platters, making sure my wine goblet was always full. The other fellows tried to make time with the Baroness, but they might as well have been pitching woo with a howitzer for all the warmth or affection she gave them.
“When we were all finishing up, all drunk and stuffed full of food, Lucie leaned in very close until I could smell her perfume and she looked up into my eyes. She gave me a very complicated smile, lots of different things going on in that smile. Then she whispered in my ear that she had something to show me. She had washed her white face and in her old-fashioned gown she looked like some ghost from a story. Even as I rose from the table, even as the boys whistled and cheered me on, I felt as if I were under some enchantment. Perhaps I was.”
Chey held her tongue.
“Lucie led me deep inside the castle, through dark and dank hallways, our only light coming from a single candle she carried in her hand. I saw hot wax roll across her knuckles, but she did not cry out, and I wondered who this spirit could be. She led me down a flight of stone stairs, into the cellars of the place. The vaulted ceilings were white with niter. The floor lay submerged under a couple centimeters of murky water. Her dress dragged through the muck, but before I could say anything she hurried on, faster and faster, and it was all I could do to keep up. We passed racks of wine bottles, some of which had burst because there was no wine steward anymore to tend to them. We passed piles of furniture stacked to the ceiling, pieces that would be priceless antiquestoday, but these were left to rot. We came at last, at long last, to a narrow room that contained only a single enormous cage. It stood three meters high and twice as wide and the bars were made of solid silver. In the candlelight they glimmered like mirrors.
“‘The moon is rising,’ Lucie told me. I didn’t understand, of course. ‘Will you be my guest for the night? The accommodations are more comfortable than they appear.’ I stared at her, thinking she must be some kind of maniac. More than just crazy. I think you can guess what happened next.”
“She changed,” Chey said.
“She changed.”
16.
One of the truck’s wheels fell down into a deep pothole and the two of them lifted off the bed and fell crashing back. Chey’s hand jumped over to grab Powell’s arm, for support. When she realized what she’d done she yanked it back quickly. He didn’t seem to notice. He was wrapped up in telling his story.
“This beautiful French girl turned into a wolf before my eyes. I guess you’ve never seen the whole transformation—the first time you saw me change, you were changing too. It’s a weird thing to see. The body turns ghostly and transparent. Almost like the human being is fading out of existence. You can see the skeleton melting like wax from a candle; you can see the entire body collapse in on itself. Then it seems to stagger back up to its feet and become solid again. Color and then solidity return—but in a new form. Suddenly you’re staring a vicious animal in the face. Drunk as I was, as weird as that day was, I knew it wasn’t just a trick of the light. This snarling, slavering thing was going to kill me and it was going to
hurt
.
“I stepped backward, away from this monster. Behind me the silver cage stood open and inviting. Even as the she-wolf lunged for my throat—and believe me, she didn’t waste a moment—I leapt back into the cage and slammed the door shut. The key was in the lock and I turned it with shaking fingers, locking myself in. For just a moment, though, that meant my hand was outside of the cage. She got her teethinto it. She clamped down. Then she tore it right off and swallowed it like a piece of meat.
“The pain was unbearable, of course. I screamed and fell back on the filthy straw at the bottom of the cage and screamed and kept screaming. You couldn’t live in the trenches as long as I had without learning a little
“When we were all finishing up, all drunk and stuffed full of food, Lucie leaned in very close until I could smell her perfume and she looked up into my eyes. She gave me a very complicated smile, lots of different things going on in that smile. Then she whispered in my ear that she had something to show me. She had washed her white face and in her old-fashioned gown she looked like some ghost from a story. Even as I rose from the table, even as the boys whistled and cheered me on, I felt as if I were under some enchantment. Perhaps I was.”
Chey held her tongue.
“Lucie led me deep inside the castle, through dark and dank hallways, our only light coming from a single candle she carried in her hand. I saw hot wax roll across her knuckles, but she did not cry out, and I wondered who this spirit could be. She led me down a flight of stone stairs, into the cellars of the place. The vaulted ceilings were white with niter. The floor lay submerged under a couple centimeters of murky water. Her dress dragged through the muck, but before I could say anything she hurried on, faster and faster, and it was all I could do to keep up. We passed racks of wine bottles, some of which had burst because there was no wine steward anymore to tend to them. We passed piles of furniture stacked to the ceiling, pieces that would be priceless antiquestoday, but these were left to rot. We came at last, at long last, to a narrow room that contained only a single enormous cage. It stood three meters high and twice as wide and the bars were made of solid silver. In the candlelight they glimmered like mirrors.
“‘The moon is rising,’ Lucie told me. I didn’t understand, of course. ‘Will you be my guest for the night? The accommodations are more comfortable than they appear.’ I stared at her, thinking she must be some kind of maniac. More than just crazy. I think you can guess what happened next.”
“She changed,” Chey said.
“She changed.”
16.
One of the truck’s wheels fell down into a deep pothole and the two of them lifted off the bed and fell crashing back. Chey’s hand jumped over to grab Powell’s arm, for support. When she realized what she’d done she yanked it back quickly. He didn’t seem to notice. He was wrapped up in telling his story.
“This beautiful French girl turned into a wolf before my eyes. I guess you’ve never seen the whole transformation—the first time you saw me change, you were changing too. It’s a weird thing to see. The body turns ghostly and transparent. Almost like the human being is fading out of existence. You can see the skeleton melting like wax from a candle; you can see the entire body collapse in on itself. Then it seems to stagger back up to its feet and become solid again. Color and then solidity return—but in a new form. Suddenly you’re staring a vicious animal in the face. Drunk as I was, as weird as that day was, I knew it wasn’t just a trick of the light. This snarling, slavering thing was going to kill me and it was going to
hurt
.
“I stepped backward, away from this monster. Behind me the silver cage stood open and inviting. Even as the she-wolf lunged for my throat—and believe me, she didn’t waste a moment—I leapt back into the cage and slammed the door shut. The key was in the lock and I turned it with shaking fingers, locking myself in. For just a moment, though, that meant my hand was outside of the cage. She got her teethinto it. She clamped down. Then she tore it right off and swallowed it like a piece of meat.
“The pain was unbearable, of course. I screamed and fell back on the filthy straw at the bottom of the cage and screamed and kept screaming. You couldn’t live in the trenches as long as I had without learning a little
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