Her Wolf King
Chapter 21: The Village

Lenore left before the sun had come up, before the moon had faded from the crisp blue sky, and before the dew drops had slid off the bright orange leaves. She took a carriage, pulled by two of Everett’s bay geldings—not Butterscotch—and a ghostly coachman, and left him a note on the dining room table.

Her chest felt oddly hollow as the horses clopped on the leaf-strewn road, which wound through the dense copses of trees toward the village. Tugging her hood over her face, she had the strangest sense of wanting to hide from the world, to block out the visions around her so that she might pretend she did not exist at all. Fear. That must’ve been it.

She was worried about Marya seeing her. About that witch attacking her, or worse yet, sending a monster to do it for her.

All too likely, that was what had burned the village. Faerie fire and monstrous creatures, fangs dripping venom and seething with rage.

Bile rose in her throat at the thought, and she had to swallow thickly just to keep nausea from clawing out of her and making her vomit. She was better than this; better than this sickly fear.

And if she was honest with herself, it wasn’t fear of horrid beasts or dangerous faeries that had her feeling so dejected. It was the sense that she had left a vital piece of herself behind the further they drove toward the village and away from the castle. She touched the fur lining of her hood; it made her feel like a different woman than the frightened, lonely, desperate girl who had left that church so many weeks ago.

How could so much time have passed? How could she have grown so used to living at the castle in finery while her father and brother likely wore clothes barely a step above rags and just as worn thin, without her to darn them? How could she have let herself eat rich meals and sleep on a feather bed when her father and brother’s hut was barely a step above a hovel?

She knew logically, reasonably, that punishing herself while they suffered would not alleviate either of their pains. Yet she could not help but feel guilty as she twisted the emerald ring on her finger.

The carriage arrived all too soon at the outskirts of the village. Parting the heavy velvet drapes, she stared outside and her jaw fell open.

How could such carnage have swept through–such destruction been wrought?

Houses that had once been–well, if not grand–serviceable enough, now lay in heaps of smoldering ruins, charred rubble replacing bricks or wooden slats. Trees had been uprooted as if by some malevolent giant’s hand, and splintered into shreds of curling bark and jagged, dirt-covered wood. The road was blocked by fallen branches and what appeared to be a landslide’s worth of mud and rocks.

“How could this have happened?” she murmured, letting the curtain fall again. The coachman gave no answer, but the horses whinnied uneasily.

She hopped out of the carriage, not waiting for the ghostly servant to help her. Everywhere she liked, what once had been neatly ordered was now completely obliterated. She couldn’t help but blame herself for the calamity that had been visited upon the town, though she knew all too likely it was Marya’s fault…

Was it worth it? A voice whispered in her mind. Was he worth it?

Staring at the destruction around her, she didn’t know what to say in answer.

“Lenore!” On the horizon, now clear from the houses and trees that had been leveled, she spotted a familiar figure.

Timothy.

Maneuvering the piles of debris, she broke into a sprint toward him, darting around the obstacles to reach her brother. She flung her arms around him. “Oh, Timothy! I’m so glad you’re alright. Where is everyone? Where is Father? What happened?”

Her brother, so young, so hopeless, stared back at her with desolation in his eyes. “Father is… He’s alive.”

Her heart wrenched. “What has–was he injured? Is he ill?”

The thought of her father, such a strong, proud man, falling sick or prey to injury did not sit well with her. Nor did the image seem plausible, though she knew he was getting older.

“Let me take you to him.” Timothy gently guided her along the path, before casting an eye at the carriage behind her. “Oh–your things. I’ll help you bring them in.”

She could barely register the weight of the trunk as they each heaved one side off of the carriage and lugged it toward the Abrahams residence. Her numbness had traveled from her heart to her limbs, each step weighing her down.

As she walked up to the house, the path abruptly ended. She gazed at the walls, still intact even if slightly singed and covered in soot. Somehow, the home was the only structure that seemed to have survived in the whole village.

This didn’t bode well.

Timothy set down the trunk and cast her a sympathetic look. “Prepare yourself, Lenore.”

She took a deep breath. After all she had been through, what was the worst that could happen?

***

“Lenore Abrahams? Is that you?” asked a woman wearing a fine black silk dress and matching hat (complete with dyed ostrich feathers). Her ostentatious garments stood out amongst the burned buildings and wrecked village. “Could it be that your daughter has returned to visit you after so long?”

Lenore Dustan, she thought, but did not correct the woman. There was no time, nor was it significant enough to do so when there was so much happening in the tiny house. The space was crammed with what seemed like every villager she’d left behind.

Frowning, Lenore moved past the bustle of surprised faces, dropped jaws, and gabbing gossips to see who the woman was speaking to. Certainly, it must be her father, but…

Oh.

The bedroom door was cracked open. In that single glimpse, her heart sank. Her vibrant, healthy father, stubborn as a bull and just as stalwart, now lay in a bed that seemed to dwarf him, the white sheets matching the pallor of his skin. The steady rise and fall of his chest gave the only indication that he was even alive.

“F-father?” Her voice trembled. Timothy had told her to prepare herself, but she was not certain she could have prepared herself for this. “What has happened to him?”

“Please excuse us,” Timothy said. “If you would be so kind as to leave the room, Mrs. Thompson…”

He took the woman’s arm and ushered her out of the room. Lenore now vaguely recalled that the woman was a wealthy widow. Nothing seemed to be real to her; the room spun around her feet like a dreamlike haze, as though she were trapped in the painting of some drunken artist with a flair for the surreal.

“Father?” She rushed to her father’s bedside, kneeling on the threadbare rug beside him and seizing his hand. It was lukewarm; neither hot enough to suggest fever nor cold and stiff enough to suggest death. “Papa?”

Tears filled her eyes. This time, she let herself release them.

Timothy re-entered their father’s small bedroom, shutting the door behind him. “He has fallen into a mysterious sleep ever since… Well, ever since that awful day.”

“What awful day?” Horrors flashed through her mind again. This time, no nausea made her stomach seize into knots. She tried to take another deep breath.

“That dreadful day, when…” Timothy shook his head. “When the demons came.”

“Demons?” she repeated, a chill sending gooseflesh along her arms despite her long sleeves and heavy cloak. Lenore got up to close the window, which had been cracked open. The first buds of spring were now blooming on the apple trees across the vast orchard, but she could see nothing but despair, taste nothing but that enchanted autumn crispness that she had left behind.

“Yes.” He stared at his hands, sitting in the rocking chair their father used to occupy. And before him, their mother as she had nursed Timothy. “I don’t know how else to describe them but that. They came in a whirlwind, ghastly dark shadows that turned everything they saw into hellfire. Everything they touched became a heap of ashes. Yet, by God’s grace–or by some wicked joke played upon us by the devil himself–we were left untouched. The townspeople have all gathered here now that their houses are, well, you saw for yourself what they are.

“And I must warn you, Lenore. Kirk–he is back in town. He came back last night, hearing that his mother had died. Her house caught on fire as she was cooking. The old stove left her severely burned. There has been so much ruin and death, Lenore… Kirk is furious. And he blames us. Our family. We have done everything we could to assuage him, but he insists that you had something to do with it.”

“I had something to do with it?” She ran a hand through her braided hair, undoing the plait and combing her fingers through the waves only to redo the style. “I was not even in town. I had nothing to do with it. It was, as you said, demons.”

Demonic faeries, more like. Sent by Marya. To torment me or threaten me, I know not why.

Perhaps it was better that Everett had not come. But she desperately wanted to have him by her side now, to stand with her against Kirk. To be a stoic comfort at her father’s bedside while she helped him recover.

“Of course.” Timothy kept rocking, the thud of the chair against the boards keeping time with her heart. It was the only reminder that she was alive, for now, she could not imagine even breathing, was not even conscious of the strands of hair against her fingers as she braided with practiced motions.

“When did these horrible things occur?” she asked, staring at her father. He looked as though he might waste away. “Was he–what, hit over the head with something?”

Timothy sighed. “I don’t know. One moment he was standing there, healthy as a horse. Next moment, he was on the ground, looking like he had been struck dead.”

He seemed to stir–or perhaps it was only a breeze from the crack in the window, but she got up anyway, leaning over the bed. “Papa? Did you say something?”

A groan escaped her father’s lips. Wordless noise, but proof that he was alive. Perhaps even conscious. “Le…nore…”

“I’m here, Papa! I’m here.” She clutched his hand, feeling for his heartbeat. She found a weak, thready pulse in his wrist.

“The treasure…” His words were slurred, and perhaps she only wanted him to be talking about the treasure she so strongly desired, but… She pressed her hand to his forehead. No fever; he couldn’t be delirious, could he? Or senile? “The treasure you seek…”

His eyes fluttered open, revealing the same blue hers were.

“Papa, you’re awake!” She slid her arm under his shoulders–how frail they felt, compared to the breadth and strength his body had once displayed–and helped him sit upright on the pillows. “Please, don’t strain yourself.”

“The treasure you seek, my dear,” he murmured, his gaze unfocused as it searched the room. “The treasure you seek is in your very heart…”

With that, he gave a mighty snore, and fell asleep again.