Her name was Elaine and she wore a blue cotton sundress. The blue of
it matched her eyes and the clear sky she walked under. Her name was
Elaine and she was a vision of beauty. She carried a basket with her, I
don't know full of what.
Elaine is my sister, but she doesn't
know me. She doesn't know that I live in the forest and watch her
walking on the path. She doesn't know what I am. She doesn't know what
our mother is. But I know. And I'm watching.
So I followed my
sister, tracking her along the path, watching. She was careful in how
she walked, never tripping once. But her grace paled compared to my own,
to that of our mother. I paced her, watching her golden curls bounce
lightly with each step.
The forest was where I lived. Thin here,
with the sky above us, it deepened the further one got into it, becoming
denser and more foliated, leaves decorating the trees and shrubs along
the path, the path itself narrowing and splitting several times. She
stuck to the center path, then went left, then down the center again.
We
were not alone. In the forest there were only the animals and myself
normally, but men roamed the forest, crashing between paths in a clumsy
way. Elaine did not notice, though. I noticed. To me, they were loud and
obvious. To them, I was as invisible as I was to Elaine.
She
was not invisible to them, though. All around her they circled like
wolves around an Elk. I didn't see why they didn't just attack like a
wounded doe. But I wouldn't let them. I circled around the men circling
around her, quiet as if I was nothing itself.
First the weakest
of them, the one they would not notice missing. I crept up on him
slowly. He didn't see me, not that he would have, intent as he was on
Elaine. I came up behind him and gripped him with a strength he was much
too weak to resist, my hand over his mouth. My other arm jerked
quickly, the claws of my hand ripping through his throat. He gurgled out
of the tears I had just made, tried to struggle, and then fell limp.
I
crept up behind the next man, who was more observant. He managed to
turn before I punched him in the throat with one befurred fist. He fell
clutching his collapsed throat as I stood over him and punched him again
in the face, knocking him out. He made choking sounds for a short time,
then fell silent and still.
Four more men. One by one I picked
them off, until I got to the one that was obviously in charge. To my
surprise he noticed me and turned on me, a knife in his hand. He did not
seem shocked to see me. If anything, he seemed to have expected me,
expertly swinging that knife calmly. As I dodged he pressed his attack,
slicing into me lightly. Ignoring the pain, I reached out and grabbed
him by the wrist of the knife hand, twisting. He dropped his knife and I
dove at him, my jaws encircling his throat, cutting with my teeth,
crushing with force beyond that of a mere human. He fell.
There
was only one actual casualty as I saw it: Elaine's innocence. She had
seen the whole of the last fight. She was frozen in fear, too scared
even to scream. She had seen a monster slaughter these men in front of
her and now the monster was standing, staring at her. Her cursed
half-sister. Would she grow up to be a daughter of the moon like I was?
The curse didn't affect her like it did me. So I did the only thing I
could do, I put my head back and howled, hoping our mother would hear
us.
Oh how I longed to explain to my little sister,
that our mother had mated with another of the curse and it turned out a
twisted monster like me. Unable to take human form, unable to speak the
human tongue, unable to do anything but live out my days in this forest.
Mother had stopped visiting me years ago, as soon as I could fend for
myself. But I knew my sister from all the times I watched my mother
escort her through this forest as a child. Now the child was a woman and
I was still a monster.
I turned and ran, unwilling to frighten
her anymore. Our mother would be here soon to comfort my sister. Maybe
she would explain what she had seen. Doubtful.
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