Werewolf Knight 3, page 3
“Morning, friends,” Sybil said as she entered our room.
The witch was wearing her usual long green dress, but this time she’d accompanied it with a blue cloak to accommodate the winter cold. She looked around the room for a moment and finally spotted her boots.
“You didn’t happen to lace this moon bean brew with anything, did you?” I asked the young witch with a raised eyebrow.
“Of course not,” she said innocently. “I had no hand in making it at all.”
“Good,” I said with a chuckle. “Just as long as I’m not seeing stars when we get back to Lupercalia.”
“I’d never do that to you when we have such important business to tend to,” Sybil said, and her face blushed pink. “I promise.”
I took a quick sweep of the room to see if there was anything else that we needed to take with us, but it would be easy enough to come back here if we forgot anything, so I gave up and turned to admire my ladies instead.
“How’re your mushrooms?” I asked Sybil. “Do we need to take them back?”
“All in the basket,” she said and held up her trusty wicker basket.
Sybil’s long, lean body and seemingly bottomless wicker basket reminded me of a picture I’d seen of Jane Birkin, who apparently used to steal expensive crockery and hide it in a similar piece of wickerwork. It wasn’t such a stretch to imagine Sybil doing something like that, especially after some of the things I’d seen her pull out of her own basket.
“Good,” I replied. “Alright, team. Well, it looks like it’s time for us to head back to Lupercalia. Get in here.”
“Yay!” Sybil cheered as she wrapped hand around my left arm.
“It’ll be nice to be back home,” Tabitha said as she looped her arm through mine.
I nodded as I lifted my hand and prepared to activate the ring I wore. It was the ring that had made everything possible, in both worlds, and every single day, I privately thanked the Moon Goddess for her trust in me and the gift she had given me. I don’t know what inspired me to run into that burning building all those months ago, but I trusted that the Moon Goddess had summoned me there that day.
“Can we go already?” Tabitha demanded. “I love Lupercalia in the winter, and I can’t wait to see how beautiful the estate will look. And of course, I want to see Casanova.”
“Oh, me, too,” Sybil said dreamily. “I miss that little puppy so much.”
“Little?” Tabitha asked with a snicker. “If you think that dog is little, then you really need to lay off those mushrooms, Sybil.”
“Oh, you know what I mean, Tabitha,” Sybil said and rolled her eyes.
Before the girls could argue any more, I tightened my grip around both of them and then twisted the ring on my pinkie finger.
The whole world disappeared from around me like we’d gone to the end credits of a movie, and we were suddenly surrounded by blackness from every corner. Usually, the weird space-time vortex the ring created still left me a little disoriented, but maybe the mini shroom trip from the night before was still in my system because I didn’t feel like the space was moving around me at all. Rather, I was completely at peace.
The estate materialized around us as quickly as my former house had disappeared. However, instead of the smell of bergamot and coffee, the place smelled of a wood fire and pine thistle. The servants had taken to spicing up the house by boiling cinnamon sticks and burning pine logs in the fireplaces, and the whole place smelled wonderful every hour of every day.
“Home, sweet home,” Sybil said, and after she detached from me, she did a little twirl with her basket. Sybil was definitely the closest thing to a Disney Princess that I’d ever experienced in the real world.
“You seem excited,” Tabitha said.
“I am,” Sybil shot back. “Today I’m going to take these mushrooms to my hut and have a better look at what they have to offer us.”
“Well, hopefully you can find some value that isn’t purely recreational,” I added.
Sybil winked at me with her emerald-green eyes and headed for the door.
“It’s funny,” I said to Tabitha. “I can always hear people bustling around, but I can’t always see them. It’s kind of like having mice, but in a good way.”
“Eh,” she said and shrugged. “That’s just what life in these estates is like. But it’s nice, right? You never feel like you’re alone.”
“Yeah, I guess so,” I said. “And it gets so quiet at night because there’s no cars or anything. It’s such a different world from the one I grew up in.”
“It’s the best world there is,” she said and winked at me. “But let’s go for a little walk. I want to see the new bean fields.”
“Oh, hell yeah,” I said with a nod. “I do, too.”
“Excellent,” she said as she started up the staircase. “Just let me get a coat, I wasn’t wise enough to wear one like Sybil. I’ll only be a minute.”
I listened to the sounds of the house as I waited for the brown-eyed, blonde-haired bombshell to return. I could hear feet scuffling quietly over the wood floors and a clang from the kitchen that sounded like a heavy pot had been set on the table. I could also hear voices outside, though even with my wolf hearing, I couldn’t tell if they were talking about the new fields or the latest misadventures of Casanova.
With the growing demand for moon bean brew, we’d had to create another moon-bean field. It had been in the last days of autumn, and everyone on the estate had pitched in to dig up the land and add the manure. Even my fellow knight Charles had come to help, but then again he always came to help when any of his friends were in need.
Some of the other knights still laughed at me for growing moon beans, but the peasants who worked the fields for me were more than happy to help with the crops and not ask questions. But then again, my workers had warm, safe housing and plenty of beans to do with as they pleased, so nobody really cared where I was selling my share of the crops or who was buying so many beans.
The peasants also never asked where I disappeared to or how I managed to move in and out of the house without opening a door. Hell, I’d literally taken an intruder out in my bedroom, and they’d dutifully cleaned up the blood and guts like it was nothing more than a wine stain on the carpet. If anyone saw anything suspicious, like the three of us appearing out of thin air, everyone carefully looked away. I could trust these people with my life, and I knew they felt the same way about me.
When I heard Tabitha clomping down the stairs in her heavy leather boots, I looked up. I saw she was also wearing a gray fur cloak with a hood and a tie that fastened around the neck, which made her look like a Russian Princess.
“Oh, my,” I said as she hopped onto the landing. “Don’t you look like a picture.”
“A picture of what?” she asked, and I realized that the phrase probably had no place in Lupercalian terminology.
“A picture of a hot babe,” I said with a laugh. “Now, let’s take a look at those fields.”
I went over to the door and turned the handle before pulling it back to reveal a crisp Lupercalian winter day. I closed my eyes and smelled the refreshing scent of dew, moon beans, and grass.
Tabitha stepped out behind me and shut the door. We stood side by side for a moment as we breathed in the crisp air, and then we headed down the steps and took a right toward the new field.
“Haven’t heard from Charles in a while,” Tabitha said. “Not since we got the new moon bean field up and running.”
“He’s busy with his kids I think,” I replied. “You know how hard he works. He wants to devote just as much time to his family as his community, and I don’t know how he has the time for all of it. He’s a very impressive man."
“Alright,” Tabitha said with a sly grin. “So a man that works his hardest between two vastly different but important ventures in his life is impressive in your book. Sounds like someone I know.”
I looked over to Tabitha and grinned. Any comparison between me and a man as honorable as Charles made me feel all warm and tingly inside, and I was glad that she said it.
The new field took up most of the land on the western side of the estate, which put it directly behind the house itself. The eastern edge was devoted to housing for the peasants that worked on the estate, and their houses glimmered in the orange sunlight as we approached the freshly planted shrubs.
“What a beauty,” I said.
I looked out at the rows and rows of crops. Sure, it was nice to look at the sea of green that stretched toward the horizon, and the aroma was so warm and pleasant that it was hard not to sigh every time you walked by. But what I was most taken by was what the plants represented, which was cold hard cash and a new and impressive way of life.
“What if we tried growing them back in New Jersey?” Tabitha asked.
“Someone would surely steal them,” I replied. “Plus, Sybil said it herself that batches of beans from different places are so heavily affected by the soil they grow in that sometimes they don’t taste the same at all. If we grew them in New Jersey, we wouldn’t have the same beans that are making us rich.”
“Good point,” she said. “I just wish that there was another way to get them back to your world.”
Tabitha made a very good point, because the method of getting the beans back to ours was so arduous that it was comical. We’d get giant canvas sacks and transport them like the robbers from 101 Dalmatians. Every load took several trips to and from New Jersey, and we’d have a full day where they all sat in a gigantic pile in the foyer before a large truck swooped in and took them all away. If we were going to expand our business even more, I definitely had to come up with a better system for sure.
Maybe it was also a Jersey mob thing as well, but nobody ever asked where all the beans came from. Ten burly guys from East Orange would just pack all the stuff into the back of the truck and whisk it away. There was no question that they would steal it, because what are a bunch of workmen going to do with bags and bags of coffee beans? It was the big dogs like Barney Converse that we had to watch out for. But it was the perfect ruse.
“We’ll develop some kind of strategy,” I said and shrugged. “Who knows how long it’ll take, but we’ll streamline it.”
I heard a noise to my right, and my wolf ears tuned into two kids play fighting with long sticks and running around. When I looked over, I saw that they both had big smiles on their tiny faces and pink cheeks from the winter chill, and I felt my heart warm for the kids that lived on the estate. Not to mention their hardworking parents, who made sure that the entire operation was up and running as efficiently as possible. Call it fate or just the hand of the Moon Goddess, but I was one of the luckiest guys in all of Lupercalia.
“Oh, look,” Tabitha said as she pointed to one of the houses. “Is that Eric?”
“I think it must be,” I said.
A man with dark, curly hair had just emerged from one of the houses, and after he did a couple of quick stretches, he waved to someone inside the house through a window and then started to walk toward us.
“Eric,” I called out and waved to the man.
He waved back and then gestured for me to wait a moment. He trotted back to his door, opened the door again, and leaned inside. It sounded like he was calling for someone, but even my wolf ears couldn’t pick up what he was saying.
Since we were going to have to wait, I settled against one of the fence posts and soaked in some of the sun. I was facing the house, and I found myself smiling at the manor house that had become my home.
“Is his son still helping to train little Casanova?” Tabitha asked.
“Uh-huh,” I said. “But I’m going to have to correct you on that one, Tabitha. There’s no way that anyone could call Casanova little.”
“I know, I know,” the blue-blooded beauty said with a low laugh. “But I remember the first day you got him, Hank. Remember? At the joust against Hector?”
“Of course I do,” I said with a smirk. “I’ve been stuck with you ever since."
Tabitha’s big brown eyes widened, and she lifted an eyebrow before giving me a light punch on my left arm.
“How rude,” she said playfully. “To speak to a Blueclaw in that manner.”
“Well, if you’d prefer the company of a true noble,” I teased, “then I’m sure Hector would come running if you called.”
“Oh, don’t,” Tabitha drawled in her low, smoky voice. “This is the longest I’ve gone in my entire life without having to think about that menace, and you’d better not spoil it for me now.”
“See, I provide a pretty good service here, Tabitha,” I said with a laugh. “Ugg boots, the estate, a life where you don’t have to worry about being hit on by Hector anymore,”
“Dear Goddess, he’s massive,” Tabitha gasped.
I tried to remember how tall Hector was in his werewolf form. I mean, I knew he was gangly, but I felt pretty confident that I was bigger than the guy, either as a human or as a werewolf.
But then I realized that Tabitha was looking at something in the distance, and a quick look revealed that a big, black tornado was bearing down on us. Two figures were on its back, and I heard myself chuckle.
It was Casanova, and he was cantering toward us more beautifully than ever.
The great big black puppy came fully into view, and his mischievous eyes glinted with a sense of poise that indicated he’d matured over the last few months. His black coat was well-kept and shinier than ever, and sunrays seemed to bounce off of his glossy mane.
The two figures riding him were none other than Eric and his boy Jacob, whose talent with animals had turned Casanova into the perfect direwolf for a knight. The father and son duo looked almost identical, with curly black hair and kind, dark eyes, and though they were descended from generations of farmers and loggers who had made their home in the forest, the family was now pioneering a new life on my estate.
“Is that Henry I see?” Eric said with a laugh as Casanova slowed down in front of us.
The great big black dog approached me with his tail wagging, and I recognized the big, soulful eyes that he’d had since he was a puppy, though they were a good deal larger now. Casanova opened his mouth, and before I could move, he jumped up and planted a big, juicy kiss on my right cheek.
I tried to wipe the slobber off as politely as possible so as not to offend him, even though I didn’t even know if that was possible.
“I’ve never seen him this calm,” Tabitha said, and she gave him a satisfying scratch on the head. “You’ve made a real aristocrat out of him.”
“You didn’t get the sloppy kiss,” I said, and Tabitha winked at me.
“You know, he actually is an aristocrat if you think about it,” the young boy Jacob said.
He dismounted the direwolf and held his right hand out for me to shake.
“I know you’re not supposed to shake with your left hand,” I said to the talented boy. “But if I offer you my right, you’ll get covered in direwolf slobber.”
The young boy quickly switched hands, and I let out a low laugh as I shook with my left.
“It’s been an honor to help train a wolf with an even better pedigree than me,” Jacob said, and he let out a giggle before patting Casanova on the cheek.
“Maybe you can train Tabitha next,” I jested, and the young noblewoman raised an eyebrow at me.
“Very funny,” she added. “But Eric, your boy has a talent like no other. I’ve seen direwolves acting up even after years of training, but Casanova looks like he’s ready for action after only a few months.”
“He is,” Eric said as he dismounted the large, black direwolf. “He’s quicker than lightning, and light-footed too. You’ll be able to get almost anywhere in the kingdom in no time on this big old pup. And goddess protect any enemy that gets between you and him.”
He slapped Casanova on the back, and the direwolf seemed to give us a smug look as he basked in Eric’s admiration.
“Alright, Casanova,” I said with a laugh. “I can tell that you’re proud of yourself.”
“As he should be,” Jacob said. “It’s been a wonder to train him.”
I looked down at the young boy, and an idea popped into my head.
“I have a proposition for you,” I said. “Your father has told me about your charm with animals of all varieties, not just direwolves. What if I said that you could oversee all animal operations on this coffee bean estate? You can be Casanova’s number one attendant, of course, but you could keep a watch on the wildlife that we have here in our little ecosystem as well.”
“It’s a very important job,” Tabitha added. “The animals will let us know if there’s something off about the farm or the surrounding area, so you have to keep a careful eye on them.”
Suddenly, the boy’s face lit up like he was holding a candle in front of it. His pupils widened, and he grinned a big, toothy smile.
“Sir Henry, I…” he stuttered.
“Call me Hank,” I said with a laugh. “So you’re up to it?”
“Of course I am, Hank,” he said, and he nodded vigorously. “I won’t let you down, I promise.”
“I know you won’t,” I said.
The excited young man looked back and forth a little before turning to his dad.
“I have to go tell Maggie,” he said. “She won’t believe it.”
“Go on then, son,” the farmer replied, and he watched as Jacob ran back off toward the houses.
“So heartwarming,” Tabitha said with a sigh.
“Henry, I think you may have made that boy’s entire life today,” Eric said. “It brings me nothing but joy to see my family as happy as can be. And between the housing you’ve provided for us and the work here, I know my wife and kids couldn’t be happier.”
“That makes me very happy, too,” I said, and I felt a warm feeling in my chest.
“I have to get to work,” Eric announced. “Those beans won’t tend to themselves. But you’ve got a really well-trained pup on your hands. He’ll be a fine companion on any quest.”
“I’m sure he will be,” Tabitha purred, and she waved to Eric as he headed into the fields.
