Night Falls
“Mother,” Theodore implored, “that was the flint of Embercasting, I swear!”
Both his parents doted on him too much, but it was his mother who couldn’t bear to see him suffering, even over the most trivial things. However, even she seemed upset with him right now, and Theodore felt something he’d never felt before. He couldn’t name it, but it was as if his regret over being only a child intensified tenfold. How could he convince his mother that he’d stolen the flint and ruined the Embercasting for everyone? He could only insist, like a helpless child.
“Hush now, my dear,” she said, holding him close to her. Though she wasn’t as strong or tall as other women in their pack, Ysolde’s looks could be deceiving. Even now, Theodore felt in how tightly she gripped his shoulder that he’d better reconsider before speaking out of turn in front of her.
“Mom,” he whined like he had done when he was only a cub, “I did wrong by stealing the flint, but father must use it! What will happen without the pyre being lit on the day of Embercasting?”
They were inside their home, sitting together in front of the fireplace. Warm blankets protected the walls and the house inhabitants from the cold, and it was always so cozy and pleasant. Today, however, was an exception. No fires burned in the fireplaces of the homes of Whiteflame before the pyre of Embercasting was lit. It was part of the ritual and a tribute to the Moon herself; the wolves of their pack needed to remember that warmth wasn’t a given. In a place where winter reigned supreme, having fire was a blessing. It was one of the teachings of the Embercasting, and now Theodore, who loved the cold, understood why having a fire was important. Homes were meant to be warm; cold was for the outside, for running through the snow and breathing in the fresh air filled with the scent of pines.
“Your father will find a way,” his mother promised him. “And if we don’t light the pyre this year, it means that we will have to fight. We have won before. The Moon is on our side.”
“Fight?” Theodore mumbled, overcome by the implications of that word. For all that he considered himself brave, he had never truly fought an evil spirit.
“Yes. But you will be with us. The warrior within you will prevail.”
All wolves had to fight.
“What about the cubs?” Theodore asked, sniffling softly. He understood now what Vince and Jack had told him about how he shouldn’t be in such a hurry to grow up.
“Our best guardians will protect them. But you will fight by our side.”
Theodore nodded, looking down. “Will they attack us? The evil spirits?”
“They will,” his mom confirmed. “You are strong, Theodore.”
“Yes, mother.” They would all have to fight, and it was all his fault. What if members of their pack fell during the battle? How would he be able to forgive himself?
“Oh, Theodore,” his mom said in a kind voice, “don’t cry.”
He touched his face and shuddered as his fingers came back wet. What kind of warrior was he if he cried so easily? Still, he pushed his head against his mom’s shoulder, hiding himself from the world, like when he was a young cub. She hugged him gently and rubbed his back to encourage him.
“It isn’t your fault, my child,” Ysolde cooed.
“But I did steal the flint of Embercasting,” he said between sobs. “Members of our pack, wolves like us--”
“Hush, hush, now. Your father knows the flint like the back of his own hand. If he says that isn’t the one, you must trust him.”
“What if evil spirits are making him not see it? That wolf, mother, the tall one with eyes without light in them, who is he?”
“What wolf?” she asked.
“He was the one to say that I should use the flint since I stole it. And then, the others said the same, and father had to listen to them.”
“I didn’t see him,” she replied.
Theodore remained silent for a bit. It seemed so unlikely that his mom hadn’t seen that wolf. She’d been there all the time.
“He is a stranger,” he whispered.
His mom continued to cradle him in her arms. “We haven’t had strangers visit us in a long time.”
“What about Vince and Jack?” Theodore asked.
“Who are they?”
“The two strangers who came today. Father welcomed them.”
“Are they wolves?”
It was true that his mother hadn’t been around to see them, but Theodore was still confused that his mom hadn’t caught even a glimpse of them. His father must’ve failed to mention them to her.
“They were, then they weren’t. The forest moved and they stayed behind while I ran,” Theodore confessed.
“When? Theodore, are you still having bad dreams?” She kissed the crown of his head. “It isn’t easy being a child in a pack like ours,” she added, but more as if she was saying that to herself.
“But I’m the only one who has such dreams,” Theodore complained bitterly. “And I’m the alpha’s son; I should be the bravest.”
“It is because you are your father’s son that you are the most tried. We keep the world safe, Theodore. It is a noble duty but one that comes at a cost. Know that we are always doing our best to protect everyone. It is the enemies we can’t see that are the worst. Your heart will stay true, my dear, no matter what. Always remember that.”
“Do others have bad dreams, too?”
“Yes,” Ysolde said, caressing his head tenderly. “And not only children. Grownups, too. We live next to evil. There is no helping it. But they aren’t stronger than we are and never will be.”
He wanted to believe his mother’s kind words. Here, in their home, even without a fire burning in the fireplace to keep their souls and bodies warm, he felt safe.
“Jack has bad dreams, too. That is why I took him to see the wisdom tree. But it all went wrong after.”
“What an unusual name for a wolf,” his mom said.
“He says it’s quite common where he’s from. He speaks strangely, like there is always something making him laugh. And his clothes are odd, too.”
“Did Jack appear in your dreams?”
“No, mom,” Theodore insisted, growing frustrated once more. “He and Vince are real.”
His mother didn’t contradict him. She seemed, however, interested in something else he said.
“You mentioned the wisdom tree. Where did you see it?”
“At--” He was about to give himself away about having wandered off too far. “Around. Close to our settlement.”
“But the wisdom tree is only a legend,” his mom said. “It must’ve come to you in your dreams, like Jack and Vince.”
He opened his mouth to contradict her but then he remembered. Yes, at first, the wisdom tree had only visited him in his dreams. So his mother was right.
“It told me to get the flint so I can become the alpha,” he said.
His mom stopped caressing him. He raised his head and stared at her handsome profile. She wasn’t the most beautiful in their pack, people said, but she had the kind of face you couldn’t forget if you saw her once. Theodore understood why. His mother was as proud as the moon. And strong as her.
“Become the alpha?” his mom asked slowly, her eyes foggy and looking ahead. “Your father is the alpha of Whiteflame, Theodore.”
“I know, but people say he’s old, and I wanted them to see me as worthy of being their leader.” Theodore said.
“Oh, Theodore, don’t let them get to your heart.”
They both stopped talking as they heard the entrance door opening. Ysolde got to her feet, holding Theodore by the hand. A small sigh of relief escaped her lips when Tharion walked in.
His father’s eyes searched for him. “Why did you lie about the flint, Theodore?”
He hadn’t lied. How could he convince his dad of the truth?
***
Behind them, the Black Forest was still burning. For two main reasons – both extremely important – they couldn’t go in there to search for the flint. One of them was that Jack was too much of a coward to play with fire like that. The other was that Vince had already tried to do it, because he wasn’t a coward, but after several attempts, he had to declare himself defeated. It was worse than the inside of a furnace, and no human being or any sort of being, except maybe an evil one, could set foot in there.
“Vee,” he called gently after his companion’s umpteenth try, “it feels like our job here is done. Maybe we should try to help Whiteflame by going there. Okay, so there will be no Embercasting because of no flint, but it looks like we defeated the evil anyway.”
Vince shook his head. “We shouldn’t be able to change the past.” He fell, exhausted, by Jack’s side on the snow. “Are you saying that we should take our win and don’t look a gift horse in the mouth too much?”
Jack was warming his hands by holding them up in front of himself toward the burning forest. That fire was really something. “Frankly, Vee, I have no idea,” he complained. “I can’t just say: a wisdom tree and a quirky snake, sorry, nehesh made me do it, because it was my choice.”
Vince reached out to him with one hand and squeezed his arm briefly. “For what it’s worth, Jack, thank you for saving my life. It really felt like I was done for. Seriously, being a guardian doesn’t seem like it’s all it’s cracked up to be.”
“Don’t talk like that. Ah, why isn’t the wisdom tree showing itself to you, as well? That guy should be a motivational speaker, I’m telling you.”
“Jack, are you babbling because you’re scared?” Vince asked.
“I am scared,” Jack admitted. “We were practically shoved into the past, and we hit the ground running, but who knows if what we are doing will cause any good? I’m with you on that it should be impossible for us to change the past, but there’s no way we just happened to be here.”
Vince seemed to ponder his words. He pushed himself up as if he hadn’t been battling flames until moments ago. “Let’s go, Jack. If we’re here for a reason, we will find it after we witness the past. All of it.”
Jack gestured at the burning twigs of the Black Forest. “It looks like we did change something though. The evil shits are no more. Maybe we’ll get trapped in here as punishment.”
Vince took a long look at the burning former forest. “It can’t be that simple,” he murmured under his breath.
Jack got up and wrapped one arm around Vince’s elbow. “Then we should be on our toes, right? Not literally ‘cause I can’t do that in these boots I’m wearing, but still.”
“And keep our eyes open,” Vince continued his thought.
“And our ears perked,” Jack added. “Let’s see what happens now with the day of Embercasting. Since the real flint was the one I threw at those guys, that means that little Theo didn’t actually steal it, right?”
“I think so, too. If you happen to have any new visions, keep me in the loop. Whether we changed the past or not, we should be a few steps ahead whenever possible.”
Jack looked over his shoulder at the burning forest. A shudder of fear coursed down his spine. He glued himself harder to Vince. “I’m with you, Vee. This does feel rather easy. I’ve watched enough movies to know that they’re most likely to jump us once we let our guard down.”
“Then we’ll make sure we don’t do that,” Vince assured him.
***
No matter how hard he tried, his father didn’t want to listen to him.
“Theodore,” Tharion said sternly, “you know you should never lie, no matter how difficult the truth might be to tell or hear.”
“I’m not lying, father,” Theodore insisted.
Ysolde put one hand on her husband’s arm. “He must have dreamed it.”
“Even so, he must show respect by not denying it,” Tharion said.
Theodore looked at his parents. Even his mother, who loved him so much, didn’t believe him. “Father, the tall wolf, the one who insisted I should use the flint, who was he?”
“What wolf are you talking about, Theodore?”
“He’s a stranger. I’ve never seen him around. And he is odd. His eyes look dead.”
Tharion exchanged a glance with his wife. “I haven’t seen such a wolf, Theodore.”
“But he said I must use the flint since I stole it. The others just followed his voice,” Theodore said.
His father shook his head. “No such thing happened.”
“Then who said it?”
His father seemed to consider his question. “More than one wolf, all of our own.”
Theodore felt his dread growing. Was it possible? That he had only dreamed that wolf? What about the wisdom tree? And the flint? The flint was gone, and the one he still had in his pocket—
There was nothing in his pocket. Theodore rubbed a hand across his forehead. It was cold and wet. “What about Vince and Jack?” he asked, his voice trembling. His father had welcomed the two strangers earlier today. He couldn’t have forgotten about them so easily.
“Who are they? Are they wolves?” Tharion inquired.
Theodore shook his head.
His mother replied in his stead. “Our boy still has bad dreams,” she told her husband. “He must have imagined these two wolves with strange names. You know how young wolves are.”
Tharion nodded slowly. His anger at his son seemed to diminish. “No one thinks badly of you, Theodore,” he said in his fatherly voice. “Young wolves are often prey to their exalted imaginations.”
“But it wasn’t--” Theodore tried.
“We will talk about this again,” Tharion promised. “Without lighting the pyre of Embercasting, we must prepare for the worst.”
“I will fight, too,” Theodore said. But Vince and Jack had seemed so very real. So how come his father didn’t remember them? Were they evil spirits, after all? They were wolves who couldn’t change into their humans, and then they turned into humans that looked nothing like wolves.
Could it all be just a dream? It scared him to think like that. If he couldn’t tell dream from reality, what kind of alpha would he make for the Whiteflame pack?
“You should stay here with the boy,” Tharion said, placing a warm hand on his son’s head.
“He is old enough to fight. He is a wolf,” Ysolde insisted.
Tharion shook his head. “It is my lack of proper care for the flint of Embercasting that is at the root of the battle we must face. I do not wish my family to suffer because of it.”
“We would be better off out there with you,” Ysolde said. “Husband, you know I am your most loyal companion. But this time, I must say that I disagree. Your son wants to become the alpha, after you. How will he convince the people he is right for this honor?”
Tharion squeezed his wife’s shoulder. “There will be other times and other battles. I cannot bear the thought of putting you in danger. You will go with the others who are in charge of protecting the cubs. Tell them that you are there as guardians. They will not look down on you for it.”
Ysolde seemed ready to argue, but Tharion was truly an alpha. His word was law. Theodore bowed, and his father placed a brief kiss on the crown of his head.
“He will see enough this night. All of our cubs will be faced with violence and death. Let’s be merciful, Ysolde, and protect them as much as we can.”
***
“Is it just me or does night fall quickly here?”
“Nothing is exactly what we’re used to,” Vince confirmed Jack’s guess. He was examining their surroundings carefully, hoping that nothing essential had escaped him. So far, he’d been in Jack’s care more than Jack in his, which made him doubtful about his role as a guardian.
They seemed to have walked for a lot longer than it had taken them to reach the Black Forest. But if Vince thought about it, the evil forest had appeared to them as if materializing out of thin air.
He needed to tell himself more than nothing was as it seemed. Hopefully, they wouldn’t wander all night long without reaching the Whiteflame settlement.
“Vee, can you feel that?” Jack exclaimed, stopping abruptly.
It looked as if they were near. The evening was already pitch black, a moonless night ready to descend upon them. So it wasn’t what they could see that told them their destination was close.
It was a scent. Vince’s nostrils flared. It was ash, the same they had smelled after burning down the Black Forest.
“It smells like--” Jack started.
“Yes,” Vince interrupted him. “Let’s walk.”
“I can’t see anything. Now it would’ve come in handy to turn into wolves. They can definitely see better than us in the dark.”
“We have other instincts,” Vince assured his companion.
He had barely finished that when something swished by his ear.
“Down!” he shouted, but Jack was ahead, already crouching and holding onto his leg.
“Those stupid trees,” Jack complained. “They’re everywhere.”
Indeed. Indeed they were. Vince steeled himself for an attack. He couldn’t see his enemies, but he could smell them, which was, apparently more than he needed.
Not only that, but he wasn’t alone. White shapes moved through the dark night, and he recognized them, by instinct alone, as the wolves of Whiteflame.
TBC
Author's note: Thank you for reading!
@Derek - Vee's and Jack's role is far from over! I think I will surprise you even with the resolution - it appears that maturing - so I don't say 'growing old' - for me comes with liking complex and complicated plots! I'm so lucky to have readers who love the same things :)
@DavidB - we'll have quite the action chapters for a while - Jack and Vince will work hard - even if haphazardly sometimes - to help Theo.
@Mark Mortland - as I was telling Derek earlier, it appears that with age, my appetite for writing complicated plots soars. That basically means that while I'm as much in the fog as Jack regarding time travel - and you, my reader - so stick with me until we're all out of the swamp!
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