Shadow of the Wolf Read Free Page A

body has grown stronger.  I fear I cannot ingest more than is required for it wou ld prove to be fatal.  Taking my own life with a large dose does not sit well with me.  I am sure it would also be a most painful death.  But, taking someone’s life disturbs me greatly.  Either way, the outcome is a gruesome one.
         “’Now, I must wait in agony of the rising moon and pray the tincture and ropes are enough to calm me.
         “’Signed:  Joseph Van Holden.’”
         Serenitee sniffed.  What a sad story.  But, she realized it wasn’t a work of fiction but an actual journal of the Van Holden family.
         What was the curse he was talking about?  Wh at was this talk of moons, ropes and tinctures of……something to help him? 
         And what did this entire journal have to do with the title of it?  What did werewolves have to do with the Van Holden family?  Werewolves were myths told and re-told in different ways from every part of the world.  Every continent practically had their version of the werewolf.  Sure, in Africa, it was hyenas, but the stories were similar in that a human changed into an animal. 
         Perhaps it was some kind of mental illness that Joseph was afraid of passing to his descendants.   Wasn’t lycanthropy considered a mental illness at one time? 
         Surely, that’ s all it was.
     
         Trevor awoke in a naked heap on his kitchen floor a little after three in the morning.  He got to his knees and looked at the blood on his trembling hands.
         “No.”  His voice was raw.  No doubt from what he put his vocal cords through.  
         He got up and went to the sink and began scrubbing away the blood from his hands.  He wished he could wash away the guilt and watch it run down the drain as easily as the blood did.  Like Lady Macbeth, water wasn’t going to wash away those guilty feelings.  Time couldn’t heal a repressed conscience.  It only gnawed at you until there was nothing left.
         He caught a glimpse of himself in the kitchen window.  He saw only a stranger looking back at him, smears of blood on his face.  He quickly cupped some cold water and scrubbed until it hurt; until his face was raw and his skin prickled.
         He wondered what poor innocent animal he killed this time. 
        A chilling thought sliced through him like an icy dagger to his heart. “Please, not a human being.  Dear Lord, I couldn’t live with myself if I took a human life.”  He fell to his knees, still gripping the edge of the sink, sobs racking his body.  “Why can it just be over?” His raggedly plea echoed through the kitchen.  The sound of his own hollow voice haunted him, mocked him.  His dreams were no longer his.  The nightmares belonged to the beast.  It wouldn’t be long before it eroded his mind completely.
         How much longer was he going to have to live with this wretched curse?  How many full moons would he bay at before it all stopped? 
         He hated to think that, like the men in his family before him, only in death, could the curse be lifted.  He was only thirty-two.  He couldn’t take another twenty years of this hell.  If he had twenty years left to him, that is.
         His father had made it to the age of fifty.  How much longer did he really have to live?  Each time the curse was passed down, the age of the cursed one was shortened by ten years.  When he added it all up, he would only make it to forty.  Eight more years still seemed like a lifetime to wait until this nightmare ended.
         Maybe he should take com fort in that thought.  At least he wouldn’t be able to hurt another living soul again.
         What’s more, is that Serenitee was living too close to him and----
         “Serenitee!”  Oh, dear God, w hat if he had hurt her?  Killed her?  What if it was her blood on his hands?  He would slice open his own heart if he did anything to hurt