The Girl in the Forest, Malcolm Cowen [the best e book reader .txt] 📗

night.”
Jan closed the door after the priest. He felt unsettled, as if he had betrayed the girl by speaking about her. He spent the rest of the day on minor jobs that didn’t involve too much walking, while Piotr helped.
By evening they were indoors, and as the light faded he barred the door. A few minutes after the last light failed, Jan heard it, a snuffling sound around the door. He took a chair and stood on it to try and look out over the top of the shutters to see what animal was there, but he could see nothing, it was too dark.
After a while the snuffling ceased, and as the moon rose he could see the ground outside the cottage was clear. Then he saw her again, wearing the clothes he had given her, and walking across the clearing towards him.
As she neared the cottage he opened the shutter. She saw him at the window, and her face lit up. He jumped down from the chair and opened the door. She entered, smiling with happiness.
He closed the door, forgetting to bar it, but she didn’t seem to care as she dropped to her knees beside Piotr to greet him.
She stayed till well past midnight, putting Piotr to bed, and kissing him goodnight, then coming back into the main room saying she wanted to check Jan’s foot.
For Jan it was like the time before his wife had died, a woman now caring for him, now letting him serve her with food and drink, now just sitting talking companionably with him, as a friend.
She asked him about every detail of life in the village, about his son, and his wife. When he said again that Maria was dead she through her head back and keened sadly with grief.
Then she turned to asking about himself.
“Why did you say you were not a good man? Everything you have done to me or to the boy is good?”
The question caught him unprepared. He stammered.
“I, I’m a normal man, I’ve got a temper when I’m angry. Sometimes I want to be greedy, and, and do things I know are wrong.”
“And you miss your wife, very much.”
“Yes.” He did, every night when he lay alone and lonely in his bed.
“But you try not do what you know is wrong. You have something in you that gives you strength to try. You, you confess it in tears when you fail.” She hesitated slightly on the word “confess”, as if uncertain of it.
“Tell me about Father Jacobus”.
So he told her and she demanded more and more details about him. But the time grew later and his conscience pricked him.
“You should go,” he said, “It’s not proper for you to be here so late.”
She looked up at him in silence for a moment, as if she was reading from his mind all the things he was reluctant to put into words. Then suddenly she rose.
“Don’t worry, I know you are to be trusted. I’ll go, and I will be safe, and I will return.”
She moved to the door, and stepped back and kissed him lightly on the cheek.
“Don’t forget,” she said, “bar the door.”

The next night he barred the door, and again he heard the snuffling of the beast outside. He watched the latch, and saw it move, as if something was trying to hold it in paws not designed for that job. Again as moonrise drew near the beast retreated. But this time there was no girl, although he waited till past midnight for her.
He did see Father Jacobus again though. He came, late in the afternoon, knocking on Jan’s door, and asking him to come to his house before dusk. But he wouldn’t say why, only that he was bound to respect a confidence.
Intrigued, and slightly frustrated, Jan went to his neighbour and arranged for Piotr to stay the night. Then before he left he wrote a brief note to the girl on a scrap of paper, and pinned it to his door, high up where a wolf could not reach it.
The eastern sky was beginning to darken as he knocked on the door of the Priest’s house. Jacobus let him in, then barred the door after him.
“I’m sorry to make you wait like this, but I’m expecting my other visitor to be delayed a few hours.”
“The girl?” it was an obvious deduction.
“Yes, she came to see me last night. She wants baptism, and she wants you as Godfather to her.”
“Godfather, me?” Jan asked, “I don’t understand.”
“She wants to be adopted as a daughter of God, and she wants a man she trusts to stand as her Godfather.”
“But, can you baptise her Father, does she understand what it means?”
“Does anyone completely understand the mystery of baptism? I certainly don’t. But I know this. She understands what it means exactly as much as I do, exactly. It’s as if she can take the thoughts out of your head as you talk to her. In fact I’m sure that’s exactly what she does.
“The night before last you spoke to her about the village, then about me, and this church. When she first came to me, she knew as much as you know, exactly as much. Within five minutes of talking to me she understood as much as I do about the faith.”
“Is she,” Jan struggled for words, “What is she?”
“That’s for her to tell us. But one thing I’m sure of, she’s sincere, and whatever she is, she wants to make her peace with God.”
They waited. Jacobus light a lamp as outside the night grew darker. A wolf howled again, then fell silent. Sometime before midnight the moon rose, and a few minutes later there was a knock on the door and Jacobus rose to answer it.
She entered, still wearing the clothes Jan had given her. There was a difference though, Jan realized as he looked at her. Before she had worn them as if they were hanging on her, now she wore them with elegance, like a queen.
By heaven, she was beautiful. Then he remembered she could read his mind, and he flushed with embarrassment. But she turned and smiled at him, and he dropped his head.
“You want to be baptised?” Father Jacobus’s voice was soft.
“Yes, if I may be.”
“God’s grace is for everyone, man, woman, child. We’re all the same before Him.”
“And if someone is not man, woman or child?” her voice was soft.
Jan swallowed, and he saw Jacobus sigh slightly, as he had expected this.
“I’m not God, I can only guess what He thinks, and now you’ve asked me the question, I think you know the answer as well as I do now.”
She flushed slightly, “Yes I can see what you are thinking.”
She paused and turned to Jan and laid her hand on his arm, “And please don’t be ashamed like that. There is nothing to be ashamed of.”
She turned back to Jacobus. “No, I don’t know what I am. I know Jan thought I might be a werewolf. I, I don’t think I’m human either.
“My first clear memories are of waking on a moonlit hillside surrounded by wolves, and I knew the wolves, that they were my pack. I had vague memories, images and longings of myself as a wolf.
“For a long time that was all. Then slowly I became aware that I seemed to be splitting into two separate personalities. As a wolf, I was vicious, fighting to be pack leader, defying and beating down the males until they submitted. At night, when the moon shone,and I became a woman I began to feel disgusted by the wolf, and I wanted to be free.
“But I didn’t know how to escape. Then one night as a wolf I found Jan and his son trapped in the forest, The wolf saw them only as prey, and then the moon rose, and I saw them as a man and his son, in need of help.
“And I talked to Jan, and it was as if I could read everything he thought, and everything he knew.
“Father, Jan said to me he was not a good man, and I read his thoughts, and he’s right, he has thoughts that a good man would not have, but he’s not a bad man either, because he’s turned his back on all that part of himself, and he’s made his peace with God.
“Father, I’m a wolf, and I loath that part of myself, and I want to put an end to it. If there’s a God I want to make my peace with him, to be His daughter. I want to be a real person like Jan is. A true woman, like he’s a true man, I don’t want to be the wolf.”
Jan felt himself blushing, but Jacobus intervened first.
“Baptism’s only a symbol, not a magic ceremony, you know that.”
“But a symbol always has something it stands for, or it wouldn’t be a symbol.”
“God forbid I deny anyone that, but it may not take away the wolf. The man who was my best friend, he found he turned by moonlight into a wolf, and he was baptised and confirmed. I cannot promise what I can’t deliver.”
Jan found his voice again, “You said your friend resolved the problem. What did you mean.”
Jacobus’s face tightened at the memory, and a moment later the girl’s mouth opened wide in shock.
“Most of the superstitions about werewolves mention wolfbane. Some say it causes it, others that it cures it. The one sure truth is that it’s a deadly poison.”
The girl’s voice took over as Jacobus’s voice faltered, “So he locked himself away in his attic. He threw the key out of the window, and took a large dose of wolfbane. And,” she paused a moment, “And it killed the man, and left only the wolf.”
Jacobus took up the story again, “It was just a wolf, no more intelligence or malice than any normal animal. We spent a week trying to decide what to do, then one morning we came down to find it had killed itself smashing itself against the stone walls of the room we had locked it in.”
“So you buried the wolf,” the girl took over once more, “and in consecrated ground by night against all the laws of the king or the church.” Her voice shook now, “Because he was your friend.”
“And one of the bravest men I’ve ever met.” Jacobus looked the girl full in the face. “So now you know it all.”
“And so do you.” The girl looked back with equal honesty. “So will you baptise me?”
Jacobus lifted up his lamp. “Follow me,” he said.
He led them into a side chapel of the church and set the lamp on a ledge high up. Then he picked up his prayer book and began the service of private baptism for adults.
Jan watched the girl. She stood watching the priest and her face almost looked as if it were shining from inside.
The priest dipped his hand in the water, and smiled at the girl.
“And what name will you take.”
She looked back at him in silence for a moment, and Jan wondered if she were looking in his mind for names. Then she smiled.
“Verka. If I may.”
“Verka,” Jacobus smiled, “meaning Faith. That’s an excellent choice.” And he lifted his hand with the water trickling from it and baptised her in the Name of the Three who is One.
Verka bent her head as the water ran down, then lifted it again, her eyes shining.
“Thank you Father.” And she flung her arms round him