Ander - Part 4: Subchapter 12
12
'Banno' he said his name was. Only two syllables, but it still made Luke feel uneasy. He had roared that name by the river, and at the time, Luke had thought it would be the last word he would ever hear.
He folded his arms across the table and rested his chin on top of his stacked fingers, looking up at the single candle flickering in the gloom. His sister sat to his left and his brother sat to his right, but that little dancing flame was just about the most lively thing within this room at the moment. It wasn't just a single colour. It had a pale blue arc at the base, and a greyish shadow right in the middle, hugging the wick. Surrounding all this was an orange shell. It was this part of the flame that gave off the light, skirting along the table, turning every crack and splinter into mountains and valleys of light and shadow. They shifted with the candlelight, their existence completely dependent on the flame at the centre of their world, just like he and his siblings were dependent on their father.
He's been gone for an awfully long time...
Just then, the door to the Wolf's Den (as Luke had started calling it in his head) swung open and Dad stepped out with rolls of used, bloody bandages in one hand and a candle of his own in the other. He closed the door with his foot, turned around and saw his three children lying in wait. He sighed. The candle threw his shadow back down the hallway, so huge and hulking it looked like it shouldn't even be able to fit in such a space, but it did, bobbing up and down with every step he took, as if the Wolf's spirit was stalking him through his own house. He sat down opposite Luke with a tired grunt and put the candle down next to its friend. Together, they should've been making twice as much light, but it didn't feel that way to Luke. It felt just as dark as it was five hours ago, and the sun was still up then, so what did that tell you?
"Hey Dad," he said, still not taking his eyes off the flickering candles.
"Hey, son."
"How's the Wolf?"
"Sleeping."
Luke waited a little while to see if Dad would say anything further. He had to know what was coming, after all, but the old Fox just sat there, imitating his eldest son by staring at the twin candles as if they were the most interesting things in the whole world.
"Show him, Vee," Luke said.
Valery jumped as if stung. "Oh, it's not that bad, really."
He knew she hated being the centre of attention, and Luke felt slimy for using her as his main point of leverage, but that couldn't be helped. "Just show him."
"But -"
Luke reached over, took his sister by the arm (she didn't resist at all), and gently placed it on the table for their father to see. There were three small spots of blood on the back of her hand, almost invisible against her black fur, but that was still three spots too many. That Wolf's claws had dug into her like a garden fork.
"Are you all right, Val?" Dad asked.
"It's just a scr-"
"No, she's not all right!" Luke said, not bothering to keep his voice down. "Vee got hurt, and it's all your fault! What were you thinking? That's not a bunny rabbit in there, some cute woodland critter with a booboo on its foot that you can just nurse back to health! It's a great big bloody Wolf, Dad! I told you that thing was dangerous, but you wouldn't listen! Vee could have been killed!"
"You think I don't know that?" Dad said. His voice was deathly calm, and that always made Luke think twice about what he should say next. Dad was usually a very mellow fellow, but he could still get a good screaming fit going if his boys shirked their chores or played a stupid prank or got into a scuffle with each other. It was when he entered this eerily calm state that Luke knew to tread carefully, because that's when he meant business. This was serious. It was the same tone of voice he had used four years ago when he gathered them all together and told them that Mom wouldn't be coming back from the healer's. "My Soul nearly jumped clear of my body when I saw him clamp down on Val's hand with that massive paw of his, with those claws sticking out like butcher knives, so I know how you feel, son, I really do. But you must understand that I would never put Valery, or any of you, in such a situation if I didn't believe it was one hundred percent safe. And I did! I really did! But..." He reached out and tentatively placed his rough, carpenter's hands over his only daughter's fingers, his single rose among thorns. "I'm your father, Vee. It's my job to keep you safe. I pushed you right into Banno's hands, even though I knew you didn't want to get close, and I'm really, really sorry. But you three were so terrified and I couldn't stand to see you that way, especially when I believed the thing you were so afraid of was perfectly harmless. I can only imagine what it must be like, if he really did grow up wild in the mountains like the stories say, and then suddenly he finds himself in a civilized place like this. I guess I just wanted to make him feel welcome, and not like a spectacle, that's all. But when you introduced yourself, he..." A thoughtful expression stole over Dad's face. He leaned back in his chair, a deep frown across his brow, and he stared at the twin candle flames, dancing in their halos of overlapping light. "Something happened when you introduced yourself... I don't know what, exactly, but it made him jump. Something about your name..."
Luke didn't give a flying fiddle about any of that. "What really troubles me," he said, "is the Wolf's behaviour. There's just something... off about it, you know? Something doesn't quite mesh up. I don't know how to explain it, exactly, but it's like it doesn't see the same things as us at the same time. I don't think it even noticed it was hurting Vee. It was off in its own world somewhere."
Valery pulled her hand back and hid it underneath the table, where it wouldn't attract so much unwanted attention. "But that's a good thing, isn't it? It means he didn't do it on purpose. I think he's just used to shaking hands with other Wolves, that's all. And Dad?" She looked through the flickering candles, a small little girl who used to laugh and smile all the time. "Please don't be so sad. It's just a scratch, I don't even need a bandage or anything. Tim and Luke hurt each other much worse just playing together, so please don't worry so much. I did think he was really scary at first, and I guess a part of me still does, but he's not a monster, he's just a Wolf who had a really bad accident, and we should do all we can to help him."
Dad smiled. "The scary thing here is how much you remind me of your mother sometimes, Valery."
Vee smiled that shy little smile of hers, the one where she pointed her chin down and looked up with those big, opal eyes, but Luke couldn't believe what he was hearing. This wasn't the way this conversation was supposed to go! It wasn't supposed to go this way at all!
"No, finding that Wolf in the first place was the accident," he said, "and bringing it back here was a mistake. If we don't do something to fix that mistake right now, while we still have time, then that mistake will turn into a disaster."
"It sounds like you've given our unique situation a lot of thought," Dad said. "So please tell me, Luke, what do you propose we do?"
Luke bit down on his bottom lip, glanced at Tim, sitting still as a statue, and then back at Dad, who was waiting for an answer. Finally, he took a deep breath and said: "I think we should get rid of it. Now, tonight, while it's still sleeping."
Tim and Vee shot worried glances his way, their faces turned into nightmarish masks by the shifting candlelight.
Dad put his elbows up on the table, locked his fingers together, and with his shadow looming up against the wall behind him like a devil out of a children's fable, he said: "You say we should kill him?"
Luke shifted uncomfortably in his chair, making it creak. He didn't want to come right out and say the word 'kill', but yes. That is exactly what he was saying. He nodded, not quite meeting his father's eyes.
"I see. But do you really think that's what your mother would have wanted?"
Gods damn it! Why weren't Tim and Vee helping him out? He was doing this for their sake! And now everybody was staring at him like he had just kicked Mom's grave! "Well what do you want to do, then!?"
Dad closed his eyes, a sure sign that he was thinking hard, and said: "I will wait until morning, and then, when he wakes up, we'll have a nice long chat about all the things that have got you so worried, if he's up to it, of course."
"Dammit, Dad! You can't have a civilized conversation with that thing!"
"You're one to talk of civility when you suggested we murder him in his sleep not a minute ago."
"But, Dad!"
"All right, Luke. I understand." Dad stood up and the legs of his chair scraped against the floor. It was a scary sound, a 'my judgement cometh' sound, and Luke knew instinctively that whatever was about to happen, there would be no turning back. Dad stuck his hand in his pocket and brought out his whittling knife, not the longest or the scariest blade ever forged (far from it), but it was wicked sharp. He turned it over a few times in his hands, and the blade caught the reflected light from the twin candles in its mirror-like surface, trapping them within itself like two staring, orange eyes... demon's eyes... making it look like the knife itself was alive and aware.
He suddenly brought it down against the table - the table he handmade - driving the tip deep into the wood with a loud thok sound and scaring the Living Souls out of his three children. They stared in disbelief as their father sat back down as if nothing had happened, leaving the knife to sway back and forth in the middle of the wooden landscape like a metronome, its shadow stretched long and wide across their shocked faces.
"There you go," Dad said.
"Huh?" Luke didn't understand what kind of point Dad was trying to make, but he didn't like it. The knife had finally stopped its mad jittering, but now its shadow was pointed directly at him, as if to single him out, and he liked that even less.
"You said you wanted to get rid of Banno, so go ahead. The knife is right there. I won't stop you."
Tim and Vee both gasped, but Luke hardly noticed. He couldn't stop staring at that knife. How many times has he seen Dad use that very blade around the house? Too many to count. It could shave through ebony wood like it was nothing, and now... Did Dad really expect him to do this himself? Luke swallowed, but the huge lump in his throat wouldn't budge. "M-Maybe we could just tell him to leave? Or we can take him back where we found him. He could just go back to his own people, where he belongs. Then it would be like none of this ever happened."
"He has a bad fever and an infection in his stump, Luke. His foot isn't merely cut, it's gone, ripped off by a trap. He has only one eye and a hole in the roof of his mouth, and after floating around in the Farmer's River for Gods only know how long, I'm surprised he isn't dead already. Look here..." Dad got up again, strolled his way over to the window (the exact same one Luke had yelled out of that afternoon), flipped the latch and shoved it open, inviting an icy breeze into their home. It ruffled their fur and rippled Vee's dress around her ankles. The flames whispered in protest as they desperately clung to their wicks, on the verge of being blown out. Luke tried to keep from shivering, but it was impossible.
Seeing this, Dad closed the window and latched it. "Autumn has come early this year. Most of the trees are already barren. If we leave him out in this, he'll surely freeze to death. That's if the infection doesn't claim him first. Maybe if he still had full mobility, he'd be able to look after himself well enough until he crossed the mountain. We could pack him a lunch, tell him how to clean his wounds, and then shove him right out the door, just like you want. But on one foot? No, it's impossible, even if we did have a crutch big enough for him - which we don't. He'll die out there, Luke. It will be slow, and it will be painful. It will be horrible. And it will all be on you. It would be so much better just to give him a quick, painless death, wouldn't you agree?"
Luke looked down at the knife in front of him, sticking out of the table with its handle in the air, as if begging to be grabbed. He knew what his Dad was trying to do now. It was so simple, really no more than a basic parents' trick to be used against disagreeable toddlers. Dad didn't think he'd actually do it. He thought he was bluffing, hence the knife. If Luke failed to take it up, he'd lose. If he failed to take it into the Wolf's Den, he'd lose. If he failed to do what needed to be done to protect his brother and sister, they'd all lose. If his courage wavered, even just a tiny bit, then Dad would win, and the Wolf would stay. It was as simple as that.
"I know you're just trying to do what's right, Dad," he said, "but this time you're wrong. Maybe sometimes there really is good to be found in even the baddest of places, but not in there. Not in that Wolf. I know Mom wouldn't want me to do something like this, but it's because she was too kind-hearted that she ended up dead."
"Luke!" Dad said, shocked. Tim and Vee were so speechless they couldn't even muster a gasp this time.
"I'm sorry, but it's the truth! I don't want something like that to happen to you, or to Vee, or to Tim! Once was bad enough!"
Dad sighed and rubbed his fingers across his eyes. "Luke..."
"That's why, if you can't do this, then I'll have to." With that, he wrapped his fingers around the knife's handle and pulled. It wouldn't come out right away, so he had to ease it back and forth to loosen its grip, making it squeal against the wood until it popped out with a frightening jerk.
The blade suddenly looked much longer than it normally did. Luke stared at it, completely mesmerized, and nearly jumped right out of his skin when he felt a hand gently touch down on his arm. It was Vee.
"Don't do this, Luke," she pleaded, her eyes swimming, the candles reflected in her unspilled tears like orange streaks.
He wasn't responsible for those tears. It was that Wolf. It was that damn Wolf. He was the one making her cry, not him. Her tears would be his damnation.
"Sorry, Vee. I have to do this." He took her hand and gently pushed it away, trying not to look at her crestfallen face. He got up with the knife clasped firmly in his hand, and turned to face the pitch-black hallway.
It wouldn't be 'killing', he told himself. He would just be protecting his family. That's a good thing. That's not a sin. No god in heaven could ever see that as a sin. He was in the right. He had to be. He...
"No, Luke! You're scaring me!"
Vee suddenly wrapped her arms around his middle and hugged him close, her entire body shaking. Just like on the day that Mom died...
"Geez, Vee! I'm holding a knife, you can't just fly up at me like that!"
"Don't be like this, Luke!"
"But I have to! There's a monster in our house! Why can't you understand that!? Why can't any of you understand that!?"
"If you do what you plan to do, then..." her voice hitched, and Luke realized with horror and shame that he had made his little sister cry. "If you do that, then... then you'll be the monster! It'll be you, Luke!"
"Vee, you stupid... stupid..." And now he was crying, too. Crying like a baby, but he couldn't help it. That endless black hallway was stretched in front of him like a throat, but he couldn't reach it. His family, the ones he was trying to protect, were the same ones holding him back, but he couldn't even get mad because he knew that they were trying to do the exact same thing for him. They wanted to protect him.
Tim's arms came next; one around Valery's shoulder, the other around Luke's. He couldn't keep hold of the knife anymore and it just dropped to the ground with a sad little clatter. He held his brother and sister, and they held him. He tried to snuffle back his tears, but they fell anyway.
He lost. He's never been so scared in his entire life.
And then Dad was there, crouched down on one knee, somehow able to encircle all three of them in one of his big, hard hugs, extra tight to make up for the one member of their family who couldn't be with them anymore.
"Come on, kids," he said, rubbing his hands across their backs. "It's been a long day for all of us. Let's get some sleep."
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