Chapter 4: The Vagabond

“I don’t think I did anything wrong,” Peri commented to a wolf who happened his way a few days later. “I mean, not too wrong. I would have asked permission if I could have found a way into the grounds. I even offered to work for the privilege of having eaten it.”

“We have to take our food from where we find it,” Br’er Lupus nodded wisely.

“Well, the old witch didn’t need to put a curse on me. And I don’t even know what it means! ‘Wander.’ What else would I do? It is all I’ve ever known. ‘Until I find my Eve.’ Who is that? How am I to find what I do not know? And what is the key to her heart? If there is one thing I do not understand even more than I do not understand curses, it is riddles!”

“Even the animals have riddles,” Br’er Lupus said. “What is the opposite of a kit? Now, if you answer a Sire, you might find you are talking of a female. And if you answer a Bitch, you might find a male. Yet the old ones in the pack howl with laughter when teasing the kits with that riddle.”

“Yes, of course,” Peri answered. “It shows we are not so different, are we?” Peri, of course, understood the joke in the wolf’s tongue. It wouldn’t translate well to the human tongue.

“As long as we sojourn with our own kind, we live in peace. Be careful in whose den you rest your head. Some would welcome you for a meal and you would find you were the main course.”

“Br’er Lupus, I thank you for your warning. I believe there is a village ahead and you should depart from my company. Villagers do not understand the wisdom of the wolves.”

“Peace be with you, Br’er Talker,” the wolf said as he turned off the path into the woods.

It did not take terribly long for the witch’s curse to become clearer. Peregrine was hungry. He reached an inn and asked the innkeeper for work to earn a bowl of soup and a place to sleep. It happened that the inn had lost its stableboy when the innkeeper caught him sleeping with his daughter. There had been a funeral only that day.

Peri was sent to muck out the stables, which had not been done for several days. He bent his back to the work and listened to the conversation of the horses.

“Still a smell of blood over there in the last stall,” snorted an old bay. “No one’s been in to clean since the innkeeper stabbed the stableboy with a pitchfork.”

“I’ll clean that one out first,” Peri answered. He quickly removed the bloody straw and laid a fresh bed in it.

“She’ll like that,” said a strong black stallion as he stood in the aisle watching Peri clean his stall. “She always likes clean straw.”

“Likes? Who likes. I thought that was the stall I was to sleep in.”

“So it is. She’ll visit.”

“Who?”

“The innkeeper’s daughter,” a gray mare commented. “She’s a silly filly in heat. Lifts her tail for whomever will cover her.”

“Oh, she won’t be interested in a boy like me. I’m more comfortable talking to you than to humans.”

“We’ll see,” said the old bay.

And, indeed, Peregrine did see.

After he had eaten the thin soup the innkeeper fed him for his labor, he returned to the stable to sleep for the night. He was very tired after walking all morning and then working hard all afternoon. This was his life. He always slept soundly.

Until the innkeeper’s daughter slipped into his stall.

“What? Who’s that?”

“I’m Alysha. I just want a little time with you.”

“Oh. I was asleep.”

“You were talking in your sleep. To someone who you called Br’er Lupus.”

“Oh, yes. He was helping me earlier this morning to understand the witch’s curse.”

“A wolf was helping you?”

“Yes.”

“You talked to him and he talked back?”

“In our heads.”

“I see. You talk in animals’ heads and they talk in yours?”

“Yes.”

“Can you see what is in my mind?”

“I’m not very good with people.”

“I think you just haven’t explored the right person ... in the right way ... deeply enough. Understand?”

“No,” Peri squeaked.

“Oh, but you are thinking about it. I can tell,” she said, handling his man meat.

“I don’t know where that came from!”

“I do. And I know where it is going.”

“What...? What...? What are you doing.”

“I’m making a real man of you. Don’t you like it?”

“It’s ... amazing!”

“Yes. Young. Strong. Big. Amazing.”

“You must be my Eve.”

“Alysha. Remember?”

“Oh. Yes. Oh!”

“Yes! Buck under me, young stallion. Give me all you have.”

“I don’t have any more!”

“Oh yes, you do. I can feel it coming. Give me. Give me. Give me.”

Peregrine was overwhelmed with his body’s response to Alysha. He shook and his eyes rolled back in his head as he emptied himself into the innkeeper’s daughter.

“Oh, that was good,” she sighed. “Be sure to be gone before dawn in the morning. I packed you a sandwich.”

With that, Alysha abruptly rose from Peri, breaking their connection, and ran back to her room in the inn.

Peregrine lay on his back staring into the darkness wondering what had just happened to him. It took a long time before his heart returned to his chest and he fell asleep.

He was up before dawn, said goodbye to the horses, and ran from the stable, the inn, and the town. He did grab the sandwich that girl had left for him. She was the innkeeper’s daughter, he supposed, but he couldn’t remember her name. He felt empty inside and eating the sandwich didn’t help.