The Curse Skips No One

Daddy must leave while the full moon is still young. Peter and I are ready, but for now we must be quiet. Grandmother sits snoring in her chair by the fire. We do not like being quiet because we can hear my mother crying in the other room. Our only light is from the fireplace, and Peter frets with his gun, but I can only sit and listen. I feel like I felt when I was a baby and my father was home. I heard my mother cry out and I was afraid. Of course I now know that he was not hurting her, but I still remember that feeling.

Tonight for the first time, my father will take my brother and me with him. We must be in the forest before he changes from two legs to four, and the great wood is farther than it used to be. When I was small, I could hear the howling of the wolves at night. Now that the forest is pushed back, I miss listening to the singing of my siblings. Daddy says that once we are in the wild, he will show us where his gold is hidden. But I don’t care about gold gained from tearing out the throats of fat merchants. I am excited about meeting my other brothers and my sisters.

This month was my first time of the moon, and last night, my father talked to me about what he is. He told me not to have fear because I am woman now. Even though the curse is always passed down through the female, only the males go through the change. The curse skips a generation and it has spared Peter and me. Peter and his children will be forever free, but my sons, if any be not stillborn, will run with the pack. I think Daddy wants me to be a nun and put an end to the suffering in this family, but I know more than he realizes, and already I look forward to having my own pup, even though his life be short. The heartbreak etched deep into my grandmother's face as she watches her son age in wolf years is no greater than the love that also beams from her eyes.

My brother has bought a gun, which he insists that I call a rifle and not a musket. Already he is getting a reputation as a fine marksman. I know that, even though he is safe, he too will defend the pack in his own way, and he believes in the power of taking up arms. Two weeks ago, a traveling gunsmith came around and offered to mold special bullets of silver for him. As the gunsmith was leaving-without a sale of course-Peter pointed his rifle at the man’s back and whispered, “Soon.” My father does not like firearms of any sort, but Peter insists on taking the weapon into the forest with him.

Grandmother has awakened. She calls me to her and I kneel by her chair. “Go not into the forest,” she says, “but hide your pretty face in a nunnery, there to pray by day and by night.” She sees the defiance in me. “The curse skips no one. Better to lie down cold and chaste in a convent than to suffer miscarriage after miscarriage, stillbirth after stillbirth. So many tiny graves. And if a son does survive to manhood, from then he will grow old quickly and die before you, and there is no greater curse for a mother than to outlive her children.” She cups my face in her hands. “You have always had perfect memory. Soon you will have foresight as well, but all you will see is tragedy.” I am jolted by a sudden vision of Peter’s lifeless body hanging from the gallows. Crows are pecking at his eyes. Just as quickly, I am drawn out of the vision by my grandmother’s warm tears falling onto my cheeks. “The curse skips no one,” she sobs. “Do not go into the forest my beautiful, beautiful child.”

Daddy comes out of the other room. He is white-bearded and when he is the form of a man, he looks older than Grandmother. I can almost see him aging, and I think that perhaps he is afraid. His face clouds over at the sight of Peter’s gun, but it is to me that he speaks. “It is a cold night and it is enough for Peter to come. You may remain here where it is warm, Celeste.”

I leap to my feet and answer quickly. “I’m going with you, Daddy!” For a moment something that I have not seen before, something that is neither sad nor fierce, washes across his face. It is not love, or maybe it is love forged in something else – pride! I have perfect memory and I know more than he realizes. I know that he is never coming back, but I remember when the great forest was not so far away, and my father would come home a couple of days before the full moon and stay a couple of days after. I remember when he was a young wolf. He would bring us pretty lambs to eat, and I would pull his ears. I am newly a woman, but I understand the power that is in my womb, and if the curse skips no one, then I will face whatever the curse brings head-on, standing shoulder to shoulder with all my brothers and sisters.