First Frost (20 page)

The wolf took in the sight of his grandson. From where Bianca stood it looked as though he didn’t know what to make of this hairless pup who stood before him as though he had a right to do so.

“You smell of my kin. Who are you?” the wolf asked as he narrowed his eyes with suspicion.

“I am your grandson, Terrance Connor,” he replied.

“Ah…yes. William’s son.” He smiled, flashing his sharp white teeth.

“Yes, sir.” He nodded.

“I will spare your life because you are my kin, but the others…they must perish,” he said.

“But why?”

“It is what she wants,” he growled.

“The witch?”

“Yes, it is what Lenore wants.”

“Why are you doing her bidding? I never knew you to take orders from anyone.”

Wolf snarled and slapped Terrance across the cheek, sending him flying against the door of the brick house.

The old wolf snarled. “Mind your manners, boy. I will demand the respect that is due to me. Remember, you may be my kin, but you’re no full-blooded wolf. William dishonored his family when he ran off and looked underneath your mortal mother’s skirt.”

“Forgive me.” Terrance wiped the little bit of blood that spilled out of the corner of his mouth.

“Disrespect me like that again, and I will find it very difficult to spare your life…family or not,” the wolf growled.

Terrance lowered his head and repeated his apology.

The wolf snarled and licked his nose with his long mauve tongue. He looked straight at Bianca. Her heart leaped to her throat as she stared right back into the wolf’s menacing eyes. Never once did she look away from his yellow-green gaze.

“She threatened to destroy my family,” he explained, finally pulling his gaze away from Bianca.

“And you believe her?” Terrance asked.

“She’s no mere mortal. There is something frighteningly dark about her,” he admitted.

“That is why we need your help. We can stop her,” Terrance said.

“I can’t,” he replied.

“Why?”

“I won’t risk the lives of my children. I won’t risk my wife.”

“What
can
you do?” Terrance asked.

The wolf narrowed his gaze at his mortal grandson.

“Four days,” he stated.

“Four days?”

“If you haven’t reached her castle in four days, I’ll have no choice but to kill your friends,” he said.

“Thank you, Grandfather.” Terrance bowed. “Can you tell us exactly where her castle is?”

“The girl knows the way. She has the red cape. It will take her where she needs to go,” the wolf said.

“How do you know she has it?” Terrance asked.

“No amount of time inside a wooden trunk will take away the smell of that girl. Little brat refused to die…but her grandmother certainly was tasty.” The Big Bad Wolf then let out a low chuckle.

Terrance gave him a tight lipped smile, and started to turn around to walk away but something the wolf said stopped him in his tracks.

“The girl…she smells just like
her
,” the wolf said.

“I know,” Terrance replied.

“Guard her well. She may be the one that can put an end to this madness.” And with that having been said, the wolf vanished. He melded into the woods as though he had never even existed.

Terrance straightened his clothes as best as he could and knocked on the door. Bianca opened it immediately and pulled him inside the house.

“Are you okay?” she asked as soon as he stepped inside.

“Yes, I’m fine, thank you,” he said.

“What did he say?” Ming asked.

“We have four days,” he replied.

“Or?” Ming asked, as though terrified to hear the answer.

“Or he’ll kill us all himself,” Terrance replied in a nonchalant tone of voice, as though this sort of thing happened to him every day.

For all Bianca knew—it did.

One by one they walked out of the brick house. Bianca pulled a single strand of hair from her scalp and tied it around the doorknob. The house disappeared and returned to its original form of a single red brick. Bianca noticed everyone staring at her as she put the brick in her backpack.

“What?”

“What else do you have in there?” Ming asked.

“I can’t tell you. It’s a surprise,” she replied.

“Come, we best be on our way,” Terrance said.

Bianca put on the red cape and the path was shown to her once more. This time around she wasn’t so overwhelmed when the magical veil fell over her body. She was getting used to wearing the cape.

“What did the wolf mean when he said kin? What does that word mean?” Ming whispered to Bianca.

“Kin is family,” Bianca replied.

“So…Terrance is a wolf?”

“I don’t know,” Bianca said.

Ming shrugged her shoulders and kept walking.

They walked silently for many, many miles. Bianca quickly realized how lucky they had been to have horses in the beginning of their journey. After several hours of walking, Bianca was physically exhausted. Wearing the red cape was also starting to take its toll on her tiny frame. Luckily for her, everyone noticed and decided to set up camp for the night.

They built a fire and had some of Bianca’s soup. Terrance had sneaked away to eat his food by himself. Bianca gulped down the rest of her meal, not caring that it burned the roof of her mouth, and followed him.

He sat on an overgrown tree root. His bowl was empty and lay by his feet. Her heart ached for him when she saw him with his head hung low, and his shoulders slumped downward. In the few days she had known him, she had never seen him like this. He always stood tall and proud; it made Bianca feel inadequate to stand next to him. She didn’t like seeing him this way, so defeated.

“Hi,” Bianca said.

“Oh, hello,” Terrance said when he turned and saw her. He smiled at her. She noticed that it didn’t reach his eyes. The spark in his dark brown eyes was almost gone. All she could see were faint embers of what was once there.

“Can I join you? I have some water if you’d like a drink.” She showed him her bottle of water.

“Yes, of course,” he replied.

Bianca climbed over the giant root and sat next to him. She unscrewed the cap and handed him the water. He took the bottle and studied it for a moment. Bianca then realized that he’d probably never seen a plastic bottle before. He took a long gulp and handed the bottle back to her.

“Are you okay?” she asked.

“Why do you ask?”

“You’ve been quiet this whole time. Plus, I figured you might be a little traumatized by meeting your giant wolf grandfather for the first time…that can’t be easy.”

He nodded.

“Do you want to talk about it?” she asked.

“Why?”

She shrugged. “I don’t know. I just thought maybe you wanted someone to talk to.”

“Are you sure you want me to bore you with it?” Terrance once more he gave her that heartbreaking sad smile.

“I doubt
you
could bore me.”

“I’m not like him,” he said all of a sudden.

“Not like who?”

“Like…my grandfather.”

“Oh, Terrance. I never thought for a second that you were anything like him.”

“I’m also not a werewolf, no matter what you hear,” he stated.

“Do you mind telling me…what it is you are?”

“I’m human. I’m a mortal man,” he said in a forceful tone. He spoke in a way that led Bianca to believe that he wasn’t just trying to convince her; he was also trying to convince himself that he was normal, just like everyone else. He shook his head and added, “Except that I have some heightened senses.”

“Let me guess, heightened sense of smell and hearing?”

“Correct. But also heightened sense of sight, touch, and taste.”

“Really?” Bianca scrunched up her nose. She sniffed underneath her armpits to see if she smelled bad.

Terrance laughed “You smell wonderful, trust me.”

“Could you smell me a mile away?”

“I could smell you if you were on another planet,” he said.

“Now I know you’re kidding,” she said and then giggled. She thought quietly to herself for a moment and then whispered, “Must be lonely.”

Terrance nodded. He grabbed a fistful of stones and tossed them into the dark forest. Bianca wished the sun was up so she could see how far he could throw those stones.

“Do you have any siblings?” she asked.

Terrance shook his head.

“Join the club,” she muttered.

He turned to her with a confused look on his face. “Club?”

“Never mind that. What I mean is that it would probably help if you had someone to talk to besides your parents. Someone who is just like you.”

“Spoken like someone who knows a little about loneliness.”

His eyes locked into hers. She took a deep breath, looked away and fidgeted with her fingers. She avoided meeting his unfaltering gaze. She could feel him staring at her. She glanced at him with the corner of her eyes and quickly looked away.

“At least you found your father.”

“Yeah, Mom will be very excited to hear about that. She’s been searching for him for ten years.”

“Ten years?” His eyes widened with surprise.

“Yeah.” Bianca had enough of being underneath Terrance’s microscope. She wanted to know more about him. “What about your parents?”

“This is an incredibly short tale and just so you know my father tells it much better than I ever will. With that having been said, I shall begin. My father, William, happens to be a full-blooded wolf. He saw my mother, Claire, walking in the forest with her family one day, and he fell madly in love with her.

“Every time he retells the story, he says that all he could see was her. He didn’t notice the hundreds of scents the wind carried to his nostrils, nor did he care for the deer several feet away from him. He forgot his hunger. His thirst. Everything. The world vanished…all that he could see was my mother.” He smiled. “Amazing? Isn’t it?”

“What is?” Bianca asked.

“That all he had to do was look at her…and immediately
know
that she was the only one for him. That no one would ever come close to the perfection he saw in her. He knew that he would love her and only her for as long as his heart continued to beat inside his chest.”

“Sometimes things just work out like that…I guess,” Bianca said. She didn’t know anything about love. Sure she had kissed a couple of boys before, but she had never experienced that kind of feeling a person gets when he or she falls in love. All she knew was that she got butterflies in her stomach every time she looked into his eyes. Was that love? How was she supposed to know the difference? She shook her head and encouraged Terrance to continue telling the story of how his parents met.

“Well…he went to see a witch. He’d heard that she could perform transformative magic, the kind that would make him into a man. The price she demanded was the wolf skin he would shed when the spell was finished. He gave it willingly. It took him years but he eventually made a name for himself as a merchant. He managed to garner entrance to the castle and gained access to the queen, for whom my mother is a lady-in-waiting. And they fell in love. No spells were needed for that to happen. Even now, years later, they are still madly in love and have eyes only for each other.

“My grandfather and uncles were ashamed of my father. They think he’s a disgrace to his own kind. At least that’s what he’s told me. I’ve never actually spoken to any of the members of my father’s side of the family. But I can only assume that they love what they are: they love singing to the moon, hunting, their sharp claws and teeth. They couldn’t understand why my father would willingly give that up. They would spare my life because none of it was my fault, but meeting my grandfather…he makes me feel ashamed of what I am.”

When Bianca heard him talk about himself that way, it made her blood boil. She stood up and said, “Don’t be. I’ve only known you for a few days, and I can tell you’re a good and caring person. If your father’s family can’t see that, then it’s their loss.”