Wolf Sirens: Forbidden: Discover The Legend

To angels Sally and Roger for saying it was ‘really good’,
for reading until they had ‘tense eyes’ and
believing in my story.
Mum, for being an inspiration that dreams
can come true, and dad for always supporting me,
no matter what.

Goddess of the moon, Artemis does not sway her eternal
bow, she is the symbol of strength and commitment, and
her guiding hands restrict me. The wolf ’s arrow is ready,
aimed at his heart. Restless waves of life inside beat like
a fist hitting my chest. Immortality has a scent. I am his
dark Seraph. I brace the bow under the deity’s power. I
face the silver bolt to the snarling beast, fever radiating
from his body.The rogue creeps towards me, his honey gaze
wavers. Deep inside him is a secret, below the predator’s
sable coat, behind the legend’s lunar glare. The hunter is
restless but my feathers begin to fall like snowflakes. The
moons rise, as I ready to strike in vengeance. An eye for
an eye, they howl for me, justification cracks her stone
veneer, lost on the path. I know why I am here.

There are many myths surrounding Shade
. At the
town’s centre lies an effigy erected in celebration of
the demigod who slays the feared wolves: a manycenturies-old haunting figure that rescues Shade
from complete anonymity. The angel-faced woman
stands in the valley dressed in grey flowing robes, bow
braced. The wolf towers above, lashing at she who
attempts to strike her prey. The village now sees her
as the deity huntress who saves the town’s children
from being harmed, by slaying the fabled wolf. They
dance in an annual parade dedicated to this feat in
her honour, which ends with the re-enactment of the
battle.

The legend says many hundreds of years ago in
the valley forest surrounding Shade a wolf stalks a
young woman who practices her aim in a clearing.

The spring breeze rustles seedlings from the
branches that catch in her golden brown hair. Gliding
from the shadows beneath the trees through the wavering grass his luminescent eyes lie upon her beauty
and he stops, and though facing him with her bow
braced she admires him too. The maiden’s brother
who is off some distance spies the wolf ’s approach
through the trees. Apollo draws his bow and shoots
at the beast. The stillness is broken by the hiss of his
arrow and the wolf whimpers and falls before her.
Apollo is pleased with his kill and he kicks the animal’s still live body for his amusement. Weeping, the
maiden falls to her knees, horrified that her brother
can be so cruel. He removes the arrowhead from the
wolf ’s blood-stained limb and readies his knife to
finish the kill - indifferent to her affections for the
animal as she pleads for his life to be spared. The siblings argue and Apollo leaves his sister in the forest
guarding the wounded wolf, angered by her compassion for the carnivore who was surely attempting to
take her life. Artemis is no ordinary maiden. She does
not see herself as separate or different from nature,
but as part of it. She feels an affinity for the mortal creatures of the earth, as she is half human. The
demigoddess heals the beast’s wound and continues
to visit him secretly in a hidden cave.

Apollo spies his sister tending the wild beast.
Angered, he tells Artemis that livestock nearby have
been attacked and that the village plans a hunt to seek
the wolf. Apollo places a knife in her hand for protection and to appease him she begrudgingly accepts.

Artemis runs to warn the wolf of the hunt, but
Apollo secretly follows. As she approaches the dim
entrance to the cave the wolf snarls and arches his
back to attack.Terrified, she stabs him with the knife.
But as her brother appears she realizes her mistake.
Shocked, she drops the weapon upon the earth, but it
is too late. Seeing the beast’s blood on her hands she
cries in anguish.

Artemis wears the black skin from the wolf in
penance, wandering the forest to grieve at night.
She grows more distant and after a time comes to
live in the cave alone. The other wolves of the valley call through the trees. She sees the pack is thin
and weak, as food is scarce because men have taken
more than they need from the forest. She knows
they must justly give and take from the earth, so
that food is plentiful again and the young should
be spared, but the alpha soon takes a child from the
town to feed her hungry pack. A lynch mob forms
in the town. Outraged, the villagers come armed to
find the den and in a surprise attack they cull the
entire pack, accidentally striking Artemis as she was
wrapped in the wolf pelt. When they realize what
they have done, the men cover up the murder hurriedly and throw her body in the river.
In anger for her death the King of Gods shatters his mirror to the mortal world and with a shard
slits his palm. Under a full moon his veins drip redgold liquid into the river. The pelts of the deceased
pack, which now hang outside the village homes, are
rained with his immortal blood. Zeus curses the town
so that when bitten the villagers will become human
by day and wolves by night, so that they may learn
they are just like all creatures and king of none, and
as the men place the pelts over themselves as clothing, the leather bonded with their skin and melted
into their tremulous flesh; grotesquely twisting and
hunching their resisting bodies into plumes of hair as
their hands became claws.

The immortal blood of the God of Thunder
and Skies created the first werewolves to avenge his
beloved daughter’s death and the egos of men, damming them to eternity as man and carnivorous beast.

The cherished daughter of Zeus becomes the
first huntress of Shade and her spirit casts punishment on those that harm unfairly in her forest. Her
symbol is a damsel with an arrow. She hunts during
the crescent moon, aiming her bow at the unjust, defending the young and vulnerable. Legend has it she
keeps the natural balance of the forest to this day, and
she chooses daughters from the valley to enforce her
sacred laws.

Zeus takes Apollo to Olympus for protection
and awards him power when he comes of age. The
twin brother of Artemis becomes God of the Wolf,
perhaps as punishment for his sister’s death. He is
associated with the sun and is protector of flocks and
packs, but also a bringer of plague and illness. He
wields his power to undo his sister’s legacy.

Animals don’t know hope, only fear and hunger.
New beginnings are hard. My mother and I moved
to Shade, because it was where she grew up. Sophie
hadn’t done as well as she expected out of the divorce
and houses were less costly in the country. She hoped
in her heart we could start over, but I knew it would
all be the same, only now the backdrop had changed.
In trade for cement and crowds, we now inhabited a
foreboding landscape of trees and vast fields of grass,
a pointless exchange.

The more reasons I gave her not to go, infuriatingly,the more justification she found to leave the city.
Despite the trepidation, on a wing and a prayer she
moved us to the obscure country town, surrounded
by mountains and nestled in a valley amongst forest
only she seemed to know existed.

The first night in the dark of our new house I
heard the wolves cry. In fright I huddled under my
covers, unable to fall asleep, until long after the foreboding calls had ceased, and the wind rushed about
the house creating the bellow of a storming ocean
from the trees.

That night I dreamt about the unfamiliar sounds.
A girl stood in daylight on the riverbank, with
cropped dark hair, in a white nightdress. She waved
at me with a friendly expression. When she heard the
wolves bay against the rumbling backdrop of swaying
trees, she turned and they joined her. I watched as she
stroked them, running her hands through their soft
coats. She smiled at me and I stepped closer through
the grass. I put my hand out to stroke a deep brown
wolf, and with an abrupt flash of its teeth it bit my
hand. I awoke with a start, gritting my teeth in a cold
sweat, amongst the unpacked boxes, which filled my
room. The dim light from my window indicated it
was morning. The wind had stopped.

I had a shower to warm my blood and readied
myself in the eerie quiet. In the downstairs kitchen
I had to open the screen door, despite the cold winter air, to hear the distant intermittent roar of traffic,
from the nearest major road, no louder than a seashell to my ear. When I was done I locked it firmly.
Sophie was still asleep, warm in her bed. Our new
home was on the fringe of the town, just out of reach
of the river that divided the valley.

I wasn’t alone when I stepped out the front of our
new house, into the foreign sage-tinted landscape. It
was winter. As I squeezed my gloved hands together
to warm the tips of my fingers, a dog barked as a
clank vibrated the fence. Our new neighbour, a man
with a salt and pepper beard, and dressed in a brown
coat, exited the gate next door.

“How was your first night?” he asked in a gruff
voice, as his dog, wagging its tail enthusiastically,
came to inspect me.

“Fine, except for the noise,”I answered cautiously,
stroking the wiggling labrador’s neck.
“What’s that? Ah, the howls,” he said. “They
know they’re not like them.” He motioned towards
his dog in the cold morning air as I crouched patting the friendly animal in the driveway. The old
man pulled a wheelie bin from the side of his house
and gestured toward the overweight labrador. “Last
night they wailed so loud, I thought they wanted him
for dinner. They fear us humans,” he added. Perhaps
noticing my anxiety, he assured me that to see a wolf
was “- as rare as hen’s teeth”.
I knew they were out there, as I glanced at the
moss green hills that lined the horizon against the
mottled grey sky. I asked him if he had ever seen one.
He scratched his whiskers.
“They stick to cover. They’re smart these days…
just don’t go out in the night.” He winked at me as
he rumbled the garbage bin down to the street curb,
breathing a plume of steam in the cold morning air.
“Keep your windows latched.”
He was referring to the curfew and I suspected
teasing me a little. There was frost on the shaded
parts of the lawn, which crunched underfoot. He
coughed, returning up the drive. “Ben’s the name.”
“I’m Lila – Crain,” I said, straightening up.
“You don’t have a cat, do you?” His eyes gave a
lively sparkle.
“No, why?” I asked, feeling suspicious of his reply.
“They’re not normally that loud,” he said, glancing at the hills. “Something must have spooked ‘em.
Better watch out, they like the young ones,”he added,
smiling with squinted eyes and missing teeth. “Eliza
Timbly-”he recalled - “gone through three.The most
expensive one was six hundred dollar, pure bred, it
lasted two hours.” He chuckled. “Some people learn
the hard way.”
We must have looked like cat people and I
couldn’t argue with that.
He raised his eyebrows.
“I’ve got a shot gun and I’ll use it if they get on
my property,” he informed me. Whether or not he
meant the cats or the wolves was unclear. He realized
I might be one of the activist types and I thought I
saw a look of alarm cross his face.
“Have you used it?” I enquired.
He smiled proudly. “I’ve got a 308 Winchester
rifle locked and loaded - ready to go.”
“Loaded?” I questioned. It was obvious to me
Sophie had no idea our closest neighbour was an elderly man who enjoyed shooting a loaded weapon as
a hobby. She argued the city wasn’t safe.
“-For when I spot one,” he explained, nodding
slowly and squinting with determination.
Ben Flinds was a recluse. He had a pair of binoculars and he watched the trees over his back fence
each evening with the radio on, and as we soon learnt,
shot at anything that moved, especially after a few
whiskeys, much to my mother’s terror. She was happy
when by Christmas his guns had mysteriously gone
missing from his home, including the unlicensed
Colt 45 auto handgun hidden under his bedside table
drawer. Mostly he shot rabbits. I had seen the skins
from my second floor window in the sunless morning light, slung on the railing of his back porch.
“Thanks, well I better be off, don’t want to be
late.” I dusted my gloved hands and headed for the
main road.
“First day of school, huh? C’mon Choc.” He
called his dog in the gate and latched it. But I had
the distinct feeling he watched me as I left.
I was late. Buses ran every hour twice a morning
and twice of an afternoon along the main road, shipping the out-of-town kids, and the few employed in
town and those shoppers that found it to be a convenient mode of transport. It was less of a community
service and more of a safety issue. Parents could rest
assured their children wouldn’t disappear on the perilous walk home on the edge of town or be caught
out past dark. It was rumoured the creatures which
lurked in the valley knew they were hunted, and signs
of their intelligence were legendary. Precautions were
taken, though no one had seen one in the town for
years. If it were not for the hollow calls in the night,
they would have all but been forgotten. I supposed
that in a small place like Shade the wolves gave people a preoccupation, because there wasn’t much else.
I texted: ‘Neighbour has loaded gun’ to Bec back
home, while I waited at the bus stop, shivering. In
spite of myself, I still hoped vainly that my father
would come to his senses and rescue me.