Author's Disclaimer: Neither T10K, nor “Deor’s Lament” belong to me.

My father and mother, they do not want to be here. Here, there, it’s all the same to me. I can cook, and I can sew, and soon I will marry, and the scenery doesn’t change that.
It’s the circumstances, perhaps, that my father hates about this place. The death of his father, and we have inherited the inn. I never knew the man.

Here, the actual here is a large-ish inn, with stables and kitchens, the Magpie and Swan, named from a drinking song.

Rotkapchen. Redhat, in a language I do not speak. The word sits on the tongue, then slowly dribbles off, letter by letter. Well, now it is Rougefleuer, Redflower in a language I do not speak. Why the obsession with red, I do not know.
The town is nice, I guess, large, with a butcher, baker, tailor, dyer, brewer, apothecary. Beyond the town is farmland; beyond that, the lands of Lord Corvis. The fields are green and yellow; the town is brown.

Rotkapchen. Rougefleuer. Redhat, Redflower. I can cook and I can sew and I will marry. Someday. Though I fear Someday is fast approaching, and will sneak in, hidden as Next Week.
When I was born, my parents called me Buttercup. Now they call me Coin. When I was little, the reason was innocent; good at keeping bar tabs, my father would say I was bright as a newly minted one. Now I fear the sinister connotations of that word - the money spent on my dowry, the money my family will receive for me. A commodity, the same as a capon, a pig, a cup of ale.

I live in a land whose language I do not speak. Well, I can say beer, and bread, and Pay Up, these are words I learned a million ways from the cradle. More important than Help Me.
There are ruffians who frequent our tavern. My mother does not like them, though she is usually in the kitchen. I have told her the only way to lose the ruffians is to lose the ale. Not shrewd, my mother, but even she knows then we would lose the profits.
They sit by the fire, and talk and laugh, and play jokes on one another. They like making a fool of my mother; I would put a stop to them, but secretly, I find it funny, too. Their leader is a dark-haired fellow, tall, commanding, a bit threatening in the eyes, in a feral dog sort of way, handsome and dangerous.

It is an afternoon, Tuesday I think, and quiet. The ruffian ringleader enters alone, approaches the bar, where I am tallying up tabs.
“Sorry to bother you miss…” he begins.
“Oh, now you are sorry.”
He smiles. His eyes are dark, too. His hair is a little too long, and falls into them. I am afraid I will, too. “I am sorry about my friends. They are all sleeping off the other night; I thought I’d come in alone for some quiet.”
“Aye. What can I do for you?”
“A mug, is all.”
I lean behind the counter, fetching his drink. My braids sway before me.
“What is your name?” he asks me.
“I am Buttercup, called Coin.”
“Oh.” That’s all. No questions into either of my unusual names, and for this I am glad. “You speak my language,” I say, verbalizing my sudden realization. My father knows the Old Language, but not I.
He chuckles. “Yes. My father and I are lovers of language. You seem to do all right.”
“I make do.”
“You have a lovely tongue.”
I cock an eyebrow. “And what is your name, if you are going to be talking to me this way?”
He blinks, then laughs. “I meant your language! I am Wolfgang of Rougefleuer, the son of Old Corvis.”
“Ah. Ooh!” I’d been joking with the Lord’s son, as if he was a normal person.
He sets his empty glass down, along with some money. “I will see you, Buttercup, called Coin.”

I have no trouble from his ruffians after that.
I don’t.

The Ruffians sit by the fire, drinking, tormenting the serving girl. I preside behind the bar. The girl begins to cry and the boys laugh and I rush to intercede.
“What right do you have to treat her this way?” I growl, putting an arm around her. Wolfgang is sitting to one side, presiding from behind the armrest of his chair.
The boys laugh and joke and upset the girl more, though I am not entirely sure what they say.
“Why should we listen to you?” one asks. “You’ll only go running to your father. Girls…”
I punch him in the eye. Wolfgang laughs.

It is another afternoon. I hum. The tavern, the inn, they are dark. Father wants to put in windows, will draw in light and customers. I suggested he open a salon, where the townsfolk can discuss philosophy and poetry. He didn’t think it was funny. The townspeople though, they like the dark. The woods do not let the sun in; why should the wood of our inn?
“Can you read?” It is Wolfgang; he startles me.
“What?”
“Can you read? You must be able to scribble something--”
I cross my arms. “Are you always this insulting?”
This makes him pause.
“I can read. Enough for an innkeeper. I can recite, enough for a guild of bards.”
“Recite?”
I smile. “Long ago and far away, there lived--”
He smiles back. “Ah.” He looks down at his hands; he is holding a book. “I know history. Teach me your stories, I will teach you to read, really read.”
“What language?”
“Any you like.”
“Well, then, long ago and far away, there was a young girl…”

The sun is bright. I forget that, a lot, simple outside things. The trees at the edge of the village are ominous. I forget those, too. Trees. I do not forget birds, though; they are in too many drinking songs. I am teaching Wolfgang a poem, “Deor’s Lament.” It is my favorite, dark and hopeful. Wolfgang transcribes it for me.
I trace my finger on the page, his smooth work, my clumsy practice lines.
“These shapes, they give us sound…That’s amazing,” I muse, having never thought much about something so utilitarian.
“No, we do, which is better still,” says Wolfgang. He adds a word to the page, one I know, “beer.” “That’s not ‘beer’ until we say so.”
I smile. “Magic. And before, I thought it just a means to get by.”
He sits back. “You know all these stories, you love telling tales, and for you an inn is ‘just a means to get by’?”
I look at him. “Something more, now.”

He comes to me at night. He teaches me about the darkness: constellations, animals, following the moon and the stars. I tell him stories.

“One day,” I say, “you will have to take your father’s place.” The moon is bright.
“Someday.”
“You’ll have to give up your ruffians.”
“I’ll only be too glad to do ‘t.”
“And me.”
“Not you.”
“I’m not fit to be your mistress…let alone anything more.”
“All your stories, and you think that?”
“But that’s just it: they are only stories.”
He is silent.

“The butcher is looking for a wife for his son,” my father tells me.
“You know how to cook…” my mother reminds me.
I shrug. “Yes, well, Someday.”
“The summer,” my mother says.
“Aye, well.” I sit back in my chair.
“Next month, or the month after.”
“Can the butcher’s boy read?” I ask.
“What does that matter?” my father asks. “It’s unimportant.”
“It means everything.” Someday.

“I have a gift for you, Coin. For your braids.” Wolfgang does not know I am engaged. Otherwise, I do not think he would give me presents.
“For me?” It is May Day, and everyone is acting strange.
“Yes.”
I am distracted by flowers. “That Maypole-it’s obscene,” I mutter.
He looks at me.
“Thrusting upward like that…”
He shakes his head. “Here.”
It is a box. Inside are two coins, with holes punched in them and leather threaded through.
I thread them into my hair. He hands me a flower; I add it to my head.
“Perfect.”
“Wolfgang, I am to be married.”

There is a commotion at the Magpie and Swan. Dark night, and a Traveling Noble at our door. And his train. A horse has thrown its shoe, and they cannot continue on. They are heading for Lord Corvis’s.
I find food and drinks and sheets, and must offer my bed to my evil twin. She is the Traveling Noble’s Daughter, dressed in red, cape and hood and all, my opposite: I am dark, hair, skin, eye. Her hair is a flame, her skin is snow slowly melting beneath it, her eyes leaves of the trees in the deepest woods at Midsummer. I am mud.
The Traveling Noble comes from lands where I was born. He speaks my language.
She refuses to speak to me. I sleep on the floor.

They leave in the morning. She eats my breakfast.

She is seen around the manor, around the town, always in red, followed by Old Corvis, led by Wolfgang.
The wolves have arrived, too. It’s summer, and dry, and I don’t know much about wolves, but I suppose they are hungry. The men are up in arms. The wolves are skinny.

It is morning. Early. Our guests have not stirred. I stir the batter for the biscuits. I hear the front door open.
“Come, come, you’ll see.” It is Wolfgang.
I wipe my hands on my apron and go to see.
He tells me her full name, her glittering titles. I miss them. All I hear is how he introduces me: “And this is Coin.”
“Coin?” she sniffs.
“Buttercup, called Coin, m’lady,” I say.
She turns to Wolfgang. “You were right. She does speak.”
Wolfgang smiles weakly. He says to me, “The lady does not speak the language here. She was feeling lonely.”
I spread my palm upon the bar. “So was I.”
Morning-Glory twines a finger in her hair. “I would rather the silence than speak to peasants.”
I would growl if I could, I would bare my teeth, if I could, run to the wolves and have them teach me anger -
“I never want to hear talk like that again,” he is saying. “She is a friend.”
She regards us. “I have much to tell Father.” She glides out.
“I am sorry,” sighs Wolfgang. “But…we are to be married.”
“So, to spite me, you drag her in here, put her on display like a prize mare? A piece of jewelry?”
“And you are any better?”
I stare at him. “Do I want him? You can have her.”
He turns to leave. “We will talk later,” he says over his shoulder.

Breathe in. Breathe out. In. Out. I can cook, and I am here…and what does anything matter? Breathe in. Breathe out. In. Out.
The butcher’s son, he does not read.

The Ruffians laugh and clink their glasses. I do not listen, but Wolfgang tells me he will marry Morning-Glory in the fall, at her manor. After my wedding.
Then she will return here, to Redhat. Redflower.
Wolfgang and I never Talk Later.

The summer is bad. There are wolves. They have little ones to feed. The townspeople have their lean and hungry look; they have little ones to feed.
The wedding is simple. It is after Morning-Glory leaves. Wolfgang is here, to represent the family of the manor, the ruling family. He can stop this, if he really wanted to. I never told him-- Well, he knows what he knows.

After, after, I return to the inn, to gather up my belongings, to move into my husband’s house. His house behind the butcher shop. I cannot rid my fingers of the smell of blood.
As I pack, I find a scrap of paper, my writing and Wolfgang’s. We never finished. Writing, I mean.
It is a bit of “Deor’s Lament”: “That has passed; so can this. They overcame from that, so too may I from this.”

That has passed, so can this. They overcame from that, so too may I from this.

The wolves have attacked some villagers, children. One fatality reported. One wolf reported, according to the hunters. With bravery and spirit I did not know he had, Wolfgang says he will kill the wolf.
I lied. I know he has the spirit.

I see him, in the street.
“Is it true?”
He smiles, a little; the sun moves out from behind a cloud, a little. “I will be careful. My soon to be in-laws do not think me very brave.”
I swallow. “Is that all this is? A show--”
He puts a hand on my shoulder, leans in. “I have my people to think of. One already lost.”
Then he leaves, with a horse following, with a crowd following, hoping. The horse carries his burden: provisions for the woods, food; weapons for the wolves, death. Wolfgang carries the towns’ burden: What if he fails?

He is gone a long time, in the baking summer sun. No news. Days, it must be; weeks, we fear. We worry.

I am at the inn; my mother isn’t feeling well, and I must cook.
“What is it like, a butcher’s wife? You must have good meat every night.”
I shake my hair, hiding my smile from my mother. I set a bowl of soup next to her bed; I set myself beside her.
“The butcher’s wife has many headaches.”
“Oh!” my mother sits up. “It’s not serious, is it?”
“No. But you’ll be, soon. Eat.”

I am about to leave for home, follow the stars to a butcher shop, when I hear slow hoof beats. I stay still, watching.
A lone man, two animals.
I rush forward and hug him tight. “Wolfgang! We feared, we heard-we feared!”
“This was the only wolf. He won’t bother us anymore.” My hair muffles his voice.
I do not want to let go. Be mine, be mine… But I let go.

He has scratches, cuts, wounds. Nothing serious. I tend to him in the kitchen.
He cannot spend the night. He wants to see his father.
I cannot get the blood off of my fingers.

The wolfie menace is gone. No scrawny non-human families have been detected for weeks. Wolfgang says he will go alone to meet his bride. He will return within two months with her.

I hug him goodbye, as does every other woman in the village. But I must soon away; I have animals to butcher.

My husband, finding me in a fit of melancholy, decides to try to relate to me.
“I’ve thought o’ it, Coin! I have a story I can tell ya.” He is exceedingly pleased with himself, sitting idle by the fire. I no longer have time for stories; I’ve just finished the dishes and am starting some mending.
“What, my dear?”
“Well, this is a story all parents tell their kids: There is a beast, with great fangs and claws, what lives in the woods. He lives in a great castle-all magic, ya see. And he has enchanted finger-hats all around. Red. How the town gets its name.”
“Finger what?”
“Finger-hats. Flowers…kinda’ bell-shaped, I guess.”
I pause a moment, needle in mid-flight. “The fox-glove?”
“Aye, mayhaps. Like my story?”
“Yes, my dear.”

Winter is coming. No sign of wolves. Or Wolfgang.

The days are shorter, according to the sun. Really, they stretch into eternity; the entire town is in a foul humor with the likable young master of the manor away. Old Lord Corvis isn’t fairing too well, either. He is months late and no word…

I am cooking in my tiny kitchen when the entire town bursts through my door. They track snow in with them, a mob of melting snowmen. Leading them is the Lady Morning-Gory, cheeks bright. Everyone is talking at once; the lady trembles.
“What is going on?” I shout, slamming my rolling pin against the table.
“Fetch her a drink, and she will tell you,” my mother says. My back turned to the cabinet, I hear my husband enter.
“’Ey no, ‘ey now, what’s-- Oh, my lady!”
I had my double the drink. She sighs heart-breakingly. “Wolfgang never arrived. We only recently discovered the bodies of…” She takes a shuddering breath. “Messengers. Our messengers. I came here to find him. Something attacked us in the snow…my escort was…” She begins to cough. I drag her to the large basin in the corner, where she elegantly retches. “We were attacked by something in the snow. My horse is lost. I came to the inn because I knew you’d be able to understand me.”
I rub a hand across my brow. “Surely you should go to Lord Corvis…?”
“It would kill him, Coin,” my husband says. Other people nod in agreement.
“I must find him. Wolfgang,” she says resolutely. Everyone looks at one another. Morning-Glory stares at me. “You, you will go with me.”
I squeak, betraying the frightened mouse I am. “But my lady--”
“You speak my language and you knew him well.”
“Now listen ‘ere!” my husband interjects.
Morning-Glory reaches into the folds of her heavy winter cloak. She produces a small leather bag. “Some coins for yours.” She sets it on the table. He nods. And thus I am twice-sold.

We trudge the snow in white silence. My cloak is not so thick as hers, and I shiver.
“Do you love him?” I ask.
“Hmmm?”
“Wolfgang. Because…”
She shakes her head. “As much as you love your butcher, I am sure.”
I remain frozen in the snow. “Then why? Someone as adventurous as you could have any man.”
She smiles. “You know it isn’t that easy. It all comes down to money, eh? I can embroider, and make sweets, so someday I must marry. And my parents say I shall marry a rich man, who is kind, and reads, and tells the most wonderful stories. And I used to say it didn’t matter, but now it does. And I don’t want to lose him for fear of something worse.”
“You are settling for Wolfgang?”
“Too quiet.”
I wonder if we have bonded, if we share something beautiful and universal. I wonder if this is how my husband felt when he shared his story with me.

It has been a day. There is a terrible storm; snow is coming up not down. We grip one another’s hands.
“What if we are attacked?” I call to her. She is a million miles away.
“How do you mean?”
“Like you were before?”
She looks back. Her eyes are red. Or perhaps it is her hair in front of her face. “I killed my escort.”
I stop dead, unable to breath. She tugs my hand. Perhaps I misheard in the wind.

My legs ache. How heavy, how wet. Any rest, any respite. And then the snow dies down, and it is beautiful, crystal clean. I collapse onto my back.
“What are these red flowers?” Morning-Glory asks.
I lazily prop my head up. “Hmm? Oh, foxglove.”
“Hmm.” She sits down.
I sit up. “What in the fairying forest? Red foxglove?” I crawl to it, touch it. “My husband told me of something like this. There is an enchanted castle…” We both look up; I hear her eyes straining. Looming before us is a large manor house.
A wolf howls. No: it is louder, more magnanimous than that. It is all the beasts of the world, the jungle, the forests, the sea, one loud cry, a declaration of territory.
And there he is, as my husband told me, with great fangs and claws. And I pass out, and in the dark, I hear, I understand that Morning-Glory must stay, to pay off her debt for interfering with an enchantment.

When I wake up, I am struck with the terrible knowledge of what I have done. I have disrupted magic, and Morning-Glory will suffer for it. I am not entirely sure she said she killed her escort. I must…I must save her now, too.

That has passed, so too may this. They overcame from that, so too may I from this.

The gates are heavy. Wrought iron, and magicked, too. The courtyard is still, is beautiful, is summer, is in bloom.
The doors are heavy wood. “Hello?” I call into the great hall. “Someone is here by mistake. I am here to…take her place.”
“Take her place, take her place, takeherplace” echoes back to me.

“You can save her, but not me,” echoes back to me.

I shake my head to clear it, clear off the snow. I can’t start hallucinating now.
The hall itself is one great echo, dark wood shining, reflecting. If I speak to the varnished table, it will respond. A fire rages in the hearth, consuming angry logs.
I wander slowly; in the distance, I can see doorways meander. A staircase spirals, to a loft I assume.
“Hello?” I call again.
Even the fire is silent.

I am famished. When was I in my kitchen last? An hour, a day, a year? Aye, why can I not remember when I was sold? The hall is as long as my memory short; after an eternity, I come to the doors, only one of which opens. It leads to the kitchen. No magical servants to assist me, I make myself supper, and hang my clothes to dry by the fire.
As I am hanging my dress on the fire screen, something clinks to the floor. Two coins with holes punched in them and leather threaded through. I dangle them, studying them. I use them to tie back my hair.
I shiver in my shift and fall asleep by the fire.

I awake looking up, observing whitewashed walls. The fire is dead, the hems of my garments scorched. I move my right arm beneath my head, my left to rest on my stomach. The dishes from the previous night are still dirty. I arch my back and look through the window: white sky.
I hear laughter. I roll unto my stomach and push myself up.
“Lady? Morning-Glory?” I call.
Nothing. I shiver and dress.

In an enchanted castle…a princess sleeps…a beauty wins a beast’s love…a poor girl loses a shoe…and I cook and clean. I miss my two rooms behind the butcher’s shop. Smaller, less to care for.

There is a small garden behind the kitchen. No snow falls in this place, and I set to weeding it.
I loved these kinds of stories when I was little. The heroine was always beautiful and brave, unselfishly saving her family. Completely different from me. I would have asked for a dress. A rose. What good is that? Might as well ask for red foxglove.
I prick myself on a thorn.

I cook and clean and find no one. I would leave, but where would I go?

The fire in the kitchen never lasts long and soon I will have to start chopping logs. I wonder about Wolfgang, Morning-Glory, my parents. That log pile really is small. I cannot quite remember my husband’s name.

“Coin?”
I gasp and in my haste to get up, stick my arm into the hearth. I burn it.
“Dammit!” I bolt upright and blow on the skin. I hurry to the basin and begin the tedious process of pumping water when I realize I have been spoken to for the first time in a week.
I turn, dripping. “Morning-Glory?”
She smiles serenely. “Isn’t this place fantastic? Everything I ever wanted. Good food, fine clothes, a library…”
“What?”
She looks at me. “Where have you been all this time?”
“Here! Freezing!”
She shakes her head, takes my arm - I yelp - and leads me away.

The staircase, a wooden seashell, spirals to the top of a bright turret. The large windows overlook the grounds.
“Where have you been all this time?” I ask her.
“Here, being quite amused. Let me get you…” She reaches into her wardrobe and produces a fine new dress. Blue. “I suppose I’ll fix you a place up here. More clothes than I could ever wear, food whenever I like, but it’s still nice to have a human servant.”
I slip the dress over my head, careful of my arm.
“Of course, there is the Beast.”
“Oh?”
“Always takes his evening meal with me. Every night he asks me to marry him!”
I toss my hair, coins clanking.
“You get used to him, though. I might agree; I’ll have to see what he offers me.”
“How kind.”
“I call him ‘Wolf.’ He is great and fearsome.”
“Aren’t they usually?”
She shakes her head.

I hate for my hands to be idle. So, I am sewing by the fire, just practicing stitches. I am trying to keep the world from falling apart.
Morning-Glory? Oh, I don’t know. How do the idle pass their time?
“I can teach you to embroider, if you like,” she says. She is sitting on her bed in her great chamber. The little kitchen I spent the last week in would fit in this room three times.
“Aye,” I say.
“You know,” she says casually, “I was getting so lonely, I was going to ask for a bird. A singing one. But you are so much better.”
I try to remember if she was so non-sensical when she visited Redflower.
“Aye,” I say. I hold the stocking up for inspection. “So, m’lady, what have you been doing with yourself all week?”
“Oh…exploring. There are doorways that lead to all sorts of curious little rooms. And a beautiful garden. I haven’t been bored. There’s a library, a music room, a solarium…”
“Hmm,” I reply, a pin in my mouth.
“Oh!” she gasps suddenly. “It will be supper soon. I cannot have you here when Wolf comes.”
“Why?”
“Well…because.”
“Ah.” I push up my sleeve and look at my arm. The red skin is fading.
“Well, help me change at least,” she says.
Doing up her laces, I say, “We’ll have to figure out how to leave soon.”
“Why? I rather like it here.”
“We must find Wolfgang.”
She is silent. I tie a bow. “Your fiancée.”
“You could find him; leave,” she says.
“I’m here because of you. You aren’t supposed to be here.”
She turns around to face me. Her long hair streams into her face; I swear her eyes carry a red tint once more. “I know. That’s where your morals and justice get you in trouble.”
I swallow. I straighten my clothes and whisper, “You have to do what’s right.”
She places a delicate hand on my shoulder. “Yes, what’s right.”
I wonder if she made this much sense when she visited Redflower.

She leads me to a small dining room, part of her upstairs apartments. The table is cozy; the fire is bright. Gaily colored tapestries hug walls and hide drafts. Morning-Glory stands still and eyes me.
“You don’t look like you were ever a domestic…”
I stare at her.
“…So, just stand here behind my chair. Do not speak unless spoken to.”
I miss my two-room house behind the butcher shop.

There is food on the table, covered platters, the silver worked with animals and flowers. Morning-Glory sits primly, her hands in her lap. I stand behind her chair, hands clasped at my waist.
And then he enters, and I get my first lucid look at him, and I fear my heart will stop. I close my eyes and try to breathe.

That has passed, so will this. They overcame from that, so too may I from this.

Is he a wolf that wandered into a man’s suit of clothes? A man playing a too convincing game of dress-up? He stands as a man does, he has the hands of a man, the clothes, but his face-his head is a monster, it belongs to the creatures that ravaged the town during the summer. Only it is not skinny, nor is it a cub. It has a long snout, and gleaming fangs, and sharp ears. Whiskers trail from the black nose; white and gray fur erupt from the sides and back of his head. But the eyes-they are both bright and dark, and intelligent and - sad.
How can she sit there so calmly? Is she convinced this has only one ending, a happy one? For her?

“Good evening, Morning-Glory,” he growls softly. I swallow. It sounds like a full moon.
And then he looks at me. He stalks towards me and I am looking him in the face-

I whisper furiously, “That has passed, so can this--”
His features soften, his teeth less ferocious. For a moment.
“What are you doing here?” he snarls.
“I…uh-I was the one to, to--”
He narrows his eyes. They are clouded and look like a howl. “Your being here ruins everything.”
“But I-I’m trying to do the right thing.”
He scratches his right ear. “Leave my sight.” He turns his back to me and I see his tail. I retreat to Morning-Glory’s bedchamber. I am afraid I might be sick.

I throw myself on her bed, beneath a high lacy canopy. A fantasy of every girl, I think. I cry. What am I doing here? I should go on, I should go home.

Morning-Glory returns within an hour.
“You’ve quite upset him,” she says.
“How can you look at him? He’s all teeth and wild eyes.”
She sits down and begins removing her shoes. “I know how this will end. And all will be well.”
I draw up my knees and rest my arms on them. “Well, end this, huh? We must find Wolfgang; his poor father was quite ill when we left.”
She leans back in her chair. “Ah, yes, Old Lord Corvis. Not too bad looking for a man his age. And quite an estate…”
I shake my head in disgust. “What sort of power are you looking for?”
She doesn’t say anything, just looks thoughtful.

I spend the night on the settee by the fire. A marked improvement over the kitchen floor.

I don’t know what Morning-Glory wants to spend the day doing. I return to the kitchen garden, to finish my weeding.
It is near noon; I am about to return to the manor house when a shadow passes over me. I look up…and up…and up: It is the Beast.
He stares at me. “You should return home.” And his voice is soft and I can hear it in my head after he finishes speaking…I can hear him reciting poetry. I can hear an ale-filled laugh.
I sit back, crushing sprouts. “I am the one who interfered with magic, not Morning-Glory. I should be here, not her.”
“You cannot break the enchantment, though. Besides, she killed a man. Why would you want to help her?”
“Why would you want to marry her?” I snap and my guess is proved correct. “Anyway, I don’t know what happened. I still have to do the right thing.”
I cower as he reaches forward. He runs a hand through my hair, pulls the coins to the side, inspects them. I can’t speak; I fear…

I take a breath. “Wolfgang, what happened?”

An eternity passes. The sun sets, the moon rises. Flowers bloom and die.

He sits beside me, disrupting more. I shy away, just a little. He sighs. “Just a standard curse, Coin.”
I dig my fingers into the earth. “But how?”
“Ah, well. Growing up, I was told of an enchanted castle in the woods outside the town--”
I interrupt. “I know that story.”
“Oh?”
“My husband told me.”
He looks down his long canine nose at me. “Right, husband. There was an enchanted beast here, a man who’d been turned into a wolf. By fairies, evil ones.”
“Why?”
He sucks in a breath. “On that, I am not quite clear. But he looked more a wolf than I, and I…killed him.”
“Ohhh…” I take his hand, shudder, drop it.
“An accident. He had led the real pack of wolves to our town. But when I was traveling to Morning-Glory’s, the fairies found me. And I must serve out that other man’s enchantment.”
I lean back on my hands. I stare at the sun. If I am blind, I can look at Wolfgang. “Then why shouldn’t I be here?”
“Oh, there are conditions for breaking the curse.”
“Naturally.”
“She must be pretty, she must love me for who I am, and she must already be rich.”
“Ahh… Morning-Glory told me she does not love you.”
He coughs. “Also, I know that she has killed: We are, therefore, made for each other.”
I sit up and cross my arms. “Plus, you were supposed to marry anyway.”
“Well, yes…”
“And so, I’m not good enough for you. I--” I want to say that it doesn’t matter to me what he looks like, but it does. I fear him this way.
“Coin, no.”
“I knew you when you drank for sport and were a pest to serving girls. Do you know she bought me?”
He stares at me, but I shudder and look away. Those eyes.
“Who?”
“Her! Her, Morning-Glory, the great love of your life, she handed a bag of coins to my husband and he let her have me. A commodity, the same as a capon, a pig, or a cup of ale!” I rise, and undo the leather laces in my hair.
“Coin--”
I toss the coins down to him; my hair is violent, it swings. “I cannot leave. The front door will not open. So get her to love you, because I cannot.”

I run my hands through my hair and walk calmly to the kitchen.
“Coin!” he calls after me. “Buttercup!”
I take a breath, run an arm over my eyes. And then…I hear a howl.

It is warm, but I build a fire in Morning-Glory’s room. I think, for a moment, of actually setting the room on fire, then shake my head in disgust. I pull a high-backed chair before the hearth. The fabric is worked with figures, a couple in love. I flop into the chair, legs over arms, hem trailing on the floor.
Who am I?

Sometime later, the chamber door creaks open. I know it must be Morning-Glory. I shudder; she has blithely admitted several times to causing the death of another human. A man in her service. Just as I am in her service now. I shiver.
“Is that you, Coin?” she calls.
“Yes,” I reply tiredly.
“Good, good. I was wondering: Does Lord Corvis have any other children?”
I sit up, slide on the chair cushions so I can face her. “Uh, no, no m’lady.”
“Hmmm… So, Wolfgang was an only child?”
“Is.”
“Oh, yes. Help me get this off.”
I un-hook hooks and un-button buttons.
“I think I shall be leaving, Coin.”
I pause. “What?”
“There’s no reason for me to stay. You’re the one who caused all the trouble, no? And you admitted it. I shall move on.”
I sigh. “You realize there’s no longer any need to find Wolfgang.”
“Hmmm? Oh, yes. That’s not what I was talking about.” She hands me a brush.
“What do you mean?” I pull too hard on a tangle.
“You can find him. I need to…get home.”
“I found him,” I say softly. “The Beast is Wolfgang.”
She chuckles. “Sure, dear. Anyway, I have a new plan. So, tonight I shall tell Wolf I am leaving. He cannot make me stay. Short of killing me, I suppose.”
I shudder at that word. Killing. As jagged as its meaning.
“I want to look my best for my last supper here, Coin. Help me find something.”

I watch her as she goes through the clothes in the wardrobe. The shoulders move like wings beneath her shift. The arms are pale and graceful, like willow branches. Her hair is a fine curtain of fire, protecting. She lives.

“This one,” she says, removing a richly embroidered red dress. I know the fabric is expensive; having only dealt with homespun or cotton, I know not what it is. When it is over her head, I ask it: “Why did you kill that man?”
She chuckles. “Oh, Coin, has that been bothering you this whole time? He was just an escort, a spy sent by my parents. He never let me do what I wanted. Could I have gone on an adventure like this with him tagging along? Preposterous. Don’t you worry. You’ll stay here…be safe.”
I swallow.

She leaves for supper. She is frighteningly beautiful. I return to the high-backed chair.

Do wolves roar? That is what I hear later, I assume when Morning-Glory reveals her plan. What is her plan?

“That went much better than I thought,” she says when she returns. I help her pack so she can leave at dawn.
I sleep on the settee, and when I awake, she is gone.

I explore her apartments. A balcony overlooking the grounds, a solarium with embroidery hoops, a library. I cannot embroider, and there are not many books I can read.
Everything in the wardrobe is now mine. Shoes of soft leather, blouses of pure white, fabrics in red, yellow, gold, green, purple. All of the peasant blue has disappeared. I like gardening best, and the only thing suitable for that is what I have on. I return to my kitchen, so I can heat water to wash my clothes.

The kitchen reminds me that once again I am utterly alone. I will have to eat with the Beast…with Wolf…with Wolfgang! Oh, how soon the mind forgets! I place the heavy cauldron on the fire. I fear the heart does not.

I spend the day weeding and for dinner, change into the least complicated dress I can find: a dirndl, of all things, what they wear in the lands where I was born. I am sunburned and my hair is grease and sweat.

And so now I sit at the cozy little table in the tiny dining room. I wish for the anonymity of the Great Hall. I tremble when I hear him approach. It is Wolfgang, it is Wolfgang…
He enters. It is a Beast, it is a Beast…!
“Good evening, Coin,” he says pleasantly.
I swallow. “ ‘Evening…Wolfgang.”
“So…just you and me.”
“Aye.” I fold my hands primly in my lap.
“It is just me,” he says.
“You don’t have fangs.”
He sighs and looks away. “You never feared wolves before.”
“I suppose, then, I am a hypocrite.”
He shakes his wolfie head. “Have you any stories to tell me?”
“No.”
“Well, how about something to eat, then?”
“Sure.”
That is how the next few weeks pass.

The library is dark, the same gleaming wood of the Great Hall. I pull volumes off the shelves, but most are too hard for me.
“We never finished our lessons,” a voice behind me says.
I start, nearly dropping the book. “No. Wolfgang, I don’t often see you during the day.”
He takes a step forward. In the gloom, he looks…normal. “I am often here, because you are not.”
I force a laugh. “That is true, my lord.”
He snorts. “Where did that come from? It’s been Wolfgang since the beginning, Buttercup, called Coin.”
My heart pounds. “Then finish. I do want to read.”
I can hear him smile. “All right.”
That is how the next few weeks pass.

“The light is so poor in here,” I say one day. “Let’s go sit on my balcony. The grounds are so beautiful.”
“Are you sure? You’ll see--”
I will see that he is not fully human. “I am sure.”

I sit on the very edge of the balcony, legs sticking through the bars. I feel young again. I am getting better at reading, so I read to him.
“This kyng had thre doughters; the name of the fyrste doughter was Gonoryll; the seconde was Regan; the third Cordell, that was beste tau…tug…”
He looks over my shoulder when I have a problem. “Tau-guh-tuh.”
“Thank you. That was beste taughte and wiseste.”
I can feel him behind me, breathing, alive. “Very good.”
I smile. This reading is so magical! And more tangible than my current predicament. “Let me try again: This king had three daughters: The name of the first daughter was Gonoryll; the name of the second was Regan; the third was Cordell, that was the best taught and the wisest.”
“And so are you, Coin.”
I shake my head. I look out across the trees, the flowers, the birds… “I think I can love you. Now.” I turn around to face Wolfgang.
He swallows. “Oh?”
I put the book down. “I was angry at you, for a long time. But now--”
“Why?”
“I loved you and they forced me to marry a butcher’s son. You could have stopped that.”
“Could I? You never said anything and I was to marry a conceited bore.”
“And then…you are a Beast, in no condition to choose, and yet you still wanted her over me.”
“But, the conditions of the enchantment…”
“You never once asked me to marry you.”
“That is true. But I--”
“But the heart doesn’t forget. And so I’ll say now what I should have said then: I love you Wolfgang. And now I can say unconditionally.”
He leans down, a muzzle of teeth-I thought to kiss me, but he said: “This will not break the enchantment.”
“No?”
“The girl must be beautiful, because I am not. You are certainly that.”
I smiled.
“She must love me for who I am, which you do now.”
I nod.
“But the third stipulation is the most peculiar: She must be rich.”
“Why?”
“So she will not say she loves me solely for my money.”
“Morning-Glory wanted your money.”
“I know.”
I lean back against the railing. “So, you don’t want me? Is that it?”
He shakes his head. “That’s not it at all. But could you have a wolf for a husband?”
I look at the book sitting placidly beside me.
“Yes, I could. But I am still the innkeeper’s daughter…and the butcher’s wife.”
He sighs. “There is still that, isn’t there? Now, we have to plan.”

The fire rages in the Great Hall. I had insisted on eating there, after cleaning and admiring the room for so long. The rosy glow makes Wolfgang look less sinister; a family dog, not a fearsome predator.
I stare into the hearth, lazily tracing the rim of my glace with a finger. I turn to Wolfgang.
“You’ve studied law; you know the rules…”
He nods.
“My Lady Morning-Glory bought me, paid for me in full. I am hers, to do with as she pleases. She left me here, presumably as a gift to you. So, I am yours, to do with as you please.” I lean back in my chair, proud.
A smile spreads on his face, crafty, cunning, wolfish.
“Mine?”
“And most willingly.”
He does not say a word. He stands, comes to my side of the table and takes my hand. I obediently follow him up the stairs. We go to his bedchamber. He does not say a word.

Nor do I.

I wake slowly, stretching my limbs. I hear him breathe beside me. Awake now, but not in the right place. I blink. I had fallen asleep in Wolfgang’s fine bed: large, with canopy and curtains, and a feather mattress. But this is crowded, and lumpy. It is the bed of my childhood, of the butcher, small, hay-stuffed, on a frame of rope. I sit up carefully, so as not to disturb anything.
Everything looks odd. Besides the furnishings being wrong, my eyesight is off. Everything is clearer, deeper, but there are fewer colors. I can smell…everything, I fear; I hear birds a million miles away.
“What has happened?” I whisper. The manor house, the fine trappings, all have been replaced, a child’s fairytale reversed: We are in a one room-cottage, kitchen, dining room, bedroom, all in one. I see stairs leading to a loft, a door leading to a cellar. It is less than my childhood, less than my butcher. I shake my head and curse my slowness:

For my head is a wolf’s head. I have sharp ears, a long snout complete with whiskers. I have a pelt. Hands, with opposable thumbs, but claws, too. I try a wriggle; there is my tail. Who am I?

“Wolfgang! Wolfgang, wake up!” I whisper urgently.
“Hmm?” he murmurs sleepily, one eye half open. Then he sits up beside me. “Oh, Coin! Oh, I’m…” He shakes his head.
I pick at the comforter. “I cannot meet one requirement and this happens?”
“These things are very specific.” He pulls me to him.
“Still…we’ve each other, and a house…” I sigh. “Now what?”
He growls, a little, a playful noise. “Well, you know what courting wolves do?”
“What is that?”
His eyes are level to mine. “Play hide and seek.”
I giggle and the chase is on.

“We must go into Redhat,” I say later.
“Why?”
“Ohh…tell your father you’re alive…tell my parents the same…we’ll need supplies, a few chickens at least. Who knows? You are a lord’s son…perhaps…”
He lets out a breath. “You are right. But this won’t be easy.”
We leave for town under cover of midday. Walking with a tail is hard; I must lean forward to work out my balance. It is spring now, and the sun pours upon us; we wear our cloaks to shield our heads. We must loll our tongues as sweat beads upon our brows.
When we reach Redhat, the streets are empty. Everyone is inside eating, we assure one another. We head for the Magpie and Swan; it is closest.

There is a boy in the street, playing in the new soil. He stares at us, and we think he does not fear us, perhaps welcome us as children sometimes welcome new things. He stares and stares and stares. And then, after a dusty silence, he screams and runs into his tiny hut. We cower and fear, and run.

We enter the inn through the back, through the kitchen. We spook the horses in the yard. My mother is in the kitchen, humming as she washes dishes. She is dressed in black.
“Stay here a moment,” I whisper to Wolfgang, and leave him by the door.
I creep towards my mother, I am stalking her, I want her. “Mom,” I say softly.
She starts. “Coin? But, of course not…”
“Mom, no, it’s me,” I say, placing a hand on her arm.
She turns to me, plate clattering to the floor. She must not notice that I am not me, for she embraces me and cries. “We were told…She told us you were dead…Attacked by wolves…”
I pull away. “Mom, please, don’t be scared. I am still me.” And I remove my cloak. She puts her hands to her mouth and gapes. After a dusty silence, she speaks: “What has happened to you, my Buttercup?”
I motion for Wolfgang to join us. “To both of us. A curse. We look like wolves…”
“Half wolves,” Wolfgang says.
I nod. “But we are the same inside.”
My mother sits at the small table. I can hear laughter in the dining room, at the bar.
“There are others like us,” Wolfgang says. “Half animal, by curse or enchantment, or even…” He coughs. “Natural causes.”
Mom leans back in her chair. “I have heard of such things. You know, Master Corvis, such tales of wolves and humans are common where I come from, where my daughter was born.” She wipes a tear from her eye.
“I have missed you,” I say, more or less true.
She smiles.
“How is my father, madam?” Wolfgang asks.
Mom lets out an excited half-gasp, a sound of disbelief. “He is well. In the best health in years, so they say. He mourned your death. But since Lady Morning-Glory has been with him…”
I put a hand to my head. “Morning-Glory! I should have guessed! You are sure Lord Corvis is well? It’s not a charade set up by that girl? He’s not being slowly poisoned or something?”
My mother shakes her head. “No. We do not know what to make of her-not wife, not mistress, not daughter-but she has brought him new life.”
Wolfgang looks at me. “I must see my father.”
“Mother, I will return,” I promise. “We have a cottage now, in the woods, and perhaps…”
My mother hugs me. “It shall be all right, Coin,” she whispers. I did not know my mother had this spirit.
“Father?”
“He is serving. If he knew you were like this, though… I will prepare him. Go now, see to Master Corvis’s father.”

I realize I do not know my mother at all. Perhaps…perhaps she is someone I would very much like to know, not just some dithering idiot who gave birth to me and gave me to a butcher’s son.

Hoods up, we race through the street across town. We fear that the townspeople will fear. How would they do it? I wonder alone. Fire, iron, torture, stone? I shudder.
“Are you all right?” Wolfgang asks.
“Too hot for this,” I mutter. That suffices.

We enter the manor house from the back, as well. I had never been to the Corvis estates before; the plot behind the kitchen looks like the one I kept in the woods.
Wolfgang immediately bursts into the kitchen. “Where is my father?” he growls.
The kitchen girls shriek. “That voice!”
The head cook figures it out: “Master Wolfgang? Could it possible be, after all this time…?”
He sighs, and slowly removes his hood once more. “Aye. I have been enchanted.” A few women faint.
The head cook shakes her head. “Lady Morning-Glory told us you were dead.”
“I know this. But look, it is not so.”
I step into the kitchen. “Please, let him see his father.”
“Monsters! How do I know you’re not up to something?”
Wolfgang is trembling. “Then let us see Morning-Glory.”
“Aye, and I’ll have to call the captain of the guard besides. Who knows what you might do to a pretty young girl?” And the cook looks pointedly at me.
“Please,” he whispers.

Morning-Glory enters the kitchen, or at least, a woman by that name. Her coloring is the same, I secretly know her, and fear her, but she seems now…all the more confidant. She has won something. She performs for the kitchen.
“Wolfgang, what a surprise! And is that you, Coin? My my my… How embarrassing… Of course I will let you see your father, but let me prepare him; you mustn’t upset him, now that he’s finally well.” She leaves. Her skirts and aprons flutter: she is dressed as a nurse.

She whisks in and out with Wolfgang-she takes him to a dark chamber, she tells me-and returns for me, leads me to a small parlor.
“You won’t get anything,” she tells me.
“Don’t want it.”
She nods. “Sure…you’ve that manor alone in the woods, right?”
I swallow. “Well, it’s a one-room house now…”
She smiles. “And you don’t want anything? I’ll give you a few chickens, an old ox, but you’re not getting any land.”
I bare my teeth: a smile or a threat. “Why haven’t you killed the old man?”
She stiffens. “I can assure you, I fully intended to. Money and land, old and sick… And he has fine court connections, too. I wanted to. But the father is much like the son: kind, gentle, smart… Handsome.”
“He is old enough to be your father!” I interject.
“Aye, perhaps that is also why I could not do it. But he was so sorry about the loss of his beloved heir…son…I pitied him.” She stares at me, eyes bright. “I think I love him, as much as I am able.”
I am aghast. “Love? A murderous thing like you? Tell me you still hope to inherit?”
“By and by, maybe. He has not made me wife yet. I have asked forgiveness for my sin; I want to start anew. You know, Coin, how wonderful love is. Don’t deny me.”
Wolfgang appears in the doorway. “Come, Coin, my father does not want to see me ever again.”

Morning-Glory does provide us with a few provisions, and some money, and we carefully make our way home. We are careful of children and hunters. I do not return to my mother. Not for now.

Months now, in our little house. A garden is planted, animals run underfoot, herbs dry from the rafters. It is quite cozy, charming, and romantic. As good as any story. And tonight I have big news.
We laze on the front porch, newly added. We are not animal, we are not human, we are not man and wife, we are just Wolfgang and Coin.
“Wolfgang, I am with child.”
He stares at me, my belly. He places a hand on it. “A child?”
I swallow. “Yes.”
He shakes his head in wonder.
“But,” I say; I am frightened, “I do not know what it will be.”
Wolfgang jumps up and gathers me in his arms. “What does it matter? It will be a child, ours, and we will teach it to read and write and tell stories and plant a garden and sing and cook and sew, and it will do just fine.”
I let out a laugh. This child will be loved, to be sure, despite my misgivings.

A Midwife helps me, and it is easy. She does not bat an eye when she holds the boy for me to see. Her job is to help life thrive. And she and Wolfgang do.

After I have recovered, we go to town, so I may show my mother her grandson. We take a small cart Wolfgang bought months earlier. The baby and I are jostled, but he laughs, the child laughs, and all is well.

I stand in the kitchen, with my mother, my father, my lover. It feels natural; it is not people and dogs, it is a family.
“The baby is beautiful,” my mother says. “But… He’s got a tail.”
I take the baby from her and smile down at him, wiggling in his white wrappings. “His name is Wolf.”