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Authors: Lee Ann Sontheimer Murphy
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are my mother, will they not, my lady? I fear that they will. Moreover, in forty, will you enjoy passing as my grandmother? That is unthinkable. I cannot bear to watch you age, to see that lovely hair turn gray, that smooth skin wrinkle while I remain the same. There is no future for us together and that grieves me. You are my perfect soul mate.”
If she could deal with his disability, the fact that he was a werewolf under the full moon, she could handle a little aging issue.
“I don’t mind.”
Darien sighed. “You will in time. I know it all too well from my own life. In my early years in America, I met and loved a young lady. I thought then that we could adjust to it all but it didn’t work that way. After time passed, just a few short years, she could not bear the fact that she would age and I would not. So she left me, saying goodbye in a letter, telling me all that she couldn’t say to my face.”
Jealousy squirmed like a snake in her belly, another turbulent emotion added to the already volatile mix.
“What was her name?” It didn’t matter but Stella had to know.
“Anna,” Darien said, in a flat voice. “You have no need to be jealous. Although I loved her at the time, what I felt for her was but a patch of what I feel for you. Watching her, however, draw away from me in slow steps, a little more each year, hurt. When we met, we were both twenty-seven. Five years later, I still was – I always will be – the same but she had aged in little ways. She noted it and it would have become more obvious as time passed so we parted.”
“Oh.”
Darien continued. “Beyond the age difference, there is more.
How long will you enjoy dreading the full moon each month, waiting for the horrible night to arrive?”
Instead of answering the question, she asked another,
“Do you change just when the moon is full?”
“Yes. It is an excruciating process and afterward, although I seldom remember any of what I did as a wolf, I am exhausted and ill.
Transforming leaves me feeling as if I have influenza.”
“I’m sorry, Darien. What can I do to make you feel better?”
He shook his head from side to side. “Nothing, darling. Just leave me in my misery.”
“No.” That was one thing Stella could not do. There must be another option, she thought, and searched for some scrap of folklore that might provide some way to reconcile their impossible situation.
“You know that I studied folklore and superstitions during the Dark Ages. Aren’t there ways to reverse your condition or a cure? I seem to remember some old tales and methods. Did you ever try any of them?”
He raised his arm to put around her shoulders, wincing as he did.
“There are stories but I doubt any of them are valid. I tried a few of the simple ones, fasting and kneeling in prayer for days. That offers nothing but slow starvation. That almost killed me in 1860. I returned home, weak and suffering from malnutrition. Another time, soon after I became a werewolf, I asked my brother for his help and we tried something else you may have heard about. He spoke my baptismal name aloud three times and then he struck me on the forehead with the butt of a knife. Nothing happened except that I got a beastly headache. If he had hit me much harder, I might have suffered a concussion.”
“What about rolling in the dew where the wolfsbane grows?”
Stella asked. It sounded more than a little lame and much too simple but it was one of the ideas she dredged up from Medieval folklore.
Darien gave her a rueful smile that didn’t reach his eyes. “That one does not work, either, my dear. I caught a chill from the damp and cold morning air. I am immortal but I can get sick and I did.”
“Isn’t there anything else?” Stella asked. Something from the pages of an old book, so fragile that she had to study it in the library reference room, came to mind. “I remember reading that if a werewolf that has never tasted human blood plunges into free
If she could deal with his disability, the fact that he was a werewolf under the full moon, she could handle a little aging issue.
“I don’t mind.”
Darien sighed. “You will in time. I know it all too well from my own life. In my early years in America, I met and loved a young lady. I thought then that we could adjust to it all but it didn’t work that way. After time passed, just a few short years, she could not bear the fact that she would age and I would not. So she left me, saying goodbye in a letter, telling me all that she couldn’t say to my face.”
Jealousy squirmed like a snake in her belly, another turbulent emotion added to the already volatile mix.
“What was her name?” It didn’t matter but Stella had to know.
“Anna,” Darien said, in a flat voice. “You have no need to be jealous. Although I loved her at the time, what I felt for her was but a patch of what I feel for you. Watching her, however, draw away from me in slow steps, a little more each year, hurt. When we met, we were both twenty-seven. Five years later, I still was – I always will be – the same but she had aged in little ways. She noted it and it would have become more obvious as time passed so we parted.”
“Oh.”
Darien continued. “Beyond the age difference, there is more.
How long will you enjoy dreading the full moon each month, waiting for the horrible night to arrive?”
Instead of answering the question, she asked another,
“Do you change just when the moon is full?”
“Yes. It is an excruciating process and afterward, although I seldom remember any of what I did as a wolf, I am exhausted and ill.
Transforming leaves me feeling as if I have influenza.”
“I’m sorry, Darien. What can I do to make you feel better?”
He shook his head from side to side. “Nothing, darling. Just leave me in my misery.”
“No.” That was one thing Stella could not do. There must be another option, she thought, and searched for some scrap of folklore that might provide some way to reconcile their impossible situation.
“You know that I studied folklore and superstitions during the Dark Ages. Aren’t there ways to reverse your condition or a cure? I seem to remember some old tales and methods. Did you ever try any of them?”
He raised his arm to put around her shoulders, wincing as he did.
“There are stories but I doubt any of them are valid. I tried a few of the simple ones, fasting and kneeling in prayer for days. That offers nothing but slow starvation. That almost killed me in 1860. I returned home, weak and suffering from malnutrition. Another time, soon after I became a werewolf, I asked my brother for his help and we tried something else you may have heard about. He spoke my baptismal name aloud three times and then he struck me on the forehead with the butt of a knife. Nothing happened except that I got a beastly headache. If he had hit me much harder, I might have suffered a concussion.”
“What about rolling in the dew where the wolfsbane grows?”
Stella asked. It sounded more than a little lame and much too simple but it was one of the ideas she dredged up from Medieval folklore.
Darien gave her a rueful smile that didn’t reach his eyes. “That one does not work, either, my dear. I caught a chill from the damp and cold morning air. I am immortal but I can get sick and I did.”
“Isn’t there anything else?” Stella asked. Something from the pages of an old book, so fragile that she had to study it in the library reference room, came to mind. “I remember reading that if a werewolf that has never tasted human blood plunges into free
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