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“Grandpa?”
Ethan woke up to see a little girl smiling down at him. He reached out and cupped her cheek, smiling back.
“Hello, darling.”
“Grandpa, tell me the story about the wolf and the princess.”
Ethan sat up slowly, gingerly. Decades of transforming between wolf and human had left its mark on his body. His shoulders and back always ached, sometimes so acutely that it incapacitated him.
He was an old man now. His hair was white, his face wrinkled, his body starting to deteriorate. But it was in the last 3 months where he felt like he’d aged decades. It was only when he was looking at the face of his granddaughter that he felt the pain that had aged him so quickly lift from him. She was Vanessa all over again, her pale skin, her raven hair, her sharp pale blue eyes that saw everything.
When his and Vanessa’s son was born, he’d felt joy beyond what he’d ever experienced, which didn’t seem possible after the years of overwhelming happiness he’s already had with Vanessa. Seeing their baby is her arms, this little bundle of life and hope and innocence, something that he and her had created together, even all of these years later, the unfettered joy still echoed inside Ethan.
When ten years ago this little girl had been born, he felt that joy again. Seeing the blue eyed baby, both he and Vanessa thought of another little girl, one that they had lost so many years ago and who they still mourned.
Vanessa had held her granddaughter in her arms, smiling down at her as tears fell down her cheeks. It was then that the baby’s nature was revealed. Those blue eyes opened and looked up into the identical ones looking down at her. Their gazes locked, the baby went quiet and regarded Vanessa with complete comprehension and clarity, even though she was only minutes old.
Vanessa reached out and pressed her thumb to the baby’s forehead. Ethan watched her eyes close and knew she was divining this little girl’s fate. When she opened them again she smiled down at the baby.
“She has the gift, Ethan.”
It was then that their son had asked Ethan to pass on the role of lupus dei to him. Ethan had been firmly against it, not wanting him to suffer as he had. Vanessa had been the one who convinced him it had to happen. She took his hand in hers and smiled sadly at him, telling him one day he wouldn’t be there to protect the baby anymore. She reminded him about how he had been able to keep the wolf under control, how protecting someone being the sole purpose of the wolf’s existence meant that it had the strength to defeat those who might threaten but also keep it from mindless carnage. Ethan could teach their son all of the things he’s learned about his power while Vanessa did the same for their granddaughter. These powers were part of his and Vanessa’s lineage, and they could continue to be used for the greater good.
So this had been the next ten years of their lives, cultivating and guiding their family, showing them how these gifts should and should not be used. Their granddaughter had taken to these lessons very early on. Ethan was never sure exactly what Vanessa was teaching her or how she was doing it. He had glimpsed it once, when he’d seen through a crack in the door. Vanessa was sitting on the floor with the little girl, then only four years old, in her lap. They were unmoving, their eyes closed, in a shared meditative state. Ethan knew they were communicating beyond words, that through their link all information was passing from generation to generation.
The little girl sat on the couch next to him and he lifted his arm so she could snuggle into his side. Ethan looked up at the portrait on the wall opposite him, the painting of Vanessa that he had commissioned, done by an artist who only painted the most beautiful women. Ethan didn’t know how it was done, but somehow the very essence of Vanessa’s piercing gaze had been rendered in oil and pigment, so that it would live eternally in the painting. He pulled the little girl close to him and took her small hand in his.
“Once upon a time, a wolf lived out in the wilderness. The wolf was cursed. He would get so angry sometimes that he would do bad things.”
“What kind of bad things?” She asked him.
“Mean things, hurting people.”
“Why was he angry?”
“Because he was lonely. There were no others like him. He went everywhere, trying to find someone who understood what he felt but never found anyone. His curse made him terribly lonely and very sad.”
“But then he met the princess.”
“That’s right. While he was out in his travels, a beautiful woman appeared. He knew right away that this was no ordinary woman. She had a power inside her that made her feel lonely, like how his curse made him feel lonely. Something magical happened when this woman looked into his eyes. For the first time he felt like someone really saw him, all of him, and wasn’t afraid. He realized that for the first time he wasn’t alone, that this woman understood what it was like to be different. She revealed herself then to be a princess, one who had been cursed like he had been. She had dark terrible things that wanted her, that chased her. Even though she was scared, she was still brave, and fought back at these bad things with all her might. But it was too much for her to do on her own. So the wolf started to walk next to the princess, to always be by her side. Being with someone who understood what it was like to be cursed, to be different, made his loneliness go away. Slowly that feeling of being alone disappeared, and the wolf realized he was in love with the princess, and that he would do anything to protect her.”
“Did the princess love the wolf too?”
“Yes, she did and having someone so special love him made the wolf feel like he must be worth something. Her love made him strong. He fought alongside her against those dark things that hunted her. But then he got scared. He thought because of all the terrible things he had done when he was alone that he didn’t deserve to love someone as beautiful and strong as the princess. He ran away from the princess, and she was so sad that she locked herself up in her castle alone.”
“But the wolf came back.”
“He did, but not right away. While the wolf was out by himself again, lonely and sad, he heard the princess speak to him. She was talking to him even though she wasn’t there. The princess whispered in his ear that she was heartbroken without the wolf, that she thought he was gone forever. The wolf realized then that she loved him despite the bad things he had done, that she needed him with her as much as he needed her. He ran and ran and ran, as fast as he could, back to the princess. When he found her she had fallen under a spell. She’d was in a sleep she couldn’t wake up from. When the wolf saw her, he felt all that love for her inside him flood into every part of him and knew that he had to save her. He did the only thing he could think to do to show her that she was loved. He kissed her and it broke the spell. The princess opened her eyes and smiled at the wolf, and they both knew that they would never be alone ever again. He then fought and defeated those bad things that had chased her, and realized that he wasn’t cursed after all. He was a wolf because God wanted him to protect the princess. He and the princess were both free of their curses then and were never apart again.”
Ethan’s eyes filled with tears. He missed Vanessa more than any words could express. The feeling that something was missing never left him. He was always sure that she was just about to walk around the corner. Sometimes he still called out her name and waited for her to answer him. He looked at the pictures of their life, of them together, of her beautiful face staring at him from across time, and felt his heart aching.
Their life had been difficult at times, but being with Vanessa made him feel a love he never dreamt possible. She was his icon, the cause for which he fought, the goddess that he worshiped, the woman who he loved with every single part of him. She had given him so much happiness, created a family for him, made a home for him. He had wrestled her away from evil and saved her from damnation. She had given him purpose, quelled his anger and guilt, and showed him a tenderness that he had never experienced. Vanessa never stopped surprising him. Just when he thought he’d experienced the full scope of her abilities, she would do something that left him reeling. He never knew why he had been so lucky to be the one that she loved.
Together they approached life as a constant adventure. They traveled, they learned, they explored, they tried every new thing that they encountered. The world had become full of such wonderful things. He watched her absolute delight the first time she drove the car he bought her, seen the fascination that washed over her face as she heard a voice from hundreds of miles away talk to her on a telephone, seen her falling into a blissful trance listening to music coming out of the radio.
There had been one thing that he couldn’t protect Vanessa from, one thing that he realized was truly evil in its cruelty, this physical illness more insidious than any demon. She had been strong and fought against the sickness inside her. But seeing how sick she was, how tired she was from battling it, he realized that he needed to let her go.
She had become so weak, barely holding on. He got into bed next to her and gathered her tiny body into his arms, stroked her long silver hair as it lay over her shoulder. With tears choking his words, he told her that he loved her, told her how happy she had made him. He told her that she could go on now without him. He told her that he would be with her soon, to stand alongside their God and know that final peace with her. She had weakly turned her head, her lips by his ear.
“I love you, you know.” She said, echoing the first time she said those words so long ago. Ethan released a shuddering breath and held back his tears. Her blue eyes, still so clear and sharp, looked into his, and he felt her presence in his mind. He was full of sadness, but it was tempered by her, by a rush of love from her to him. He pressed a kiss to her lips, and she smiled at him, a smile of relief and peace. She tucked her head under his chin, against his chest, and he thought about all the times in his life she'd done this. He remembered the first time, when she was frightened and he held her, overwhelmed with having this woman who was like a force of nature need his comfort, wanting to have his physical protection and care. That first feeling, it never went away, not after forty years. It was a mix of being awestruck by the idea that that much power could be contained in such a small form, a sense of his unworthiness of her and a love inside him for her, a love so bright that it pulsed through every nerve ending in him. As he had through their decades together, he held her hand in his, studying it, the pale skin papery with age, the long fine bones, the elegant turn of her wrist, the ruby on her finger that had bound them together. He held her hand and listened to her breathe her final breaths. He felt her presence leave the room, watching as the sunlight faded.
In the three months since, Ethan had deteriorated quickly. He wanted to be strong for his family, but the pain of being separated from Vanessa was blinding, stealing him away from this world. Even now as he looked down into his granddaughter’s eyes, so much like Vanessa’s, he felt that loneliness again.
The little girl’s face took on a preternatural gaze then. She stood up in front of him and spoke in a voice that was mature beyond her 10 years of life.
“Grandma said that you’re missing a part in the story.”
“She told you this story before she…” He couldn’t bear to say it out loud.
“No, Grandpa, she just told me now. She said that you forgot the part about how the wolf loving the princess made her know that she was something beyond her curse, that the wolf loved her for all she was, good and bad, and that the wolf’s love made her feel special too.”
“She just told you this how?”
The little girl pressed her thumb to her forehead, and then pressed it to his. In that touch, there was a brilliant flash inside his mind and he felt Vanessa’s presence, as close as if she was sitting next to him. When he came back to his senses, he realized that he could faintly smell her scent around him, like she’d just walked out of the room.
He looked up at the little girl with tears filling his eyes. He reached out trembling hands to pull her to him, and held her tight. When he spoke it was in a broken whisper, to her and to Vanessa.
“You wonderful creature.”