The Blood: A Denouement

“It is open,” they heard the woman call in heavily accented French.

When they entered the large suite, she was in the kitchen.

“Jenean, help me with drinks,” she said, and the blond woman with the long, swinging hair went into the kitchenette and, a few moments later, came out followed by a small, dark haired woman whom Myron thought looked a great deal like Marabeth.

“Drinks for us all,” Clotilde said as she sat in a chair by the unnecessary fire. There was a sofa before it, but when Kris went to sit in the chair across from her, Clotilde shook her head and said, “No, no, that is for the Queen.”

When they all looked at her, she nodded to Marabeth, and feeling embarrassed, Marabeth sat down across from Clotilde.

Marabeth had arrived with Jason, which gained a raised eyebrow from Peter, who had come without Joyce. She ignored her cousin, and the detective sat between Seth and Kris, one long leg crossed over the other while he leaned back in his chair.

“Once you would have been queen of your clan and I of mine, but things are as they were long ago, and there is only one queen, and it is you.”

“But why am I the Queen?” Marabeth said.

“Because the bisclavret clans were always headed by queens, and what happened to the queen was what happened to the clan. If you would heal your clan, you must heal yourself.”

When Marabeth did not speak, Clotilde continued, “As of yet, you have done little. You did not know what to do. How could you? You had not been taught. And from what I have heard, your Aunt Pamela did what she could. She saved your family in a time when it was nearly wiped out, when mine was still thriving.”

“You are our cousins? So to speak.”

“So to speak,” the older woman echoed.

“But you said you were a queen,” Marabeth said, “Or that you would have been.”

“Yes, but we thought over time it was best to become like other people,” Clotilde said. “The Gift, we thought, was a curse. And so we set out to end it. It can be ended.”

“Two generations of women after the werewolf.”

“Yes,” Clotilde smiled and sipped from her drink.

“And so we did this.”

Marabeth did not ask what they had done. Had they castrated boys? Killed them? Prevented them from reproducing by other means? There was no need to ask.

“In the end it brought ruin,” Clotilde said. “The Gift was the link to the powers our women had, but those powers were diluted, perverted. The men,” she said, looking at Myron, and Peter, at Kris and Jim, “for the most part no longer Changed. But where the Change would happen, they succumbed to madness. Thus,” she looked to her niece, “Jenean’s father, and her grandfather and many before them. We went from a noble house to what you see.”

“A waitress at an I-Hop,” Jenean interrupted.

“That is not what I meant,” her aunt said.

“And yet…” Jenean shrugged.

Clotilde cleared her throat and repeated, “We went from a noble house to what you see, but then, so did you. However it seems the Stausses have faired better.”

Marabeth leaned forward.

“I need to know everything,” she said. “If I am the Queen, then I must know everything.”

“It’s all in the story,” Clotilde said, and Jim said, “The Riding Hood?”

“Yes,” Clotilde said to him. “The only story.”

“Tell it to me,” Marabeth said.

Peter stopped himself from groaning. There were other things on his mind, like, did this mean that all his cousins who did not Change were destined to be insane? That didn’t seem to be true. But, at least to this woman, Marabeth was the Queen.

“My dear Mr. Keller,” Clotilde said, “I saw the change in your face when I talked of the madness that fell upon our family. The madness happened because we all rejected the Gift. If you had read the record, you would know that the Gift has departed from many of us over the years and madness does not result. Madness only comes when you try to be the Children of the Wolf without becoming the Wolf. Trying to be a thing without actually being it was always the door to sickness.”

Marabeth said: “We have read the different versions of that story, but we have not heard it from anyone’s mouth. Except for Jim who heard it from Pamela. Tell us the story.”

Clotilde nodded, and as she put down her glass of wine, Marabeth noted her large knuckles. Did she have arthritis?

Grandmother, what big knuckles you have.

Clotilde began.

Once upon a time there lived in a certain village a little country girl, the prettiest creature who was ever seen. Her mother was excessively fond of her; and her grandmother doted on her still more. This good woman had a a hooded cloak of wolf fur made for her. It suited the girl so extremely well that everybody called her Little Hood.

One day her mother, having made some cakes, said to her, "Go, my dear, and see how your grandmother is doing, for I hear she has been very ill. Take her a cake, and this little pot of butter."

Rosamunde set out immediately to go to her grandmother, who lived in another village.

As she was going through the wood, she met with a wolf, who had a very great mind to eat her up, but he dared not, because of some woodcutters working nearby in the forest. He asked her where she was going. The poor child, who did not know that it was dangerous to stay and talk to a wolf, said to him, "I am going to see my grandmother and carry her a cake and a little pot of butter from my mother."

"Does she live far off?" said the wolf

"Oh I say," answered Rosamunde; "it is beyond that mill you see there, at the first house in the village."

"Well," said the wolf, "and I'll go and see her too. I'll go this way and go you that, and we shall see who will be there first."

The wolf ran as fast as he could, taking the shortest path, and the little girl took a roundabout way, entertaining herself by gathering nuts, running after butterflies, and gathering bouquets of little flowers. It was not long before the wolf arrived at the old woman's house. He knocked at the door: tap, tap.

"Who's there?"

"Your grandchild, Rosamunde," replied the wolf, counterfeiting her voice; "who has brought you a cake and a little pot of butter sent you by mother."

The good grandmother, who was in bed, because she was somewhat ill, cried out, "Pull the bobbin, and the latch will go up."

The wolf pulled the bobbin, and the door opened, and then he immediately fell upon the good woman, slaughtering her. He cut up her flesh and drained her blood into a vial and put them on the fender by the fire. He then shut the door and got into the grandmother's bed, expecting Rosamunde, who came some time afterwards and knocked at the door: tap, tap.

"Who's there?"

Rosamunde, hearing the big voice of the wolf, was at first afraid; but believing her grandmother had a cold and was hoarse, answered, "It is your grandchild Rosamunde, who has brought you a cake and a little pot of butter mother sends you."

The wolf cried out to her, softening his voice as much as he could, "Pull the bobbin, and the latch will go up."

Rosamunde pulled the bobbin, and the door opened.

The wolf, seeing her come in, said to her, hiding himself under the bedclothes, "Have yourself some wine and cake. It is there on the fender. then come get into bed with me."

Rosamunde saw eyes and heart and lungs ate her grandmother’s flesh and drank her blood, and then she took off her clothes and got into bed. The wolf was greatly amazed to see how Rosamunde now looked. Lying naked with him, and he said to her:

"Granddaughter, what big arms you have!"

"All the better to hug you with, my dear."

"Granddaughter, what big legs you have!"

"All the better to run with, my child."

"Granddaughter, what big ears you have!"

"All the better to hear with, my child."

"Granddaughter, what big eyes you have!"

"All the better to see with, my child."

"Granddaughter, what big teeth you have got!"

"All the better to eat you up with."

And, saying these words, Rosamunde fell upon the Wolf and ate him all up.”

“Well, that was something different,” Peter said.

“But not so different,” Jim said. “For we saw it happen, saw Rosamunde or Rosamunda consume Hagano.”

“But,” Marabeth said, “I believed that, well, actually, my brothers Kris and James, Myron believed, that the Grandmother was Mechtild, the first of us, the first Queen. And then the Riding Hood was Rosamunda, her granddaughter.”

Clotilde smiled with approval, and nodded.

“It was Leinghelde the link between them, who I saw,” Kris said.

“And it was Rosamunde who was with Nathan when he died,” Jim continued.

“And the wolf did not kill the Grandmother,” Peter said.

“No, no, no,” Clotilde agreed. “The Wolf did not kill the grandmother. The Wolf… how do you say… fucked the Grandmother. So Leinghelde was born. Leinghelde was the child of Hagano the Shapeshifter, but she became the shapeshifter because she was also his lover.”

“Like Pamela,” Marabeth murmured.

“Many times over,” Jim said.

Next time: the conclusion of this last chapter