Summers-End

Alice awoke to the feeling of a blackbird pecking gently at her face. Blind in the pre-dawn darkness, she groaned and weakly slapped at the bird.

"Crumb, get off me," she said, "it's too early."

The bird responded with a warble, hopping back and forth on her twiggy legs.

"I know you're excited, but why don't you get started on collecting material for the garland?"

The response was a happy trill from the bird and she hopped out the window to take flight into the misty trees.

As Alice slowly fought her way out from the fugue of sleep, the bustling noise of the busy house began to fill the cool morning air. She worked hard as the sun climbed higher above the trees - feeding animals, milking cows, and cleaning the house. All had to be done before she was able to get ready for the summers-end festival. She threw herself into her chores, knowing it would take her hours to finish her hair garland (even with Crumb's help). It was an important festival this year, the whole village needed to prepare well.

Alice reflected on the previous year as she tossed the kitchen scraps to the chickens. She chattered distractedly to her other guide, a small mongrel called Murrish.

"Herr Randall died so unexpectedly last winter, and he hadn't planned for his succession. He was only 34 for heaven's sake! There was no leadership to guide the spring repairs, so of course this was the year we had the storm that flooded the granary," she rolled her eyes.

Murrish watched her with ambivalence. He didn't care for human politics.

"I am glad Frau Peterson was elected, but she was completely unprepared for this drought! With half the emergency reserves gone, she's under a great deal of pressure to ensure this summers-end festival cements goodwill with the gods and ensures a healthy harvest next year." Alice walked to the cowshed, Murrish ignoring her rant and focusing instead on the wealth of interesting smells between the buildings.

"The poor Gundersons had to move to Kilwitte to escape the drought! I miss Rosa Gunderson. We usually danced together at these festivals to avoid attention from boys," she sighed - without Rosa it would be harder to deter Will and his reaching hands, bad breath, and two left feet.

"Alice! Alice!" Called a voice from the fields - her sister, Liesl. She came running towards the Alice just as the girl emerged from the shed, Murrish at her feet. "Have you seen Betsie? She was in her field last night, but she isn't there now. She's gone!"

The girl looked frantic, tears welling in her eyes and stockings covered in mud from running. Alice looked to her dog.

"Murrish, could you find Liesl's goat?" She asked, exasperated. "Betsie will be fine, Liesl. She probably just wandered off to find better grasses. You know the woods are more tempting for the animals after the drought."

Murrish trotted towards the field, sniffing as he went.

"No, she's never wandered off, she and I always go for a walk in the morning, plus she needs to be milked! She wouldn't have left, she gets uncomfortable if I don't milk her in the morning, and she loves our walks." The tears started to spill. "What if a wolf got her?"

"Then we would have heard her. You know she would put up a fight! Plus, we would see the... aftermath of an attack."

"Okay," she sniffed, wiping her eyes.

Murrish wove his way back to the pair of young girls, tail between his legs.

"He can smell other individuals in the field," Alice told Liesl, frowning. "They walked from there to the woods, but he lost their scent at the river... They smelled strongly of rosemary?" She looked askance at Murrish, whose ears pricked forward in affirmative. "Okay Liesl. This is strange. Oh! Oh no! I am still sure she is fine! It's probably just one of the boys playing a prank!" Liesl had started to cry again.

"Me 'n Murrish will get to the bottom of this, I promise. Go get ready for the festival! Go on!" Alice shooed the crying girl back towards the house, while pointing her feet towards the fields.

"The rosemary must have been to obscure their scent, so it has to be someone from town who you would otherwise recognise... But why would anyone take Betsie? Everyone knows she's Liesl's guide. If they want her for milk, they'd have to know we will eventually find her... If they, gods forbid, butcher her, it would only feed someone briefly... But I can't imagine anyone doing that to Liesl."

Murrish yapped a quick response.

"You're right. People are getting desperate. I might be overestimating the power of goodwill." Murrish growled.

"These look a bit like paw prints, don't they?" She asked, indicating towards a patch of grass mingled with dusty ground. The indentation in question resembled a teardrop with one end dug deeper into the ground. "That could be one toe pad, and the claw." She tilted her head, "big paw though. Could it have actually been a wolf? No one in town is partnered with a wolf, that I know of."

Murrish sniffed a response, disquieted. As they continued to follow the trail, looking for clues, the pair of investigators found some wolf hair caught in a bush. After making it to the river again, they surrendered the hunt without any solid ideas of the goat's whereabouts.

"Definitely a wolf, but there's no blood, or any sign of a scuffle... either this is an awfully careful wolf, or it was working with someone." Alice said, and turned back towards the house. "Let's get ready for the festival and see if we can sniff out a wolf there."

As the sun began its journey from its zenith to the horizon, Alice was at the festival. Wearing her best clothes, garland on her head, Crumb on her shoulder proudly puffed out, and Murrish at her feet, looking disconsolate in his festive wreath-collar. They painted an auspicious picture, adorned in all the best charms and symbols for fertility and luck in harvests. The pillars were up, bedecked in late summer flowers and branches, the children running about underfoot. A few of the adults had clearly started their celebrations earlier, and had an energy that infused the festival with some exuberance. Some other adults were congregated in small groups, sunken cheeks shadowed even in the bright light of noon. Each villager had at least one animal nearby - their guides. They ranged from doe-eyed cows dressed in flower crowns, to actual does with little bells around their delicate ankles. There were birds still hanging bunting from the roofs and squirrels curled around necks, even a languorous lizard belonging to the headwoman, Frau Peterson.

"Murrish, what can you smell?" She asked the little dog, whose response was to grumpily scratch at his neck and duck into the forest of legs.

"Alice!" Came a slurred voice from behind the girl. She tensed, it was Will, already three sheets to the wind. He swung a heavy arm around her neck - possibly crushing some of her flowers and disturbing Crumb from her perch. "What a beautiful woman you are growing into."

Will was an older, unmarried boy - the son of Herr Grey. The family had brown eyes, so Alice wasn't sure where the name came from - although she suspected it was from the dour natures that his parents personified. They owned some land at the foot of the mountain. While normally quite a productive farm, it had not escaped the bad luck plaguing the town.

"Will... so good to see you. Are your parents here as well?" Alice asked, trying to spot their gloomy demeanours in the crowds. Crumb chirped her displeasure at the boy, and fluttered to one of the many tables laden with baked goods.

"Nah," he said, his eyes downcast. "Mum's not... They're not going to make it to the festival this year. I'm representing the family." His chest puffed out with the statement, although his wobbly legs spoiled his proud demeanour.

"I'm sorry that I won't be able to talk to them," Alice said, feeling the opposite. A thought occurred to her. "Say, have you seen any wolves lately? Being so near the mountains, I thought you might get more than us."

Will's eyes dropped to the ground.

"No... no wolves," he said, pulling his arm back. His shoulders slumped a little, as he turned away. "I'm going to get some more ale."

Alice watched him closely as he stumbled towards the public house. Crumb returned to Alice's shoulder, quietly twittering in anger. Murrish trotted up shortly after, having held back while Will was present, mildly repelled by the unwashed adolescent. It occurred to Alice that she might have the most judgemental guides in the whole village. Murrish sneezed upon reaching Alice, and looked up at the girl, silently conveying the results of his search.

"Nothing? Weird. Well I did just have a really strange conversation with Will," she said, and laughed when Murrish responded by comedically retching. "He said that his parents aren't here, which is odd enough, but he also didn't seem to want to talk about them, or wolves. He barely even made a pass at me before he wandered off."

Murrish looked at his with head askance. Alice laughed again.

"I know, I know, maybe I'm just not as cute as I think I am! But he seemed to want to talk, and then shut down as soon as I asked about wolves. Maybe I should go see if his parents are okay?"

Murrish growled.

"Yes, or that."

She ducked out of the festival - it was a long walk to get to the Greys' farm. The roads were empty, at least, which made the trip faster. As the trio approached the house, Alice noted the dry fields, the peeling paint, and the freshly turned dirt by the trees. The house was cloaked in the shadow of the mountains in the afternoons, which gave it a gloomy feel. Alice peered through the windows, but couldn't see past the tattered curtains. She knocked tentatively on the door, which swung in and unleashed the smell of stale beer, mouldy food, and all with an undercurrent of rosemary.

"Oh gods," Alice said, covering her nose with a hand. "I know they're disagreeable, but this is extreme. I wouldn't have thought Frau Grey would let the house become this filthy..."

She looked back to the forest as an uncomfortable though occurred to her. The fresh soil by the trees, the filth in the house, Will's unusual behaviour. Murrish followed her line of sight and let out a quiet whine.

"I guess she can't clean up anymore," Alice whispered, overcome by a wave of pity. "Why didn't they say anything? Where is Herr Grey? What does this have to do with Betsie?"

Crumb ran her beak through Alice's hair, trying her best to comfort, and then took flight. She winged concentric, widening circles around the house, looking for a clue to this unsettling mystery. In the house, the smell of rosemary wove through the stench of rot and turned Alice's stomach. She backed out of the house, it was clear that Herr Grey was not inside. She sat on the stoop, watching Murrish sniff around the path, sneezing periodically.

"Don't worry about it, pal, the smells are overpowering, give your nose a break," Alice said.

Crumb arrowed back towards them, flapping her wings with urgency and twittering notes in quick succession before flying back towards the woods. She had seen something she couldn't quite describe, but it included Betsie and Herr Grey with a knife. Alice and Murrish launched themselves after her, and sprinted to where the river wove through the forest on this side of the town.

As she crashed through the trees, Alice caught flashes of Herr Grey - kneeling beside a trussed-up goat dressed in flowers (Betsie!), standing beneath a festooned pillar holding a curved blade, a skinny grey wolf snarling beside him. Her approach was loudly forecast, but her non-existent strategy surprised Herr Grey as she launched forward, heedless of safety, and ploughed her shoulder into the man, forcing him off his feet and into the river, and forcing Alice to her hands and knees beside the goat.

The animal started loudly bleating, adding to the cacophony of snarls, chirping, barking, and splashes suddenly surrounding them. Alice pulled out her pocket knife and started cutting the bindings on the creature. The skin on the back of the girl's neck was stinging as though struck by lightning as she expected the wolf's teeth to close over her skin at any moment. She had severed the ropes on the animal's forelegs when she noticed her own blood dripping from her elbow, staining the coarse hair of the goat's side.

"Shit, shit, shit," she swore, the adrenaline and fear causing her hands to shake as she sawed the knife through the fibre. Finally, the last thread broke and the goat's back feet were free. Allowing her to barrel away into the woods in a frenzy of fear. Alice grabbed her slashed shoulder, fumbling for the wound she still couldn't feel, and turned towards the river. Crumb was darting into the wolf's face, flapping and clawing with her pin-like talons, as the animal snarled and snapped at the sky, trying to protect its eyes. Herr Grey was still stumbling through the muddy riverbank, brandishing a knife, as Murrish stood by the water yipping furiously.

"Stop! Don't hurt them!" She cried, stumbling to her feet again. Should she run? Crumb could flee by wing if Alice was safe, but how could they outrun a wolf?

Crumb darted back to the girl's shoulder, and Alice got a better look at the wolf. It was a stringy, mangy thing, with ribs visible through its coat. Crumb had landed a blow to one of its eyes in its weakened state, and its eye was closed with blood dribbling into its fur. The creature was still fearsome, pacing back and forth with a mad energy as it snarled, eyeing the pocketknife in Alice's hand and the bird now panting on her shoulder. Alice abstractly noted the mockery of the summers-end festival around her - garlands and flowers next to the crude stone altar and the knife in Grey's hand.

"I only wanted..." gasped Grey, as he pulled himself to standing in the mud, "a healthy guide. But now I have two guides and a girl. The gods will be very happy!" He grinned, a crazed look in his eye as he waved the knife at Alice.

The girl stepped back hastily.

"What happened to you?"

Herr Grey dropped his head back and laughed, pitched a little too high to be natural.

"The drought starved all of us, my family and the wolves. There was no food. Stechen here," he nodded to the wolf, "her mate killed my dear Mila. So I shot him."

He stepped towards Alice, ignoring the angry mongrel near his feet.

"Stechen and I didn't know what to do about each other, but we partnered over time. I told her about the summers-end festival and she made the wise suggestion that we could be doing... more." He said, taking another step forward and placing a hand on the wolf's back. He lifted his other arm, knife pointed towards Alice.

Horrified, Alice took another step back. She had been at the edge of the grotesque shrine, but as she stepped, her foot caught on a rock and she abruptly fell to her backside, her hands splayed to the side. At this sudden motion, the wolf, mad with pain and hunger, lunged forwards - only to be met by the talons of the blackbird darting from Alice's falling shoulder. Herr Grey lunged with the wolf, but before he could take three steps, Murrish was clamped onto his ankle and Betsie, unseen by the humans, launched out of the woods and took a great flying leap headfirst into the man. He screamed as he fell back into the river a second time, echoing the furious yelps coming from the now fully blinded wolf. Alice leaped forward again, trying to help her guides, but found that the kidnappers were sufficiently crippled, and instead grabbed the fallen knife and ran in the opposite direction. As she ran, Alice cast a glance back towards the howling wolf, a spear of pity piercing her heart.

She held her injured shoulder, blood still slowly trickling down her arm, as she limped back towards the festival. The pain and sorrow throbbed through her, but the fear of the disturbing altar and Herr Grey with his crazed eyes propelled her forward. Quickly, the trio of animals caught up, all uninjured besides some small scrapes. Crumb fluttered beside Alice as she ran, chirping her support, and the two others ran ahead to get attention for the girl.

As Alice stumbled past the first few houses marking the outskirts of town, she was met with the only one who knew the whole situation - having heard it directly from Betsie. Liesl came sprinting down the road, tears streaming down her face, simultaneously furious and distressed. She launched herself into her sister's arms, causing Alice to cry out from the movement to her injured shoulder.

"You found her! Please don't die now, I almost lost Betsie today, please don't let me lose you too."

Alice laughed and then cried, the fear and pain pouring out in a rush. The sisters held hands as they walked back to the festival. As they walked into the town square, the crowds of villagers thronged around the girls, some trying to comfort, some trying to understand what happened. As Alice fought through the crowds, smiling despite the pain and trying to get to her parents, she saw another crowd of villagers - 4 lean men eyeing her speculatively from a doorway.