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I must have dozed a while at least, for I awoke with a start to the sound of rolling thunder from above. Dusk had given way to starless night, a fuliginous darkness that prevented me even seeing the heads of the children resting on my lap, though gentle hands assured me they were safe and well, sleeping despite the storm raging above the tree-tops.
If the canopy above us thrashed wildly and noisily in the storm, at ground level all was still. The air hardly moved and only the occasional splash of water penetrated the leafy roof to confirm the pouring rain above.
To say I was not scared would be untrue, but after a while I became blasé about the storm above, for we were cocooned by the forest from all but its boisterous sound and the all too frequent flash of lightning that would penetrate the very depth of the woods, illuminating all around us for an fleeting instant, then plunging everything again into the raven pitch of the forest’s night.
At length the storm began to subside, the angle of lightning such that its fulgurations penetrated only the upper levels of our leafy canopy and the thunder rolled more distant, slowly parting our company. The wind eased too and the thrashing of the branches high above became a gentle sway. Still Nicolae and Elone slept, blissfully unaware of nature’s ephemeral temper, and my own thoughts turned once more to join them.
Whether I succeeded a short while I cannot know, but I was next aware of the most blood-curdling of sounds and was in an instant bolt upright, my eyes wide with fear though the darkness was by now impenetrable.
At first I was as bewildered as I was frightened, for I had not been able to identify the sound, and I sat stone still, hardly daring to breathe, fearing what might come next.
For a fleeting moment my mind was filled with the tales of my early childhood, when Grandmama would scare Radu and I with haunting tales from Transylvania, of mythical creatures of the night that survived only by sucking the blood of the living. Instantly I struggled to shut my mind to these memories, remind myself I was twelve years old now, and that we had left our native mountains and their fanciful folklore far behind.
But in the still of the night, for the wind I now realised had deserted us along with the storm it brought, it was not easy to dismiss such childhood memories, and I silently cursed my grandmother’s ability to bring to life the most improbable of fairy-tales. If only Radu were with us now.
Thoughts of my late brother were chased from my mind as the chill sound erupted through the night once more. This time wide awake, there was no mistaking its lupine origin, for the piercing howl of the wolf needed no introduction.
My blood ran cold, my body stiff and trembling. I gathered the stirring bodies of Nicolae and Elone to me, gently rocking them back to sleep, determined they should not share the fear that now held me tight in its grip.
Perhaps it was imagination, perhaps reality, but I now began to hear movement around us, though the inky darkness offered no chance of visual confirmation. My body shook with fear and, if laodicean of belief, still I began praying as I had not done in many years, begging deliverance from the evils that were even now surrounding us, preparing to seal our grisly fate.
The wolf howled again, still distant, but closer I was convinced, for its haunting call steered its way unerringly through the maze of trees to find its bourn: my very soul.
I shut my eyes tightly, as if this might aid in my defence, and clutched the children to me, determined that whatever the nature of our tormentor it would have to consume me first, to the very last bone of my frail body, before I would relinquish protection of my charges.
So disposed I sat and trembled through the night until eventually, whether in answer to my prayers or in response to fatigue I could not honestly say, I was delivered into blissful sleep.