Lee Harper Oswald

Louis had led Modestine a little way down the cattle path towards Florac, waiting for Father Secours to appear, but he never did. They waited as long as Louis felt reasonable, and with consideration to the heroic donkey’s wounds, he decided it was best to get her attended to as quickly as possible.

At the flat of Adèle and Colette, Louis tied her outside where they had just a day ago. Colette fretted over the absence of her son, but Adèle was galvanized and made to the convent to inquire into some assistance with the donkey. Two sisters—much younger than Adèle—emerged from behind the wall, spoke briefly with the aunt, and then walked quickly down the street.

Soon they returned with the man employed by the convent to act as daytime hostler in the stable. When he heard that Louis and Modestine had a brush with the maniac that had been terrorizing the town, he hurried immediately and refused to accept payment. He dressed the donkey’s wounds, which he judged superficial, and then provided the extra service of running to fetch Yves, the police constable, for Louis was too unfamiliar with the town.

It was not long before a group of citizens gathered in front of the home of Adèle and Colette. Louis sat inside, at the bench where they had dined previously, drinking a cup of wine to calm his nerves. The voices outside buzzed low as the inspector knocked and then entered the flat. His friend, Honoré, followed him in, both their faces awash in concern and utter solemnity. Louis managed to convince the old women to stay where they were and watch over Modestine, as the crowd gathering outside had taken to inspecting her. She had become an object of curiosity, having come so close to the fate that had taken so many of the town’s beloved.

All went outside and the crowd parted. The two women went to Modestine and stood beside her protectively. Yves addressed the people in his official capacity.

“Tout le monde, écoutez-moi!” he began, looking slyly at les madames Secours. “We will need volunteers to accompany us to the scene.”

All hands went up.

“Very well,” the constable said, and he gave the old women a wink, then motioned for Louis to lead the way.

Louis gave Modestine a reassuring pet across the snout and then left to guide the policeman and the crowd out along the cattle path to the body of Surrel, the pamphleteer of Monastier.

Once there, Constable Yves gasped, the quality of which betrayed familiarity. Louis shot him a questioning glance.

“My cousin,” the lawman said.

Louis’s eyes grew wide. Was there no one throughout this region that was not related over miles of mountain, valley, and rough terrain?

Yves knelt beside the riven corpse.

“He arrived on my doorstep last night complaining that his mother had turned him out once more,” he sighed. Standing again, he continued. “You would think, at his age—but no. So he arrived, and given the cool feelings between himself and my wife, I allowed the guard to have the night off and gave Surrel the keys to the prison.”

Louis looked at him.

“Très stupide. I thought, a roof over his head for a night’s work.”

Louis set an understanding hand on the policeman’s shoulder.

“I don’t know how I will tell Claudine,” Yves finished and shook his head.

Claudine, Louis thought. The old woman at Monastier. He realized, although he’d sketched her a hundred times over and laughed with her at her own audacity, he’d never thought to ask her name.

No one would know what had really happened. Louis chose instead to lie, thoroughly and thoughtfully. As far as the town would ever know, Louis and Modestine happened upon the eviscerated corpse of Surrel—who would prove to be the killer’s last victim before the monster disappeared mysteriously—and upon their horror-stricken flight, the donkey lost her footing and injured herself in the fall. He had seen no trace of the person responsible for the murders. Yves would deal with the pamphleteer’s body as he saw fit, and the fiend would never be known as anything more than a brute, a peddler, and a victim of unholy murder by the beasts he so detested.

The following morning, after checking Modestine’s wounds and deciding she could withstand the weight, Louis helped the two old women onto her back—together they weighed about the same as the pack—and he led the donkey with her load out of Florac and to the farm. Judging where the previous night’s horror took place, he steered Modestine from the path and returned to it only when he felt they were safely past any residual gore. The authorities had collected Surrel’s tattered remains and installed them in the morgue until Yves could send word to Claudine.

When they arrived at the farm, they met Gilles and Thierry, who were just turning their horse-pulled cart around in the yard to position it in the direction of Florac. They were about to run and fetch Louis.

“Good man!” Gilles said, smiling and shaking Louis by the hand emphatically.

Louis wasn’t exactly sure how to respond, for although the murderer was brought to a kind of justice, he still had no idea what had happened to Father Secours. Since first laying eyes on the worried face of Colette, Louis had feared the worst. Perhaps Surrel had managed somehow to dispatch the priest without him hearing. It had certainly been dark enough for it to occur without the slightest knowledge on Louis’s part.

But Gilles slapped him on the back and then moved to the donkey to help his maman Adèle and his tatine Colette down. He squeezed them both. Louis could only look after them without a word, puzzled as to the man’s elated mood, for as far as he could tell, no word had reached this far from town. At least, not yet.

Then a hand fell to his shoulder from behind and Louis spun around to find himself face-to-face with Father Secours, whose given name he shouted in astonishment and joy.

Louis embraced the priest, who winced but smiled.

“You, now,” he said, laughing, “may certainly call me Victor.”

Louis drew back and his face fell, for the priest was shirtless and bandaged about the shoulder, arms, and side.

The heavy truth of what had happened hit Louis fully in the chest, and he brought his hands to his mouth in horror, like a child. His eyes trailed down to the ground, trying to absorb the facts. Father Secours—Victor—had inherited the curse of the change, and last night, after Modestine, he had probably saved Louis’s life.

His eyes darted to Victor’s.

“I shot,” he said, worried.

“And it was true enough,” the priest responded with a grin, gently tapping his side.

Louis was mortified and began spilling over with apologies and remorse, but Victor shook his head and did his best to assuage the poor man’s guilt.

“You know as well as I do that it was unavoidable,” he said, “so enough of this.”

At that moment, Colette must have looked from Gilles and saw her son, for she squealed with delight and barreled toward him. Victor braced himself and winced again as she fell into him weeping.

Louis caught Victor’s eye.

“Clémence?” he inquired.

Victor nodded, and then motioned with his head that she was inside.

They all entered the house, and after a round of heartfelt greetings and concern with Sylvie and the children, Louis asked if he could see Clémence.

“Of course,” said Sylvie. “She is upstairs. She might be sleeping.” And then she pointed to the steps and flicked her hand to indicate that Louis should go up.

Louis took the stairs softly, just in case she was slumbering, but as he reached the landing and placed a hand at the edge of the curtain that separated the bedroom from the short hallway, he heard her voice.

“Come in,” she said clearly. “I am awake.”

He moved the yellow and brown flower-printed partition, entered, and let it fall behind him. For a moment, he only looked at her in wonder.

She sat up, propped with a few thick white pillows, and basked in the warm sun that filtered in through the open window. Simple drapes blew gently with a slight breeze, which stirred her golden curls.

There was something different about her that he could not place. He looked and looked, while she looked right back at him without saying a word. Finally, he smiled awkwardly and shook his head. He moved closer, inquiring with his eyes if he could take a seat.

She nodded and smiled, and when she smiled, that’s when it occurred to him. He lowered himself slowly onto the foot of the bed and continued his embarrassed inspection.

“Forgive me,” he said. “But, have you . . .?”

“Yes,” she answered.

And he was correct. Although bandaged anew from the previous night’s struggle, her older bandages from the fire—the ones he’d seen so recently—were lighter, and covered less of her. While her one eye and her arm were still wrapped, the gauze was thinner, and in the places it no longer covered, the flesh was pink, but not twisted and poreless like the scars of the victim of such serious burns.

Louis shook his head again.

“I’m sorry,” he began, and then his mouth opened and closed a few times without saying another word, for he could not find one.

Clémence giggled, which surprised Louis, for he presumed—and rightly—that it had been the first time the girl had laughed since losing her family.

“Apparently,” she said. “The change heals.”

Louis only looked at her in joyous astonishment.

“Cousin Victor knew. I did not. But I do now. And this,” she said and curled a ringlet around her finger, “will grow back.”

“Victor says?” Louis asked.

“Victor says.”

They smiled with one another for a moment, and then Louis grew more serious.

“Clémence,” he said. “I am sorry for everything. It is impossible for me to not feel somehow responsible. I know many things were out of my hands, but even providence feels cumbersome to me.”

The girl looked at Louis sympathetically, and then she reached out and set her hand atop his.

“Perhaps,” she said, “a change can heal you, too.”

Louis looked at her thoughtfully, and he smiled.

“Perhaps so,” he said, and then stood. “Get your rest.”

“Please pet Modestine for me,” Clémence requested as he made to leave.

“I will,” he replied. “But not so much that it spoils the wicked thing.” And with a wink, he descended the stairs.

* * *

The following morning—after much laughing and crying, and deeply-felt well wishes—Louis took Modestine back to Florac to retrieve his pack. Next, he deposited the remainder of his foul-tasting brandy into the Vibron and replaced it with a light, aromatic Volnay. Finally he departed Florac, the place where his story had ended.

As they walked, he realized that, indeed, everything that he’d been keeping track of alongside his usual, pedestrian travel notes, was over. Finished, to be forgotten.

From Cassagnas to St. Germain de Calberte, he had tied a line around his waist and attached the other end to Modestine who led him along a clear path without trouble. As he let her take the reins, so to speak, he read back through his journal, as upon thinking on it, he had been seized with concern that the salient sum of his writing consisted of monks and werewolves, intrigue and murder.

Now, only a day removed from events, it was already starting to fade into a sort of questionable dream. He worried that his notes wouldn’t be sufficient to provide him with enough material to churn out a perfectly boring, but respectable travel book though, as he read, he was relieved to see that, throughout, he’d kept the presence of mind to write of other things—the landscape, the people, how they looked, how they spoke. And Modestine, the stubbornly loveable little animal.

He looked up and watched her for a moment. Her mouse-colored rump bumped left, then right, and back again; her tiny hooves dug into the path and kicked up tiny clumps of dirt with each step. Beyond her hindquarters, her long, furry ears stood upright, flicking at the occasional insect or stray breeze.

Louis wondered what life would be like back in Edinburgh, back at 17 Heriot Row, his parents’ stone-faced house overlooking the Queen Street Gardens. He pictured himself, his mother and father, and Modestine—the little donkey’s brays echoing down the street and across the green field of grass and flowers, across the upscale homes of New Town, and uniting with the rumble and squeal of the locomotives of Waverley Station.

No, he could not take her with him. But neither could he bear to part with her.

At St. Germain, he stabled Modestine without fear, he took his meal without concern, and he slept neither tossing nor dreaming. He recorded the details of his encounters in his journal, which he judged mundane, and found his mind to be blank.

When he’d left Monastier, he had never expected that his thoughts—so full of emotional turmoil, so hurt and so bewildered—could be vacant. He had longed for some peace from his raging thoughts and hoped that his journey would provide that distraction, or preferably, a soothing meditation. Instead, he received an overload of experience, outright panic and fear, and a violent severance from his treasured logical mindset. His brain, at this point, felt sapped of all function except those that were most simple—eat, sleep, walk, smile, write. In fact, he was ending this journey richer in understanding, and yet no closer to solving the problems that lie in wait for him at Alès.

Alès! His mail!

Fanny could have written; Fanny had to have written. After everything he’d been through, after all that he’d witnessed and endured, she simply must have written. Obviously, there was no possible way for her to know all that had happened, but surely fate would not allow such a defeat. And, aside from that, his domestic troubles—that he’d come on this journey to escape—provided the only immediate relief from the numb and empty aftermath of his trials. At least they would be a diversion!

At St. Jean du Gard, Modestine was declared unfit for any further travel. Though her legs were weary and they were out of salve, she seemed in good spirits.

Louis pulled the hostler out of hearing range of the tired little donkey.

“Pardon,” he began. “How much to take this donkey back to Florac?”

“Quoi?”

Louis repeated his question. The young man wiped his rough hands on his leather apron and then pushed up his already-rolled sleeves, thinking.

“Perhaps thirty-five francs,” he answered, doubtfully, as if he might be asking too much.

“Done,” Louis said, and he shook the man’s hand.

“She must rest, though,” the hostler added quickly and sincerely. “Two days, at least.”

“At least two days, then. Make it three,” Louis said. He trustingly paid the man his thirty-five francs, an additional thirty-five francs for three days of stabling and feed, and then an additional twenty francs for his coach ride back to St. Jean du Gard and his meals along the way.

The man stared at the money in his hand.

“Monsieur,” he said, “how do you know I will take the donkey at all?” By his tone, he was not asking as though he might just take the money and sell Modestine to the highest bidder, but as if he was truly perplexed that anyone could be so naïve.

“I’ll know,” Louis answered and grinned at the man, who then took the Scotsman’s hand again and gave it another reassuring shake.

Louis went to the stall where Modestine lay on her side on a clean-smelling patch of straw. Her weary legs splayed out beside her, her head lolled lazily up when he arrived, then she pushed her lips out and like little fingers, they took up some of the straw and she pulled it in, munching as it disappeared into her mouth.

He sat down beside her, wrapped his arms around his knees, and looked at her. It had not occurred to him that he would become attached to this little pack animal, but then, he hadn’t expected to go through an event of such a bonding nature with her. But he did, and he knew now that he would miss her terribly.

Draping himself across her furry little body, he stroked her ears and neck and explained to her, as eloquently as a crying man could, that she was the best damned ass in the world, and that he would never forget her. Modestine raised her head and nodded a few times, snorting, then she drew in one long slow breath and a nearly gentle bray swept through her insides like a bellows. With that, he hugged her neck and his reluctance to leave eventually led to his falling asleep against her tear-wet fur. He was awakened by the hostler, who, upon seeing this man’s deep attachment to this little beast, offered to take him to the nearest café so that he might drown his sadness, if only just a little.

Louis took him up on his offer with no shame. He kissed Modestine’s nose one last time, dried his face, and then left her in the stable.

Modestine was taken back to Florac and gifted to the Secours family, who heaped upon her a heroine’s welcome. For the rest of her days, the only pack carrying she did were two old ladies to and from the farm, and even then only on occasion. She was unofficially adopted by Clémence, who was also unofficially adopted by Gilles and Sylvie. Their little family grew and when their son was born, he was named Louis, pronounced in the English manner.

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Louis thought to call his bluff, thinking somewhat gallantly that his life was secure so long as he and he alone could write this maniac’s story. This man needed him to provide his ultimate ambition—to be a famous killer of monsters, slayer of beasts. But the wavering passion in his voice betrayed his insanity, and with that, Louis knew the state of affairs was truly volatile.

Louis pulled his pistol slowly from his belt. He was damned no matter his answer.

“I will write not one single word of you and your exploits. You will die, as you have lived, in insignificance.”

The man stood still for a fraction of an instant.

“C’est la vie,” he said, and Louis heard the man’s footsteps hurry toward him. He readied his pistol, hands shaking, horrified at what evil sort of monster was but moments away from lunging into the room, this small pocket of light.

At that moment, louder than he had expected, the hinge of the entrance screamed through the passageway, and the cloaked man’s footsteps stopped.

The door slammed shut.

“Is that your priest?” the man asked and sighed as if he just couldn’t be bothered.

Louis said nothing, but listened, closing his eyes the better to hear. He thought he could detect a faint padding sound, and then a low growl. It sounded one or two times, deep and indistinct, but then grew in intensity.

The cloaked man said nothing, but Louis knew he had him. If the other side was occupied by what he suspected, he guessed the man would prefer to run towards himself.

“If you approach,” Louis called. “I will shoot.”

He leveled the barrel at the door once more and thought he could hear some muttering, swearing under breath. And then, quite suddenly, there was a struggle.

Louis ran to the door and looked blindly down the corridor, but the thrashing occurred around a corner and it was too dark to see anyway. A door opened, but did not shut, and the man started screaming.

The sound froze Louis to the spot. His mind urged him forward, unsure as to whether he intended to assist the man or the beast, but his instinct for self-preservation grounded him firmly. He cursed and fought to free himself from his fear.

The noise shifted—the screaming and the growling, the scraping of shoe soles and the metallic clank of those vicious metal claws—sounding as if it was moving. And then, running footsteps.

Louis readied his aim once more, but the sound moved away instead of toward him. The distant door bawled and slammed shut, and then again almost immediately. Upon that second exit, Louis most certainly heard Modestine wail.

Without thinking, Louis ran into the darkness. He slammed against every wall that leapt before him, sliding into the corners and swiftly, if awkwardly, followed the passage’s shifting directions. Finally, he crashed into the entry, felt desperately for the handle, and was almost deafened by the door’s squeal.

He hadn’t been aware of how oppressive the prison cellar was until now, as the fresh night air rushed into his lungs and brought him closer to his senses.

From the lighted guards’ room to the exterior of the prison, the black corridor between helped him adjust his sight so that here, now, he was able to discern the arrangement. Modestine blocked the cloaked man’s escape and compelled him to evade the violent abuse of her small, but sharp hooves.

“Damnable beast!” the man yelled, but there was panic in his voice.

In chorus with the donkey’s cries and the man’s angry, frightened yelling, Louis could distinguish another sound—the low growl he’d heard from the prison passageway. And to his left, Louis saw it—it was a beast, of Le Famille de la Bête.

Louis raised his revolver to the man, but in the dark he could not make a true aim. If he fired, he risked shooting the poor, terrified animal whom he had grown to consider a stubborn, but endearing friend.

Finally, the frenzied donkey let forth an agonizing screech and lurched sideways. The fiend had managed to get close enough to use his weapon. Louis’s throat constricted at the sound of her distress, and as the man made his way around her still bucking form, Louis aimed and fired.

The whole picture played out over an age. As Louis heard the refrain of the shot, and the field before him lit up with the blast, the beast flew, a mass of coarse fur and teeth.

Louis’s brain either conflated this with his experience at Our Lady of the Snows, or in reality, this creature looked almost identical to the one whom he had wounded, the one they called Alphonse, the man from Fouzilhac. Its back bristled auburn and black stripes; its yellow eyes flashed and rolled in their strange, otherworldly hollows.

Modestine reared again, and then came down and braced herself to kick. When she did, she clipped the man’s shoulder, enough to send him stumbling backwards, into the clutches of the creature.

It snarled at the brutal connection with its foe, taking the man to the ground with little effort.

The cloaked man screamed, and by the anemic moonlight Louis could scarcely make out their struggle, though he was more relieved at this than not. Modestine stood nearby, panting and grunting from her efforts. He was glad to see her upright and hoped her wound wasn’t severe enough that she might not stay that way. In the dark, he made his way to her cautiously for fear of startling her, then he laid his hand on her neck gently.

“Now, now, my little heroine,” he said softly to her. She must have recognized his smell, or his voice, for she leaned into him and calmed almost immediately.

Meanwhile, the cloaked man kicked and flailed in his attempt to free himself from the grip of the thing that pinned him. Louis led Modestine a little further away, leaving the animal to do its work when from the darkness emerged yet another Beast of Gévaudan!

“My God . . .” he breathed, but no one and nothing heard him but the donkey, who had calmed at Louis’s touch, and breathed deeply and evenly.

The second beast swiftly approached the combating enemies and pushed the first beast from the man. As the two creatures sized each other up, the man labored to his feet, his balance unsure.

“Shoot them!” he yelled to Louis. The absurdity of the man’s request struck him so that he actually tore his eyes from the confrontation he was able to detect in the dark and look to him.

“Shoot them, you fool!” the man shouted again.

Impulsively, confused, Louis raised his revolver, but aimed nowhere in particular and lowered it again. Then, coming near to his senses, he raised it once more, aiming it at the cloaked man, though he was hesitant as to the man’s precise location. He watched the unsteady shadow of a figure and tried to draw as sure a bead as possible. Before he could pull the trigger, the man turned and ran toward the path, in an attempt, Louis assumed, to make it to the light of Florac.

Without pause, the second beast to arrive on the scene broke into a run for the man and a moment later Louis heard the man scream, the sound of which ended with an abrupt jolt as he presumably hit the ground. The first beast—the one which chased the man from the prison—limped casually over to Louis, where it sat back on its haunches just a few feet away. Louis lowered his pistol and looked to the beast, who blinked matter-of-factly at him.

Louis was stunned.

He maintained eye contact with the monster, acutely aware of the thing’s size, its proximity, until it looked away, licking its lips, like a dog having filched scraps from the table.

As he tightened his grip on Modestine’s bridle—who seemed to care not that this hideous brute sat so close to them—Louis looked out into the darkness. He could tell by the quality and nature of his screams that the man was trying to crawl away, but was too grievously wounded to make it very far.

“Pour l’amour de Dieu! Shoot! Shoot!” His cries erupted desperately and with the ensuing cacophony of horror, Louis’s knees went weak and he sank beside Modestine, his fingers still hooked into her bridle. He leaned his forehead against her front leg. He could feel moisture there, probably where she was wounded, but she made no indication that it was tender to her, and so he stayed there. He tried to think of other things—anything—to block out the torturous, terrified shrieks of the cloaked man, and the pained yelps of the beast that tore him to shreds. It seemed to last for an eternity and the man’s screams occasionally rippled and bellowed out somewhat broken as the beast worked at his chest. He could hear the man’s cloak tearing and the wetness of his now mutilated form giving way to the claws of the creature. Louis thought he heard one of the clawed weapons bounce some distance from the struggle, and he thought only, and there goes half of your defenses. He thought this without pity.

Louis squeezed his eyes closed and tried to focus on the sound of Modestine’s breath, but he could only retract so far as the pant of the large beast that sat so close to him. Instead, he pictured the faces of his friends, one after another, in as much detail as he could manage. Then, he formed the faces of his parents, and then Cummy, his childhood nanny. Finally, he saw Fanny, looking as she did at Grez, tired and troubled, and she had never seemed so inviting as right now.

Had she ever said or done any of those things at Grez, or did she only at night, only when he slept, when he dreamed?

Just as he seemed to leave this place, if not in body but in mind, he became aware of what proved to be the cloaked man’s final, gurgling wail. Then, as suddenly as it had attacked, the beast had turned from the prone body of the man and walked back to its companion, snout sopping with gore. The two beasts seemed to confer, sniffing each other’s faces and blinking their alien eyes, and then the bloody muzzle turned toward Louis and exhaled what he could only interpret as some sort of acknowledgement.

Their eyes met, and Louis saw that this beast’s were not yellow like the first, nor like the one they called Alphonse, but they were a light blue, like an English teacup. He nodded to the creature and then both beasts up and trotted off into the night.

As they did, it struck Louis that, through the duration of the attack, he’d heard something, but he failed to realize it fully through the shock of it all. Though he heard it now, and it faded in the distance with the retreating werewolves—the soft tinkling of the foal’s bell.

Louis sat for a moment, one hand tangled in Modestine’s bridle, the other reaching up and petting her cheek. The revolver now lay at his knees on the ground. His mind raced over what had just occurred, and then he stretched a little and kissed the donkey’s nose.

Next, faintly, he heard a wheeze coming from the direction of the man. Louis’s blood froze. Then a gurgle and a halting gasp. The cloaked man, astonishingly, still lived.

Louis located his smoking matches, released Modestine’s bridle, and cautiously made his way to the man lying in the middle of the cattle path. Indeed, the man was alive, but only one limb—an arm—moved, slowly but spastically. Louis kept his distance to at least that arm’s length, as a precaution. He pulled a match from its little box, and after a moment’s hesitation, he struck it.

In the revealing, horrific flash, Louis saw a sight he could never unsee, one that he regretted instantly and, just as the flame flared and settled, he shook it out and moaned. He stood, night-blind from the burst of light, his mind reeling at the awful vision.

At his feet, in the darkest dark, the voice of the man rasped, clearly falling into an abyss from which he would never return.

“Tell me,” he struggled. “Did she break your heart, Monsieur Steams?”

And finally, Louis placed the voice—the voice he’d last knowingly heard in a billiard room on an early morning in Monastier. He’d bought this man a brandy.

Surrel.

Louis listened to the man’s labored breathing, and the simple image of the bully beating the poor donkey—let alone all the truly ghastly tragedies he’d authored since—dissolved whatever remaining trace of compassion he’d felt for the man.

He leaned down to the dying fiend, who twisted on the ground like a worm out of dirt, close enough for him to hear.

“Non,” Louis answered. “She saved me.”

He then stalked back to Modestine, leaving Surrel, the pamphleteer—the murderer, the monster—to die alone in the dark, on his back like an insect, and staring up at the heavens that would never accept his putrid soul.

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Dawn broke blue over the trees and gradually illuminated the farmstead. Louis woke as Modestine slept on, and he stumbled outside and stretched, breathing in the clean morning air. He roused himself by walking around the barn, investigating its stone and its climbing vegetation, then standing back to observe its wide red-tile roof. It looked suitable to live in and he envied the cows, sheep, and goats.

As the sky grew lighter and the air began to lose its dewy quality, the door to the cottage opened and out came Father Secours. He’d begun to walk toward the stable, but upon seeing Louis, he stopped and waved him over. Louis, in turn, signed a negative and for the priest to come to him. When Father Secours approached, Louis motioned for him to come into the stable.

Modestine shifted and snorted in her sleep.

“The clawed thing,” Louis said, pointing to his effects. “The cloaked man’s weapon; it’s gone.”

Father Secours nodded and thought.

“It is what it is,” he said.

“No!” Louis exclaimed, kicking his sack of belongings for emphasis. “Not everything simply is, some things canbe!”

“What could this be, Louis?” Father Secours asked, his eyes calm, but searching. “Will you snap your fingers and bring the thing back? Will you speak the magic words and bring this to an end?”

Louis hung his head.

“There is nothing we can do. Come, wash up inside. Sylvie is making breakfast.”

Louis followed the priest back to the house. Inside was warmed cozily by a healthy fire in the hearth.

Bonjours and smiles were exchanged; a breakfast of eggs, potato, onion, and bread was laid out. Coffee was abundant.

“Now is as good a time as any,” Father Secours said before he stuck a forkful of egg into his mouth. He looked at Louis, and Louis—his fork poised to do the same—looked back. The priest chewed and tried to gesture with his eyebrows what Louis should be doing.

It finally occurred to Louis that he needed to tell his story, again. He looked longingly at his breakfast. Gilles laughed and took a bite of his meal.

“Eat and speak, monsieur Stevenson,” he said. “These are special circumstances; we won’t stand on propriety.” He chewed and grinned to make Louis more comfortable.

Louis laughed. Decorum be damned. He stuffed his mouth with egg and followed it with a bite of warm bread. Distracted for a moment at how good it was, he nodded emphatically to Sylvie and pointed at the remaining slice on his plate.

“Bien, je vous remercie beaucoup, monsieur Stevenson,” she said, smiling.[1]

“Please,” he said cautiously around his chewing. “Please call me Louis.”

Everyone around the table nodded, including the children as they beamed at the strange Scotsman, amused at his relative discomfort.

Louis began his story, and paused at the most violent elements, looking from the parents to the children, but the couple insisted he go on.

“Violence, in some form, is an ordinary part of our lives,” said Father Secours. “Although the children are not susceptible to the change, it is good they learn what it means. And it gives these good young people the practice of teaching what it takes to raise that one there.” He pointed to Sylvie’s belly and smiled.

No one seemed upset or particularly bothered that this—changing from a man to a wolf-like creature—may or may not be in store for their unborn child. Just weeks ago, Louis wouldn’t have even entertained the idea of werewolves at all, but here this morning, at the table of this fine family, he’d accepted the concept so completely that he had to remind himself to be disconcerted at the strangeness of their reaction. Of course they would have to wait and see, but it made little difference either way. One way meant one thing, and another only meant some extra guidance. They’d been doing this for generations.

As Louis brought his story to a close, and began to focus more on eating—although he’d already cleared half of his plate—they heard footsteps padding unhurriedly down the stairs. He’d forgotten that there was another occupant of the house that he hadn’t yet made the acquaintance of.

The first thing he saw were the yellow corkscrew curls, and then he was gazing onto the countenance of a younger Clarisse, a face of about fifteen years old. Clémence displayed the same fairness of skin, the same ruddy blush of the cheeks, and the same small blue eyes that penetrated one so thoroughly. She was lovely, but for the fire.

One half of her face and head was bandaged, leaving her cyclopsed, and her hair seemed to explode from where the bandage ended, so stark was the contrast between that and the hair clearly lost. It would likely never grow back. The arm on that side was also wrapped and slung with a clean piece of cotton sheeting.

“Victor,” she said quietly, but surprised, to Father Secours as she approached the table.

He stood and rounded the table to embrace her carefully.

“Are you hungry, mon petit oiseau?” Sylvie asked, getting up.[2]

“Un peu,” Clémence responded.

“Well, a little is better than not at all,” Sylvie said and moved Clémence into her own chair. She cleared her plate and went to fetch a clean one for her cousin.

Father Secours returned to his place at the table. The girl sat down gently as she was fussed over, and then fixed Louis with her one eye. Louis nodded a greeting to her and shifted uncomfortably.

Gilles sensed his uneasiness.

“Clémence, this is—” he began.

“Monsieur Stevenson,” she finished. “Clarisse mentioned you.”

At the sound of Clarisse’s name from the lips of her poor, disfigured surviving sister, Louis almost burst into tears.

“Please, call me Louis,” he managed, his voice quivering.

It was then that Louis noticed a small lump beneath her blouse, just at the sternum. By the shape, he already knew what it was the foal’s bell. And with that, he fought to keep his emotions in check.

“Please let me extend my deepest condolences, mademoiselle Clémence,” he said. “I met your sister only briefly, though she displayed to me all the strength and honor that reads across your own face.”

“What is left of my face,” she said.

Louis was speechless and ashamed. As he searched vainly for a response, Sylvie placed a plate before Clémence and then shooed the children from the table and sat down herself.

“Monsieur Stevenson was there,” Father Secours said. “He saw what happened.”

“There was nothing I could do,” Louis pleaded to the girl.

She simply looked at him, mildly surprised at his sentiment.

“I know that,” she said, and then began to eat, daintily but evenly.

“Did you hear what we were discussing, cousin?” Gilles asked the girl but looked at Father Secours.

“Oui,” she said, and ate.

A collective sigh spread quietly over the table.

“Well, it is probably better,” said Father Secours. “If it was Clarisse, we wouldn’t get away with a single secret. This one is even worse.”

He smiled at Clémence, who didn’t smile back but didn’t seem angry or agitated either. Louis assumed that, on some level, though she was walking, speaking, eating, the girl was still in shock.

“You could,” Father Secours said to her, “maybe be of some assistance, actually.”

Clémence tilted her head up, chewing.

“Your sister rode home that night,” the priest began. “She must have arrived well before the mob, but she was unsuccessful in convincing your parents to flee.”

“Father did not understand,” she said. “Mother even less so.”

“You understood,” Father Secours said.

“I trusted Clarisse.”

She had finished her small breakfast, and she dabbed her mouth with her napkin and pushed her plate forward a little.

“You were right to trust her,” Father Secours said. “Would that your father—”

“I thought he would, but it was just so absurd,” said Clémence. “We both tried to persuade them. But it was too late.”

“Clémence, did Clarisse say anything that you think might help us to . . . deal with this beast?” Louis interjected, only slightly worried of butting in, and very aware of the irony of discussing another human being as a “beast” with a family of werewolves.

Her gaze turned from her cousin to him and he felt chilled by the evidence of the atrocity that he had witnessed just a few days ago. She then looked at the table, thinking. Involuntarily, her hand fetched the foal’s bell from beneath her chemise. Louis winced, for it was now charred black. The remaining loose soot stained her small fingers.

“Non,” she said, finally, and everyone around the table slouched a little in defeat. “But, when our parents refused to leave, she entreated me to run myself. To take Voila and ride her as far as I could get. But I could not leave them.”

Heads nodded around the table.

“She told me to ride out and find monsieur Stevenson. She said he would protect me.”

Louis looked at her quick and firm, the tears gathering and threatening to spill. Everyone was silent.

“I could not save you, girl,” he said quietly. “I don’t know that I could have had you run.” And then he cast his eyes down, ashamed to look at this fragile, injured child.

“If Clarisse thought you could,” she replied, “you could have. It wasn’t your fault. I should have listened to her.” She reached across the table to Louis and patted his hand with hers. He took it into his and pressed it, and then let it go, feeling unworthy.

Who was this young woman? And where had she found such stamina? Louis thought of her father, braving the flames and enduring the unthinkable burn, just to attempt to save his wife. He thought of Clarisse’s quick thinking in action, flying out of Pont de Montvert on Voila just to attempt to save her family. This strength was not simply discovered, it was innate. This young woman in front of him might bear these terrible scars for the rest of her days, but Louis took some comfort in that she would never allow them to defeat her. Of that, he felt sure.

“Here, you should rest,” Sylvie said to Clémence, placing her hands on the girl’s shoulders to guide her to a quieter area of the cottage. “Victor and Louis have much to discuss.” She looked to her husband, “and you and Thierry should be in the fields.”

Gilles nodded and pushed himself from the table. Thierry, who had been listening from the open attached family area leapt to his feet.

As Sylvie led her away and toward the stairs, Clémence paused and turned to Louis and Father Secours.

“You will kill him, won’t you?”

There was a spate of silence.

“We don’t know what we will do with him, cousin,” Father Secours finally answered. “If we can get a hold of him, that is.”

“You will,” she said. “You will get him. And he must be killed.” She turned to Louis. “Victor cannot; he is a holy man. But you can. You must.”

Louis thought for an instant, but then nodded to her.

“I will.”

She looked at him a moment longer, then turned slowly to the stairs, and disappeared into the rooms above.

[1] “Well, thank you very much…”

[2] “ . . . my little bird?”

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The farm where Father Secours had been raised, and which was now occupied and operated by his cousin with his wife, daughter, and son, consisted of a two-story stone cottage and a one-story low, wide barn and attached stable. Louis did not pay much attention to the layout, as it was dark and late. The priest instructed him to tie Modestine near to the door of the home, which he did, and they both knocked.

It opened slowly to a young, pale face. This was Gilles. He had dark eyes and hair, and his lip bore the determined efforts of cultivation, though the mustache was a little thin. Louis sympathized and pulled at his own painstakingly established facial hair.

“Victor!” shouted Gilles. “Sylvie! It is Victor!” He yelled back into the home while swinging the door wide to let the travelers inside.

His wife, round in belly with what looked like several months of gestation, swept through the room and embraced Father Secours. The priest made the introductions, and the couple brought forth their children—or, Sylvie’s children from a previous marriage—Martine, her twelve-year-old daughter, and Thierry, her nine-year-old son. Louis smiled and greeted them both, who, like all children, regarded him with some naïve suspicion.

Sylvie insisted on making them coffee, so she and Martine disappeared into the kitchen, while Gilles and Thierry excused themselves for a few moments to make sure the barn and stable were secure.

“Thierry can take care of your ass, Monsieur Stevenson,” said Gilles.

“Merci, mais non,” Louis replied, then looked at Father Secours.

“We have some things to discuss, cousin,” said the priest. “I’m afraid we need to keep a close eye on the donkey.”

Gilles nodded and smiled, and then hurried with his stepson out into the night.

“It is an uncommon arrangement,” Father Secours explained. “But he loves them like his own, and she is a good woman.”

“There is nothing to explain,” Louis said, thinking of Fanny and realizing that he could have, indeed, told Father Secours of her—their—predicament. “I am charmed.”

The priest smiled gratefully. Soon, the women of the house brought out a pot of coffee and a plate of digestive biscuits. Sylvie glowed with joy.

“Victor, it is so good to see your face,” she said as she served the beverage. “It has been too long, and, as I’m sure you know, in recent days, every good turn is a blessing.”

“I’m afraid that is why we are here,” Father Secours said. “But it is late. When Gilles returns, you will tell me your news, and tomorrow, after we’ve slept, we will tell you why we are here.”

* * *

With Clémence occupying the family’s extra guest bed, Father Secours assembled a cot in the family room, and Louis insisted he sleep in the stable to better watch Modestine. There were some protestations from the couple, but Father Secours saw Louis’s reasoning and asserted that it would likely be best as well.

Gilles accompanied Louis to the barn to stable Modestine, and set down a bale of fresh, clean hay for him to make his bed on. Then, making sure there was nothing else that Louis might need, the farmer disappeared into the house again, and Louis watched the windows go dark.

The barn was constructed of stone and inside contained a number sheep, plus some goats and two cows for milk and cheese making. The stable in which Modestine and Louis lodged was a wooden structure built onto the side of the main stone building. She nibbled on some of Louis’s bed, and he left her to graze and then sleep while he updated his chronicle. He took and lit a small lamp outside the structure, leaning his back against the wood and, placing his inkpot where he could see it, he scribbled with his journal propped against his knees.

Now and then, he would look up and out over the property. The house stood black against a dark, but starry sky. The gravel yard between the house and the barn was a sheet of grey under the small moon, and the shadowy trees beyond—in the direction from whence they came—swayed gently. The only sounds were the soft wind through the distant leaves and the haunting duet of two barn owls murmuring to one another.

Much to his surprise, Louis felt calm. He supposed he should be nervous, perhaps even a little afraid, but despite that things were at last coming to a head, he was rather relaxed. The night was tranquil, and spending the late evening with a family, who could—in another country, with another woman—be his own, gave him hope. The hope was, obviously, for his future with Fanny, but also the potential of being a father to her young son, Lloyd—a prospect he hadn’t fully considered. He and Lloyd had gotten along like mates, but to be a father? The last couple of hours certainly made the idea seem quite welcome.

Gilles and his adopted children interacted as if the same blood flowed through their veins, and although Louis could not picture Fanny being quite the pleasant hostess as Sylvie—she was suspicious of his friends and often too coarse for polite company—he believed there was a sliver of hope that something like this picture could be painted. If she’d let him.

This hope spilled over into his more immediate and dismal situation, not that it had much right to. Logically, Louis knew this, but he let it sweep over him anyway, feeling his spine loosen and his chest relax. He didn’t believe that the cloaked man would come this close to the farm, to their home base. Sleeping out here with Modestine was just a safety precaution, but he fully expected to sleep full and long until dawn.

Louis tossed down his pen and almost upset his inkpot, as he jumped up and threw himself into the stable, startling Modestine as he did. She had lain down in the hay and snorted at Louis while he rummaged through his sleeping sack. Not finding what he was looking for, he dumped everything out onto the dirt stable floor, just beside hay and the quizzical donkey.

After moving everything about and making sure he wasn’t overlooking anything, he sat down hard beside Modestine and sighed deeply. He knew there had to be something to the molestation of the donkey’s pack while they were on the cattle path.

The cloaked man’s weapon was gone.

Louis went back outside, lidded his inkpot, gathered his journal and pen, and put out his lamp. Then, in the dark, he arranged his effects in some reasonable manner and spread his sleeping sack over what remained of the hay. Modestine—lying on her side like a dog—had taken up half of it, so he crawled inside the sack at her back and laid his head upon her neck.

With one ear, he listened to all the muffled, internal donkey noises that muttered up through Modestine’s fur, and with the other ear, he listened to the owls hoot poignantly their hollow, wooden calls. As he drifted into sleep, to the rhythm of the dueling sounds, his thoughts flowed back and forth between the pleasant image of his potential future family and the decidedly unpleasant business closer at hand.

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Cocurès, Florac

He moved about the world, through time, from body to body of every age. He was in Edinburgh during his college days giving a paper at The Spec—Two Questions on the Relationship Between Christ’s Teachings and Modern Christianity—only all the faces in the audience were that of his father, looking pained and annoyed. Next, he was but a boy, coughing and coughing, his small frame shaking with every sputter that tore at his lungs, his nursemaid, Cummy, at his bedside, holding his hand, but in fact, it was not Cummy but his mother, who in reality had never been there. She shocked him into a new body and time with the words, “Smoutie, what’s that burning?”

Then, he was as he is now, twenty-eight years old, but naked amongst an eternity of trees. He heard a dog bark and he ran, but as he did he realized that he didn’t just appear there, he’d woken up there. Every part of his body ached and when he looked down, his hands were blood covered. Finally, he was older than he is now, much older, and barefoot on the bowsprit of a schooner. He could smell the ocean and taste the salt on his teeth, the wind yanking at his hair as they traveled full speed ahead, until the wood beneath his feet gave way and he plunged down into the sea.

He came to at Grez, awash in a salty ocean of sweat in his sickbed. Fanny looked to him from a chair across the room and simply shook her head.

*

He awoke exhausted to a melancholy morning and the sound of footsteps. His heart in his throat, he stretched to peer around the tree’s trunk only to find, much nearer than he’d expected, a peasant. The man trudged up a hard footpath that Louis had not noticed the previous day and passed without seeing him. Once the man was gone, Louis leapt from his sleeping sack and readied himself as quickly as possible. The workers were out to harvest and trim back the trees.

As he did, a man and a boy made their way down the incline, heading straight towards his encampment. They called to him, and he tried to respond cheerfully as he rushed around dressing. By the time they’d reached him, he had his boots on and was pulling on his gaiters when the man spoke.

“You have slept here,” the man stated rather than asked. The boy stood a little behind him, looking at Louis suspiciously.

“Yes,” answered Louis. “As you see.”

The man’s eyes scanned Louis’s camp and fell upon the revolver that lay upon the sack, in the open.

“Why?”

“My faith,” Louis sighed. “I was tired.”

“Where are you going?”

Louis pointed down to the road in the direction of Florac.

“What have you eaten?”

“Pardon?”

The man repeated his question, undeterred. Louis realized he was keeping track of his crop.

“Oh, I ate a meal from my pack.”

“C’est bien,” the man said, more to the boy than to Louis. And, without another word or gesture, the pair walked two trees away from where Louis had camped and began to prune.

Louis stowed the revolver into the waist of his trousers and after collecting Modestine and packing up, they were once again on the road. The morning light played prettily across the valley and the road dipped gradually to become level with the river. Here Louis made his toilet and Modestine slurped upstream from Louis’s sudsy ritual. As he shaved, he determined that he would ask every soul he met between here and Florac if they’d seen his cloaked man. Surely, he left the scene at Pont de Montvert before Louis, for he could no longer find him there.

When they were finished at the river, they continued on while Louis snacked on a piece of chocolate with one hand, and fed the donkey bits of black bread with the other. He’d passed several working men and boys heading up the road to where he’d slept the night before, all moving to their day’s work. Louis made his inquiry to each of them, but they’d either never seen such a person, or they’d seen far too many to discern the man he was looking for.

As he came around a bend, Modestine trotting briskly along, Louis stopped cold in his tracks. Ahead along the road, nearest the cliff side, was a hooded figure.

Louis stared at the form, whose head was lowered and whose feet shuffled along the edge of the road. He stuffed the chocolate he’d been carrying into a fold in Modestine’s pack and rested his now-empty hand on the butt of the pistol in his belt.        They started forward again slowly, Louis pulling the donkey to the riverside, giving the stranger—who still didn’t seem to see him—a wide berth. But suddenly, as if operating with an additional sense, the person lurched toward Louis.

He gripped the handle of the gun and was about to pull it when the figure’s hood fell back just enough for him to see that it wasn’t a man at all, but a woman. She was a beggar, her clothes shabby and her hair knotted.

She said nothing, but motioned for alms. Louis let out a heavy breath and unhanded the gun quickly, happy to not have to use it. Then he dug around in a breast pocket and fished out a few coins for the woman. Before he handed them over, he spoke.

“Pardon me,” he began. “Have you seen a man—maybe your age—wearing a cloak of a dark grey color? Heading this way?” He pointed in the direction she was coming from.

The woman shook her head and held out her hand.

“Are you sure? He came this way.”

Still the woman shook her head, her eyes on the coins in his hand.

Then it struck him.

“His cloak was probably stained with blood.”

Her eyes met his and grew wide. Then she pointed back down the road, in the direction Louis was heading.

“Florac?”

The woman nodded and Louis gave her the coins, which sent her shuffling along her way, perhaps a little faster than she had been before.

Had Louis asked every peasant along the way if they’d seen a man in a bloody cloak, he suspected he’d have gotten a few affirmations. He and Modestine moved on, only to be overtaken a few minutes later by an older man, followed by a little girl driving a goat and two sheep. For a few steps, Louis was in line with the girl and feeling a little awkward, but the man slowed his pace a bit and positioned himself beside Louis.

Louis saw that the man’s face betrayed a mature age beyond what he initially thought, and he wore a tea-colored nightcap as a hat.

“You are going to Cocurès?” the man asked, smiling.

“I will get breakfast there, but then I will move on to Florac,” Louis answered, returning the smile. It was good to see a warm, welcoming face.

“Ah,” the man said as his eyes darkened. “There are bad things afoot.”

“Oh?”

“Two nights ago, a family was killed, horribly, by a crazed mob, and last night, from what I’ve heard, mysterious murders have begun at Florac.”

Louis stopped and everyone almost went on without him—Modestine, the man, the girl and her wards. But the man also stopped and came back to him, and so they all stopped.

“What do you mean, in Florac?” Louis asked the man, and they slowly began walking again, eventually regaining their pace.

“A traveler told me early this morning that they had found the bodies of three villagers past the outskirts of the town. All unrelated.”

Louis listened. Somehow, the cloaked man had made it to Florac, perhaps before Louis had even bedded down in the chestnut orchard last night.

“Terrible. People torn limb from limb.”

“Wolves?” Louis asked quietly, not knowing what sort of answer he might get.

“We in this region know wolves. This was no wolf. Nor was it the family of la Bête.”

“But how do you know?” Louis stunned himself by falling so comfortably into this conversation, as if he were a local peasant, as if he believed in werewolves. But he did. He must. He saw what he saw. And this man didn’t lose a breath.

“We know because the people of Florac are different. La Famille de la Bête live peaceably, side by side with their neighbors.”

Louis eyed the man, reluctant to ask what he felt compelled to ask.

“The members of,” he paused, “la Bête family; they manage their condition?”

“The families of this area who are cursed with the change, they raise their children, before they even begin to show the signs, that to kill is wrong. And if they begin to make the change, they get a special education.”

“And you are not of this family.”

“Non, I am not, but I have many friends of that family. All good men and women.”

They walked without speaking for a moment, listening to the bleating of the girl’s flock and the tiny tinkling of their little bells.

“I know that, in the north of the mountains, the feelings for this family are very different. And the family also recognizes that not all members have adopted their way of living.” The man shrugged. “It is what it is. There is a priest in Cocurès that I will introduce you to. He knows more about this than anyone.”

Louis winced and nodded. He thought to ask about the cloaked man, but then remembered that this fellow had come from behind, from the direction Louis had come, and so wouldn’t have seen him.

“Tragedy, what happened at Pont de Montvert,” the man thought he was changing the subject, when in fact, he was not.

“I was there.”

This time the old man stopped, but then, catching himself, started up again and trotted to regain his place.

“You were there?”

“A boy was killed. A man riled up the townspeople,” Louis explained. “It didn’t take much and once they were going, there was nothing anyone could do. I know; I tried.”

The old man patted Louis on the back and nodded.

“You were good to try,” he said.

“I’m afraid that does little to console me,” Louis replied. “But tell me, did no one survive?”

The old man sucked on his teeth and watched the ground move under his spritely feet.

“At first, both daughters had somehow made it out. The older was badly burned, and she died later that night.”

“Clarisse,” Louis said softly.

“I am sorry.” The old man’s eyes teared up at the realization that Louis knew the dead girl in some capacity.

“Her sister?”

“Alive.”

Louis nodded. That was, at least, one small saving grace, but his heart still broke when he thought of how she might go on without her mother and father, without the kinship of her sister. And had Louis not passed through? Had he not led the cloaked man straight to them? They would be having breakfast right now.

The group walked on in silence, save the sheep and goat, the rest of the way to Cocurès, where Louis ordered breakfast after stabling Modestine for her own, and the old man went off in search of the priest.

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