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Beta-read by CitrineDiamondEyes
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The moment she counted the symptoms – the sweating, the fatigue, the vomiting, the pale skin, the darkening of the veins, the reddening of the eyes – she knew it was bad. She didn’t realize just how bad until both her parents collapsed: first her mother, then her father. She was but fourteen and no doctor. There wasn’t a doctor in the village. Those went to more populated towns because that’s where all the sick people were, drinking water from wells next to sewers and the poor living in clusters under one leaky roof. Doctors benefited from the rich the most which meant, given the choice between curing a noble and a nobody, the nobody in the poor house would drop and take everyone with them. Even worse, her family lived farther out of town for the sake of the farm – the farm that failed to yield crops half the time. As for this mysterious illness, maybe it was the weather. Maybe it was something they ate. Maybe it was something an animal carried in, like fleas on rats or insect droppings. Maybe it was something in the air. Whatever it was, it had seeped into her parents.
Her father had carried her ill mother to bed. Ochaco and her father tried to feed her, but she just kept sleeping. Still as stone. Not dead. Not yet. Just sleeping. Sleeping and breathing wetly, her veins darkening, drawing black-blue spider-webs all across her skin. The woman briefly woke up to vomit, and Ochaco saw her blood-red eyes. Ochaco’s father – who had insisted he was fine enough to go look for a doctor in town – had collapsed before he could depart with the same symptoms she had seen in her mother. Ochaco, despite being the smallest of the family, managed to help her father to bed. He’d uttered something about a doctor before passing out into a coma. The cottage began to smell like sweat and vomit.
She’d never gone out to town on her own before, but everything rested on her shoulders. They had no map, so she’d have to recall the road to town from memory. She’d have to be careful; many dangers lurked, from losing her way to vicious animals and, worst of all, adults who meant harm to children. She took a knife and slid it into a holster in her belt, along with a water-filled leather flask that she hung over her shoulder. All her equipment would be hidden under the dark magenta cloak she took for chilly winds. She grabbed an apple wrapped in cloth for the day-long ride and strapped the donkey to the cart often used to carry crops to town. Between her father dropping and her hurriedly preparing, she departed around afternoon, which meant she’d ride through the night and into tomorrow’s morning if she wanted to reach town. She’d still have to look for an available doctor who wouldn’t mind riding to a farm for some ‘nobodies’ who didn’t have much money to pay. She couldn’t do nothing, though. “Okay… okay, Ochaco. You can do this,” she told herself, giving her cheeks a few firm slaps to keep her mind focused. “You have to do this.”
The town wasn’t that far. She made it to the edge of town just before dark, when men began lighting street lanterns and the bars got louder. The road turned into cobblestone that clapped under the donkey’s hooves. The smell of sewage was nauseating. She did get a few weird looks, but maybe it was because she was a young girl riding at the front of a donkey cart. She climbed off and tried to nervously ask around.
“The doctor? She got done from here, missy,” an woman explained. “Went back off two days ago. Was a bad sickness going around. Terrible. The doctor’s medicine was a miracle work. Where’d you come from, anyway? Haven’t seen you around here before.”
Ochaco’s heart plummeted. She’d been two days too late. “Please, can you tell me where I can find the doctor? It’s really, really important.” She clenched her hands in front of her, basically begging.
“I figured it’s important, but you won’t have any luck going to find her by herself. Doctor lives out in the woods, you see.”
In the woods. Okay. That would be hard but not impossible. “Do you know how I can get to her?” Ochaco hurriedly asked. She couldn’t waste more time talking.
“Now hold on there, sweetie. You’re mom and dad know you’re out here?”
“Mom and Dad are sick,” Ochaco explained through the lump in her throat.
The old woman’s face fell. “Oh. I see.” She sighed deeply. “Look, I’m sorry, but nobody goes in the woods. Not alone. Not some little girl like you. You’re not from around here. I take it you haven’t heard of the dead children in the woods.”
Hearing that, Ochaco felt the hair at the back of her neck stand. A shiver ran up her spine. “Dead… children?”
“Aye. The wolves got them. Tore them apart. Sometimes they come here at night. I seen them skulking about. They go for the children. Little ones like you. Easier to pick, I’m guessing. They aren’t normal wolves, I tell you. They’re smart. The Huntsman’s been trying to kill them for some time now. Lord knows how that little doctor made it here and back in one piece. We told her not to go, but the mad woman wouldn’t stay put.”
Wolves. Ochaco had heard of wolves. She’d heard them, too. Howling at night, singing to each other, planning in ways only wolves understood. She had never truly seen them herself. Not an alive one, anyway. Once, when she was younger, her daddy took her to town to sell off some small pumpkins, and men carried in a dead wolf, brown like a barn owl and upside-down, its four legs tied to the plank the man were carrying on each side on their shoulders. Even a dead wolf looked terrifying.
She couldn’t stop here, though. Not because of wolves. Not because this lady was probably trying to scare her off. “But I – I need to get the doctor. Can you please tell me how I can find her in the woods?”
“Have you not been listening, girl?”
“I need to go!” Ochaco insisted, determined.
“Are you this stupid? I’m sorry about your parents but you need to go home. Give them water and keep them in bed. That’s all you can do.”
The woman had mentioned medicine before. Ochaco wouldn’t be able to cure her parents without it. Ochaco couldn’t head back without the doctor. “Please, I’ll be careful!”
The woman cursed and rubbed her forehead. A bang caused the both of them to flinch. In the nearby bar, the door had slammed shut. A man marched down the bar’s steps with a shotgun strapped to his back. He was big and tall like a lumberjack, wearing a red checkered shirt. It was possible he had no hair as Ochaco couldn’t see any strands peeking from underneath his hat. He eyed the two and spat on the ground.
“What’s she doing out here?” he asked in a gruff voice. It wasn’t clear if he was intoxicated or if his voice was just like that. There was a greasy stain at the front of his shirt, possibly from cooked meat or spilled drink. “It’s almost dark. She should be home. You too, ma’am.”
“Huntsman!” the old woman cried with relief. “This here tyke wants to go in the woods.”
“The woods? What for?”
“I know! I‘ve been trying to talk sense into her.”
“I asked what for,” the man clarified.
The woman seemed taken aback, realizing he wasn’t entirely on her side of the argument just yet. “I, uh–”
Ochaco saw her chance. “I need to find the doctor – my parents are really sick!” she yelled without meaning to raise her voice; it just happened.
“Now?” the man scoffed. “By yourself? Don’t be a fool. You don’t know what’s out there.” He spotted the pathetic donkey cart. “You were planning to go on that?”
His question was so abrupt, Ochaco almost forgot to speak. “Ah, yes, sir.”
“The walk path to the doctor’s is narrow. This won’t squeeze through.”
Bingo. “There’s a walk path?” Ochaco asked. If she could find the path, she could find the doctor.
“Why’d you have to tell her?” the woman said, exasperated.
“Doesn’t look like she’s gonna budge no matter what she’ll hear. You still sure you wanna go out there, kid? There’s nasty wolves out there.”
“I told her that,” the woman said, scowling in annoyance.
“They go for kids like you.”
“I told her that, too.”
“How old are you, girl?”
“Thirteen, sir,” Ochaco said. “Thanks for your warning, but I’m not going back without the doctor.”
The Huntsman eyed her suspiciously. “Stubborn one.” He sighed deeply, seeming to think something over. “Tell you what; I’m going out there soon. Was gonna try kill the ringleader wolf, but if you’re going, you shouldn’t go alone. Especially not at night.”
“Huntsman!” the woman couldn’t believe what she was hearing. “You can’t be serious, Huntsman.”
“I don’t see why not,” the man said, grunting and cracking his neck. “If her mom and dad have what the town had, then she better get that doctor’s medicine. We’re all out. Folks gobbled it up within days. Do you want the kid to get orphaned?”
“I– No!” The woman exclaimed. She sighed, defeated. “I… suppose there’s no harm if she’s going with you...”
Ochaco’s heart fluttered. She was going to get the doctor no matter what. “Really? You’ll show me the way?”
“I’m not showing you, I’m taking you. At least until we pass the bridge. Wolves are too scared to pass swinging bridges.” He adjusted the shoulder strap of his shotgun. “Most of the wolves are dumb. It’s their leader I’m after. I swear the bastard doesn’t behave like all the others.” He unbuttoned his sleeve and rolled it up to show his muscular arm. Dread washed over Ochaco. The woman gasped and covered her mouth, horrified at the sight. The man’s arm had old slash marks, some older and deeper than others, creating pink river markings that carved into the arm. “That devil may be small, but goddamn, it’s a clever little fucker. That one ain’t normal, so you stick right next to me, you hear? Don’t you go picking daisies – that monster’s a killer.”
Even after the man rolled down his sleeve, Ochaco couldn’t get the image of his mangled skin out of her head.
“My god… What do you mean not normal?” the woman whispered, as if merely speaking about the monster was bad luck.
“It looks at my gun like it knows what it is. It does know what it is. It’s the same wolf that got a mob to follow it to where it left the kids’ bodies, if you remember,”
Ochaco wanted to ask so many questions, but her mouth went slack.
“I remember!” The woman exclaimed, her hands copping over her mouth in horror. “Dear Lord, the poor things were in pieces… and their poor parents.”
“It didn’t even eat the kids. Just ripped them apart and left them. That’s not normal wolf behavior. I swear I know it did it to piss us off. Piss me off. Like telling me it can get away with it. I’m sure it did away with other boys and girls we haven’t found yet. That thing’s either bewitched or the devil itself. I knew it the moment I saw its eyes. Folks talk about red eyes and yellow eyes being scary. That thing has green ones and by God you’d swear it stole them right off a person’s face.”
…
“Umm… M – Mister Huntsman?” Ochaco whispered as she followed the man and his lit lantern. Being honest with herself, she admitted she was scared. Wolves were out here. It was night. She’d left the cart and the donkey with the woman in town and was now walking on foot. Her parents were sick and, if she didn’t fetch the doctor fast enough, she didn’t know if she’d come back and find them still breathing. “Is the doctor far? Oh – I didn’t mean to sound rude! I haven’t thanked you for helping me.”
“Don’t thank me yet,” the man scoffed, turning his lantern here and there. “That thing’s still out there. Has a taste for little kids. I need to check on the traps. We’re taking Needles Road to the doctor’s house by the lake. It’s faster that way.”
Ochaco had a feeling he wasn’t doing this for charity, but was using her as bait to reel the wolf in. Maybe hearing of one wolf-attack story hadn’t been enough to make her as paranoid as the town’s people. She was scared, but her fear of wolves wasn’t as high as her fear of being too late. She wasn’t about to turn back empty-handed.
The Huntsman at the front slowed to a stop. They had reached the edge of a cliff. There was a deep split in the ground in front of them with the sound of a river between where they stood and the other side. She spotted the rope bridge, only it wasn’t hanging in a U-shape over the river like normal bridges. The ropes had snapped or been cut, because the bridge was hanging flat against the cliff on the other side; the last few wooden steps at the end were wet from the spraying water. Ochaco carefully got a closer look. It wasn't a deep fall, but it would surely hurt if she fell from that height. For a full minute, neither said anything. Her breath hitched. Was this the only path to reach the doctor? Had the doctor crossed and fallen? Was this all for nothing?
“Mister Huntsman…” Ochaco gasped, clutching at her heart.
The man inspected the wooden support beams on their side of the cliff, grabbing what was left of the ropes and running his thumb over the tip. “That bastard…” he cursed to himself.
He sighed, clearly disappointed. “Bridge’s snapped. Better use Pins Road. Not as safe but it’ll still get you to the doctor.” He turned and pointed his lantern for her to follow.
In that brief moment he’d swung his lantern, the faint orange glow highlighted the ends of the cut ropes on the support beams. Ochaco noted the clean cuts. The bridge hadn’t collapsed from age or overuse. Those ropes had been deliberately cut. The man had clearly cursed someone just a few seconds ago.
She didn’t like this. Something else was going on. Her joints almost didn’t follow him. Almost. She forced them to.
This path was thinner, the bushes and trees denser, closer. It was impossible to not hit branches. A few birds chirped, which meant morning was near. She’d like for some more light.
“Stop here,” the Huntsman ordered her. “Don’t move until I say. I have traps everywhere in these woods. I know I have some around here.” He snapped off a thin branch, crouched, plopped his lantern down, and used the fluffy end of the branch as a duster to push away dead leaves, exposing the iron trap that resembled bear jaws.
The man tsked. There was something obviously wrong with the trap. The jaws were shut, clumping onto a snapped piece of stick. “Fifth one since yesterday night. Clever devil, I’ll give it that.” He proceeded to mess with it, trying to open the jaws.
Devil. The Huntsman had called that wolf that. “Mister Huntsman, did the wolf…?” It sounded crazy. Animals didn’t think like that. They couldn’t. It just wasn’t possible. But… the Huntsman did state the wolf wasn’t ordinary. If this was true, and a wolf had been the one disarming the traps, then… just how smart was it? Smart enough to outsmart a human – an experienced hunter, at that. That was terrifying.
“The dog’s bewitched. That ain’t a normal animal. This thing won’t rest until it’s dead.” He reset the trap and covered it up. “I need better tricks. Catch it off guard.”
Just then, a sound cut through the woods. A snap of twigs, rustling, then a snarl, followed by whimpering. The noise had come from the Huntsman’s left. Suddenly excited, the man sprung to his feet, lantern swinging in one hand and gun in the other. Ochaco remembered him ordering her to be close, so even though he seemed to forget about her at that moment, she followed anyway, trying to keep up on shorter legs and slapping branches out of her face until she almost collided with the man’s back.
The Huntsman was huffing and puffing, his lantern hanging from his elbow, swaying awkwardly. He’d been aiming two-handed with his shotgun. He slowly lowered it, a look of disbelief on his face.
Ochaco recalled the past few seconds. They’d heard a snarl. A doggy snarl. Followed by a whimper. The wolf had been close and neither had noticed. It was that silent. Both she and the Huntsman stared at the trap on the ground, where the man’s gun was pointed. Just a trap with its iron teeth wide open, undisturbed. The whimper… What had the whimper meant?
She felt dread creep up on her before she heard the snarl. Both she and the Huntsman stopped. “It’s okay,” she thought to herself. “You have a knife. Mom taught you how to cut rabbits with it. Dad showed you how to carve wood with it. You know how to use it.” Except a wolf was not the same as a piece of unmoving log or dead rabbit to be skinned and cooked to make jack stew.
Then, she realized... the whimper had been an act. Before Ochaco could proclaim her conclusion, there was another, closer twig-snap. Everything happened quickly after that. A black body burst out of the bushes in a mess of leaves and fur, jaws open and lips curled up to expose pink gums and curved teeth. Its green eyes blazing in the dark, fixated on the man’s head.
The Huntsman swiveled and, thinking quickly, slammed the wolf's head with the gun’s nozzle, knocking the beast away. The beast clumsily landed on the ground, front paws sliding thanks to the carpet of dead leaves. For a brief second, Ochaco was sure she saw what looked to be hairless scars in the sea of black fur. The animal shook its head and dove back into the bushes. The spot it had been standing in popped with a dusty explosion as the Huntsman’s bullet missed. “Goddamn it!”
Ochaco’s heart was in her throat. She scrambled for her knife, holding it with two shaky hands, her eyes going here and there and everywhere. Her paranoia made her see the whole woods breathe. Every bush and shrub and tree seemed to move. She caught a glimpse of furry legs sweeping from behind the gaps of leaves. Another movement there, and there, and there. Realization dawned on her. It wasn’t just one wolf, but the whole pack. The eyes gave them away. Multiple sets of eyes like tiny moons, flickering, turning on and off, bobbing with swaying heads and panting mouths. They were circling, keeping to the shadows. Multiple trampling feet crushed dried leaves. The sounds of their large bodies shifting, bumping against one another. Cold sweat made her body numb. Keep holding the knife, she told herself. Just hold up the knife.
The Huntsman turned his gun at every movement that felt too close. “Where are you, Green Eyes? I know you’re in there. You learned to play possum now, eh? Neat trick. Did you have fun seeing the look on my face? It’s me you really want, isn’t it? You know I’m on to you. Come out here, I’m right here!” the Huntsman dared. He shot at the bushes, cutting a few branches that flew in splinters. The man nudged his gun toward the sky. “Night’s running out. Can’t hide in the dark forever.”
Ochaco heard a few snaps behind her and turned just in time to see two brown wolves out in the open flinch at being noticed. A third jumped out of the bushes and bit at the end of her cloak. No. She was not going to be wolf dinner. With a strangled scream, she slashed at the wolf and felt the blade skid over the animal’s head. It yelped and released, retreating. Seeing this, the other two backed away, now hesitant.
Ochaco’s apprehensive searching caused her to spot the unnaturally green eyes which moved in a blur. “Mister Huntsman, look out!” she screamed and watched the man swivel in a random direction – he had not yet spotted the animal himself – and aimed his gun, firing a shot that only got close enough to sheer off some cheek fur but nothing more. The wolf landed and stumbled, the blast ruining its perfect fall. It recovered from the shock and lunged, latching onto the gun’s neck and pulling. The man pulled, too, reluctant to lose his gun. “Damn you!”
Suddenly, the wolf released. The man staggered back – stepping into his own trap. The iron jaws slammed shut around the man’s boot. He screamed – mostly in frustration rather than pain as that had yet to set in. the gun fell to the side and another wolf dragged it away in a hurry, disappearing into the bushes.
“Mister Huntsman!” Against better judgment, she ran to him and placed herself between the man and Green Eyes, her hands grasping the knife’s handle in a white knuckle grip. The wolf stared wide-eyed, its curled lips going slack. The eyes. ‘Eyes stolen off a person’s face.’ She now understood the meaning of that. Those eyes looked human. Too smart. Too detailed. Too big to be on a predatory animal that focused mostly on scent. She could almost read the expression on its face. Sad. Guilty. Determined. The last one triumphed over the rest, and the wolf shook its head and leaped at her. No snarling. No sound but the yelp she pushed out of the wolf with her knife and the thud of her head hitting the ground. Her heart was suddenly very loud in her head. For a brief few seconds, her vision went blurry. The Huntsman was yelling curses at the green-eyed wolf. Her vision swam in a wave of gray and brown and black fur as the wolves pulled at her cloak, dragging her over dirt.
They were dragging her away. “Let me go!” She kicked and actually hit a wolf or two. Her knife was still in her hand, she realized. She hadn’t let go of it. She yelled and jabbed her knife-holding-hand around. The wolves released and backed away in a hurry. “Get back! I’m – I’m not afraid of you!” She kept her knife out, pointed at them as she got herself to stand up, panting. They looked almost afraid with their ears back and bodies low, slowly backing away and hiding behind each other. The green-eyed one was front and center, panting like it had run up a mountain. Now that it wasn’t moving as much, she could look at it more closely. A black wolf with green eyes. It was smaller compared to the wolves in its army. Almost regular dog-sized. The look on its face… it almost looked relieved. A whimper slipped out of it. It nudged its head to the left. It did it again, as if pointing at something with its nose. It looked almost unnatural for an animal to repeat a motion like that. It was as if it was telling her, ‘Look behind you.’
Her adrenaline calmed enough for her to hear the trickling water and smell wet rock. She gave a quick glance back. A shallow river. They’d pulled her out of the dense path and dropped her in the open, near the river. The sky was beginning to brighten, signaling the beginning of early morning.
There was the sound that mimicked a small zap. A flash of green shone from the corner of her eyes.
“I’m sorry I hurt you,” a boyish voice said.
Ochaco gasped and looked back at the wolves she was pointing her knife at, though her grip had slackened from confusion. The wolves had backed into the shadows of the shrubbery, their eyes and silhouettes visible. The green-eyed wolf wasn’t among them. Something else stood in the middle of the animal cluster hiding in the shadows. Something humanoid and short, crouching on its knees. Through the darkness granted by the trees, bright green lines zigzagged up and down the person’s body, evaporating.
A boy. A boy on his knees, leaning with one arm clutching his side. It was shadowy where he sat, but it was clear enough to tell he wasn’t wearing any clothes.
“Wha… what?” Ochaco whispered mostly to herself, her brain unable to make sense of what she was seeing.
Green eyes. Green, youthful eyes on the boy, glossy with unshed tears. He looked at her with all the guilt in the world. “I’m sorry. I had to get you out of there. It was the only thing I can think of. I hope you’re not hurt.”
The boy had appeared out of thin air, but she knew that wasn’t true. The wolves stood around him, eyeing her wearily. “H… Hey…” Cautiously, she took a step forward. “Who are you? Where’d you come from?” She took another step and saw the wolves’ hackles rise. The boy was still clutching his side. He was still half-hidden in the shadows, but she was close enough to see the red stream on his cheek. “You’re hurt!” She realized with alarm. “The… the wolves…” Originally, she intended to warn him, tell him to get away from them. The warning died in her throat.
“It’s okay! They won’t hurt me,” he said with forced optimism. There was a hitch in his voice. “I’m fine.”
His eyes. They were a brilliant emerald-green. The blood streak on his cheek. The Huntsman’s bullet had grazed the wolf’s face when it sheared off a patch of fur. Her breath hitched. It came together and it didn’t make sense. It was impossible and, yet, he was right there, clutching his side, giving her a hopeful smile.
“I’m glad you look okay,” he said, as if his existence wasn’t astounding her. “I’m sorry I scared you.”
“What…?” She no longer wanted a better look. She backtracked, tripping over a pebble and falling on her bottom. She crawled away, putting more distance between her and the wolf-boy, boy-wolf. Whatever he was. Her brain squirmed to find answers, or anything close to that. She remembered her mother telling her bedtime stories; stories about wolves pretending to be mothers to trick kids into opening the door when their real mothers were away. But that was a bedtime story. She wasn’t going off to bed. Her mother and father were in bed, back in the cottage, burning with fever. “What… What are you?” she managed through her scrambled brain, her question coming out in a whisper.
He gave her a sad look with eyes too innocent to have come from a wolf. “It’s a long story… I’m sorry again, for scaring you…”
“Are you the wolf?” Under any other scenario, this would’ve sounded silly, accusing a random person of being a wolf. Her mind just couldn’t find any other explanation for all this.
He hesitated. “I… uh…” He looked to the side and, with a shaky voice of a still-growing boy, nervously admitted, “Yeah… But I promise I won’t hurt you!” he quickly added. “The… The Huntsman… He’s a bad man…” It looked like he was gripping a wound on his side too tightly. He curled in on himself. “He hurts people... He wasn’t taking you to the doctor’s house. You don’t have to believe me, but please don’t go near him!” he begged. A wolf sniffed at the boy’s side. He placed a gentle hand over the animal’s head and weakly pushed it away.
Ochaco almost stopped breathing. “You know… about the doctor?”
A wolf sniffed his face and the boy gently stroked the animal's head. “They heard.”
He could talk to them. Or at least understand them. So much of what he said didn’t make sense. The Huntsman? A bad man? From what she’d seen, he wasn’t the nicest of men, but he hadn’t hurt her… unless the uneasy feeling in her gut had been right about something. Something eerie was about. Ever since coming across the fallen bridge, something was off. Wait…
“The bridge…” she whispered.
Even in human form, his ears were still sensitive enough to pick up her words. “I had to take it down,” he admitted shamefully, bowing his head, unable to meet her eyes.
“Why?” Still in shock, Ochaco whispered the demand to know. She could’ve reached the doctor if the wolf-boy hadn’t cut the lines.
“Needles Road doesn’t lead to the doctor’s house. Her house is there, behind you.”
She chanced a look behind her. Sure enough, just past the shallow river, a wooden house stood in the distance. The wolf-boy had dropped her close to the house.
“The Huntsman…” The boy struggled to talk, as if the news was too hard on him to spit out, “He hurts people. He hurts kids… He takes them and hurts them… I won’t let him do it again.”
Hurt people. Bits of speech trickled through Ochaco’s mind. Things about kids getting killed in the woods… only she’d been told wolves did it. For a few seconds, she debated believing him. But why lie to her? To eat her? He could’ve killed her when his wolves had her. A wolf-boy who now felt more boy than wolf. If she hadn’t seen his other form she would not have even guessed he wasn’t fully human. Even in his previous wolf state, the eyes and behavior and facial expressions still gave away his human intelligence. If it weren’t for the wolves surrounding him, it would’ve been easy for her to just ignore the wolf part in him ever existed.
Another wolf sprung up from the depth of the thin trees. The boy and the animal locked eyes. He understood it, Ochaco could tell. It was a silent conversation between him and the animal. His expression melted with relief as though the wolf had delivered good news. The boy shifted, tried to get up, and plopped back down to his knees with a wince, his hand clutching his side. He waved the wolves off and they scattered back into the wave of leaves; meanwhile, he struggled to stand, his shoulder pressing against the bark of a tree.
It then occurred to her. With everything going on all at once, with the waterfall of information whirling in her mind, she had failed to notice the red smear and tufts of black fur stuck to the corners of her blade – the blade she’d stabbed the wolf with. The wolf, now a boy. She’d stabbed the boy.
…
It felt odd, to be called the ringleader when he was anything but. The wolves knew he wasn’t and never would be one of them, just as he knew people would not see him as anything other than a baby-eating monster. He recalled their angry shouts and demands to have the ‘night devil’ shot, his mother’s tears, her wailing, begging, pleading him to please don’t go, don’t leave me, baby. “I can’t, Mom,” he’d told her. “I’m sorry.” Because scared people were angry people, and angry people saw monsters in trees and dogs and little boys and thought it was best to shoot at trees and dogs and little boys, and in their mania, would not hesitate to go after mothers of werewolf children. Devil or not, better be safe than sorry. His existence put his poor widowed mother in danger if even one person knew Inko’s weak boy was a big black dog at night. Hell’s gates would break loose, and people with pitchforks and torches would come and demand the werewolf’s head on a peg and the mother burned for the crime of witchcraft which never happened.
The curse had been his fourteenth birthday present. It had been intended for his father, a man of kind words and many lies even Izuku’s mother did not know of. But the man had vanished, so the curse was put on the son. It was unfair for him and his mother to bear the burden of his father’s ill choices. It was unfair Izuku had to leave to ensure she wouldn’t be harmed. At the edge of the woods, his mother had latched onto him and cried her eyes pink. The sky turned dark and he transformed, still in her arms. He had had to pull himself away from her and run into the bushes.
He was a fool to think he could teach himself to hunt. He was too clumsy, too new to his animal body. He made more progress during the day, when he had his human body back. Using ropes and setting up rabbit traps – he’d failed to slit the first two rabbit’s throats. The spear victim, a deer, had forced him to finally use a knife to end her suffering and feed himself. Plants were easy to get a hold of, but it was difficult to tell apart edible ones from toxic ones. He’d been lucky enough to just get high on certain berries. Cataloging everything needed time and work. Unfortunately, it was also risky. Once, he ate something contaminated and fell sick with a fever that made him stagger in wolf form and tremble and sweat and vomit in daytime human form. He passed out trying to drink from the lake in front of the doctor’s house. The short, old woman had dragged him in, and, between lectures, nursed him back to health. He’d transformed into a wolf at least twice while under her care, and not once did she question it. He ended up visiting her frequently after injuries and spells of sickness, and he helped gather ingredients for her to make medicine.
“You’re free to use the bed, sonny,” the doctor – Doctor Chiyo – told him, tapping her staff against the bedframe. “There’s no reason why you have to sleep outside. You’re still just a boy.”
“Thank you,” he told her meekly after finishing a bowl of porridge, wearing a green cloak for the sake of being decent around the old woman. “But…”
She sighed, knowing fully well she wouldn’t like what he was about to say.
“But I need to learn. I have to learn. If I want to depend on myself, I need to figure things out… But thank you so much for everything!” With that, he set off again.
The wolves that already lived in these woods hadn’t been too kind. He stumbled upon them by accident, gathered around one of their own who had gotten her foot caught in a trap. Past midnight, he was in wolf form, looking like a pathetic excuse of a wild animal, resembling a scraggly dog with his tail between his legs. He hadn’t been prepared to hear them speak.
“Who are you?” the biggest one asked without moving his lips. It wasn’t an actual language with actual words, but thoughts projected straight into Izuku’s mind. It didn’t take long for him to understand how wary of him they were. “You don’t smell like wolf. What are you?” They suspected he wasn’t normal from the start. “Answer me.” A calm order.
“Oh, uh…” even in his thoughts he mumbled. “My name’s Izuku.”
“You are stranger,” the second biggest one insisted with a snarl. “You can’t be here.” The others followed her lead, snarling and circling him as he shrank into a ball.
It wasn’t until he saw one of their own with her paw in the rusted trap. “I can help her!” Honestly, he hadn’t said it to save himself. The thought never came to his mind. He really did want to help her. The trap looked old and forgotten. No one would come for it.
“You lie,” the second biggest sneered. “You’re small. You’re scared.”
“I can!” he suddenly felt determined. “Please, just wait for the sun. I can help in the morning!”
“Why do you demand the sun?”
“I can help in the morning, I promise!”
The whimpers of their still-trapped family member made them halt and consider his offer. “You keep your word, strange thing.”
Relief washed over him. “I will!” He came to understand the bigger two wolves were the mother and father, and the rest were all daughters. They waited for morning, surrounding him in case he thought to flee. He didn’t. Morning came and he felt the buzz in his bones; the sign of the beginning of his quick transformation. Red lines mapped and glowed all over his body. The wolves scurried away just as electrical discharge flickered at the tops of his fur and dwindled when there was nothing left but a naked boy crouched on the ground.
The wolves growled at him. “Strange thing! Strange thing! You lie!” He could still understand them.
“I didn’t, I promise,” he held up his hands in surrender, failing to realize they wouldn’t understand human hand gestures. Luckily, they were too scared – and too stunned – to do anything more than yip and growl and air-snap as he carefully approached the one with her paw in the rusted trap. The iron jaws were almost falling apart at the joints. He just took a rock and broke the screws, effectively releasing the wolf that limped away from him in a hurry.
“Strange thing break silver teeth,” the mother wolf said, astonished.
He had been glad enough they let him help. The daughter’s paw wasn’t broken. Over time, he saw them more and more. They ignored him, which was fine. It was better than being attacked by them. It wasn’t until he stumbled upon what appeared to be rotting corpses one morning. Dead bodies that weren’t animal. Dead bodies with clothes on them and clothes in the grass around them. Dead kids. Dead kids with parts of their bodies in other locations, flies over them. He collapsed and vomited, his heart choking him, heating up his face and squeezing his chest because, by gods, those were children around his age and younger.
“Strange thing sick,” one of the wolves in the distance said.
“Why…?” he struggled to speak, starting to cry. “Why would you…?”
“Furless kill furless,” one of the daughter wolves – the one he’d helped – said.
He had come across the wolves enough times to understand furless meant humans. His heart seized. A human did this. A person… He willed himself to look – he had to look. No teeth marks. The kids had been sliced up. No animal could do this. Their clothes – the ones strewn about on the ground… they weren’t shredded, but had been taken off. Trousers had been pulled off without a tear. One had her skirt flipped up. The ones who still had their heads attached had marks on their necks. No animal would do that. Bile gurgled at the back of his throat, up his nose. He failed to swallow and vomited again. This hadn’t been an animal’s doing. This was a multiple murder. A human had done this. A human had hurt them and strangled them to death and chopped them up.
“Wolf will eat meat, now,” one of the wolves said.
He lurched forward, hands reaching to stop them. “No – don’t!”
The wolves halted, listening to him, intrigued. “Why?”
“You can’t eat them… Please…” He rubbed at his wet face with his arm.
“Why?” One cocked her head at him.
“Does strange thing want to burn meat?” the mother wolf. “Strange thing eat ash.” She thought he wanted to cook them for himself.
He gagged. “No! No, I’d never! Because it’s wrong… I – you can’t eat people…” Human morality was hard to explain to animals. But then... was human morality really human at this point? “You shouldn’t. I know you won’t get it… I know I’m not making sense… but please don’t eat them.”
“Furless take deer and rabbit away from wolf. Wolf need to feed.”
“I know, I understand, we’ve – I mean… the furless keep hunting your deer…” He wasn’t human anymore. Not according to other people. He wasn’t human enough for humans, nor wolf enough for wolves. “But please… please don’t touch them.” His voice quivered. His throat squeezed. “They have families out there… They… What if they don’t know they’re… they’re…”
“What does strange thing want from wolf?” the mother wolf asked. They all looked at him with interest
He made a deal with them. He’d disarm the ‘silver teeth,’ and they’d leave the kids’ bodies alone. They kept their end of the deal and he kept his. With his heightened sense of smell in wolf form, it didn’t take long for him to figure out the culprit – the murderer. The Huntsman’s smell was all over the dumped bodies, as well as on the traps. He convinced the wolves that they had a common enemy.
“Please, help me,” he begged them, his wolf form smaller than their smallest adult daughter.
“Strange thing is strange,” the mother wolf said. “You look like dog, you smell like furless. You talk like rabbit, you think like fox. What is strange thing?”
He didn’t know how to answer her.
“Wolf help strange thing,” the father wolf said.
And Izuku had never been this grateful. He had the wolves guard the bodies from scavengers while he went to town during the daytime. He’d informed a guard about the bodies he'd stumbled upon and gotten scolded for going into the woods. He had even banged at the coroner’s doors only to be shooed away. Nothing happened. No one wanted to investigate the dead children. Or no one was going to believe this little boy crying, “I saw dead kids in the woods! Someone, please help!” It also didn’t help when his teeth got pointier and the hair at his nape grow shaggier whenever he got frustrated, regardless of the time. Even his ears would transform into triangular ones without his knowledge. It was getting too risky. He decided to head back to the woods before he caused panic.
Later, at night, he trotted around town, passing by each guard and speeding up when a decent number of people began to follow the strange wolf with green eyes. He hoped his mother wouldn’t follow. He had to do this quickly before news of the wolf in town reached her. He led the mob to the bridge where they all stopped and stared in awe at the sight of this animal effortlessly crossing the bridge. Only a few brave ones went over the bridge after him, guns in hand, shooting and missing the black monster at night. He led them to the body dumping site and fled. Hopefully, the bodies would be retrieved and buried.
Days later, in human form, he heard people talking while he walked around in his cloak. He looked like a homeless kid with dirty feet and dirty hands and dirty cheeks. No one talked to him. “Wolves did it,” someone said. He’d hoped for a better outcome considering how suspicious the cuts on the bodies had been. “The coroner’s still looking at them,” another said, which gave Izuku hope.
“It’s wolves, no doubt,” a man insisted. Then came the scent of the Huntsman. Even in human form, his wolf senses still worked. Though not in full capacity, his sense of smell was strong enough to pinpoint the Huntsman. The Huntsman was a man of high status. A couple trusted him to take their kid to the doctor in the woods. Izuku knew where she was, so the alarm bells in his head rang when the man – it was his scent! He was right – took the kid and headed straight for the hanging bridge. Past the bridge was where the bodies were, to the side, in the bushes. The man was going to do it again. Izuku wouldn’t let him – not when he was right there to stop it. Wolves couldn’t cross bridges; they were too unstable. Regular wolves liked to take a long way around. But Izuku wasn’t a wolf. He crossed the bridge on all four paws, his blood pumping in his ears, his hackles rising, his lips curling without his knowledge. For the first time, he felt like a hunter. A hunter hunting a hunter. The other wolves watched him. They ran to the other side, intending to go around so they wouldn’t have to try crossing. He didn’t have time to wait for them.
He charged at the Huntsman, effectively scaring the kid to backtrack and the Huntsman to scramble for his gun. The man hadn’t been prepared to face this wolf with a human’s brain. The murderer was afraid. He fired and missed, and fired and missed. Izuku latched onto the man’s good arm. The Huntsman thrashed and Izuku came away with ribbons of flesh in his mouth. The man looked him in the eye and seemed to shiver.
“You’re ain't normal,” the Huntsman realized.
Izuku’s words went unheard, “I won’t let you hurt anyone!” It just came out as a snarl. “Not anymore. How could you? They were little kids. They had families. I won’t let you. As long as I can move, you won’t hurt anyone anymore!” His eyes glowed a brilliant green. Bubbly blood – not his own – dribbled down his open mouth; a mixture of blood and spit. The menacing growl was instinctive; a rumble that shook the ground.
“You’re the devil…” the man uttered and got to his feet, only to be jerked to the side by jaws locking around his already damaged arm. He punched Izuku in the head, thrashed him around, panicking.
Izuku didn’t let go, not even after the man pulled out his knife and punched it into him a few times. No whimper or yelp. He was an unmoving boulder. He would’ve held on if the sun hadn’t slowly brightened the sky and sapped his animalistic strength. If the wolves hadn’t arrived – teeth snapping and throats rumbling – the Huntsman would’ve surely ended him. Outnumbered, the man ran off, leaving Izuku to sit and simmer in failure. The kid had escaped, but so did the murderer. He’d bled on his way to the doctor’s house, transforming back to his naked, two-legged form as he staggered in and collapsed over her floor.
The poor old woman had to stitch him up. He’d gotten stabbed five times. He hadn’t been counting the strikes at the time.
“You’re lucky you still have your lungs,” scolded Doctor Chiyo. She sighed deeply and waddled to her chair, her staff clanking with each step. “Though I can’t say I blame you this time…”
He’d told her everything, just after waking up.
“There’s an illness going around town. I’m heading out. I’ll try to do something. Talk to the coroner. Don’t try anything stupid while I’m gone.”
He didn’t. For a while, at least. He waited in the house, getting news from the wolves from the window.
“Huntsman leave more silver teeth,” the father wolf told him from outside the house. No news of the man murdering anyone.
Good. Doctor Chiyo came back after finishing business in town. “The coroner was kind enough to let me examine the bodies with him,” she said, hobbling with exhaustion. “No wolf did that. It was clear as day. Done with a skilled knife.”
It would take time for it to be confirmed, longer time for news to travel, and even longer for them to look for suspects. Doctor Chiyo could offer her clue of the murders done by an expert hunter, but that wouldn’t be much. Whether or not the Huntsman would be found guilty wasn’t clear. He was a man with a good reputation as a protector.
One night, while Izuku shed his bandages and went to the lake to lap up water, the wolves came back with news. The Huntsman was back, and he had a girl with him, telling her about the doctor and the bridge.
He wasn’t going to stop unless Izuku stopped him himself. He couldn’t wait for other people to do something. He had expected the girl to run back. She hadn’t. She’d even put herself between him and the Huntsman. She’d raised her knife at him, and Izuku knew, from the look in her eyes, that she’d hold her ground no matter how scared she was. She was like him: scared but determined. It was a dangerous thing to be.
Now, bleeding from his side, begging for her to believe him, he wanted nothing else than to have her turn to the house, reach the doctor, and head straight back with his wolves watching, leaving the Huntsman to him.
However, nothing went as planned. She was still holding her ground. He was still begging her to believe him. And one of the daughter wolves came back with news. “The Huntsman not find silver stick. Huntsman go back.” Izuku had instructed them to take the gun and bury it. The wolf sounded disappointed. The man would surely come back later.
Izuku gave a nod and waved the wolves off. “Thanks, guys. Good work. You can go now. I’ll…” A pained hiss slipped from between his teeth. “I’ll catch up.” They scattered. He was injured. By a knife again. Doctor Chiyo wasn’t going to be happy with him.
He heard the girl stumbled over to him. “Wait!” She stopped just as she got close enough to see his sorry state. Dirt on his hands and feet and arms and thighs and face. Matted hair with sticks sticking out as if his own tuft of hair were a bush. He’d left his green cloak at the doctor’s, and so his nudity had his scars exposed to her eyes. She had to stop and stare, mouth agape, before shaking her head to clear her thoughts and coming over to him, her hand outstretched.
He instinctively winced and flinched away from the incoming hand. The only hands he’d been experiencing were punches from the huntsman and needlework from the doctor. The girl‘s hand brushed over the hand he kept pressed to his side.
“You’re hurt,” she said guiltily. “Oh my gosh, you’re bleeding bad! I did this – I’m so sorry!” She gently got him to remove his hand so she could see the wound; a slice, starting from below his rib and going up and underneath his pit. Red streaks ran down like a silky sheet. She took off her cloak and pressed it against the wound. He yelped, not expecting her to push against it. “Is – is the doctor really in that house?” she asked hurriedly, her face right over his head – right in front of his face when he dared to look up. His body suddenly felt hot and he cursed himself for it.
“So close… Uh, I mean – Doctor Chiyo. That’s – that’s Doctor Chiyo’s house.”
She huffed with determination and grabbed his elbow. “I got you hurt when you were trying to help,” she said.
“Ah – you didn’t know! It’s fine, really, I was being scary and loud and–”
“Let’s go to the doctor together!” she said and pulled at his elbow to try and get it looped over her head.
His brain turned off on him. His body moved with her, letting her carry half his weight. He kept her cloak pressed to his side, its dark magenta color turning a deeper purple as it absorbed his blood. “Ye – Yeah… Thanks…”
…
Somehow, she managed to put aside his strangeness. For now, he was just a boy she’d hurt while he had been trying to help.
Crossing the shallow river and staggering all the way up to the house, Ochaco slapped at the door with one hand while she tried to keep holding the boy up with the other. “Hello? Doctor? Are you home?” she yelled urgently. “Doctor, we need help! Please, he’s really hurt!”
A chain rattled. A click. The door opened and a short woman in stopped and stared with tiny eyes in disbelief. She looked at Ochaco, then the boy, then moved to the side. “Come inside! Hurry now.” She slammed the door shut and locked it multiple times. There was a wooden bed, an unlit fireplace, tables with knives and herbs and mixing bowls and glass jars and flasks, a bucket filled with some sort of bubbly, yellow water with tools half submerged.
The boy was right about things so far; the house and the doctor and the path to the house and the doctor.
Which meant he was right about the Huntsman. The thought made her mind clog up like a beaver’s dam. Her mind didn’t want her to think about how close she’d been to being another child supposedly killed by a wolf – that she could’ve been next. She didn’t want to think that this trusted man was still walking around, never questioning how much pain he’d inflicted upon others of his kind – others who had only lived a few years of life. “He’s hurt people,” the boy had said. The way he worded it – with tears pooling in his eyes – made her speculate on what kind of hurt he’d done… Hurt and kill. Kill was one thing, hurt was another.
“Put him on the bed,” the doctor ordered quickly, scurrying on tiny legs, her cane clapping the wooden floors as she went to grab things off the tables.
Ochaco obeyed and practically pushed him over the flattened mattress. He winced and grunted and clutched her cloak against his wound. The bed was littered with patches of suspicious black fur.
“I’m really sorry, Doctor Chiyo…” the boy said with so much honesty.
“None of that now, boy. Let me see.”
It occurred to Ochaco he and the doctor were already acquainted with each other. He knew her by name, knew where she lived, and the woman didn’t ask questions as she poured liquid from a green bottle over a piece of cloth and began to clean around the wound. She clicked her tongue with disappointment. “You leave for one day and come back like this.”
“I’m – I’m sorry, doctor...” The boy winced at the touch so hard his face turned pink. He sounded so sorry.
The doctor shoved him so he rested on his good side. “Hush now. Let me see.”
“I did it,” Ochaco admitted. “I – I thought he was a wolf... I mean a bad one. And – and… I put my knife up and–”
The boy tried to talk in between gasps. “It’s… it wasn’t – Ah! It wasn’t your fault. I…” He hissed when the doctor stuck the tip of a needle into his wound and flooded the open flesh with a white liquid that felt like termites were eating him. He squeezed the sheets, curling his knees in. “I should’ve thought better… I’m r – really sorry…”
“No, I’m sorry. I–!”
“That’s enough out of you two,” the old woman scolded. “Taking blames won’t help anyone. Dearie, come here. Cover his nose with this for me.” She gave Ochaco a damp cloth. It had a strangely sweet smell.
Now that she was sure the boy was in safe hands, Ochaco was suddenly very aware of his nudity. She only saw boys bathe in lakes from a distance whenever she and her parents went down to the stream. She’d never gotten close enough to witness male nudity in detail, not that she was trying to notice details. Her permanent blush marks deepened in color.
“The cloth, girl,” Doctor Chiyo scolded, setting aside a bowl of salve for later.
“Oh – right. Sorry!” She knelt over the bed, near the boy’s head, and covered his mouth and nose with the damp cloth. He was on his side, facing the wall. The back of his head was to her. She still managed to reach his face.
He seemed to know what to do, breathing in deeply. His scrunched face relaxed with the second inhale, and his eyes glazed over with the third inhale.
“Alright. Enough with that,” Doctor Chiyo said, preparing a needle and thread. “Cover his face again when I tell you. This is much easier when I have more hands around.”
Ochaco removed the cloth but kept it tucked in her fist for later. Whatever was on the cloth, it had caused the boy to go into a dazed state. High. Drunk. Unfocused.
“’M sorry…” he mumbled.
The doctor sighed, beginning to stitch him up.
He looked so miserable. Ochaco offered a conversation. “Hey.”
“Hmm, hey…”
“Thanks for saving me,” she said. She had a hand over his shoulder to keep him in place. “I know we had an awkward start. Can we start over?”
“…Yeah. Yeah… I’d like that… Hey.”
She gave a tiny giggle. “I meant when we met, but that’s fine, too. I’m Ochaco. What’s your name?”
“My name?” He paused. “Izuku…” He didn’t cry or wince or flinch as the doctor weaved the needle through his torn flesh.
“You were really brave back there,” she told him.
“You were… brave … I’m scary… Scare people… People I wanna help. They run away… You didn’t run from me. I told the wolves to move you away from – from him… You didn’t run from the wolves, either…”
In a way, she had surprised him back then as well. “I really messed up your plan, huh?” she gave a weak giggle.
“No… No. I’m glad you made it here… You wanted the doctor. But… but you didn’t smell sick…” Still anesthetized, he did not realize how weird it sounded for a human to smell a stranger, nor did he notice the blush on Ochaco’s face when she began to wonder if he could smell her right now. “You were here… to save someone else…” he hypothesized.
She was surprised he gathered that much just from what he’d gathered from the wolves. “Yeah,” she whispered. “My parents are sick. I had to find the doctor. The… the man said he’d take me to her.” She was stupid for ever going with him. Children listened to adults. Adults kept kids safe from monsters – monsters like wolves. Everyone said, “Don’t go alone, children. Take Mommy or Daddy with you.” No one said, “Trust the wolf, beware the Huntsman.” They never said that wolves couldn’t be monsters, or that people could be monsters.
“Don’t feel bad…” he mumbled. “He lied to you… I would’ve – you’ve believed him if my mom got si– sick and needed the doctor.”
“Do you think… do you think that’s how he got the other kids?” It didn’t occur to her how strange it was for her to go from being afraid of him to fully trusting him. She just knew, from the way he talked and the words he chose, he was a truth-teller. A soft-hearted boy who just happened to have sharper canines and sharper eyes. A boy. A kid, just like her. Kids who were lost and sad and angry adults weren’t keeping their promises to protect them.
“People think I…” He sniffed and turned his head to bury his face into the flat pillow, his arms going around to hug it closer to his sniveling face. “They think I hurt them… I’d – I’d never… Everything’s wrong and – and I don’t know how to make it right…” He was crying into the pillow and Ochaco wanted nothing more than for everything to be okay.
His back was glistening with sweat. Older and newer scars ran maps all over his body. It wasn’t long before he did start fussing and gripping the sheets. The doctor ordered her to drug him again. She did. Ochaco stayed with her knees against the bed, next to his head. Done stitching him up, the doctor dunked the tools into a bucket of yellow liquid and wiped her hands off.
“You’re welcome to tame that boy’s hedge,” Chiyo said, tapping her way over to the shelf of bottles on the wall. “Someone ought to. The boy can’t keep less than ten knots on his head. Gets more every time he’s here. Tell me now; were you coming here for something?”
Ochaco perked up. “Yeah! My parents. They’re really sick…”
The doctor hummed. “Dark lines on the hands? Tired and can’t keep food down?”
“Yes! And – and their eyes are pink.”
“I understand, dearie.” She hugged a number of bottles, shoved them over the cluttered table, and grabbed the mixing bowl and jug. “I’ll fix them something in a hurry. Give it to them three times a day. Keep them warm and have clean water around. Give them soft foods, like potatoes.” Doctor Chiyo grabbed a handful of dried leaves and pounded them into the mixing bowl.
So this was how medicine was made. “Thank you so much!” Ochaco said with much enthusiasm. “I’ll repay you whenever I can.”
“No need. And don’t you insist!” the doctor quickly stopped her. “You’re as stubborn as that boy. I didn’t become a doctor for the money. I wouldn’t trust anyone who did.”
That took a full minute to sink in. “I… Th – Thank you so much, doctor!” Relief washed over Ochaco. She looked back at the miserable patient on the bed.
The boy – Izuku – leaned his head drunkenly against Ochaco’s palm. There were dirt and twigs and thick mats in his hair. Nervously, she combed through it with her fingers, feeling the mess in there. He needed a brush. Badly.
A comb flew and plopped over the bed. The doctor had thrown it.
Ochaco picked it up. Izuku’s whimpering had stopped, but his eye – the only one she could see as he was still on his side, facing away from her – looked moist and tired, half-closed.
“Izuku?” she called, leaning over him so they could see each other. “Can I brush your hair?”
His glazed eyes somewhat focused for a second. “Mmm… Yeah… Okay.”
His hair didn’t seem to have a direction, so she started with the back of his neck and brushed up his scalp, combing out twigs and leaves and the occasional dead insect, the comb snagging on knots. She pulled out her knife – the one she’d regretfully stabbed him with, cleaned it off with her bloodied cloak that was in a heap on the bed, and carefully cut off the knots she couldn’t untangle. His hair had green highlights. She couldn’t remember if his wolf form had these highlights. She wasn’t sure if he could transform willingly or not.
“You were really cool, you know,” she said, snipping off another chunk of fluff and brushing away the mess. “He stepped on his own trap. That was so funny.”
A pink tint dusted his cheeks. He gave a weak smile. “I didn’t think it would work…” He sighed deeply, seeming to enjoy the scalp massage.
“It did.” Sure she had taken out every pesky knot and twig she put the comb aside and ran her fingers through his hair, fluffing it out, determining where it needed to be shortened. She sliced away the fringes that almost blanketed over his eyes. “When did you last get a haircut?” she asked innocently.
The drug was wearing off. He spoke more clearly, though his mind was probably still fogged over. “Not that long ago… Think the, uh, curse made my nails and hair grow faster. I don’t know why.”
“Oh… It’s a curse?” she didn’t know curses could turn people into animals. She’d heard of bad luck curses and illness curses. A wolf curse was new to her. “I’m sorry…”
“It’s okay… I learn a lot when I’m not like this.” Like this. Like how he was at the moment: a human. “It’s hard but… but I don’t hate it. Not anymore. I think I just miss my mom and… and things like celebrations and food and other things.”
“Where’s your mom?” She realized too late maybe it wasn’t an appropriate question. “Ah – I’m sorry! You don’t need to answer that!”
“It’s okay. She’s back home, in town. We thought we could just hide me at night. The curse transforms me at night. But, sometimes, when it’s not night yet, little things happen. My teeth and hair get longer, and I hear things from far away and smell things long after they're gone. And people told me there was something strange about me. It was hard to hide, so I left. I managed to visit one time when I snuck into town. She wanted us to spend the day together and have stew. That was fun.” He relaxed at the memory and fell asleep.
Ochaco pulled the covers up to his shoulders and helped the doctor to start up a fire and boil water. Most of the day had gone by. Doctor Chiyo filled up a few small jars with greenish medicine that smelled of strong tea and mild honey, and popped corks into the bottlenecks. She arranged the clinking bottles in a picnic basket and flipped the lids down.
“Thank you so much, Doctor,” Ochaco said, gratefully taking the basket like it was made out of gold. Her cloak had been stained a dark purple with dried blood, making the fabric stiff. She still wore it. It was too dark to resemble blood, anyway. It just looked like she’d fallen in a mud puddle.
“Doing my job, sweetie.”
The bed creaked. Izuku sat up, groggy from the drug he’d inhaled hours ago. His eyes snapped open and he swiveled his head like a deer to stare out the window. Ochaco hadn’t heard anything, but he must’ve. He staggered out of bed and almost collapsed to the floor.
“Ah, careful!” Ochaco yelped.
The doctor sighed, exasperated.
It was as if he hadn’t just gone through surgery. Izuku made it to the open window and peered outside. Ochaco tried to see what he was seeing. In the distance, predatory eyes stared back, orbs shinning under the shadows of the trees. A group of gray-and-brown wolves; a few with small scars on their heads and nicks on their ears from Ochaco’s blade.
Ochaco didn’t hear anything. Not a growl or a howl or a yip. They just stared, like they talked with their eyes.
But, next to her, Izuku said, “He’s coming back.”
Ochaco watched him scramble to put on his green cloak and gather up his knife and short spear, ignoring the hot pain from his recently stitched wound and the tugging of strings within his flesh. “He’s coming over here,” he warned. The monster was coming back, possibly with more ammunition and vengeance. “You two have to leave.”
“What?” Ochaco almost shouted. “But what about you?”
“I can distract him away. You can go through the plants so he won’t see you.”
Ochaco’s eyes widened in horror. Basket forgotten, she gripped the back of his cloak. “Wait! He has a gun – you’ll get hurt!”
“And what exactly are you planning to do, boy?” Doctor Chiyo asked disapprovingly.
“I – I have to stop him from getting here.”
“You’re saving no one by getting yourself killed,” the elderly woman said. “You’re just a boy.”
He tried to desperately reason with her. “I’m not–”
“You are. You’re a young boy regardless if you have hair or fur.”
He stayed quiet for a moment. His mouth opened slightly as he thought, and Ochaco saw how pointed his canines had gotten. It seemed to be a natural response to stress. His fingers – now with nails sharper than a few minutes ago – scratched the windowsill. She looked back at her own cloak, now with a head-sized splotch of dried blood that made the fabric go stiff. She collected the bundle in her arms and tugged at Izuku’s green cloak. “Hey…” she whispered.
His distressed eyes turned to her, his head slightly bowed.
“You don’t have to do this alone,” she said.
Surprised, he eyed the ruined cloak, then looked into her face, seeing the beaming smile she was presenting. He wasn’t the only thinker around these woods.
…
The Huntsman trudged through the woods, his bad leg dragging and his boot drawing a line through the dirt. He was still red in the face, still furious for a number of reasons. The stupid girl he had walk right up to him – presented to him on a platter – had slipped away. The second escapee. Both because of one damn wolf. That demon-eyed thing had had it out for him. It looked at him like it could read every sin in the Huntsman’s head, probably thinking, “You and I both know you’re a liar, Huntsman. You lie to the people, to the priest – to God.” The Huntsman knew that was the devil out to get him. The devil that looked like a dog and thought like a fox. The devil that had its possibly-stolen eyes fixated on him, ready to take his eyes as well and yank them out of his skull with its dog teeth. Had it gotten the eyes that way? By snapping them off the previous sinner’s head?
No – the Huntsman wouldn’t lose his that way. Not to a devil. Not to a dog. Not over some stupid, sniveling children and stupid, loud-mouthed teenagers who thought they knew so much. He should’ve buried them when he had the chance. He’d assumed leaving them to the woodland animals to dispose of would erase any trace they’d existed. People would stop looking and the Huntsman would go and ask God for forgiveness and go back to shooting animals that didn’t have human eyes. But he hadn’t done that. He’d gotten cocky. He’d left the bodies out for the animals. The animals hadn’t gone for them, as if even they were disgusted by this ‘gift’ from the Huntsman. That had been his first mistake. His second was doing it again and again when he’d promised himself and God he wouldn’t go for more. He hadn’t meant to strangle them. They just kept screaming. It wasn’t a scream he could take. It was the screaming that came out of foxes and moose, ugly and tangled and broken and hard on the ears and his hands went for the throats. He promised himself this girl would be the last. Just this one. No more. Sure, he’d said that about the others, but he meant it this time.
But the damn wolf – the damn devil! – was after him. The thing was targeting him. It had purposely exposed the ‘gifts’ the Huntsman had presented to the woodland creatures. The suspiciously undisturbed ‘gifts.’ He’d tried to talk with the coroner, but had no luck finding the man. The coroner always had guards outside who said they did not let anyone but doctors.
He’d come back to town with a bad limb. He was in such a hurry he never once took off his boot to check the severity of the swelling. Barging into the Gunsmith’s store, he ignored the greetings and questions and headed straight for the counter where the gunsmith himself was cleaning the inside of a barrel. The Gunsmith looked him up and down. It must’ve looked like he’d been dragged through shrubbery.
“Huntsman, what’s happened? Pardon me saying, but you look like a bear tossed you down a hill,” the Gunsmith said, peering over the counter to see how far down the Huntsman’s body the damage traveled.
“It’s the goddamn wolf again.” The Huntsman jabbed an impatient finger against the counter. “I need something good. Don’t care if it’s loud. It can pop my ears for all I care – just better be a killer.”
“All guns do that, Huntsman. Real question is what can you afford?”
“I’ll give you the wolf pelt when I have it.”
The Gunsmith sighed, scratching his head. “No disrespect, Huntsman, but you’ve been saying you’d get the wolf but you never do. Don’t be upset I can’t take your word.”
“What do you want, then? My damn house?”
“Wolf pelt won’t do my children any good. They smell so bad even my grandfather won’t touch them, and his nose don’t work. Besides, we got just enough from the Shepherd’s wool. Have coins on you? Winter’s on its way. Food prices’ll go up. Meat’s not the concern, everything else is.”
“I can give you four deer by next week.”
“Give something you already own, Huntsman.”
“This is outrageous!” The Huntsman slammed his fist against the counter, attracting more attention to himself. “You don’t expect a Shepherd to bring his sheep in here or a Cobbler to fix your shoes in front of you before you give him a damn gun.”
“I expect promises, Huntsman,” the Gunsmith warned, tilting the barrel to point it at the Huntsman’s face. “Promises mean no lies, Huntsman. I’m afraid you lie quite frequently.”
In the Huntsman’s mind, pictures drifted – pictures of green eyes that said, You lie, Huntsman. I will come for you, and you will cry your sins to me. That wolf. That devil. He had to get it. He had to or else. Or else it told everyone about the Huntsman. It knew. He knew it knew. It knew and it would tell, and the Huntsman would hang, and the devil would see him again but in Hell. “What will this get me?” The Huntsman took out his pouch and spilled every coin he had over the counter.
The Gunsmith counted. “This here double barrel. Hand over the knife and you can have ammunition.”
“I’ll take it.” The Huntsman slapped down his blade and accepted the double barrel. Limping out, he was met with the Woodsman who tried to stop him for conversation. The Huntsman ignored him and kept going.
“Huntsman, I asked to talk,” the Woodsman insisted.
“Can’t you see I’m busy?” The Huntsman kept limping forward, unable to feel his foot trapped within the boot.
“What on Heaven’s name happened to your leg, man?”
“The wolf did this.”
“Not this again.” The Woodsman clicked his teeth and followed. “Drop this obsession over the dog.”
“It’s the devil!”
“It’s a dog, Huntsman. I saw it. I see it come and go when I cut logs. A small thing. Didn’t look like the wolves I see. Was probably somebody’s lost ratter.”
“That’s no ratter dog – are you blind?”
“You most certainly are. All this talk about a demonic wolf.”
The Huntsman stopped and snarled at the Woodsman’s face. “It killed the children!” – My sins. But it wasn’t his fault if he didn’t mean it. The wolf had messed with his head, made him do things. “It killed them and fetched the people and made the people look. What worse evil is there?” – My evil. But the wolf must’ve made him do it.
“That was what I came to talk to you about,” the Woodsman said. “Word’s going about after the bodies were looked at. No bite marks – not one. Cuts were too precise and clean to have come from claws or teeth. You know what else, Huntsman?” There was a menacing aura surrounding the Woodsman. “They’re saying the kids have been messed with. Poked in places beasts wouldn’t care about. You wouldn’t happen to know anything about that?”
The Huntsman’s blood ran cold. The devil had told. It had whispered in their ears. “How would I know what the wolf or somebody did?”
The Woodsman laughed in a way that sounded more like a huff. “Don’t you go spinning anymore stories about devil wolves. Every one of those kids had gone with you last. Every time, you said the wolves took them or they ran off. A woman told me you left with a little girl last night. Where’d she go, Huntsman? Did the devil-wolf take her, too?” he dared the Huntsman to answer with the truth.
“What are you on about? You saying I did it?” the Huntsman spat with fury.
“I’m saying your story is hard to believe.”
“I don’t need you to believe me. You know nothing. You didn’t see what I saw. You’re a coward who’d never risk a finger to protect a child and I would’ve lost my arm to that wolf,” he yelled. He shouldn’t have yelled, but he did, and now everyone was looking.
“You never once answered me about the girl, Huntsman.”
“The wolves took her!” It was a pain, because he really was telling the truth this time. The damn devil took her. The Huntsman wasn’t sure what the wolf wanted with a live child. It hadn’t touched the dead ones. The Huntsman’s eyes caught movement behind the Woodsman: a black, blurry shape on four legs. It had come for him. The devil had followed him at broad daylight to town. It made sense how the Woodsman had known. The devil must’ve told. “You!” The Huntsman raised his new gun and pressed the trigger, hearing only a click. He had yet to load the gun.
The large, black terrier he’d aimed his gun at trotted away, unaware it had almost gotten shot.
“That the devil too, I take it?” the Woodsman asked, amused.
The Huntsman shoved past the crowd that had gathered. “You’re wasting my time. Out of my way!”
“The woodland dog is the last thing you have to worry about,” the Woodsman yelled. “If what they’re saying is true, then you better sleep with one eye open.”
The wolf was ruining him. He had to get it before it told the whole town. With a new shotgun cradled in his hands and a jingling pouch of bullets swinging from his belt, he marched into the woods, heading for the fork in the road; the one that turned to two paths: the broken bridge at Needles Road, and the old woman’s house at Pins Road. His foot was beginning to throb in his boot. It didn’t matter. He couldn’t drop his guard. Just as he reached the fork in the road, he almost tripped over his lame foot when he saw a familiar magenta cloak on the ground a few feet into Needles Road with a dark splotch of something on the fabric. The Huntsman limped toward it and lifted it with the nose of his gun. He’d seen this before. It had been on the girl. He thumbed the dark splotch. Dried blood. Had the wolf really eaten her? Did that blasted thing deem it was time to do the killing itself, now that eyes were on the Huntsman? The kid had been his to have, not the wolf’s! That demon was now stealing from him.
“You think you’re high and mighty, eh, Devil?” the Huntsman yelled into the air, his gun loaded and ready. “Got me wrapped around your claw, don’t you? Letting your minions do all the work for you. You ignoring every other sack of shit and you come after me. This ends today, wolf. I’ll make you sorry – mark my words!”
In the distance, farther up Needles Road, howls loomed like a ghost over his head. It was as if the wolves were inviting him into a challenge. Without thinking, the Huntsman rushed forward. Logically, he should’ve waited until tomorrow morning. The sun was going down. It would be hard to aim at a pitch-black wolf in the dark. That was how it usually got him. But the folks in town were already hearing the devil’s whispers. He had to end it quickly.
He ran until he reached the broken bridge. It was empty. No soul in sight. Except… there were eyes glowing in the bushes to his right. Wolf eyes. Eyeing him. judging him. Laughing at him. They scattered just as he aimed and fired, hitting everything leafy instead. The new gun was hard on the shoulder. It kicked back so hard he stumbled a few steps back. In a hurry, he reached for more bullets from his pouch. As he was focusing on the bushes to the right, he never expected anything to come from behind. Something solid slammed into his back. Two somethings.
With a grunt, he fell over his knees, his lower back stinging. It took him two seconds to realize what had hit him happened to sound human as one yelled, “I got it!” and the other responded with, “Now!”
They sounded like kids… Heck, the first one sounded like the girl.
He got up just in time to see two kids – the girl without her cloak, and a barefoot kid in a green cloak; both holding each end of what looked like a damp bed sheet – run past him on each side, netting his face with the bed sheet that smelled oddly toxic. He knew this smell. It was like the anesthetic he’d sniffed when he needed to get his wolf-bitten arm fixed. He instinctively held his breath and, with his strong hand, yanked the sheet off his face.
…
The plan they’d both constructed hadn’t fully worked. It hadn’t fully failed, either. Izuku hadn’t been sure the doctor’s painkiller shot would be enough to knock him out on a full dose. Maybe slow him down, but the man was large like bull.
The Huntsman got up and glared. Confused. Angry. Paranoid enough Izuku feared he might go ahead and shoot them. “The heck you kids…” The Huntsman got up and reached around his belt – and couldn’t find his ammunition pouch. His small eyes flickered between Izuku, Ochaco, and the wolves hidden behind foliage. He spun again to face the kid and spotted Ochaco backing away, her hands behind her back.
“You. Give it here,” he demanded, marching toward her with his hand out. “Come on, stop playing. Hand it over, girl.” He kept glancing back at the wolf-infested bushes. He panicked even more and began stumbling forward faster. “Come on – I know you have it. Give me my bullets!”
She didn’t have it, of course. She’d handed Izuku the pouch a few seconds before the man had turned around. With the Huntsman’s attention turned to Ochaco, Izuku threw the pouch. The man saw it go flying and reached for it uselessly, fell down, and saw it roll away. It tumbled towards the bridgeless cliff and fell over the edge, down into the river below.
“No!” The Huntsman heaved himself up, his eyes blazing. “You–” He stopped and stared at Izuku, finally paying attention to the new kid. He didn’t blink. “You…” He stared right into Izuku’s face and staggered back in disbelief like someone had punched him in the stomach. “The eyes… The stolen eyes…”
Izuku held his ground, his blades hidden beneath his cloak.
The Huntsman’s eyes morphed from shock to rage. He swung the gun over his head, ready to bring it down upon Izuku. “Shape-shifting devil!”
Izuku put both arms up to form an X-shaped shield. The impact stung all the way down to the bones and he let out a strangled yell, a mixture of determination and pain. The Huntsman lifted the gun for another blow but got tackled by Ochaco, momentarily pushing him off balance. The impact hadn’t been enough to cause him to fall.
“You little–” He yanked Ochaco off of him by her throat, strangling her. Even as she dangled by her neck, greeting her teeth, she squinted to glare at him. He didn’t like that. Not one bit. “Should’ve offed you when I had you!”
The Huntsman felt a tingle in his stomach. There was something protruding out of his abdomen. A knife. It wasn’t his blade. He’d traded his off. “You… you’re the devil’s accomplice.” Against better judgment, the man dropped his gun and pulled the knife out of him. Blood ran down his belt and trousers like a river. He didn’t seem to realize, too focused on the kids. “I’ll hide you better than the others.”
Izuku’s heart jumped to his throat at the sight of the bloody knife being raised at Ochaco. “Let her go!” He launched forward – and felt his body buzz. Red lines ran up and down his limbs and face. He hadn’t realized how dark it had gotten. While the sudden transformation was jarring, he was thankful for it. The man saw him and screamed, dropping Ochaco and positioning his hands up as if he were still holding the gun, forgetting he’d dropped it at his feet. Izuku bit into the man’s wrist – the one holding the knife. His green cloak slipped off and landed in a heap on the ground. The other wolves saw it safe enough to join in, bursting out of the shrubbery and circling the struggling man. The panicky Huntsman grabbed at Izuku’s scruff and tried to pull him off with no success, only ripping off chunks of fur. He kicked at the wolves air-snapping at his feet, missing each time. Izuku bit and broke wrist bone, causing the man to scream and drop his knife. Ochaco saw her chance and kicked it away.
Agitated and mindless, the Huntsman swung his arm downward and slammed Izuku against another wolf, pushing that brown-and-gray wolf off the cliff. Seeing their comrade go down, the other wolves retreated; a few peeked down the cliff.
The Huntsman began slamming Izuku against the ground. Ochaco noticed the Huntsman’s movements becoming sluggish with each hit. The wolf held on but gave a high-pitched yelp and a sudden jolt from having his stitches snapped.
“Leave him alone!” She rushed forward and elbowed the man straight in the lower back. With a grunt, the man stumbled but didn’t fall. With jittery movements, he clutched the wolf’s throat with his uninjured hand and squeezed. Squeezing throats. His specialty. Izuku gave a whine. His eyes rolled back. His teeth locked around the wrist.
“Izuku!” Ochaco yelped, desperate. The man was strangling him. She saw Izuku’s legs go limp and his jaws finally open just enough for the man to pull his hand out of the wolf’s mouth. Thinking fast, Ochaco looked around and saw the unloaded gun on the floor. She grabbed, swung back, and rammed the handle against the side of the Huntsman’s head. The Huntsman dropped her friend. Dazed, he took a few steps back, one hand injured and dripping blood, the other pressed to his ringing ear.
“Izuku!” Ochaco dropped to her knees, her hands running through black fur. He was on his side, coughing, wheezing, his tongue sticking out and his eyes wide open. She hugged his neck in relief and an exhausted whimper slipped out of him.
The Huntsman’s dark form blocked the moon as he stood over the both of them, his nose flaring, his body swaying from blood loss and the hit to the head. He had retrieved the knife. “That’s it. Be good and stay right there.”
Ochaco dropped herself over the wolf’s body, looking the man straight in the eye, daring him to go through her. Izuku tried to stand on quivering legs and managed to stay crouched instead, crimson spilling like molasses out of his reopened knife wound. Still, he twisted his head back to growl at the man.
Everything stopped when a man said, “That’s enough, Huntsman. Drop the knife.”
The Huntsman, the wolf, and the girl all looked toward the voice. A mob had formed behind them. Some folks were holding torches and lanterns, some had farming tools and axes. A menacing fence of angry people in the dark. People from town. Angry people from town.
“Woodsman,” the Huntsman spat out between gasps.
“I told you the wolves should be the last thing you’d worry about,” said the Woodsman with the ax. “Drop the knife. Step away from the girl.”
“What’re all of you doing here?” The Huntsman limped back like half of his body was numb to him. He eyed the crowd.
“The doctor had a few words to say. Old woman came running like she wasn’t eighty years old.” The woodsman spat to the side. “Given what the coroner said, I wasn’t about to let you do whatever you liked. Yeah, that’s right. Coroner’s word came through. Care to explain what you’re going to do to the child with that knife there?”
Ochaco and Izuku stared, astonished. Ochaco kept gripping chunks of Izuku’s fur, adrenaline still forcing her to latch onto her friend.
The Huntsman blinked a few times before pointing at Ochaco and the wolf. “You lot can’t go pointing fingers at me when the devil-wolf’s right there. It was attacking the girl!”
Ochaco instinctively hugged Izuku’s neck, tears wetting her vision. “No, he wasn’t! He never hurt anyone – he’s my friend!” She begged, hoped, the crowd would believe her, the child, and not the bloodied adult.
“It bit me here, see?” the man waved his mangled hand at the mob, completely forgetting about the leaky wound in his abdomen.
“Izuku saved me!” Ochaco buried her face in the wolf’s fluffy neck and heard him give a pitiful whine. “He saved me from you – you were gonna hurt us both!”
“The devil’s a shape-shifter!” the Huntsman accused, his breath ragged. “I saw it with my own eyes! The thing’s bewitched. A dream-eater. A mind-whisperer! ”
“That’s enough, Huntsman,” ordered a woman within the crowd. “You won’t lay a hand on that girl.”
“Forget the girl!” the Huntsman yelled. “The wolf–!”
“That?” one of the men gestured to Izuku. “That the wolf everyone been talking about? Too small to be a wolf. Looks like a dog. All this talk about child-eating wolves, and it was a dog this whole time?”
A woman among the crowd agreed. “Eye, it looks like the Shepherd’s black-and-white collie, don’t it?”
“It’s not a dog! Are you blind?” the Huntsman exclaimed. He’d stomp his foot if he could. Not with how wet and squelchy the inside of his boot felt.
“You certainly are,” the Woodsman told the injured man.
Frustrated, the Huntsman limped toward Ochaco and Izuku. “Here. Look real good at the eyes, I’ll show you.”
Ochaco heard Izuku’s chest rumble in her arms. She squeezed him tight. “Leave us alone!”
“Us!” the Huntsman repeated. His pale face going slack for a moment as a thought shot through his muddled brain. “That’s it. Now I get it. It’s bewitched, and you bewitched it. You helped it. You weren’t its accomplice, it was yours!” he exclaimed, proud of his conclusion.
“You’ve lost your mind, Huntsman,” the Woodsman said.
“She’s done witchcraft,” the Huntsman accused. “She’s the real ringleader here. Come here. Show them!” the man stumbled toward Ochaco, his body swaying, his injured arm mapped with red. “I know your secret. You can’t hide from me!”
Izuku’s hackles bristled. His lips curled up to show sharp teeth. Ochaco tried to pull him back to her by his fur. The man still had a knife, after all. The Huntsman hesitated. The wave of people yelled, “Stop!” and, “Get him!”
The Huntsman wasn’t ready to give up. “You gotta listen to me! Just let me show you.” He was unsteady on his feet. He stepped over the green cloak which had slipped off of Izuku before.
Suddenly, to Ochaco’s horror, Izuku slipped out of grasp and charged at the man with the knife. “No!” She uselessly reached for him.
What happened wasn’t what she’d expected. Izuku halted just inches away from the man. Instead of going for the Huntsman’s leg, he grabbed the cloak with his teeth and pulled back, ripping the cloak from under the man’s feet. The Huntsman staggered back, continued backward with his uncoordinated body, tripped over his limp foot, and went over the cliff. There was a short yell, followed by an abrupt splash at the bottom.
Everyone – the wolf with the cloak still in his mouth, the girl with her arms around the wolf’s neck, the crowd with their torches – gathered by the edge to peer down. It had been a short fall. The Huntsman was sitting up, river water too shallow to drown him or whisk him away. He tried to stand, then promptly fell in the exact same spot he’d been. The blood from his stomach wound mixed with the water, creating strings of pink.
“You’ll all regret this!” he yelled up, throwing a useless punch in their direction. “Damn you. Damn all of you! You think you’re doing good? Huh? She’s sent the devil to you all.” He pointed up, presumably at Ochaco. “She’s wiped your minds! She’s… she…” he trailed off, distracted by a nearby sound. In the shallow river with him was the wolf he’d knocked off the cliff, along with its family which had found a way down to check on their fallen friend. The group of wolves stood with water up to their elbows, their fur wet and their faces scrunched up with rage. “No… No, no. You stay back!” The Huntsman dipped his hands into the foamy water, blindly looking for his lost knife. His search only lasted a few seconds before the wolves got too close for his liking and he began clumsily trotting over water to get away. “Get away!” The wolves gave chase.
“That way!” Someone in the crowd yelled and pointed. “We can catch him downhill there!” The rest of the townspeople shouted and hollered in unison, all marching as one mass of bodies and filthy sticks and glinting blades and blazing torches. A few people lingered to check on Ochaco.
“You alright, missy?” a woman with a torch asked, cupping Ochaco’s rounded cheek. “Did that man hurt you?”
“I’m…” Ochaco didn’t realize how exhausted she felt until the danger had passed. “I’m okay now. Thank you...” Her arms were full with Izuku’s head as he nuzzled her stomach to hide his eyes from the people who stood too close. She gladly squeezed him closer in a way that said she was so, so glad the both of them were alive.
“That’s a good dog, there,” the woman said. “Let’s get you two to the doctor back in town. Especially that little fellow.”
Before she could urge Izuku into going back to town with her, someone’s rugged panting made them all stop and look. Coming up the road was a very tired, very determined, chubby woman; her hand clutching a shawl tightly around her. She slowed down and leaned against her knees to catch her breath. Izuku pulled his face out of Ochaco’s stomach and stared wide-eyed in disbelief.
The woman spotted him, and her eyes began to pool and spill over. “Izuku…” she cried, her voice tight and squeaky.
In her arms, Izuku gave a whimper, then another, then barked and whimpered at the same time; his body quivering. Ochaco looked back at the woman and found the same green eyes Izuku had been trying to hide. They were related. There was no doubt about that. Possibly his mom. Ochaco pulled her hands away, and the wolf bolted for the woman, jumping into her open arms, his tail flapping; his molasses blood dripping all over her. The woman hugged him close, crying with both grief and relief.
“I heard–” the mother (Ochaco was just guessing) sputtered. “I heard… I came looking… I – my boy – I thought you were hurt!” she kept sobbing.
“Is that your dog?” the woman with the torch asked. “It’s been roaming the woods for some time. The Huntsman thought it was a wolf. Tried to shoot the poor thing and hurt this girl here.”
The teary woman and Ochaco locked eyes. Ochaco gave a wave. “Hi, ma’am.”
…
The Urarakas sold off the last of their harvest – or what survived, anyway. Luckily, winter had upped the price of most vegetables as it wasn’t easy to grow most things around this time. The money was used to plug the holes in the stone walls of their cottage and buy a few materials for a special project. The empty jars which once held medicine now sat on shelves, storing edible goods. The woman who had let Ochaco go with the Huntsman – the man now being trialed for murder – had regretted it. She also happened to be the Shepherd’s mother. She persuaded her son to hand over a few sheep to the Urarakas as an apology. Thanks to their remote location, there was plenty for the sheep to graze on. The Woodsman, melancholic over the whole ordeal, helped build them a miniature barn and extended the back of the cottage to house another room with two beds and a room for the special project. The project had been Izuku’s idea; an indoor garden with roofs that folded open to allow for sunlight whenever possible, something the Urarakas had never heard of or thought to be possible.
The family gave it a try anyway. At the moment, Izuku’s mother, Inko, helped Ochaco’s parents with the indoor gardening; their hands black with soil.
Outside, Ochaco hid behind one of the fluffy sheep, a snowball in hand. The tip of her nose had gone as pink as her cheeks. It was a good thing sheep didn’t move around so much (the exception being the young lambs). Snow made them even slower. It layered the ground in a fluffy heap which they had to stomp their hooves through and covered their wool with thin chunks of ice. The bells hanging from their necks jingled with each step. It was easier to find the small, white herd in the sea of snow when their movements sounded like music.
Ochaco heard the crunch of snow in the distance. It sounded more like a wide boot than a thin hoof. He was sneaking up on her. It wasn’t fair how he had better senses that allowed him to quickly find her. Trying not to laugh, she stood to peek over the sheep, spotted Izuku in winter clothes, and chucked the snowball at him, hitting him in the shoulder. He yelped and covered his face with his arms. Ochaco finally released the giggle she’d been holding in. Her laughter gave away her hiding spot. She knew that and started running even before she heard him trudging through the snow. She expected him to have ammo in hand and began running, tripping and – by sheer luck – avoided a snowy missile that went right past her head and exploded in a tiny puff in the snow. He chased her, or attempted to. It was hard to run in such deep snow. He threw another ball and missed again. A ram got annoyed when the missed snowball burst in the air and sprayed it in the face. It shook its head and moved away.
“Sorry!” Izuku yelled and kept going after Ochaco. He tripped with his hand out and tapped her on the shoulder, bringing her down with him. The ground was slightly tilted, so they went tumbling down in a snowy heap, sliding and carving a path in the snow until they settled at the bottom, tangled up in each other’s limbs, laughing out misty clouds.
When the sky got darker and snow began falling again, the expected happened: bright red lines mapped Izuku’s body, followed by tiny green sparks. It only took a second or two for him to turn all fluffy and slip out of his winter clothes. Ochaco laughed and ruffled his neck fur before pushing him on his side to rub his belly. He resisted at first; then pretended to resist, because his foot did air kicks when she scratched him in just the right spot. It was too funny, seeing him do that. She was sure her parents and his mom heard her giggling. They collected his clothes to head up the short hill they’d rolled down. She took some of his clothes in her arms while he grabbed mouthfuls of his. They gave the clothes to Ochaco’s mom before her dad gave her a staff and a lit candle atop a candleholder.
“Alright. I’ll get the barn door open,” he said with a proud grin. “You two know what to do.”
They sure did. Izuku circled the herd to persuade them from one side while Ochaco managed the other side, waving the staff to encourage the sheep forward and into the barn for the night. Izuku’s black fur was dotted with white specks. Chunks of snow broke when he shook himself. It still wasn’t clear if his night-form was supposed to be of a wolf. Maybe it was; just a different, magical kind. The Huntsman had been the wolf in sheep’s clothing. Izuku was the other way around: wolf-looking on the outside, innocent as a sheep on the inside, and a friend all-around.