The Wolf & The Witch

The wolf and the witch rode nearly eighty miles the first night, following the stream, in silence. They stopped a few times so the horses could eat dead grass, and drink cold stream water. As dawn was breaking Lestat saw a camp in the dead grass, a small fire whose embers had burned down to ash. Lestat looked around- the trail branched off into the woods. He hopped down and put his hand over the embers and ashes, and then into them- warm, but not enough to burn. Claire did the same, curious. Lestat knew, for the fire to be this cold, meant whoever they were following rode very hard to get here, slept only a few hours, and then were gone.

Lestat studied the ground- the barely visible form of two people laying side by side was delineated in the frost. He lowered his face into the cold dead grass and inhaled- a wolf. He stood and looked off towards the woods- the other couple? His hand throbbed once, just once, and he looked down- the cut on the back of his hand looked red, but not bad.

Claire watched him through all this, curious. “What is it?”

He looked at her and lowered his eyes. He motioned for her to help, and they moved the saddle to a fresh horse, and he hopped up, and she hopped up behind him. No answer.

He must really be mad, Claire thought, but didn’t say anything. They rode on another sixty miles, and at some point the warmth of being close to him, and the methodic flow and rhythm of riding on horseback, lulled her to sleep and she slumped against his back, and by the time she woke they were in a dead forest. It had been an ancient forest at one time- the dead and hollow trunks were fifteen foot wide and looked like piles of white paper with white sleeves, and the ground was white with snow and dust and the remains of dead trees.

“Well this is creepy as shit,” Claire said, looking around, blinking awake. White and gray- those were the only two colors, even at night- no black. She looked back- the horse hooves kicked up snow and dust, and the dust hung in the air, low to the ground. She looked to the right, out through the white forest- nothing but old, ancient tree trunks, and they were spread far apart. The forest was white, about the same color as bleached headstones, and as quiet as any graveyard- no birds, no bugs, no response from Lestat.

“Are you still mad at me? You’re being a puss. That slap did not hurt as bad as your bite, or throwing up that damn wine- which was your damn idea in the first place. My throat still hurts from that.”

He didn’t say anything. The horses sauntered forward through the dead forest, their heads low. Lestat’s head was low, too.

“Look, I might apologize if you do. I’m serious. The stuff you said was hateful, and to follow that by getting me drunk, biting me, and kiss- and all the rest- you owe me as much of an apology as I owe you.”

Lestat still didn’t answer.

Claire glared at his back. What a petty fucking asshole. “Fuck you,” she said, and jerked her left hand, and his right hand jerked back- no resistance. She looked at his back- his head was hanging awfully low. “Lestat?” No answer. She shook the cuff, and his arm shook, and his body leaned to the left, slowly at first, then he started to slide off the horse. “Lestat!” Claire grabbed him but wasn’t strong enough. He fell off the horse, taking her with him and they thudded off the ground, kicking up a cloud of dust. Claire flipped him over- he was pale, and his eyes were closed. She shook his shoulder. “Hey, wake up.”

He cracked an eye open, and didn’t have the strength to keep it open, and closed it.

“Hey, you ok? What’s-“ then she felt heat pouring off him, radiating through his clothes into the cold silver-white air. She put her hand on his forehead- he was burning up. She had never felt a fever that high. He was sick? But he wasn’t coughing, or sniffling. She felt his neck- his lymph nodes were fine, so where was this fever coming from?

The horses started to wander away in search of dead grass, and Claire wasn’t paying attention. The horses were tied together, and one, by one, they walked north, back towards the dead fields. Claire noticed at the last second and jumped up and reached out for a horse as fast as she could. She caught the rope that held the last two horses together at the very end of the metal cuff. Her heart was pounding- she damn near lost all their horses. She took deep breaths, calming herself. The gravity of their situation just made itself very clear- without Lestat, her mobility was confined to a small circle at the end of a metal cuff. She couldn’t drag him- not far. She steadied her breath, held the rope tight, then turned and looked back at him, then her heart stopped- a red line, like a tendril of red smoke, crept down the back of his hand, up his arm. From the cut? She replayed their fight in the cave with slightly more sober eyes- a hard, heavy smack, the log coming down, he killed a soldier, and another, then he looked at her, and glared, and there was a trickle of blood from his nose- probably from the slap, then he was listening to something, then the knife, aimed at her- and he pulled her back. So mad he wouldn’t speak to her, yet, once again, yet once again, over and over- he protected her.

She bit her lower lip, and shut her eyes, and felt the heavy weight of the metal cuff on her left hand, and the heavy weight of that slap in her right. She knelt beside him and kept her leg on the rope, keeping the horses near, and pulled his cloak off, then struggled to get his shirt off, then gasped again- the red line was at his shoulder. That red line was infection. That red line was blood poisoning, and it was a noose, and if it made it to his heart…

“No,” she said, to herself, and to the dead forest, too low for him to hear. She pulled one of the skins off her side and forced water into his mouth. He coughed, and turned away. “Drink.” He turned his head the other way. “Drink, Lestat.” He turned towards her for a second, then exhaustion, and fever won, and his head rolled to the side. “Please,” she whispered, and she felt tears welling up in her eyes. She pulled his head back around- he was burning up, and sweaty, and his eyes flickered behind his eyelids like the shadows of trees on windy days. She brought the skin to his mouth again, and the water ran down his face. She gently tugged his mouth open, and poured a little water in and he coughed and choked, and went limp in her arms, and her tears followed. “I’m sorry, Lestat. I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I will never slap you again, I promise. Please. It’s ok… it’s ok that you were my first... please Lestat… please…” She forced water into his mouth and he swallowed once, twice, then choked and passed out. The night was silver and white around her, hollow, and empty, and wrapped in papery fog. What else could she do? She looked around with heavy, wet eyes. She pulled the horses over and got up on her knees and dug through one of their packs for salt and rubbed it into the wound on his hand, then she pulled another horse over, and pulled a skin of sharp wine, uncorked it, and poured it on his hand, then more salt, and then she tore a piece of shirt apart and wrapped his hand, keeping the salt on the wound. She followed the red line up his arm, along the back of his forearm, along the outside line of his bicep, up the hard curve of his shoulder, and stopped right at his shoulder bone.

Claire hated wolves- she knew it in her heart. She hated all wolves- they were all the same: loud, rude, brash, cocky, immature, violent, abusive- scum. But she didn’t hate him; she did not hate Lestat, because it had become so very obvious to her- he was not the same. Out of all the things that happened when she was drunk, it was what happened before she took the first sip that hurt her the most: I don’t like you. Those four words were why she drank in the first place. She swallowed tears, and it felt like she was swallowing sewing needles- they caught in her throat and tore on the way down. She wiped her nose, and her eyes, and the witch laid down beside the wolf, and turned him over, and held him, and he was like holding glowing embers- radiating heat. She had the horses by the rope, and she cradled his head in her arms, and tears ran down her cheeks, bright and hot, and warm into his hair.

Please don’t die. Please don’t die. Please don’t die.

Claire fell asleep holding him, and woke an hour later to the low th-thump of horse hooves coming through the dead forest.