I am Wolf (The Wolfboy Chronicles) (2 page)

I spotted some branches that would be good for a fire
and jumped off the horse. I started picking them up and tying them to my saddle
when my mare reacted to something. I might not have known much about what was
going on in the world, but I did know about horses. Their hearing was considerably
better than humans and they sensed danger long before we did. So when she
stopped grassing, froze and lifted her head with her ears straight in the air I
knew that something was coming our way. Something or someone was close and if
she was alert then I should be too.

“What’s the matter, girl?” I whispered and tried to
calm her down by putting my hand on her muzzle. “Did you hear something?”

Her eyes looked spooked and her ears seemed to be
scanning the air for sounds. That was how they detected a mountain lion in
nature, my dad had told me. Their ears were designed to hear a paw on the
ground. That was their nature as a prey. They react with fear and that’s when
you risk getting run over. Because when danger emerges, horses run. And when
they panic they don’t see anything in front of them and they certainly never
care about you.

I felt my heart pounding as I tried to calm my mare
down by stroking her neck and making calming sounds with my mouth. It was
almost sunset and I couldn’t risk her leaving me here. These forests were
filled with bears and wolves that would be more than thrilled to feast on me
after weeks of starvation due to the cold winter.

“There you go. It’s nothing,” I whispered with a calm
voice, yet picked up my father’s old gun from the saddle-bag that I used for
hunting.

I heard a rustling and turned my head with a gasp. The
mare backed up. She sensed something was there, or someone. Now I felt it too.
It was like someone was staring at us, observing us from the surrounding
bushes. Then it all went quiet again. My heart calmed down.

“Probably just a deer or maybe a rabbit,” I whispered.
I walked closer to the bushes, the sound of my steps creaked in the snow. I
felt my heart racing in my chest as I wiped away some branches in the bush
causing the loose snow to fall to the ground. I pointed the gun in front of me;
ready to shoot if anything should show up, hoping it would be something big
enough to feed my family. But nothing was there. I scoffed. Whatever had been
there was already gone. I walked back to my mare with a smile. I shook my head.

“It was nothing,” I said to her with a low voice. She
was still staring at the bushes and trees in front of us with eyes wide open
and her head held high. I tried to calm her down by stroking her gently but I
felt the unrest growing inside of me as well. I couldn’t escape the feeling
that something was staring at us from somewhere.

I picked up some more wood and branches from the
ground and tied them to the saddle. Then I decided it was time to go home. It
was almost dark by now and there was no chance for me to hunt any animals after
the sun had set. It was also too dangerous.

I grabbed the reins intending to jump on my horse’s
back when I heard a rustling again. I turned my head and lifted my gun.

“Who’s there?” I said. This time I was certain it
wasn’t an animal. No animals made a sound like that. My voice was trembling
slightly. “Show your face whoever you are.”

Another rustling followed and caused my mare to back
up in fear. “Easy now, girl,” I said.

A small face grew out of the forest and came closer. A
small, beautiful face belonging to one of the most enchanted creatures I
believed the world had ever seen. Her shining green eyes stared at me with
fear, her pale skin shivered in the cold. As she stood there in front of me,
her lips purple with cold I took her for a creature of the forest at first. I
pictured her being the fairy princess that my mother used to tell me about as a
child before bedtime. She could tell me the most wonderful stories about the
creatures living in the forests surrounding our castle. They could be about
elves, spirits or will-o’-the-wisps. She had even told me that it was believed
that there were were-wolves roaming restlessly in the night. I had always
listened to her stories but never believed in them. Now that I saw this
mesmerizing being standing in front of me lighting up in the darkness I almost
believed that she had been right.

I stared at this gorgeous girl for a long time,
mesmerized, speechless, my heart pounding in my chest. I walked closer to her
then realized she was shivering.

The girl stared at me, frightened. I reached out my
hand. She hesitated and looked at me with suspicion.

“It’s okay,” I whispered. “I won’t harm you.”

Her purple lips parted and she spoke for the first
time. “Can ... can you help me?”

I nodded. “Are you running?”

She nodded with a gasp. “They ... they came to our
house and took my family. I hid in the stables with the horses. I thought they
would find me when they searched them. They took everything. Even the horses.
They knew I was there somewhere. They kept looking for me. For two days I hid
in a small storage room in the stables. They stayed there waiting for me to
show myself, because they knew I had to come out eventually.”

“So what did you do?”

“I sneaked out at night. When the soldiers were
partying and drinking in the house. There was one soldier in the stables. He
was sitting on a chair halfway asleep with a bottle in his hand. He grabbed me
as I tried to sneak past him. He ... he tried to rape me ... But I ... I killed
him. He was too drunk. I don’t know where I got the strength from. Anger
maybe.”

She lifted her hands and stared at them. They were
trembling. “I cut him with a knife, his own knife that I grabbed from the table
next to him,” she whispered.

I grabbed her hands and held them between mine.
“You’re safe here,” I said. “This is my father’s land. They won’t come here.”

She lifted her head and stared into my eyes. Our eyes
locked. It was the most wondrous feeling in the world. I wanted to take her in
my arms right there and kiss her. I felt a deep urge to comfort her; I wanted
desperately to protect her. The pain and anger she was feeling, I was feeling
as well in my pounding heart. I felt it very strongly as if I had been there
with her.

“They’ll come here too,” she said with a low voice.
“They will be looking for me everywhere now. I killed one of them. They won’t
stop till I’m dead. They will search everywhere - even here.”

“Then I’ll get you out of here before they do,” I said.
I looked at her and smiled. “My name is Sami Margulies, by the way.”

“I’m Catalina,” she said.

I
T WAS MY PLAN
to smuggle Catalina
over the borders to Bulgaria. It was my only option to save her. I didn’t want
to bring my family in any danger by bringing her to the castle even if that had
been my first idea, but that was like waiting for the executioner to come. The
soldiers would surely find her some day and then they would kill all of us. I
couldn’t risk that. So I asked her to jump on the back of my horse and hold on
to me as we galloped across the countryside hoping to reach the borders through
the mountains and maybe find a passage that wasn’t closed off. I knew the
forests like the back of my hand so I was certain I could find a way.

But it was getting darker and soon it started to snow.
I heard howling in the distance and we didn’t get very far before I decided we
had to stop for the night. The snow was bothering my mare and made her legs
heavy. If she gave up we would be left to the mercy of the starving wolves.

We came to a valley I knew very well and found an
empty barn to shelter us for a couple of hours. It would be best to travel in
darkness if possible so I was planning on getting up and leave before dawn.

I pulled the heavy gate open and we all entered the
dry barn. I found a stack of hay for my mare and she ate with contented grunts
and snorts. Catalina was shaking with fear and cold. I put my jacket around her
and helped her lay down in the hay. I told her I would watch out for her.

“Just get some rest,” I said. “You need it. You’re
exhausted.”

I stroke her hair gently and she closed her eyes. A
calmness fell upon her face as she dozed off. She looked so strikingly
beautiful. So fair, so fragile.

I got up and looked outside through the cracks. The
snow had stopped and the clouds were moving westward on the sky. The full moon
was shining down on me and lit up the barn through the cracks. I stared at the
forest in the distance as I heard more howling. Then I had that strange feeling
again. Like someone was watching me. I felt a cold shiver run down my back. I
looked out through the cracks frantically, trying to spot whatever was out
there. I sensed it was close, whatever it was.

Could it be the soldiers? I wondered. Were they following
her? I held my gun tight in my hand. If anyone tried to come in here, I would
shoot them, I thought. I might have been the youngest in my family but I was a
man now. I was able to make that kill if necessary.

I turned and looked at Catalina. She was sleeping a
little uneasily, like she was dreaming heavily now. Her face seemed torn. I
thought about what I had seen and wondered what she had seen. How was she ever
going to survive in a new country? Would she be able to escape the cruelty in
Bulgaria? I didn’t know much about what was going on in the rest of the world,
or even in my own country. I had no idea if she could be safe there. But
anywhere had to be better than here, I expected. Catalina cried in her sleep. I
went to her and stroked her cheek. I whispered calming words in her ears like
my mother had done to me when I had bad dreams. Then I held her hand in mine
while wondering if I would ever see her again once I had helped her cross the
border.

I desperately hoped so. Somehow being in her presence
made me feel whole, it filled me with an inner joy even given the
circumstances.

I kept my eyes on the gate and my other hand on the
gun in case someone tried to enter the barn. My eyes were wide open even if
they did feel heavy and tired. My mind was alert. My mare was resting in the
corner apparently safe, knowing I was watching out for her. The night was quiet
outside. Every now and then I heard more howling but it seemed to be far away.
Then there was a scratch. It sounded like it was coming from right outside of
the building. I got up on my feet. My heart was pounding. Something was moving
around outside of the barn. My mare heard it too. She was on her feet now and
walked around uneasily with her head held high and ears in the air. I gazed out
through the cracks again but saw nothing. The full moon was alone in the sky
now. It was so quiet out there in the snow.

The snow, I thought and stared at the area in front of
the barn where we had entered a couple of hours ago. In the fresh snow I saw
big paw-prints.

Startled I tumbled backwards. It looked just like the
paw-prints of a wolf. I had known and seen many like those before when I had
gone hunting in the mountains. But none like these. These were enormous. This
was a giant wolf.

Again I wondered; did it know that we were in here?
Was it waiting for us to show ourselves? Maybe it was clever enough to know
that we would eventually have to leave the barn and then it could attack? Had
it followed us or had it just smelled us here?

I swallowed hard and sat next to Catalina. I had three
bullets in my gun. I could kill it if it tried to enter. I couldn’t escape the
images of the big paw-prints outside. This was definitely no ordinary wolf. I
thought for a second about my mother and how worried I knew she had to be by
now. I had no idea when I would see her again. I hoped the border was no more
than a day’s travel away, but I didn’t know for certain. It might take two
considering the circumstances, I thought.

The night went quiet. Not even a howling in the distance,
nor a sound from outside the barn. Every now and then I got up and glanced
outside but I saw nothing. No wolf, no more paw-prints. Maybe it had just been
passing by, I thought to myself with relief. On its nightly hunt it might have
picked up our scent but then given up since we hid inside the barn? But wolves
from the forest never came this close to humans or their houses. Usually they
were too afraid of us to come close to where we lived. I had heard of wolves
attacking humans in packs, but only if the humans themselves had gone into the
forest or went hunting in the mountains. This was a highly unusual behavior.

I sat down next to Catalina and closed my eyes for
only a second. My eyelids felt so heavy I couldn’t resist them any longer. A
few seconds of rest couldn’t hurt, I thought. There was no way the wolf could
come in here.