The Decoder - Chapter 3

I woke up feeling better. I was still sore, but my skin wasn’t burning and my head was clear. And the room was empty and quiet. That was the best part. No wolves, no Victor. His highly individualized bouquet had even diffused somewhat. It wasn’t unpleasant, but I preferred to have my mind completely to myself, thank you very much. I stood gingerly, took a few unsteady steps, then straightened, pleased that my legs could hold my weight. I realized that I was in a different room this time. It was smaller and contained a miscellany of wooden furniture: a small table of polished dark wood, a rough chair which was possibly home-made, a mantelpiece containing small ornaments, a dog basket… which I had been lying in. I picked several long wolf hairs off my shirt. Ughh… Whose was it? Papa Werewolf? Or maybe Fera’s…

“Good morning!” said a bright voice behind me. I jumped, but rallied when I saw who it was.

“Hi, Fera,” I said. “Any chance for some breakfast?”

“Okay,” she smiled. “What do you want – some arm?” Her eyes widened theatrically. “How about a bit of finger?”

“Have you got some fruit? Or vegetables, maybe?” I ignored the jibe and focused on making friends with the youngest member of the household.

“Well… I don’t know… Come through to the kitchen. We’ll see what there is for vegetarians.”

The kitchen was a spacious room with a fireplace in the middle of the floor. Large metal bowls stood on shelves. Oil lamps hung on the walls.

“We usually eat what we can find,” the girl explained, lighting the lamps with a flaming twig. “We run the lamps on animal fat and make clothes with the skins. We melt snow for water and burn practically anything for fuel. When the seasons change, we store water and gather berries and roots to dry for winter – the whole diet thing for werewolves is rather vague. It’s almost spring now, so I don’t know what we have left.” She kicked a large barrel. While she wrestled the lid off, I examined the girl. Fera was small and slim, but made up the missing portion with lots of voluptuous blonde hair. She wore it loose and it cascaded over her face in a thick screen. She was, in effect, the exact opposite of her brother – fair, slight and flighty. The perfect target for an attack on resolve.

“Got it!” she exclaimed, throwing back her hair as the lid clattered to the floor. “There’s even a bit left for you.” She reached down and excavated a large ladle filled with scrunched-up pieces of dried vegetables.

“Grab a bowl, will you,” she said, hoisting the implement with difficulty.

I took one of the metal bowls off the shelves with slight reluctance, noting the small dark specks on the rim.

“Oh, don’t worry,” Fera laughed, seeing my expression. “Mother is big on hygiene. She insists on rinsing all the bowls at least once a week.”

This didn’t help. At all.

“Fera,” I said, as she tipped the dehydrated roots into my bowl, “where is the rest of the family?”

“Out hunting,” she replied, blandly.

This didn’t fit in with my picture of the typical werewolf. “But it’s daylight. Is it even full moon? And why aren’t you in wolf-shape too?”

“What has the moon got to do with it? We change when we want to. I never get to change. I always have to stay home and keep house while they go running. It’s not fair.”

I sensed a psychological lever there, just waiting for me to push down on it.

“That is so wrong,” I stated seriously, fingering a gnarled shape in my bowl. “They shouldn’t be allowed to do that. You have just as much right to go hunting as any of them. Has Victor ever even touched a broom?”

“No,” Fera said tearfully, “he just orders people about. He’s always so nasty with me.”

“I can imagine,” I murmured, nodding. “And now they’ve left you to guard me and keep the decoder.”

“Yes,” she sniveled. “They said that I had to keep it in my hand at all times, but that doesn’t work when you’re trying to open that twisted barrel, so I – ”

“ – put it down on the floor, right next to you,” I said, levelly. The decoder glinted in my hand as I held it up with a silent prayer and felt that glorious lethargy immediately take hold.

“Hey!” said Fera, catching on. “Give it – ”

“State: Alpha

672.5”