Wolf Omega: Lykanos Chronicles 2

Father was dead. Mother and Savia were inconsolable, but their weeping only distracted me from the apparent truth. Father had likely died before my husband had reached his seat in the cart.

We were alone.

Even in the presence of my father’s field hand, Tommaso, we were alone. Another powerful wave of nausea overcame me, and I walked away from everyone, ignoring the calls that rang out at my back. I needed to move. I might wretch at any moment.

The sickening irony was that I’d suffered being alone for so long. Now, home with my family, and during the darkest moment of our lives, I desperately wanted to be alone.

I didn’t notice where I headed, but I soon found myself at the bank of a small pond maintained on the farm. It provided fresh water to the crops most of the growing season. During the summer, my sister and I would play in it to escape the heat. On the morning of my marriage, I had bathed in it. Today, I sought it out for a reason I barely comprehended.

It’s deep enough, I thought, and I walked in without hesitation, feeling the unexpected cold seize the muscles in my legs and feet. The weight of my gown pulled me down along the murky slope hidden beneath the surface, and in seconds the water came up to my neck.

At the center of the pond, I realized the long summer had lowered the surface sufficiently that I couldn’t submerge deeper. Standing there, I scanned around me, hoping to find some point where I might walk deeper, but it was pointless.

Stopping the frenzy of my search, I recognized how this was to be an act of will. It didn’t matter if I could easily stop myself. I would do it nevertheless.

Sit down and let the weight of the dress pull me under. Don’t fight it. Just let it happen, and all this pain will end.

Taking one last breath, my head fell beneath the pond’s surface, and my rear landed on the bottom. I opened my eyes, but the murky water offered me nothing to see but the dimmest light above me.

My lungs soon burned, desperate to release my breath and draw more air.

Breath the water, I thought to myself. It will hurt, for sure, but it will be over in moments.

“Her eyes are open,” Savia whispered to Mother.

When I could see again, both their faces watched down at me. I was lying in my parent’s bed, and I could barely breathe. My lungs were on fire, and my body rejected the air it needed with rattling coughs.

Again, the world went dark.

“I will move her,” a man’s voice broke in at some point.

“Please,” Savia implored. “She is improving every day. Please don’t try this. Mother says it could cause her great harm still.”

My eyes shot open as a man’s arms lifted me, and my head fell backward like a rag doll. He moved me into a corner of the main room, to a nook where I had slept beside my sister growing up.

“She’ll be fine,” he said when I’d relaxed into the straw mattress and pillow. “Go prepare the bed.”

Focusing my eyes, I saw the man was Tommaso, my father’s field hand. He turned to leave the house as my mother appeared at the front door.

“She’s fine,” he said to assure her.

Mother scanned to find me lying in the corner once his statement finally registered, and she moved past him without a word.

I felt her hand touch my forehead and release a sharp sigh.

“I’m sorry,” I whispered to her.

Mother realized my eyes were open and watching her with a startle. She didn’t respond, but I could see her light fade.

“I don’t know how you’re alive,” Mother said when she could. “You were dead when he pulled you from the pond. And when I thought I had nothing, that I should take a knife and follow you. Then you coughed and released the water in your lungs.”

Her words washed over me, honest as they invariably were, but I was too weak for emotion to come. I’m alive, I thought. But I should be dead like Father.

“I didn’t want them to risk moving you here yet, but Tommaso is eager for the bedroom,” Mother whispered. “They both are.”

Her statement didn’t register, and I watched the woman as if she were in the middle of a story I’d slept through.

“He’s agreed that you may stay here until you can walk, but then you will join me in his shed.”

“Why would we do that?” I asked.

Mother stared at me in bewilderment but soon acknowledged that only my body had been present the past days.

“This is Tommaso’s home now,” Mother said without emotion. “This is his farm.”

My head gave an involuntary shake at her absurd words.

“The magistrate from the village came after we lay your father to rest, and he named Tommaso as the inheritor,” Mother exhaled. “We have no sons, and so we needed to name someone. I discussed the matter with Tommaso, and he’s agreed to take over your father’s place.”

“Are you… does this mean you’re his wife now?” I asked in paralyzed astonishment.

The light left her eyes again for a moment.

“He has taken Savia as his bride,” she said.

“She’s thirteen,” I responded, bewildered.

“She’s flowered and old enough to start a family. You and I will live in the shed, and when he finds a boy to shoulder the work, Tommaso will build another dormitory to house his new hand.”

I was stunned by Mother’s words. Nothing could’ve prepared me for such a change. It felt as if I’d awoken in a different world where Father was only a distant memory.

“Cecco?” I asked.

Mother shook her head as if the word were the vilest curse.

“I could not bring myself to do it,” she said. “If I had mentioned his name—told them you were his wife—they would’ve named him as Marco’s son. I could not face him again after what he’s done to us.

“You should have turned him in as a murderer!” I coughed. I felt my heart race in anger.

“Who would I tell that to?” she asked with lifeless eyes. “A widow? A crone? Accuse a known man like Cecco, a man with connections and money to ensure them? He would’ve had me thrown in jail, then all of this would belong to him, anyway.”

“We all saw it! Even the driver saw him beat Father. His broken body was all the proof you could need,” I pushed.

“No,” she said. “That’s not the way of things, child. We would have to beg on the village road to survive, your sister and I. Untouchables. Cursed. I couldn’t let that happen.”

I shook my head as much as I could and let the anger seep away through my helplessness.

“You lost the baby,” she said.

“Yes, when I found the scoundrel and his bitch together… It came early and was born dead.”

“No, you bled for days after we pulled you from the water,” she said calmly.

I realized Mother already knew of my previous miscarriages; the news delivered to her in letters I’d paid a secretary from the town square to write for me.

“It was more than the monthly cycle,” she said with the same evenness. “Much more.”

My chin trembled at her words, and a well of emotion overtook me. I wept like a girl—the child I’d stupidly no longer thought I was.

“I’m sorry, my love,” Mother whispered, and she stroked my dark hair gently.

I didn’t explain the truth of my tears to her. I didn’t know how to.

I felt only great relief.