The Wolf will come for me. The Wolf came for my Father. The Wolf came for my Grandfather. The wolf came for his father, and his father. The Wolf will come for me.
My father tried to keep The Wolf away from me. As soon as he learned that my Mother was pregnant, he sold everything he owned, including his treasured car, and hauled us across the country to North Wales. I was born at home, in the small country cottage which my father had bought using everything he’d raised. Father wouldn’t allow a Doctor or Midwife to be present.
My mother passed not long afterwards. Leukaemia.
I always believed Father resented me, for our having to leave, for the loss of his possessions, and for the loss of Mother. Now I know he resented me for a very different reason.
Father never let me outside without supervision. My earliest memories were of stuffy rooms, yellow walls, and the never-ending smell of tobacco. I didn’t attend school. Father taught me everything I needed to know about being alive; cooking, cleaning, fire-making, and growing vegetables in our garden.
Father was a strict vegetarian. Never any meat allowed in the house, raw or cooked. This included pet food, so dogs and cats were out of the question. I asked Father once about getting a rabbit, or some hamsters. I’d knocked on the door of his office and waited for him to answer. When he emerged, his torn and stained shirt barely concealing his scarred torso, I posed the question as sweetly as I could. He hacked a huge gobbet of phlegm into his mouth, swallowed, and looked at me.
“And how do you plan to take care of it, boy?” he asked. Father never used my name, except for matters of discipline. “It’s weak and defenseless. Will you protect it when predators come, blood and foam dripping from their gaping maws? Will you stand forward as their claws rake at flesh?”
I stammered.
“I thought not, boy. Now, where did you get the idea for such things?”
“In the book, Sir. All about animals. In the library.”
He grunted and slammed the door. That night, when he stoked the fire to warm us as we ate, I saw the cover of the book as it was devoured by the flames. Father saw me looking and fixed me with his good eye.
“You’re better rid of such fancies, boy.”
Those were the only words he spoke that evening.
I always found Father’s single eye frightening. Its missing counterpart seemed to lend the remaining globe an air of madness. I darted around the room constantly, always watching Father’s peripherals. He never focused on one thing for long.
One of my first lessons was not to ask Father about his missing eye, or any of the scars which patchworked his body. He’d taught me that with my full name, and with his belt.
Whenever we weren’t doing garden work, Father would remain locked in his office. I later learned that he had good reason. I would spend time running about the house, testing my time by the grandfather clock which sat in the small living-room-cum-dining-area. Sometimes, I would race against the only friends I had, those I had found in the few books which Father didn’t burn. I was faster than Bilbo Baggins and the twisted Long John Silver but was often left in the dust by Captain Ahab.
Father would come down at tea time and eat whatever I had made. Then he would sit by the fire and watch the flames until morning. I never saw him sleep.
On my sixth birthday, Father took me outside to the garden and threw the wood axe at my feet.
“Pick it up, boy.”
I dutifully obliged and began making my way to the woodpile.
“Where are you going?”
“To cut the wood, Sir.”
“We’re not cutting wood, boy.”
I returned to him.
“What are we doing then, Sir?”
His fist was like lightning, landing on my cheek like a blacksmith’s hammer. I don’t even remember hitting the floor. I woke up a few seconds later, pain screaming across my face. I tried to speak, but my jaw refused to move. Father spoke.
“If you can’t defend yourself, then you’ll be swallowed. Swing the axe, boy. Keep me away.”
I swung the axe. Father stepped around it and fetched me another blow, less forceful this time and with an open palm, across the side of my head. My head rang like a thousand bells. The afternoon passed like this, my paltry attempts to swing the axe met with Father’s derision and pain. When my arms could no longer heft the heavy weapon, Father took it from me.
“Getting close to tea,” was all he said.
And that was how our days continued. Wake before the rising of the sun, chores, gardening with Father, lunchtime (in which I could steal a few minutes of reading), practice with the axe, make tea, and then to bed. Every day the same.
The morning of my sixteenth birthday was different.
Bleary-eyed, I made my way down the cold wood stairs. Through the window, I noticed Father in the garden. He was seated on a homemade chair, axe across his lap, staring out towards the horizon. The dying embers of a fire smoked beside him.
I walked out into the crisp air, breath fogging before me.
“Father?”
He didn’t turn his head.
“Boy.”
“Would you like breakfast?”
“Not today, boy.”
He puffed on his cigarette and threw the butt into the fire. He reached into the pocket of his threadbare corduroys, pulled out another, and lit it.
“What are you doing out here, Father?” I said and took a step back. He didn’t reach for his belt. Instead, a single hand extended outwards and beckoned me forward. I stepped up beside him. He indicated out over the windswept hills.
“Something’s coming, boy. From out there. I have to be ready.”
“What is it, Father?”
He grunted.
“You’ll see, boy. Wait here with me,” he reached out and grabbed me by the front of the shirt, “but when I tell you, you go inside, and you bolt the door. Do you hear me?”
“Yes, Sir.”
He rounded his eye on me. Despite the empty bottle of Jack Daniels which leaned against his foot, he was remarkably focused.
“Do you hear me, boy?”
“Yes, Sir, I do, Sir.”
“Mhm. Grab that stump and sit with me.”
He released his grip. I did as ordered. Nothing happened. After what must have been several minutes, and at least three cigarettes, Father coughed loudly and reached down. He produced another bottle of Jack and pulled the top off. He handed it to me. I took it. He looked at me again and nodded. I put the bottle to my lips and took an ambitious swig. It burned. I coughed, retched, and leaned forward. The burn on the way up was worse than on the way down. Father laughed.
“You’ll get used to it, boy. You won’t have a choice. Try again.”
I sat myself up, resolved not to look weak in front of Father again. I swallowed another mouthful. I retched again, but this time it stayed down. Father snorted.
“Getting there already.”
We sat in silence while the sun rose across the blue-grey sky. A shape caught my eye. It was black and moved fast, standing out against the green of the grass-covered hills.
“Father.”
“I see it, boy.” His knuckles had tightened around the axe. “When it reaches those stones there, I want you to go inside. Understand me?”
“Yes, Father.”
“Good.” He took the bottle from me and drank deeply.
“What is it, Father?”
“Don’t ask questions, boy. You don’t need to know.”
“But Father-”
He silenced me with a vicious glance of that single, manic eye. Then he sighed. He handed the bottle back to me and rose from his seat.
“You remember what I told you about my father, boy?”
“Yes, Sir. He died when you were still young.”
“He died on my sixteenth birthday, boy. I didn’t listen to him. That’s how I lost this.” He turned, knelt in front of me, and indicated his missing eye. “It wasn’t an accident that took him, boy. It was that. That out there took your grandfather, took his father, and took all the men in our family as far back as any of us have ever known.” He paused, and looked away at that black shape, drawing ever nearer. “I’ve been hard on you, boy. I know it. But you need to understand that I had good reason. You need to understand that… After today this might be your responsibility. I’m sorry. Now go inside boy. Go to my office and lock the door. Don’t open it until I do.”
I felt something heavy inside of me.
“Father-“
He shoved me, hard, and I hit the ground.
“You gave me your word, boy. Don’t make yourself a liar.”
I stared at him in silence. He stood and turned towards the black shape, hefting his axe in his hand. I scrabbled to my feet. As I approached the door, the sound of my feet hitting the floor was accompanied by a growl. The deep, low sound was all malice and hatred. I was filled with ice, reaching from the base of my spine to the tips of my fingers. I glanced backwards. The shape was bounding over the last crest, all matted fur, and gnashing teeth. A pair of eyes, black pits full of the same mania I could see in Father’s eyes, caught the sun as they turned on me. They spurred my steps, and I hammered into the door. It gave way, and I staggered wildly to keep my feet. Pain sparked in my shoulder. The growling exploded into a long howl, followed by a series of barks. Father screamed a thousand curses, words I’d never heard before, and though I didn’t understand them their meaning was not lost. I reached his office and slammed the door, bolting it shut. Both Father and the beast fell silent. I pressed my ear against the heavy wood of the door. I heard a snarl, though from Father or the beast I did not know, and then a yelp. I realised that I had held the breath in my lungs and let it out in a soft exhale. Father had won.
I looked around the room and my breath caught in my throat. Pinned to every wall in the dingy room were drawings. Hundreds and hundreds of charcoal drawings, all depicting the same thing. A black shape, slavering jaws, evil eyes. Notebooks lay open upon the desk, scrawlings across every page detailed times and dates. I picked up the first one.
‘November 22nd, 1745, Master William, 36. August 3rd, 1780, Master Edgar, 35. The Wolf came. The Wolf always comes. The Wolf always comes. The Wolf always comes.’
There was a scream, which raced through my soul. I knew my father’s voice, though it was rent out of shape, like the bonnet of a car after a head-on collision. I threw up again. The scream, cold and agonised, cut off suddenly. I pulled away from the door, dragging myself across the bare wood with numb hands. I curled up into the foetal position and wept until I was dry. I don’t know how long passed, but by the time I found the strength to stand, the sun was rising again. The next day. I felt as though I had a rope taught around my stomach, and my lungs had deflated. My throat burned from the vomit.
I went back down the stairs and, holding my breath, pressed my face to the window. The burned-out firepit, pawprints in the mud, whiskey bottles, and Father’s chair in splinters. No other sign of the fight which had taken Father from me.
I moved into the garden. The air stabbed the inside of my lungs. I spread my gaze out, frost clinging to the grass. My Father’s axe lay in the grass, tooth marks drilled deep into the woods.
It’s the only thing of his I still own. I was taken into care, and my Father’s estate waited for me until I turned eighteen. I sold everything as soon as I could, everything I couldn’t sell went to landfill. I moved to Cardiff and rented a flat. I got a job. There was a woman there, I fell for her. She fell for me.
Then she got pregnant. And my eyes went manic.
My son turns sixteen in one week. He doesn’t know about The Wolf, and as I bring Father’s axe out from storage, I swear to myself he’ll never need to.
The Wolf will come for me.