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38

"It's a miracle, that's what it is."

"Don't speak to me of miracles, Laura. Going through a week without suffering another Sarah-related disaster, now that would be a miracle..."

Sarah could hear these words, but they didn't seem very important. They were just noise in the dark, like wind blowing through the trees.

"If you'd just - !"

"What? If I'd just what, Laura?"

Sarah didn't like this. She didn't want to listen, but she didn't know how _not_to. These voices were getting too close... too loud.

"Nothing."

"No, go on! Say what you were going to say!"

"It's nothing, Markus."

Wait, Markus and Laura? Those were her parents' names...

"Oh, I know what you're thinking. You're thinking this is all my fault, aren't you?"

"I never said that."

"You don't have to! It's written all over your face! Well, I'll tell you something! Yes! Yes, it is my fault! It's my fault our family is rid of whatever the hell crawled out of her womb! It's my fault we won't have to spend the rest of our days living in scandal! It's my fault we'll still be able to marry Sarah off to a proper young Fox!"

"_Rich_young Fox, you mean."

"How... dare you?"

"Come off it, Markus! Everyone knows you only care about getting the biggest dowry you can lay your hands on! Can't do that if your only daughter is tied to a bastard son!"

"A bastard I could live with, but that thing? You saw it!"

"I saw an innocent little baby boy! That's what I saw!"

So loud... Sarah couldn't take it anymore. She turned her face away, hoping to lose those voices in the swirling shadows, but she found something else instead. Warmth.

She remembered the cold, how it felt like she would never be warm again, but here it was, resting against her cheek. What was this? It felt familiar... It felt like...

Andrew!

Sarah opened her eyes, desperate to see her son, aching to know if he was all right, but all she got for her trouble was a stinging glance at the sun. Her eyes snapped shut of their own accord, plunging her back into the blackness she had fought so hard to escape, only this time there was a bright green spot in the centre of her vision. She waited for it to fade before trying again. She slowly opened her eyes, taking in all the familiar details that simply didn't make any sense at all.

She was in her room, lying in her bed, underneath what felt like at least half a dozen blankets. The warmth she had thought was her baby actually came from the sun outside, shining in through her open window. The sky was completely clear, a solid sheet of blue unbroken by even a single cloud. But... where was Andrew? She made a promise, didn't she? Something about seeing his first sunrise...

And then it all came crashing back. The birth, her agonizing trek to the other side of the mountain...

Her father.

Oh, no. She couldn't face this, not after everything that had happened. Maybe she could just close her eyes again and pretend to sleep for another -

"Sarah, honey? Are you awake?"

Too late for that now. Sarah turned her head the other way, amazed by how stiff her neck was. In fact, every muscle in her body was aching. Not that surprising actually, all things considered.

Her mother and father were sitting at her bedside, just as she knew they would be. Father with his stern expression, Mother with her hands folded in her lap, same as al-

No, not same as always. They were all bandaged up. And her left eye was swollen.

"Mother? What happened to your hands?" Sarah was almost as surprised by the sound of her own voice as the sight of her mother's hands. It came out in a raspy croak, as if she hadn't spoken in years.

"Oh, this?" Mother said, hiding her hands in the folds of her dress. "That's not important, dear. How are you feeling?"

"I'm okay." Compared to last night, any level of comfort above 'Oh gods, please let me die,' could be considered 'okay.' "How did I get back here?"

Mother shot a glance Father's way, but he just sat there, his arms folded across his chest, not saying a word. Sarah was grateful for his silence at first, but now it was getting unnerving.

"Well, deary," Mother said, seeing that her husband wouldn't offer any input. "We were actually hoping you could tell us. We found you unconscious by the backdoor the same night you... went away."

The backdoor? No, that couldn't be. The last thing she could remember was the river. She was trying to figure out a way to cross it and then she... she fell.

Just thinking about it made her stomach turn. She was so sure she was going to die out there in the middle of nowhere, listening to the river snake its way through the earth, marking a boundary she would never cross.

But somehow, she did.

"Sarah?"

They were waiting for an answer, but what was she supposed to tell them? Not the truth, that's for damn sure.

"I was... outside. Hiding in the woods," Sarah said, trying to keep her story as simple as possible. She didn't trust herself to keep up with any complicated lies right now. "I stayed out there for as long as I could, but it got so cold, and I was hurt... so I came back."

She could see the tears welling up in her mother's eyes, making them look shiny. She must have been so worried...

She had almost forgotten about Father. "And what about that... problem, you had? Where is it now?"

His first words to her after she had almost died. Not 'Are you all right?' or 'Thank the gods you're still alive,' or even 'I'm so sorry for putting you through this.' No. He wants to know what happened to her 'problem.'

"He..." Sarah first looked to her mother, on the verge of tears, then to her father, scrutinizing her face with the utmost attention to detail, looking for the slightest signs of a lie. "He died. After it started raining."

Mother sobbed. It was a terrible sound, barely held in check. "Oh, Sarah. I'm so sorry!"

And now she could feel her own tears rise up, making her vision go blurry, and this was no act. For her, Andrew might as well really be dead. He was gone, and she would never see him again. "I tried to keep him warm, but..."

"You don't have to say any more, dear," Mother said, got up from her chair, and embraced her.

It was a very light hug, probably because Mother was afraid of hurting her even worse than she already was, but Sarah tried her best to return it. She couldn't sit up, but she managed to extricate her arms from all the blankets and wrap them around her mother's heaving shoulders. Together, they cried for the loss of the newest member of their little family, taken from them before he was even a day old, all while being watched by her father, patiently waiting for them to get it over with.

Sarah ignored him. She wouldn't even look at him. The mere glimpse of him caused a bitter, burning hatred to flare up in the pit of her stomach, so powerful it was frightening.

For now, it was good just to hold and to be held, to share her grief with someone who understood her pain. Mother and daughter, weeping for child and grandchild.

Apparently they were taking too long. "What did you do with it?" Father asked, indifferent to the tears of his daughter and wife.

"I buried him," she said, still not looking at him, grateful for the way her raspy, tear choked voice was hiding her anger.

"Where?"

"I du- don't know. It was dark. I couldn't see."

Please let him believe me, please let him believe me... Sarah prayed, hugging her mother as close as her weak arms and the thick layer of blankets would allow.

"So it's done."

And can't be undone...

Sarah relaxed her hold and Mother stood back up, wiping tears from her eyes. She opened her mouth, perhaps to say something, but shut it again as Father got up from his chair.

Sarah looked at the ceiling, but she could still see him in the periphery of her vision, staring down at her with his blank eyes.

"I know you hate me right now, Sarah," he said. "But you need to understand that everything I did last night was for you, and only you. I could see the path you were going down, and I had to stop it. I didn't want my daughter to be known as the mother of a bastard monster. Unlike you, I know how to think ahead. Unlike you, I can see the consequences of my actions. All those sleepless nights I spent worrying about you, wondering what would happen, knowing that each night that passed was another night closer to the time I would have to make a choice. I could see what would happen to you as if it were happening right in front of me. If you'd birthed a Fox, you would live a life of loneliness and regret. You'd move out and waste the best years of your life bringing it up. You'd live in squalor because no suitor would touch you with a crying infant pulling on your apron strings. And then you'd grow old and your son would go off to work a mill somewhere and you'd spend the rest of your days sitting in a cold rocking chair, regretting every decision you've ever made. That... Wolf thing you birthed would have made for an even worse story. It would have been cruel, not only to you, but to the baby as well. What do you think would have happened once the others saw it? I can guarantee you they wouldn't want their children to grow up alongside such a creature. They'd howl for its blood before the week's end, and they'd get it, too. Surely you must have seen that? Surely you must have known? What were you planning on doing, Sarah? Were you going to hide it in the basement its whole life? Is that what you had in mind?"

Not all Foxes are as unforgiving and closed-minded as you are, Father, she thought, but didn't say.

"Answer me, girl."

"No, Father. I wouldn't have locked him up in the basement like some animal. I would have raised him like any other Fox."

"Dammit, Sarah!" Father shouted and pounded his fist down on the bed, sending a small shockwave through the mattress and into her body, making it bounce, awakening the pain inside of her like a hornet's sting. "That was not a Fox! Stop pretending like it was!"

Sarah couldn't answer even if she wanted to. More and more hornets were stinging her with every breath she took, until it felt like there was a whole hive down there beneath the blankets.

"Sarah?"

She managed to squeak out a small moan, nothing more than a single, meaningless syllable, but it got the point across just fine.

"See what you did, Markus!?" Mother yelled. "I told you we should have called for a healer the moment she showed up!"

"No!" Father shouted. "No healers! We agreed on that!"

"_I_never agreed to that! I don't care what you say, our girl needs help, and I'll be damned if I'm just going to sit here and watch her suffer!"

"I forbid you!"

"What are you going to do, Markus? Hit me again?"

"I'll do more than just hit you, you disobedient -"

"Please stop," Sarah said, forcing the words out between gasps for breath. "Just stop it, Father, please..."

"Sarah, are you all right?"

She shook her head, unable to speak. The pain was growing so quickly...

"All right," Father said. "I'll go fetch a healer. Ben still owes me a favour, so I should be able to count on him to keep his trap shut. But before I go..." He leaned in close, and Sarah could smell the remnants of Othello's tavern still clinging to his clothes, the bittersweet aroma of wine and pipe smoke... "You understand that I love you, don't you, Sarah?"

She nodded, hoping that he would just leave.

But he didn't. He hugged her in almost the exact same way her mother had hugged her; lightly, barely touching, and he whispered, "I love you more than anything in this world, Sarah. That is the truth."

She looked over her father's shoulder, at her mother, standing by the door. She had the strangest look on her face, perhaps twisted by the way her swollen brow warped her expression, almost indecipherable, but it looked like...

...pity?

Say it, she mouthed.

Sarah didn't understand at first, but then it dawned on her. For the sake of peace, she would have to do something she thought she'd never be able to bring herself to do again. Words that were once so easy and natural now felt like ash on her tongue. Not meaning a single word of it, feeling like a traitor to her son, she said, "I love you, too. Father."

We all wear masks.

"I'll be back soon," he said, releasing his embrace. "Try not to move till then."

Sarah shook her head, and as she watched him disappear through the door, thoughts of the curse she had placed upon him swirled in her mind, the curse that took away all the love she once had for him. Who could have guessed it would be so effective? Because she felt nothing for her father anymore. Nothing at all.

All her love belonged to Andrew now, wherever he may be.

She missed him so much already.

She hoped he was okay.

Her baby boy.

"I never said...

*

... goodbye," Sarah said, wiping at her eyes with her handkerchief. "That's why I had to see you one last time before you left. That's why I followed you down that road. I kept telling myself that I shouldn't, that it couldn't really be you. I actually wanted to believe that, but I couldn't. Even though it's been twenty-three years, I knew it was you from the very first moment. I was so afraid..."

Ander was speechless. He didn't know how to react to all this. It was too much, too fast. All the information was just bouncing around in his head, colliding with his own thoughts, not fitting in anywhere. He didn't know whether to feel happy or sad or furious or -

"Ander?"

He couldn't sit still like this anymore. It felt like he was about to explode. He got up, needing to move, but this room was so damn small...

"Ander?"

... with his head almost brushing the ceiling, the walls so close together he could barely take more than three steps without having to change direction...

"Are you all right?"

"No! I'm not all right!" Ander said. He couldn't help himself. "For so many years, I've wondered why I was so different from all the other Wolves. I tried to figure it out, but... I just..." He sighed. "I'm sorry, Kai. I just... I need a minute."

"I understand."

Ander went to the window, his head buzzing, and looked outside. From this angle he could only see a small corner of the garden, the edge lined by a row of flower bushes, alternating between red and yellow. At this time of year, many of them were starting to form seed pods, but most were still in full bloom, peeking out from between the green leaves in miniature explosions of colour. There were wasps, here and there, going about their business. Each day was exactly the same for them. They didn't have to worry about suddenly questioning everything about themselves. They were always the same. Exactly the same. Never different.

Ander rested his forearm on top of the window frame and leaned his forehead against it. Looking outside, but not really seeing anything, he allowed his thoughts to flow through his mind, unregulated, unrestricted.

Andrew. That was his Fox name. It felt so strange, the idea of it. Wolves don't give their cubs names right away, like Foxes do. They wait until the child shows talent in a specific area, or develops certain personality traits, or does something noteworthy to earn a name. Until then they're just known as 'Ensa' (first son), 'Dosa' (second son), 'Drisa' (third son), and so on. Same with girls. 'Enka,' 'Doka,' 'Drika.'

Now it turns out that the name he was born with wasn't the same as the name he earned. 'Andrew' and 'Ander.' 'Strong' and 'Different.'

What if... what if Father chose the name 'Ander' for him because it was so close to what Sarah had wanted, even if the meaning was completely different?

Father. What was he doing out in the woods in the middle of the night, and why were his hands covered with blood? Something must have happened that night. Something bad. Perhaps even worse than what Sarah's father had wanted to do to him as a cub.

Markus. His 'grandfather.' A new kind of anger started to rise in Ander's gut, low and resentful, making him dig his claws into the window frame, carving shallow trenches in the wood. As the shavings drifted down to the floor in spiral slivers, a single thought kept repeating itself in his mind...

One Fox.

It was One Fox that caused all this. One Fox that put him on this path. One Fox that decided he didn't deserve to live. One Fox that held the power to change everything. What would have happened to him if things had been different? How would his life have turned out if he had been permitted to stay with his real mother, here, in Grovenglen? A paradise where all were same of mind? Or a hell where he would have been even more of a freak than he was back home with his tribe? There was no way of knowing. Ander's fate was decided for him the moment his grandfather left his mark upon his neck, a hand of blood that sealed his destiny forever, locking him into a life of savagery and death, a life surrounded by those who craved violence and nothing else, who fed off it day and night and only grew more ravenous. A life where everything he hated was considered ecstasy.

A life where he would be forever different.

Ander closed his eyes and tried to keep himself from losing it completely. He wanted nothing more than to confront the One Fox, to ask him why. Why did he do this to his own grandchild? Why did he almost kill his own daughter to get at him? Why was there always so much hate and pain?

Why?

But that was something he could never do. Markus has been in his grave for many years. He would never have to answer Ander's questions or anyone else's, because he was dead and his family's dirty little secrets never came out.

Maybe things would have been better if they had stayed that way.

Ander opened his eyes and the first thing he saw was a blue butterfly on the window sill, just on the other side of the glass. It sat perfectly still, except for its wings; those it moved up and down, very slowly, as was the way with butterflies.

Butterflies weren't like wasps. Wasps were all the same. Sure, there may be different kinds, but they all had the same stripes of yellow and black, the same venomous stingers. Butterflies were all different. Different sizes, different shapes, different colours and patterns. Even the way they grew was different. They start out as caterpillars, but then they cover themselves with a thick layer of silk, or grow a second skin, like armour, to protect themselves from the winter months. Then, when the days grow warm again, they emerge as butterflies, completely different from what they were before. Butterflies don't mind being different. They embrace it. It's what makes them them.

So maybe... maybe being different wasn't such a bad thing? If given a choice, he'd rather be a freak among the Wolves than a fellow killing machine. But if the Wolves were like wasps, and the Foxes like butterflies, where did he fit in?

Ander didn't know. Maybe it didn't even matter. What he did know was that, sometimes, wasps kill butterflies.

Maybe it was time to stop caring about what everyone else thought. Maybe it was time to stop brooding over what might have been. Maybe it was time to stop blaming everything on the past. Maybe it was time to start focussing on the things that mattered, the things that he wanted in life.

But what do I want? Ander wasn't sure if anyone could ever fully answer that question for themselves, no matter how many years they walk this earth, but he had a good enough idea to get started.

He didn't want the Foxes to die. He has found a deep kind of love here that he has never known before, completely open and accepting.

Kiana. From the moment he first saw her in that cage to the moment they said their goodbyes, every second he shared with her has been elevated above all others. He truly loved her, and leaving her behind was both the hardest and the easiest thing he ever had to do. Hardest, because he loved her. Easiest, for the same reason.

Love.

He didn't want her to die.

But... he didn't want the Wolves to die, either. The years he spent with them were difficult, each highlighted by days of blood and violence without number. They fought for land, for food, for possessions, for honour, for females, sometimes just for the hell of it. No matter how weak, no matter how nonsensical, as long as there was an acceptable reason for it, any amount of bloodshed was met with cheer and adulation.

But not murder. Oh no.

With murder came judgement. It's something he will have to face himself, perhaps before day's end. He will have to stand before the entire tribe, plead his case, and await judgement for what he did to Banno, his brother.

Thinking of Banno made him think of Hezzi as well, and that's why he didn't want the Wolves to die. Hezzi was a pure Wolf, through and through, but he had a kindness in him that made Ander's life bearable, even within those dark walls. And Hezzi wasn't the only one. There were others, Wolves who worked so hard to make the tribe a better place, even if their efforts went unnoticed by most.

There were Wolves like Renna, who once came to him in tears with an injured owl in her hands, its wing broken. She said she'd found it by the North gate, struggling to get airborne, never making it more than a few feet before crashing to the ground. She didn't know who else to turn to, since all the other Wolves believed owls to be bad omens. Ander kept it in his tent because he was the least likely to get unexpected visitors, and Renna would come every day with scraps of meat pilfered from all over the village. Together, in secret, they nursed that owl back to health in only three weeks.

There were Wolves like Danado, who once walked up to him, completely out of the blue, and told him that if the tribe only listened to half of the things he said with even half an ear, this would be a much better place to live.

Ander didn't know what to say to that, but even of he had, Danado didn't give him time to respond. He simply walked on without a word, as if nothing had happened.

There were other occurrences like that. So rare, but even more precious because of it, shining like gemstones in a slab of granite. There was goodness to be found in that tribe, even though you had to look very carefully to see it.

No matter what happens, Ander will always be a Wolf, and Wolves are family.

Wait! Family... maybe that's the answer...?

Ander turned around, an idea half-formed in his head, but the sight of Sarah, his birthmother, gave him pause. She was crying again, silent tears running down her wracked face, her whole body shuddering as she struggled to keep her hitching breaths under control.

"Kai? What's wr-"

"You must hate me!" she wailed, burying her face in her handkerchief, muffling her words, making them difficult to understand. "I heard about what they almost did to Kiana. I heard so many things... and if even a tenth of them are true... Oh, Ander, I'm just... It was my fault you had to go through all that! I'm so -"

"No. Don't say you're sorry."

Sarah sniffed and looked up from her handkerchief with glassy, bloodshot eyes. "Yes," she whispered. "It's far too late for an apology, I know. I just don't know how else to -"

Ander crossed the room in two quick steps, took Sarah by the hand, and before she could even realize what was happening to her, he pulled her to her feet and into an embrace twenty-three years overdue.

Ander could feel the heat from her tears radiating against his chest, still flowing freely despite how their owner seemed to have frozen completely, not moving even a single muscle. If it wasn't for the warmth of her breath and the frantic beating of her heart, Ander might as well have been hugging a statue.

"Kai, you have nothing to be sorry for," Ander said, looking down at the top her head, wishing he could see her face. "If it weren't for you, I'd be dead now. You saved my life, Kai. From the bottom of my heart, I thank you."

"But..." she sniffed. "I -"

"I thank you, Kai. I thank you..." Ander squeezed her just a little bit tighter, her slender frame feeling so fragile under his touch. "I -

*

• thank you."

After waiting twenty-three years, Sarah was finally able to hug her son once again. She wrapped her shaking arms around his waist and she cried, holding him just as tightly as he was holding her. For so many years she tried to forget everything about that horrid night. For so many years she trained her thoughts not to wander to the other side of the mountain, to where her secret son was growing up without her. She forged herself a mask out of secrecy and shame and she painted it with false joy. She wore that mask until she couldn't even remember putting it on in the first place.

But now, after so many years, her secret son was back. He came back and he tore that mask right off her face. A part of her still couldn't believe that he was really here, that he was holding her tight, that they were actually touching. She didn't want this moment to ever end, but she knew it had to, and she knew she couldn't put it off any longer. She left him once without saying goodbye, but she will not make that mistake for a second time. Maybe, if she tried hard enough, she could find a way where she wouldn't have to say goodbye at all. She had to try.

"Don't go back," she said, the folly of what she was doing all too apparent, but she couldn't help it.

"I have to."

She wanted to argue against him, to tell him that he didn't owe anything to anyone, that Fate brought him back to her for a reason. She wanted to ask him why he was so intent on throwing his life away after she had sacrificed so much.

But she already knew the answer to that one.

He was being strong, not just for himself, or even for her, but for everyone. He was everything she saw in him when she first gave him his name. He was being Andrew. "But what will they do to you?" she asked, looking up at his face, not even trying to hide her tears anymore.

"I don't know," he said, but the way his eyes shifted to the side at the last second told her he must have at least some idea, and that it wasn't good. "Kai?"

"Yes?"

"After I leave, I want you to find Kiana. She'll probably be at home. I want you to tell her that I do not intend to die. Those exact words. Can you do that for me?"

"You don't intend...?" Sarah wiped at her eyes with one hand while fiercely maintaining her hug with the other. "But how? Do you have a plan?"

"Maybe, but I can't be sure. There's something I have to find out first, something important. You have given me a great truth today, Kai, but it was only half the story. I need to know the whole truth, and there's only one Wolf who holds that knowledge."

"Kadai..."

"My father."

Things were moving along too quickly now. She could see the inevitable Goodbye rushing up to meet them. They were together for only the briefest time on that stormy night when the Fates cruelly ripped them apart, and now the exact same thing was about to happen again. She didn't know if she could go through this. She couldn't lose him! Not again!

"Kai, I can't promise you I'll come back, but I will promise you I will do my very best."

"Don't say that."

"Kai?"

"If you want to make me a promise just to make me feel better, then do it properly! Promise me you will come back! No matter what! You hear me!?"

Ander chuckled. It was a sad sound. "I promise I will come back, no matter what."

"That's better."

Ander gave her one final squeeze, then broke their embrace. As he stepped away, it felt like a piece of her was going with him, and she felt even more empty because of it.

"Goodbye, Kai," he said, one hand resting on the door that would lead him to the world outside, and eventually to what lay beyond.

"Goodbye..." she said, watching him open the door, then, too softly to hear, she added, "Andrew..."

*

The sun, which had been throwing its first rays of the morning onto the earth when he left Kiana and her family, was now high in the sky, shining straight down with a mid-afternoon glare, making the shadows small and faded. He would have to move quickly to make up for lost time.

"Andrew..." His birth name, whispered so softly, barely more than a breath passing over her lips, but Ander heard it just the same. He turned back, not knowing what he was supposed to say, just knowing that he wanted to say something.

He was just in time to see the door slowly swing shut on its hinges, the dimness inside shrinking down to a sliver until it closed with a soft click. Maybe it was the breeze, maybe it was Sarah herself. Either way, the click of that latch carried something heavy with it, something Ander wouldn't have expected from a sound so innocent.

It carried the weight of finality.

What's done is done.

This chapter of his life, for good and bad, for love and hate, for acceptance and rejection; it was done.

Ander closed his eyes, took a deep breath, opened them again. "I'm coming home, Father," he said, looking to the West, at the Cora looming over the valley; still there, waiting patiently, standing as a constant reminder of where he came from and where he must go. "I'm coming home."

---

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