up to the door and walked around the side of the cabin.  Grabbing an arm full of wood, he circled his home.  There were no signs of disturbance and no strange smells.  Reaching the front of the house, he piled his wood by the door with a clatter.  He opened the door a crack, running his hand along the inside until he felt the latch.  

The cabin’s interior was a simple square, a  hearth dominating the wall straight ahead.  A straw stuffed mattress was to the right, a pile of blankets jumbled on top of it.  To the left was a chair, and on it the one thing he had brought with him when he fled Citadel, his fiddle.

Seeing that everything was as he had left it, he brought in the firewood and set about rekindling the fire.  There was a straw basket next to the hearth, full of dried brush and pine cones.  He tucked these beneath the logs and leaned in to blow on the grey coals.  With a little luck, he could get it going again without wasting another precious match.  

Knowing if he hovered he would just make it worse, he went back outside to bring in his sack of food.  He hung the sack on a hook behind his chair, pausing to gaze longingly at his chair.  If he hadn't picked up Bianca, he could be sitting down to eat right now.  Puffing out his cheeks in annoyance with himself, he trudged back out the door.  

She hadn’t moved at all from when he had tossed her in the wagon, and again he thought her dead.  “Just a body,” he said quietly, “Doesn't matter who it was.”  He thought for a moment, then quoted something his mother had said, “She’s gone now.”  He made the sign of the Ellipse, then rolled her out of the wagon.  It was a mistake to bring a body here.  The smell as it decayed would attract animals.  The only thing to be done was to bury it, and that was not a task he was looking forward to.  Perhaps he could wait until tomorrow.  If he didn't smell anything, then no other animals would either.  He bent down and sniffed at the body, immediately regretting it.  She smelled good.  He jerked his head up, feeling a warmth spread across the tender parts of his ears.

Bianca groaned and shifted on the ground.  Somehow she was still alive, and a sense of relief flooded him, followed by a dread so strong he could taste the bitterness seeping from his gums.  He nudged her with the toe of his boot.  She was motionless, her skin bluish, her body limp.  He grabbed the back of her shirt and dragged her across the threshold.  The fire had caught while he was outside, and he stopped to throw in a few more logs before hoisting Bianca a few inches off the ground and onto the pile of blankets.  He covered her with two of them, taking one for himself.  

Once the door was closed and latched, a weariness stole over him.  Every night it was a competition between his two loves; sleep and music.  At least for this night, the victor was clear, he had no interest in going anywhere near Bianca.  He took two eggs out of the sack and gently placed them in the pot of water that always hung above the fire.  While the eggs boiled, he ate hunks of bread and swigged milk from the bottle.  

His stomach satisfied, he fished the eggs out of the pot with a ladle and set them in the corner to cool.  He tucked the blanket around his legs, then picked up his fiddle.  Resting it against his chest, he bowed the top string and began putting the instrument back in tune.  

The cabin seemed to fade away as he played, and he poured all his regrets into his playing.  The music touched parts of him that nothing else could, and even though it wouldn't heal him, it was like an emetic.  Through it all things left him except the song itself.  

He didn't notice Bianca had stirred until she was sitting on the floor in front of him, her eyes glowing red with the reflection of the fire.  “Tate,” she said, “That is you, isn't it?”

For a moment he considered denying it.  They could start again as strangers, a wolf man and an ice woman.  The ludicrousness of the situation was not lost on him, and he simply nodded his head.          

“I’m Bianca,” she continued, “Bianca Abatangelo from Citadel.  We grew up next door to each other.”

“I know who you are,” he stopped playing for a moment, waiting to see if she was going to say anything else.

“Do you have a bathroom?”

“A bathroom?  In Egregia?” he scoffed, “Go do your business outside.”

Her eyes narrowed and her shoulders straightened.  She stood in one fluid movement and stalked to the door, opening it forcefully.  He watched her thoughtfully.  She hadn't changed at all.

When she returned, she approached the hearth, lifting the ladle and peering inside.  “I don't suppose Egregia has food either.”

“In the corner,” he pointed at the eggs.  

She snatched the eggs, rolling them on the ground to break the shells.  After devouring them, she sighed and tossed the shells into the fire.  “Thanks,” she sat cross-legged in front of his chair.  “Will you play some more?”

Instead of answering her, he played an old song.  It was one of the first he had ever learned, and it took him back in time, before he was cursed.