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ELIZABETH
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“JUST DON’T TELL ME I’m going to be examined by the Holy Roman Emperor Josef II. That might be a tad too much,” I said with a weak smile as Dr. Falkenstein approached my bed. My voice was slow and cracked and my body felt weak.
“You’re not, don’t worry,” he said with a twinkle of humor in his blue eyes. “But it looks like I will have the privilege of being the first to tell you about our world.”
“Start with the emperor. He had to be your relative.”
“He was my great-grandfather.”
With some effort, I pulled myself into a semi-sitting position. “Dr. Falkenstein, history is one of my favorite subjects. ‘Count of Falkenstein’ was Josef II’s alias. The emperor had a daughter, Maria Theresa, who died I believe in 1770, at the age of eight. There are no records that he fathered more children, either legitimate or illegitimate.”
“The emperor didn’t; you’re right. But Josef Falkenstein did. Josef II officially died in 1790, at the age of forty-nine. Thanks to Brian, he lived forty-four more years as Josef Falkenstein, a wealthy landowner.”
My eyes shot open. “Brian knew the emperor?”
“There were close friends.”
Oh, oh, oh!
“We should’ve started with something simpler,” I murmured as my mind tried to grasp the notion. The man I was in love with had befriended the eighteenth-century emperor. The next thought made my heart rate skyrocket: Brian might’ve known my ancestor, the one responsible for my curly hair. She lived at the Austrian royal court when Josef II was the co-regent. There were rumors, hinted in many family letters and journals, that the emperor was in love with her.
“Elizabeth, are you okay?” Dr. Falkenstein’s voice reached me from a distance.
I breathed in and out a few times. “Considering this is the craziest conversation I’ve ever had, I’m okay. So, what really happened to the Emperor?”
“Long story short, he fell ill. Brian helped him recover and, with the Emperor’s permission, staged his death. So, after he ‘died,’ he continued living as a commoner, and quite a happy one, if you ask me. He married and had a son, who was my grandfather. Brian will tell you the full story one day.”
My brain wanted to shut down. I fought hard to keep my eyes open.
“Zana once told me that her grandpa knew Winston Churchill. I thought she’d made it up, or mixed up people and places,” I said weakly. Dear Lord, how to make sense of all this?
Dr. Falkenstein smiled. “I don’t know the details, but Zana probably told the truth. Now, let me do the checkup. Tell me how you are feeling.”
“Like I’ve been run over by a freight train.”
“It’s post-shock; it’s normal. I’ll check your blood pressure and pulse first. Feel free to ask me any questions.”
If I only knew where to start. “You’re a werewolf.” It was a statement, not a question. “Don’t tell me the emperor was also one.”
“I am, that’s right. The emperor wasn’t. He was a human.”
How could someone who supposedly died in 1834 have a great-grandson in his mid-thirties in the second decade of the twenty-first century? I thought while Dr. Falkenstein wrapped the cuff around my upper arm and inflated it rapidly. Then I remembered Brian’s stories about Voltaire and the French Revolution, and the room started spinning again. It was good that I was already lying down, so collapsing was impossible.
“How old are you?” I said in a small voice.
“I was born in 1847,” he said and focused on listening to my heart. “Your pressure is excellent.” He removed the cuff. One-hundred-eight over sixty-eight.” He held my wrist, and, without applying any pressure, counted my heartbeats. “Your pulse is still a bit high, but this is to be expected.”
“You can hear my heart, can’t you? Which means that Brian can too, and everybody else. Your senses must be much stronger than in humans.”
“It’ll take time to learn about us. No way can we cover everything today. But yes, our senses are a trifle sharper than those of humans. Roll up your undershirt. I want to check your abdomen.”
A trifle sharper. Yeah.
“Everything’s good,” he said when he finished. “I’ll give you vitamin and mineral supplements; that’s all you need. Take them for the next few weeks. You’re going to be under a lot of stress. You need to help your body and mind cope with it. Okay?”
I made a quick nod.
“Now tell me about your migraines. Brian told me that you have them occasionally. Are they related to your menstrual cycle?”
I opened my eyes and I focused on the doctor’s questions. We talked about my medical history for a while. There wasn’t that much to say: I told him I hadn’t had a single migraine attack since I’d come here, and that my last period was much lighter and painless.
He explained to me it was because of this place. It was a sacred, protected territory that provided its inhabitants with a long and healthy life. “Adult werewolves don’t have lots of health issues,” he said, and here again I pushed back the question about their lifespan. “Only our children are more vulnerable; they’re not unlike human kids. Humans who live among us tend to be in excellent health and long-lived. Since you’re here now, your migraines will eventually disappear altogether, along with other related issues. Anything else that I should know?”
“Women in my family have a difficult time conceiving,” I said, desperate to talk about something real. Like my hormones, migraines, my family history of low fertility, quantum physics, global warming. Anything but werewolves and other mythological creatures. “My mother was forty-nine when I was born, and her mother was in her mid-forties when Mom was born. They were both healthy otherwise.”
“Well, some women are just less fertile,” Dr. Falkenstein said gently. “To tell you more, I would need to run some tests. Not necessarily that anything’s wrong with your ability to conceive, regardless of your family history. Keep that in mind. If you stay here, I doubt it would be an issue even if you inherited this particular condition.” He smiled. “Copper Ridge’s fresh air will put your health in perfect balance.”
If I stayed here, in the werewolf realm. So much for normalcy.
“And if I don’t stay here?”
“If you do have some hormonal imbalance, human medicine can easily treat it,” he said. “It’s also possible that you’ve already been here long enough for your condition to disappear. If you had it in the first place, that is. To be honest with you, I don’t know. You’re different than the humans who know about us and share our world with us.”
My mind brought up the strange words I’d overheard many times. “What am I? Vardanni, ellida or asanni?”
Before he could answer, the private door flung open and Brian burst in. He didn’t come close to my bed, but stayed in the middle of the room. “Is Elizabeth okay, Gerd?”
“Elizabeth will be perfect, Brian,” Dr. Falkenstein said. “And yes, you may come closer. We’re done here.”
I cleared my throat. “Dr. Falkenstein, I want to tell you that I’ve always been a great admirer of your great-grandfather. He was one of the greatest statesmen the world ever had.”
Dr. Falkenstein bowed, took my hand and kissed it. “Thank you, Miss Chatwin,” he said, his voice deep and husky. “He often doubted himself. I’m sure he’d be glad to know it.”
He grabbed his bag. “Don’t hesitate to kick Brian out if you need peace and quiet. I’ll stop by tomorrow to check up on you.”
“Thank you, Dr. Falkenstein.”
“You’re welcome, Elizabeth. And please call me Gerd.”