Kate had spoken of a village before but as both wolves approach the edge of the wood, the only building that came into view is that of an old farmhouse with a faded red barn to its side. Even looking into the distance, Ethan can't seem to find another humanly made structure suggesting a village nearby. His concerns of wolves being seen in the village abruptly turn grim the further he follows Kate into the open space of the farm. In his village, wolves were seen as monstrous beasts that served no purpose amongst man other than to cause chaos. Wolves only came to take livestock and other times steal children away from their beds, causing great strain for the people trying to live there. Ethan knows well what men do to wolves that venture too near to men's homes. His stomach twists uncomfortably not knowing what to expect from this place.
"The girl that knows me lives here in that house. Her name is Callie. Oh, I can't wait for you to meet her!" Kate's words snap Ethan out of his thoughts, but the pit twisting in his stomach remains unchanged.
There's an open meadow closed in by a rotting fence just beyond the barn, but other than that there's nothing but long overgrown grass and trees further off. Perhaps Kate mistook the village to be farther away from this farmhouse, or maybe she doesn't quite understand what a village is.
From a distance, the house looked grey, but now that they're practically a few yards from the porch he can tell at one point the siding used to be white. The house must have been withered down by months, maybe even years of weather. Vines and other vegetation overtook the house as well, claiming it back to the earth. The barn is no different, lacking any rich coloring with wood that seems to be rotting away just like the fence. This place isn't suitable for living. There's no way a family can still be living here.
Ethan watches as Kate rears up on her hind legs to paw at the frail wooden door. She whines loud enough to be heard before sitting back down with her ears perking forward. He should feel panicked at the thought of a man barging out with a loaded shotgun but he doesn't. The house looks abandoned, and Ethan can't tell which thought is worse. The people living here had long passed or somehow they are still here.
"Kate?" He says more in a whisper.
The she-wolf's right ear folds back towards Ethan before turning her head to smile, "No need to worry. Callie's family is nice folk. Now we wait for someone to answer the door." As she turns her attention back to the door, Ethan grimaces. She seems so detached from the obvious abandonment of the place but for some reason, she's acting as if everything is normally this way. If a family is still living here, why haven't they fixed up their home or the barn? And if this is a farmhouse then where are all the animals? He hasn't seen or heard any cattle, pigs, or sheep since they've arrived. He hasn't even heard the clucking of chickens or cry from a rooster. Moments pass and soon Ethan grows more worrisome. Kate, however, doesn't falter.
Finally, the silence is broken when Kate suggests, "Maybe they're at the market. It does seem like a nice day to travel. We can stay in the barn until they come back."
"The m-mar-ket?" Ethan stutters, but she leaves the porch hastily without a response, sprinting towards the barn. Her actions startle the brown wolf more than they did before. Seeing Kate vanish into the barn, he waits for a moment for her to reappear to ask if he's going to follow, but she doesn't come back out.
He hesitates but decides to take a look around for a bit and maybe find clues as to what exactly happened here. Everything about this place feels off. It's so quiet, unlike a farm should be with all the animals. There's only the wind brushing against the grasses and trees, a creek and groan from the house every so often maybe, but that's all there is. This feeling in his stomach, it's the same feeling he got during a few of his hunts. Those that have stuck with him that is still fresh in his mind, like a bloody curse.
Ethan shivers at one in particular but continues walking around to the back of the house and further out. His concerns suddenly surface to a bitter truth as he reaches a small wooden post stuck in the earth beneath an oak tree. It is just under his height with some writing etched into the wood, now withered and barely readable, but he's not blind.
It's a grave.
Ethan's chest falls heavy seeing the writing. He can only make out a number and a few letters to a name. Seven, and the letters C-A-L. The rest is too faded to make out, but that doesn't matter. Seeing the grave before him makes the air in his lungs seize once more and his eyes sting with tears as a terrible memory crosses his mind.
That night the brown wolf rests curled up at the far end of the barn, lost in his thoughts. He had long tired himself trying to speak and the irritation only exhausted him. The barn is deathly quiet. Even with one of the doors that had fallen off long ago, the outside remains soundless. It's another thing the brown wolf finds odd amongst others. His heart skips a sharp panic rhythm hearing Kate's voice break through the silence.
"Ethan? Are you awake? I need to tell you something."
He doesn't bother to move yet answers anyway, "Hmm?"
She's quiet for a long while, so long Ethan starts questioning whether or not he heard her voice. Finally, she says, "nevermind."
Ethan waits, not knowing what to say, but she doesn't say anything else for a long time. Hours pass and the brown wolf continues laying stiff in the same position, with his mind being a prison of his own worrisome thoughts. Sleep never felt so difficult to grasp. At least before he was able to drift off for some time but now sleep feels nearly impossible. At one point he eventually drifts off only to jolt awake by a nonexistent sound, a sound that came from inside his head, a memory. Ethan can feel his heart racing and he growls wanting to rip out every thought in his head just so he could find some peace.
It wasn't just his mind keeping him awake though. Sometime during Ethan's endless attempts to sleep, Kate stirs awake and leaves the barn. He doesn't follow after her, however, thinking nothing else of it other than Kate needing to go use the loo or whatever a wolf does outside when it needs to shit or piss. He growls again mostly at himself trying to hush all the damn thoughts pounding against his skull. His thoughts keep pushing elsewhere and yet everywhere, questioning everything, whether or not he's even alive or dead. Liquor at least numbed the pain and muffled his thoughts but he doesn't have that escape here. Before entering the barn, Ethan thought that going to sleep would maybe help clear his head so that he could answer those troubling thoughts, but he remains restless all through the night and into the morning.
Hearing the sound of birds oddly quenches the brown wolf's uneasy soul for not a sound was heard all night. The silence was nearly unbearable knowing the unknown was out there waiting in the darkness. The night is usually loud with night creatures waking up from a day's rest but here, wherever here is, the night creatures are silent. Ethan suddenly understands what Kate had meant before about the woods being scary at night. Maybe it was a mixture of silence and not knowing what was out there that truly made it all the more terrifying. At least his thoughts are somewhat calm hearing the birds sing their morning songs. But now he's tired. Maybe, just maybe he can fall asleep.
"Wake up!" Ethan jerks clumsily to his paws, startled by the she-wolf's loud voice, "Callie's family brought home food for us!" She exclaims.
He can hear Kate's words echoing in the back of his head, reflecting his rapid heartbeat, knowing well that the young girl is long gone and her family possibly sharing the same fate. He can't seem to understand how Kate can't see the situation clearly and even if he wants to tell her the truth, how can he? How will she react? Will she even believe him or blindly follow the lie that Callie is alive and well?
"Come on! Come on! You must be starving!"
Starving is an understatement, he grunts subconsciously to himself but follows her out.
Leaving the barn, Ethan follows Kate around back behind the farmhouse only to stop abruptly at the sight of red. Blood, hours old at most, bathed the grass in a twisted trail that led to an even twisted-shaped body. What remains of the corpse brings back vivid memories of a stag Ethan once clipped, but it's the spotted pelt that really makes the brown wolf shutter. It's the same spotted deer from the small group he had seen just yesterday laying in a mangled half-eaten state. His stomach heaves all too quickly sending the brown wolf vomiting what little has been bound to his gut. To his shock the taste of iron drips through his teeth and down his tongue, trickling reddish-brown liquid onto the grasses.
"What's wrong?" Ethan hears her say, but he can't look at her right now. This knot twisting in his gut; the thought of even looking at her immediately makes it worse and he's not sure why.
"I'm fine, " he manages to say steadily after a moment. "W-where is eh-everyone?"
The family is nowhere to be seen but Kate blows it off with "They're probably just sleeping. It must have been a long journey, and they brought the food sometime during the night while we slept."
No human did this, he tells himself. He remembers seeing Kate leave the barn, but he doesn't recall her ever coming back. And her tone is off...
Ethan has hunted and killed plenty of wild game back in the forests around his village so he was used to the sight of blood, but still, he felt a tremor move down his spine. Everything about the kill seemed unnatural and it bothered him that Kate was acting unaffected by the gruesome slaughter she called 'food'. As hungry as he is, Ethan can't stomach eating raw meat especially since it didn't look fresh.
"I'm not really hungry," he lies.
"Ah, I see. You're probably used to eating cooked meat." She said while giving him a thoughtful smile despite how unfriendly her smile looked.
Remind me never to smile at any person to avoid getting shot at, he thinks to himself.
Kate begins to move away from the mangled deer carcass and urges for the brown wolf to follow, "I guess we should find a market then. They'll have food that's good to eat."
"Is this mah-mar-ket, " he swallows, "market, close to where the village is at, the one you men-ch, mentioned yesterday?" He grumbles at the words but at least his speech is improving. Abruptly Kate comes to a halt and stills. Puzzled by her actions he reaches her side and slowly she turns her head, staring at him with the same look of confusion.
"A village? What village?" She asked him. Kate looks completely honest in Ethan's eyes, completely taken back by his question.
"You spoke of a village yesterday. Instead, you le-lead me here and I reckoned maybe you meant 'of a village nearby'." He adds shortly before noticing an odd look in her eyes. Whatever it was, the look vanishes just as quickly as it appeared.
Kate smiles again, that creepy offsetting smile. "Come on, cooked meat won't just appear out of nowhere! Let's head to the market!"
The she-wolf bolts leaving Ethan in the dust sighing tiredly. If only he had gotten good rest last night for the journey ahead. Several hours pass by as Ethan follows Kate through uncharted woods. Several hours without spotting a single-man-built structure, or anything familiar. There were times Ethan would stop to drink from a stream or simply rest and Kate would wait patiently for him to collect himself before pushing on. They've crossed at least four different streams before Ethan recognized the log they were on covered with moss stuck between the same three boulders. It was the very first stream they came across and his suspicion was proven true once they ventured further down into a familiar yellow-flowered meadow.
He stops walking and states it rather than questioning her, "We're going in circles."
"What?" Her response is yet again innocent, childlike, but she also comes to a stop and they lock eyes.
"Don't you recognize this meadow?"
Kate glances around shyly at first then slowly a grin forms on her face, "Oh, I know where we are! There's a village just over there!"
"Hey, wait-!" Ethan tries to stop her from running again but she had already gained distance. All he can do is limp-run after her. Just as he breaks through the tree line he stumbles to a halt, his eyes widening.
"This is Callie's house! Come on let's go see if they're home! I'm sure Callie is going to love you. She surely loves me a lot." Her words choke his very breath. All the hours spent walking with her in those woods thinking she would lead him to civilization, and instead they've been walking around in circles. And now he's brought back to the farmhouse, to this godforsaken place. And Kate, there's something terribly wrong with her, with the way she thinks. Memories of last night fill the brown wolf with dread. Kate had wanted to tell him something but never did. She forgot about the village and has been leading him astray, so confused yet smiling as if she had forgotten something without realizing it.
Memory loss… A terrible fate for someone so young, at least Ethan believes her to be young, at least younger than himself. His thoughts trail back to the little farm girl and his heart feels heavy with remorse. Even if he told her would she even remember by tomorrow?
"Kate…?" Gently Ethan approached the she-wolf waiting at the front door of the house, her tail wagging frantically and ears perked forward. Her expression remained joyful, excited even but it only put more weight in his chest. "I need to show you something."
The sun was setting as the two wolves sat side by side in front of the wooden post marking a grave just behind the barn. Neither wolf spoke a word, but instead, let the remaining woodland sounds drown out the silence suffocating between them. Warm colors filled the sky by the time Kate let out a shaky breath.
"I don't understand…" Her voice is soft, so fragile as if the slightest touch could shatter her into dust. With so much joy shown in her eyes and appearance, seeing Kate now made Ethan's heartthrob but it had to be done. She had to see it with her own eyes, to know the truth.
Ethan knew death all too well and lived alongside grief for years before coming to the realization, to accept the loss and how cruel the world worked. Still, the memories of loved ones leave pain in his chest, no, It was a hollowness that ached while his heart continues to beat.
He only nods when Kate grows silent again. She's in shock, he tells himself.
"…I remember playing with her not too long ago." She whispers, a hint of disbelief in her voice. Denial, he tells himself again.
Glancing her way softly he asks her, "How long ago was this?" When she doesn't answer he continues with the same soft voice, "This grave has been here for a long time Kate. What do you remember?"
"She was alright when I left…and then I found you and…" She cuts herself off just as her ears fall back. Her eyes bleed sorrowful tears before her voice spoke unevenly trying to finish the words, "I thought maybe they left for a short while. They've done it before….for supplies. This tree...I-I don't remember it being here..."
"Kate?" She glances into his eyes barely able to see him clearly from all the tears. "I am truly sorry."