The Old

Tonight, let’s fly:

An epilogue that is also an interlude

Lewis Dunharrow did not know what time it was or even what day. It took a while to remember everything.

“Or better yet, to remember everything that happened this night,” Lewis corrected himself.

He blinked. Yes. The ritual had occurred, and yes he had been surrounded by people, and he had been surrounded, in an odd way, by himself. And suddenly, the people who were strange and new to him were not as strange, if that made sense. They were just as new to him, but he seemed to understand them better. Kruinh… he had known Kruinh before. And Chris. Ah, Chris.

But where was Christopher? He was not beside him in this room where he was stretched out, naked beneath a blanket, and Lewis imagined Chris must have laid him here.

He looked out of the window.

Christmas Eve.

Adam lay ybounden
Bounden in a bond
Four thousand winters
Though he not too long
And all was for an apple
An apple that he took
As clerkes finden written in their book

The sky was that luminous blue, and past the window on Morse Street, thick white feathers of snow were falling slow, drifting on the wind. He left his room, the old room he’d had when he lived in Owen’s house, and he headed downstairs and outside. He could hear music, and below there were people he didn’t need to see right now. He felt the air, cool on his naked skin despite the heat of the house. He returned to the room, his first room where he’d slept as a child, where he had slept with Seth for the first time, where Owen had folded his clothes and placed them in the old chair that had belonged to Lewis’s grandmother.

Nay had the apple taken been
The apple taken been
Nay had never our lady
Abeen heavenly queen
Blessed be the time
That apple taken was
Therefore we bound singen
Deo gracias, deo gracias!

He dressed, took shoes in hand and went silently down the back stairs to the door by the kitchen that led to the basement and out the side of the house. Lewis slipped on shoes then he took up the first large hooded coat, and it smelled of cologne and another man, clearly not his Christopher’s, and he went out the side door and around the house into the yard to sit on the back porch and wait.

“I knew you would be here,” he said, “or rather, one of you. I knew someone would be waiting.”

“We have waited a long time,” the white wolf said. “Many of us have.”

“Evangeline called me Aos Si.”

“Yes, and now you know you are.”

“I was just a witch.”

“You were never just a witch, and you certainly are not just a witch now. You are a witch in the same way a lion is just a cat.”

“Well, now,” Lewis said, “A lion is a cat.”

There was something like a laugh that emerged from the wolf’s throat. He was great and white and Lewis longed to touch his fur, climb up on his back and burrow in all of his softness, to ride him. He was certainly large enough for that. His blue eyes, pale with black pupils, regarded Lewis and Lewis said, “That fellow… Kris Strauss? The one my uncle brought?”

“Yes,” the Wolf turned its head.

“Why did Uri bring him?”

“Don’t be disingenuous,” said the Wolf, “the time for that has passed.”

“I just wanted to know… if it was as I imagined.”

“It is,” the Wolf said.

“Well, does he know?”

“Uriah, or Kris?”

“I imagine Uriah already knows, But Kris… he seems not to.”

“He knows nothing. Or very little. “

“Well,” Lewis shook his head.

“He is here to learn.”

“From Uriah.”

“Why would Uriah bring him to the Field of Onions, this erstwhile marsh on the edge of a prairie, when they both live elsewhere?”

Lewis opened his mouth.

“And do not say Owen,” the Wolf said. “You know everyone who is here is here to learn from you.”

“Oh, I don’t want to be a teacher.”

“But you are so good at it.”

“There is so much left to be done,” Lewis almost lamented.

“There always is.”

“Laurie, and Lynn.”

“Yes.”

“I wonder if that won’t come to an end.”

“Who can say?”

“And Loreal? I know he loves her. And my uncle, Augustus. He must be attended to. And Evangeline… Or am I done with her? Or is she Kruinh’s problem? And that Dan Rawlinson who has come with him. All of them. And why are they here? Well, you just said it. And… It is too much to think about tonight.”

“Yes,” the Wolf said, “it is business for the morning and the morning after.”

“Well,” Lewis said, “I don’t have it in me to sleep.”

The Wolf lowered its head and lay like a great dog, stretching its body foward. Its tail, half a tree high wagged enticingly. The blue eyes sparkled, and its pink tongue lolled between sharp white teeth.

“Do you dare?”

“Ride you?”

Lewis had already risen.

“Why ask when you are already coming forward?”

Lewis felt a thrill of pleasure welling up in him like hysteria.

“I do not dare not to dare,” he said

“Then come,” said the Wolf. “Worry tomorrow. Tonight, let’s fly.”

Good night, for now, children.

In the morning, our story will

continue with the Strauss Family in

The Beasts.