The Countess and The Bite

by PhantomlikeGirl

it's a fantasy world of princesses and werewolves and the dark moon above. it is a love story which i wrote quite in a strange manner, because it depicts what a girl can do when she is faced with the process of becoming a werewolf.

The Countess and The Bite

22 Sep 2010

1.

The light was turned on and it had been left turned on since the moment both of them had returned home from quite a very long walk on the streets. It was obvious they had had a pessimistic day, if they both had chosen to have an evening-stroll all by themselves, no one else to follow or to guard them 24/7.

They were born on the same day, therefore they were twins. But being twins did not necessarily mean that they would have identical physical features. They were those twins born separately, when it came to physical appearance. They both had wavy, long, blonde-golden-like hair and they were tall and slim, their body-forms voluptuous and tempting, but they did not share the same beauty or the same color of eyes.

Kara was the type of beauty people loved to include in the vampirish category. Her eyes prolonged to the agony of those men who were doomed to look into them. She had gray irises dancing everywhere around a room, once she'd enter it. She would spend much time on studying the surroundings with the kind of sharp look almost perfectly similar to a hawk's. She possessed cat-like eyes, with long eye-lashes and perfectly-shaped eyebrows. She was 5'6 and her body had the voluptuous form of a clepsydra. When she smiled, it was the heart of a feline that would open up and would show its pray mercy and the sole intention of playing and not killing. The eyebrows would lash down the top-line of the eyes and would encounter the strongest of feelings including wrath, annoyance, irritation and sexuality if it were the case when such spiritual states were required.

On the other hand, Denna, even though she was as blonde and as voluptuous-looking like Kara, being the oldest of the sisters, would have already acquired the years of perfection in the art of seduction. Whenever she would move, there was no possibility that people around her would not turn their heads and simply stare at the creature they would often think of as an earthly angel. Denna had doll-sparkling blue eyes, which seemed to have sealed the sea inside a long time ago. When her steps pressed the floors of the buildings or the pebbles of the alleys, the earth seemed to tremble with her grace and her femininity. Her lips would draw mysterious, enigmatic smiles. She would never give you a wide, light-hearted soully laugh, because she did not believe laughing was the sound necessarily required in public. She would only keep her wide-open smiles and her white pearly teeth for her sisters.

The middle sister would be Kaylen. She would be the second in the family to have taken the dark-auburn hair color of their mother's. She was tallest and she was the one adult enough not to expose her femininity voluntarily. Whilst Denna and Kara wished to dress in black and red, in vulgar and seductive, Kaylen often chose a plain black dress or a simple pair of women's trousers without looking less attractive or voluptuous. Her hair would be the prettiest of all the sisters, due to the fact that she had also stolen away the curls and sparkling locks of her father. She would always have an opinion about something which she would quickly change after hearing the majority's (usually) opposing judgment. She would not state that she were the first to keep up with fashion (au contraire, the other two blonde twins were the first to know of the latest changing in worldly garments), but she did try to feel like she was not the oddest in physical appearance and clothing.

The youngest would be Evance and she would be the embodiment of passive aggressiveness and Gothicism. She never would have understood why it was so important that women should show their femininity to the opposite sex. Often, she would be the one standing close to her older sisters and watch how they would spend hours and hours in front of the bathroom or bedroom mirror, trying to pick the dress with the right color, the right shape or the right model. It would be something she would not comprehend, least of all give second thoughts to. Kara and Denna would sometimes indulge in their mother's request to help Evance out and turn her into a pretty 21-years-old-to-be woman, but they usually gave up half the way. Kaylen would then be left alone to deal with the situation. Explaining never helped those who wanted to help Evance. It would have been even more complicated. She would never smile when you would joke, she would always cynically laugh of you and she definitely never care for anything else in the world but her pleasures (perhaps sometimes of her sisters' and her parents' well-fare, although it would be a very rare thing to think about for her). She was the first to steal away the auburness and abundance of her mother's hair, surpassing her sister, Kaylen, in the waviness and elegance of her locks. She would never comb her hair because she thought it a terribly tedious business and she would never let anyone touch it, because she believed everything about her to be her sole property and no one else's. Her sisters did not fit in the category of "foreigners who need permission to touch me". Evance's eyes were light brown and she was the single girl in the family to have inherited their grandmother's inquisitive look.

Count Schradder prided himself in such beauties and would always thank the gods in public for gracing him with the elegance and the fairness of his young wife, traits which all three daughters successfully inherited. Count Schradder had been predicted long ago, in his years of youth, that he would give the county's finest line of countesses in his family. He would have not believed back then that his daughters would become pure expressions of beauty and grace, when he had held each of them in his arms. He had spoiled them until it was never enough to stop them crying unless they would be granted their wishes. Denna was the first to start such an alert rhythm of contemplative fatherhood dream while one's child was happily playing with her or his new toy. The last one to end it would be Evance. And they seemed such completely different personalities at first, but their mother had never made a distinction between them. One would be preferred equally to the others. They would learn how to respect each other's distinctive features and help one another when it came to intensify them. They would take each other's side and would finish the line of countesses in grace, virtue and dignity.

Now, the clairvoyance who had predicted the happiness of the House of Schradder would be long forgotten by the bourgeoisie who once had visited her so frequently, but Evance and Kaylen stopped by at least once or twice (in Evance's case) a week. They enjoyed her predictions, those of an old blind woman who had always thought of the world as being present only as long as she would live, just so it would mock her terribly. She would tell stories of the past and would curse and spit poison through her lips every time she was reminded of her past popularity and the cruelty of the aristocracy to have cast her so in the distant forests near by the lands of the counts and barons' families, once so fervent and so strict in their visits to the predictor.

Just today Kaylen and Evance had returned from the old lady's cottage, an hour before their other two sisters, Denna and Kara, had come back from their evening stroll. The twins would enjoy often the company of each other to giggle and seduce male passers-by and chant them into giving into their love lust. They would always bore themselves in such trivial games, which is why they would often take seduction to perfection. Kaylen would listen to their teachings, but Evance would laugh and mock them and spit on the stupidity of males who would succumb to such silliness.

Tonight, all four were resting in the youngest's room, listening to Kaylen play her violin and Denna indulge herself in a seductive position in a great velvet-covered divan. Kara had been giving way to pleasures of taking care of her beautifully shaped feet, caressing them and touching them in the rhythm of the music Kaylen was playing, sitting by the fireplace. The oldest brunette was dressed in a white, open-chested silky robe, which laid wrinklesly on the carpet as if she compared her presence to that of a fairy in search of a wondrous sleeping place; thus, she believed she would preserve her beauty. The whiteness of the robe contrasted strongly with the auburness and pale shade of her hair and body. Kaylen would remind so much of her mother, although many would say the face had the fairness and rigidness of her father.

Denna was stretching her fairness on the great divan close by the fireplace. She had a dreamful look on her face, the kind which sent sparkling philosophical thoughts and theories in the atmosphere. Everyone would have felt the strength in that unspoken expression.

Kara was on her youngest sister bed, lying on one side, with one hand holding a small bottle of nail polish, the color of the burgundy wine, and the other holding the tiny brush with which she would lay on the reddish color, possessing the face of a thoughtful angel. She seemed to have taken the time and not only write her thoughts in the atmosphere, on an invisible blackboard of some kind, but she now even wasted her time to correct the spelling and grammar mistakes.

Evance was as practical as she had forever been. She now held a book her arms, of consistent volume and of a considerably heavy size, opened close by the middle, reading the chapter about death and the many ways of dying most well-known doctors encountered throughout their life-time work. So far, she had discovered that most of the times, people feared to encounter death by suffocation or drowning because they did not enjoy the idea of having some organs of their own filled to refusal with some foreign substances or excess of air. She was making a list of how many people died of suffocation, of drowning, of strangulation, of immurement, and how many had suffered premature death by being buried alive or by being intoxicated, poisoned or being stabbed. At times, she would stop only to take the time and give a look around her, to see if anything had changed in the physical appearance of her room. Often, she would catch the thoughtful or angel-like look on her sisters' faces, but she did not bother to ask or to wonder about the reasons for such profound expressivity.

When Kaylen reached the highest peak to her violin playing, Evance stopped her by simply bumping into a strong tone of voice:

'Did you know that there is such a thing as "the Werther Syndrome?'

The other three women stopped whatever they were doing. Kaylen had placed aside her violin and then rested her hands in her lap. Kara circled the ceiling with her eyes, after which she came back to finish painting her right index's nail with nail polish. Denna was the only one to react to her youngest sister silence-diminishing moment. She laid one of her wondrously mysterious smiles and asked with a silky-like voice:

'Tell us what this syndrome is, dearest.'

It was everything that Evance waited for. She would always enjoy knowing that people took interest in whatever she liked to take interest. It would show her tat she was not the singlest person in the family to find pleasure in reading about the dead, often performing amateur death rituals, dress gothic-like and visit old predictors at night, at least once a week. Denna had a cynical way of dealing with Evance's morbid pleasures and hobbies, but even though the eldest was renown for her subtly ironically constructed interest in other people's dreams and hopes, Evance would at least thank her mutely for the questions she would be asked, as a result of attracting attention. Evance smiled widely and placed the book in a protective position in her lap, as if she feared that giving way to her morbid enthusiasm, the volume would slowly find its way out of her hands and onto the floor.

'Well', she said and then lifted the book in her hands, transforming her enthusiastic smile into an academically studious face, 'says here that the Werther Syndrome is actually commonly known as "copycat". It has to do with suicide. You do know that the character at the end of the novel commits suicide. Well, apparently for a brief period of time later after the book was published, the German police encountered several cases with young men who had committed suicide in a similar way. I mean, they copied young Werther's death. Silly, isn't it? They couldn't come up with an original way…'

'Indeed', said Denna, her look pointing somewhere indefinitely in the void. She smiled mysteriously.

'Are you reading about death again, Evance?' asked Kaylen worryingly. 'You know mother told you not to do such a thing again. It spoils your mind, Evance, stop it immediately!'

'Don't be so stupid, Kaylen!' Evance rushed her with incredible speed of reaction. She did not raise her voice because she was too lazy to do such a thing, but it really often got on her nerves when people tried to convince her that whatever she liked would not be included in the category of generally-thought-of-as social normality. 'I would not do such a thing. And if I were to commit suicide, I surely would have chosen a simpler, faster and more original way. But I wouldn't do it and you know perfectly well why!'

Her youngest sister's poignancy did not satisfy Kaylen, who did not remove her worrying look, but it did however amuse Kara terribly.

'Oh, sweetest Evance', she cried laughing. 'You are such a silly creature! You would be too idle to succumb to such an action, which requires both intelligence and practice!'

'Kara!' Kaylen burst out, studying her sister with great distress. 'You are impossible to understand! Both of you! These thoughts are unhealthy!'

'May I remind you that you are the one to have given Evance the start to continue on visiting that old hag?' Kara laughed continuously and this time, when the predictor's person was brought in discussion, Evance opened her mouth to say something in the old lady's defense, but Denna was the one to break off the soon-to-become fight between the two brunette-and-blonde sisters.

'Please, ladies, please, no fight at all! We know dearest Evance is not stupid enough to subdue to such… morbidities. And for God's sake, Evance, please do as mother and Kaylen says! You still live in this house and we cannot have dark thoughts give way into your mind. Who knows what they will nest in the future?'

She kept her impenetrable smile and it sent chills running down the spine to the youngest of daughters, since she had long before got used to her eldest of sisters' incredibly cynical behavior towards her. She knew, better than anyone else that it was almost impossible to convince Denna otherwise of her own opinions. She had an almost obsolete way of imposing her own ideas into people's heads and make them their own.

None of them said anything after this. But Evance had not given up on hoping that someday, she may be able to speak to people about her opinions on death without sounding completely insane or morbid. She still kept the book of death in her lap and she would be decided enough to spend her night in the phrases and statements of the morbid volume.

'I wonder though', Kara mumbled suddenly, her head bended over her left foot, which nails were being currently painted with nail polish.

'What do you wonder about?' asked Evance as if she had known her older sister's thoughts and now would like to be sure she was not being an amateur mind-reader. 'Is it about Werther?'

Kaylen sniffed disapprovingly, but Denna did not give way to any reaction regarding her youngest sister's reference to death once more.

'No, not about Werther, silly!' Kara laughed. 'I don't take interest much in young men who died a long time ago. To be quite honest, I don't take interest in book characters at all. They're such silly creatures sometimes! I was only wondering about the syndrome itself, to be quite honest.'

'Oh, dear, this is becoming unbearable to the ear', growled Kaylen and got up on her feet, violin held in one hand. 'I would have enjoyed playing something nice to you, but if you insist on speaking of suicide and death, I will pass. I'm very tired and I bet we had a long day ahead of us tomorrow.'

'Are you speaking of the official visit father will have tomorrow afternoon?' asked Denna all of a sudden, her voice as clear-sounding as the playing keys of a piano.

'Indeed', answered Kaylen back. 'Well, I'll say goodnight to you three, girls. I'm very tired. Evance, don't stay up too late, you know you'll need your sleep by tomorrow.'

'Alright, Kaylen, I promise I'll sleep tight and not let the bad bugs bite!'

'We all know what you'd use if they do bite!' giggled Kara seductively. It seemed that to Kara, seductiveness in a woman was very important. As it is, she sometimes kept on training her femininity skills even around her sisters. She knew thus that she would keep up with her professionalism in turning seduction into a true love-art.

After the amusement moment, during which the ladies laughed discreetly and pleasurably, Kaylen left them to the comfort of her own bedroom. Soon, Kara finished with her nail polishing and Denna stood up to follow her brunette sister's example.

'I shall too go to sleep now', she said. 'Good night, dearest ones.'

'Good night, Denna', said Evance as maturely as possible. She felt that being polite and good-mannered around women like Denna was a must more than anything in the world. In fact, in time, the must itself would become an intrinsic habit, an instinctual behavior.

Now left alone with Kara, Evance thought she might finally be able to continue her conversation on death.

'Well, what were you saying about the syndrome itself, Kara?' she asked in a bored-like fashion, although anyone could see that she was more than enthusiastic and inpatient to keep the conversation in this morbid direction.

But the blonde cat-eyed woman did not share the same opinion. She would not be as affected as Kaylen of her youngest sister's gruesome pleasures, but it did not mean that she took advantage as many times as she could to nurture them or deny them. She simply ignored them. She passed by them as if they were a pair of old rugged shoes, which no one ever wears anymore because they had long been out of fashion. She waved with her hand to send off a fly and answered:

'Well, why would anyone want to copy someone else's death without having a good reason to kill oneself in the first place? A "copycat" sounds like someone's blindly cutting his throat just because it's… fashionable!' Kara sniffed amused. 'It's like you hate chocolate, but because everyone else on the planet eats and adores chocolate, you need to do the same thing. Although I made quite a terrible comparison. Stuffing chocolate into your stomach and stuffing a knife in your intestines are quite completely different experiences.'

'I think that in a suicidal case, the results consist in producing similar pleasurable feelings', Evance said and she included a philosophical tone of voice to it, adding a touch of seriousness and academicism on her face.

Kara gave her a short look of curiosity, after which she burst into laughter. Evance took it as a direct affront. She shrank in her bed, and the book finally dropped on the floor, closing itself suggestively. Studying it shortly, while her older sister laughed, Evance felt that the book was telling her to stop making a fool of herself.

'Why would you say "similar pleasurable feelings"? asked Kara and Evance looked at her surprised. She took a deep breath and replied, again using her academic tone of voice:

'Because if it's suicide, I guess you've already come up to the stage where you feel ready to let go of this physical world and you wish to die, so dying would be an act of… happiness to you… right?'

She added the last word only to give her sister the feeling that everything she had said was a simple belief and not a theory or credence. Kara did not sense her attempt to trick her. Her face remained half amused.

'If you say so, Eve', was the only thing Kara thought appropriate to say. She stood up and announced that she would go to bed as well and this time, she showed her sister that she did not disapprove of their morbid conversation by kissing her forehead. Evance received the kiss with the assurance that sometimes, she was not the lost case she often thought herself to be.

She saw Kara leave her room and after that, she dressed up in her pajamas and stretched as wide as she could on her bed, over the cushions and pillows and sheets and blankets. They were soft and smelled of flowers. She fell asleep, thinking about young Werther and about people turning their cellars into gas-chambers, with the help of gas leaks, bleach and plastic tubes.

2.

By the time it turned close to 3 in the afternoon, the great Schradder House had turned into a busy little bees' nest, with its servants running up and down the building's inner alleys, holding clean bed-sheets, clean table cloths, shiny silvery cutlery, sweeping floors, washing them, bathing them in perfume, picking flowers with the bunches and dipping them in wide opened vases for each room in the inn. There were some servants who had already taken the liberty of entitling themselves administrators for each section of the building. One would come up and boss everyone around in the west wing, where servants were ushered to occupy their time with perfectly tidying up the bedrooms of the guests and the hosts all the same; some were indulgingly ordering the cooks and the wine-cellar keepers to bring food and the culinary delights to the highest peak of perfection and fascination; another would find time to throw orders and threats in the same sentences while bossing around the stables, for those subordinated to him to clean the horses, clean the garages and all other outhouses surrounding the inn. The courtyard, as well as the grand garden stretching ahead of the gate to the Schradder House were filled to refusal with servants running up and down, wires and ropes hanged everywhere to keep the carpets, the blankets, the bed-sheets, the pillow cloths, the table cloths, the finest of women's dresses, the curtains, the silky hats and silky undergarments out to fresh air or out to dry after a harsh but definitively effective bath. There were smells of every kind everywhere. There was the smell of cooked potatoes, fried steaks and beefs, boiled eggs and boiled blood in those who spend so much time to create perfection in everything. There was the smell of young flesh running up and down to help with the cleaning indoors. There was the smell of sweat and dung in the stables, being swept off with the strongest of wills when it came to destruction of the ignominious excrements, excess of wet and dry horse food and other such troubles usually found in a respectable counts' private stables. There was, finally, the beautiful smell of female perfume wondering about and boring one another with the dullness of the flowery scents in the grand garden.

The count's daughters were all in separate places. They had mutely decided not to spend the day together, as it seemed rather a dull business to have the servants running around like mice in front of an army of cats, while mixing their dutiful job with avoiding to hit their highnesses.

Kara was so amused by the running and chattering and sweating and crumbling up and down that she took a special seat in front of the great fountain which elegantly separated the grand garden of the entrance to the house. The fountain possessed some of the finest statues in the county. They resembled women jumping into a graceful flight from a grand coach, dragged on by six mighty stallions. The women's gracious faces, if colored, would have inspired millions and millions of ships to be launched on their behalf. The water was as clear and as pure-looking as the first river to ever spring out of a mountain in the early days of Creation. The servants made sure that would be the definite impression of anyone new to the Schradder Inn.

The building itself expressed the power and elegance of the family. It stretched as high as it took to touch the first of clouds with one of its towers, on the left wing. The right wing was fully covered in ivy, which proved itself quite useful over the years, especially during winter-time or in the rainy season. The ivy would dry up due to the cold shivering weather of the snowy season and thus would protect the inner walls of the wing, keeping it warm and not in much need to have the fireplace working constantly. In the rainy days, the ivy would suck devouringly all the water on the walls, keeping it protected from moist and dampness. It was one natural investment that the Count Schradder did not financially account for, but did not even regret it being there either. It helped a great deal, if one wanted to keep its family building undamaged and as good as new.

However, the right wing had once possessed the greatest of French windows, as an entrance to the finest of libraries in the count-society. Never had a member of the bourgeoisie owned such a high number of books and that was all to the youngest of the daughter's advantage; although the books seemed endless in their stretch towards the edge of the walls and all the way up to the ceiling to any other guest, their immensity only produced amazement in the quantity section. No one would dare wonder about what type of books they were anyway. That is where Evance's advantage came running on the red carpet. She loved to feed her unusual curiosity on death and all about the practices of the undead, of the dead and of those in between. One full section had been given to her as a birthday gift by her father only to celebrate the beginning of adolescence in her life. She had been most pleased.

The section of books next to Evance's belonged to Kaylen's vocation for music and keenness on tidiness and perfection.

Next, the books on beauty, agelessness and seduction would line up all the way from the ceiling to the floor for Kara's eyes only.

Finally, Denna possessed the books written all for psychology, the human mind and behavior, the sex differences and discriminations and the beauty of manipulation and control.

It was true that most of the times, people would say that the count had been so much engulfed in his daughters' lives that he had dedicated his life to accomplishing each and every single desire of theirs, regardless of the peculiarity or weirdness of it all. The countess had nothing to say about such facts. She would always smile, when asked, and give the most trivial of answers: They are his daughters, after all, is it not so?

At the moment spent by the entire group of housing servants in great distress, running-up-and-down and buzzing-everywhere, Kaylen was hysterical about cleaning her room with her own hands, wearing the most classical of garments a Cinderella would wear on such occasions of sheer tidy-and-cleaning-up passions: old ragged clothes, bathed in ash, dust and feathers. Also, her hair presented the spikiest of feelings to one who would have taken the time (and the courage, given her insane passion) to touch it. She would wear the finest and most original of make-up, her cheeks being painted with ash and clay, also her nostrils sneezing dirty and dust altogether. She would panically run everywhere around the room, just to keep everything tidied and perfectly assembled. That was her current state, when her mother had last visited her a few hours before the clock stroke 3 o'clock in the afternoon.

During that time, Kara had sat next to the fountain admiring and amusing herself with the delight of the free races the servants were giving her everywhere they would be found inside and outside of the inn. She had freshly pained nails in the burgundy color and nothing could have ever satisfied her more than some dinner perhaps and definitely a show.

Denna did not indulge in knowing the world's whereabouts. Her sexuality did not permit the flaws of female silliness. She would probably seduce a young, naïve, but vigorous male servant who would have captured her eyes long before her father had employed him (one would often wonder in sheer stupidity why, afterwards, the young man was hired in the first place). She would often hide in behind the wine-cellar, practicing her little experiments with such naïve, yet promisingly handsome… lab-rats.

Evance, of course, would be somewhere near a book about death or perhaps near a place where the spiritual process would actually happen. For example, last week, when she was called for dinner, she actually presented herself in front of her family members wearing a half-wet dress covered in the perfectly beautiful smell of dampness and mucus from the near-by deserted pond. She had spent her day there only to watch how a snake had taken a very long period of time swallowing a nest-full of frogs. She had watched how the amphibian legs often attempted to penetrate and cut through the strong skin of the reptile, but she had also thought it futile to do so, since snakes in this particular county were notorious for the toughness and rigidity in skin. If she had not been found in the library, reading some of those books about "One Hundred (or any other kind of number, it did not matter to the little countess) Ways To Die", then she would probably have been somewhere close by a more or less visible life and death battle. Or perhaps, she would help around the wine cellars and the grand basement crushing the lives out of cockroaches and rats or perhaps even mice and polecats. Since she had never been given life for her to rear by herself, she had never known anything different than these sports.

Their mother had spent the entire afternoon paying attention to the servants' work and helping them by giving more and more orders, until their heads had probably became (to Kara's amusement) a life's endless list of to-do. She had often thought that her daughters needed to do something useful when it came to her husband's official meetings, and therefore, official guests, but alas, each and every single woman in this family had more or less of a … peculiar habit. And it if was not an inborn habit, it surely had been long ago achieved through the outstanding influence of those around it. It would have then grown into a fine and respected work of art, so decently built and bred only for the host and the host only.

When Evance came back from the meadows near by the inn (where she had watched, as expected the struggle of survival between a baby-bird and its predator, that is, a viperous snake), she stopped right in front of the back entrance door, from where she would be able to perfectly see anyone passing by the Schradder House, on the main road, on the other side of the fence. She noticed a huge carriage with windows covered by velvet curtains, the color of the sapphires and she saw fat, well-bred white horses, which galloped in the smoothest, yet most elegant fashion Evance imagine such a fine animal was capable of. She knew instantly that the carriage would not belong to their family since the gilt presented on the carriage's doors (illustrating a wolf's head howling fiercely at the moonlight, all scene covered in silver and patches of gold) did not belong to the Schradders.

The carriage was dark-colored, with the exception of its gilt in gold and silver. The curtains, small and fragile-looking, made out of dark green velvet covered the window displays with great care. The doors shined with the glossy black wood of the ebony tree. It must have taken at least two full grown ebony trees to cover up the construction of such a carriage, to Evance's opinion. Suddenly, she felt sorry for the death of those trees. She had never felt sorry for any thing's death before, but seeing such a great construction on colossal wheels, rumbling and rattling silently and gloomily on their country-road, she felt indeed sorry for the death of those ebony trees.

The carriage went passed by her and she did not take the time to hide or at least look away. She did not like people from carriages or standing by the windows to watch or to see her face when she or they passed by. She thought it a terrible disadvantage to herself. This time, she took the time on studying the inside of the carriage and she noticed four male silhouettes. One of them pulled his head out of the window and in the same minute, Evance noticed the face peering out of the carriage. It was a young man's. Even if it were a glimpse, Evance thought that this man would have been Denna's favorite lab-rat. He was handsome enough to attract attention, but his features were delicate and rather young, if he were to be considered in his full 30s. He had rather long and ruffled hair, the color of the lightest chestnuts, and a pair of dark brown eyes, the type which would take their time in scrutinizing and studying their surroundings. The spark of beard starting up from his lips to his chin gave him an air of maturity although Evance kept her opinion (that of being too young-looking for his real age) still strongly standing up.

When the carriage passed her by and the young man kept looking at her, afterwards giving her a rather mild look (as oppose to curious stare, which Evance would have found more appropriate, given the circumstances), she swiftly thought that one of those silhouettes must have been her father since he had announced that he shall be returning by supper with his official guests in the same carriage. She liked to greet her father by the house gate, but this was no longer the case, since she was in the grand garden, too far away from the gate. All she needed to do was run off to her mother and sisters and pre-announce her father and his guests' arrival.

She was used to running almost everywhere, since, as a child, Kaylen would play around with her games such as "hide and seek" or "the bear-finder", which required a very good physical state and well-built legs for running. She grabbed the train of her dress and she lifted it above her ankles in order to leave a wider space for her feet to run down towards her house. She almost passed by the coach, still rattling on the country-road, but it did close in on the Schradder House entrance gate.

If the young man in the carriage had continuously kept his eyes on her (and his name being Cobalt Wolfstein), he would have wondered about her quick spirit and the rush which had taken over her, as soon as she spotted the coach. He, then, would have seen her let go of the dress-train and spring inside the grand house, just as the carriage had stopped in front of the entrance door. A few well-dressed servants were waiting for them and among them was the Schradder House valet, Maurois and the countess, with her chaperons. The only one of the count's daughters present at the arrival of the official guests was Denna. She wore a beautifully built bluish-velvet dress, with a fine silky veil discreetly covering her bare chest. She had to use her seductive instincts everywhere she was needed. Her hair was gathered all on one shoulder and the redness on her lips sparkled strongly and bloodily against the pale, yet vivid color of her cheeks. Her eyes glittered of the purest sea-water colors. She smiled meekly to the guests who were descending the carriage's stairs one by one.

The count gladly presented each of the men: there was the Baron Schiller and his son, Vane; Vane's cousin, Cobalt Wolfstein and the other two young men, who were the baron's associates, Mr. Roderick and Mr. Daggers. The latter two were almost similar in resemblance. They both had long hair gathered up behind their heads with a black ribbon, wearing a velvet cape and a dark-colored costume which illustrated their well-built bodies. Roderick had gray eyes, sparkling with weird enthusiasm whenever the word "business" was uttered. The countess did not bother to remember their names, since she had already encountered trouble making a difference between them. She addressed them with "gentlemen", which seemed to cover up for any problem she would have encountered in the future.

The baron was a rather fat man, but pleasant facial featured, with a pair of round kind eyes, which reminded of a harmless innocent mouse. His dressing up was rather similar to the count's garment, but it only resembled his interest in the latest fashion. His son did not possess anything of his father. Being a rather tall and well-built young man in his early 20s, Vane Schiller had short brownish hair, ruffled and filled with the air of youthfulness and rebellion. He would have certainly caught Kaylen's eyes undoubtedly, the countess thought the minute she was able to quietly study their physical features. No one seemed interested in Cobalt Wolfstein, though, since the young man, close in age to his cousin, backed up on the four men, keeping them alone in their business conversation. He was dressed casually in a light-blue canvas blouse, with a leather-constructed vest, some simple-made pants and rather interesting hunting boots. As all the other men, including his old uncle, he wore his sword on one side of his body, its handle shining silvery under the radiant cold autumn sun. His facial features and his walk gave way to some of his favorite sports: hunting, scouting and working outdoors. Unlike his cousin, Cobalt seemed the type to enjoy life much more in nature rather than in society and in the public crowd. The minute he came down the carriage, his eyes rolled around the area, scouting and looking for who-knows-what. The countess was used to noticing things about the people around her and she quickly noticed his adventurous spirit within. He might have been a good match for… perhaps… Evance…?

Denna was left behind in the hall. She did not enjoy the company of men talking about business, although, as her mother would have expected, she did set her eyes on Mr. Roderick, scanning his physicality from up to down continuously. Her mind worked on the new specimen she had encountered and the almost-perfect experiments of seduction she would be able to do with such a lab-rat.

Left behind, Cobalt looked at her suspiciously, although he did not mean it in a reproachful way. He thought she was a fine piece of china in the house, the type of beauty one would feel attracted to like to a vampiress, but feared that once in her web of seduction, one would never escape alive or sane. She gave way to one of her mysterious, yet languishing smiles to him and turned her back against him. She knew that her dress had a long cut across her back, stopping a few inches above her posterior. She also perfectly knew her voluptuous body well enough to curve her movements in a most tantalizing manner. It did prove to her that her walking attracted Cobalt's attention. She could see his frowning, yet scrutinizing gaze in the mirror she walked towards to. The mirror was set next to the stairs taking her to the bed chambers. She elegantly touched the banister and only half turned her body towards him when she had reached the first of stairs to ascent upon.

'Welcome to the Schradder House, Mr. Wolfstein. I hope you'll enjoy your stay here. If I may be excused, mother, I will attend to some business of my own, but shall return as quickly as possible. Should I announce my other sisters of the gentlemen's arrival?'

Her mother, all this time quietly seeing to the attention given to the guests by the servants, had not paid attention to her eldest daughter's seduction game in the hall and now had only recently come back to the other people's attention.

'Yes, dear, I think you should indeed. Young Wolfstein, would you care to join your uncle and cousin with the other gentlemen for some refreshments? Or would you rather withdraw for now? One would understand, it must have been a tiresome journey.'

'I'll be alright, countess', Cobalt answered bluntly, although the tone of voice he used suggested that the young man lacked a few verbal expressions in his vocabulary used for the high society. The countess was known for her understanding the lower class and their educational or social lacks, which is why she smiled as pleasant as she could and nodded.

'Perhaps it's best if I have Denna show the way to your room and help you settle in. After that, you may come down if you wish and join the other gentlemen', the woman suggested and Cobalt liked the aura of gentility and softness this woman emerged through every pore every time she would search for a way to please her guests, no matter the social rank or the quality of education they possessed. He smiled pleasingly enough and agreed to such a plan, although he did not like Denna too much. He followed her up the stairs and he slowly drown himself in embarrassment mixed with confusion with each step that he took and look he gave to the elegantly curving body in front of him. She must have laughed of him under his nose, seeing that he gave up so quickly to her seduction. Suddenly, whilst reaching the first floor, the glowing appearance of another blonde-haired lady emerged, but Cobalt was even more displeased, since the new face was as vampiress-like and as seductive as the one in front of him. Even worse, the lady called Kara Schradder seemed even more vicious in her female cruelty towards seducing innocent, naïve young men. Her cat-like eyes quickly found his and slightly bended her head front-side, saluting him mutely and giving way to one of the most rascal and most playful sweet grins Cobalt ever lied eyes on. It reminded him of felines confusing their prey with false mercy.

'I see they're arrived, Denna', said Kara. 'Oh, the fun of it all! Good evening, handsome gentleman. I'm Kara.'

She smiled shrewdly, confusing Cobalt, but Denna was the one to interfere with her pressed-piano-keys voice:

'Dearest Kara, do behave yourself. And mother would like you to come downstairs. Father has arrived with… ahem, other fresh faces.'

She had pronounced the word "faces" as if it were the cover-up for words such as "prey", "victim" or "slave" and the affirmation seemed to please her twin sister so much that she give way to a shrewd-like giggling, whilst coming down the stairs. The strong scent of roses followed her and Cobalt imagined the poor flowers crushed under the strength of those falsely delicate and china-like fingers.

His room must have been at the end of the hall, since it seemed to have taken forever until they would stop in front of a door (any kind of door, to Cobalt's hope, anywhere where Denna would stop and go no further). The hall was filled with great portraits of the Schradder ancestors and the entrance hall had deposited the faces of the count's great-great-great-grandfather and mother. It was perhaps because they had been the first ones to begin the construction of such a colossal house, with two main wings, and other smaller ones. They possessed ten large bedrooms at the first floor, six living rooms and guest-rooms on the ground-floor. There must have been the piano and the music rooms, a huge incorporated belfry, a dance room and God knows how many bathrooms and toilets. Then, there was the grandious library, which covered up almost two large bedrooms, on the west wing and perhaps there was the grand garden to be added up to the enormous estate belonging to the Schradder family for generations and generations to come. Someday, all of these would go under the control of the four daughters of Count Schradder.

Cobalt tried to think about the architectural construction of the building and ignore the fact that Denna kept making a fool of himself by forcing him to watch her curving seductive moves, whilst she accompanied him to his room.

The pictures on the walls of the hall they were currently visiting depicted the life of the Schradder family: people walking through the near-by forest or the near-by meadows, picnics under the summer glowing sun, hunting in the autumn-time, birthday parties and soirees. Such pictures would interchange with the portraits of the family members, on this current floor starting from the count and ending with the youngest of his daughters, Evance.

Kara and Denna were perfectly depicted in their portraits and those women men feared and also were attracted to close to despair and painful passion. Their shrewd and mysterious cat-like eyes combined with the most innocent of feline grins formed the perfect portrait of those women called sirens, created to seduce but kill in the end.

Kaylen, one of the daughters of the count that Cobalt was yet not acquainted with physically, seemed pleasing enough in the portrait that was done for her. Her dark-auburn hair glowed under a setting summer-sun, in one section of the family's grand garden. Her eyes were filled with the kindness and quietness completely uncharacteristic for her other twin sisters. If the watcher were to have her gaze stare into his, he would experience the actual meaning of drowning into complete abyss. It would have been way better than drowning into vampiristic death, to Cobalt's opinion.

Finally, close to the end of the hall (and implicitly, close to the door to his bedroom), Cobalt met the last of the count's daughters, Evance, on a piece of canvas nonetheless. She seemed as displeasing in her looks as her blonde twin sisters, but at least she did not possess the vampiric smile and the cat-like eyes. Her hair was assembled in a complicated coiffure, lowered at the base of her neck and it glowed with dark auburness and abundance. Unlike Kaylen, who wore a glowing yet seductively low-necked white dress, which worked fine with her almost-arrogant smile, the strength written in her eyes and her straightened up posture, giving a powerful scent of defiance, Evance wore black. In fact everything about her was black. The dress with laces and a tall collar, baring the shape of her neck, the boots on her feet and the book she wore in her lap were all covered in a dark color of… black. The background seemed to be one of the grand library's sections and the look on her face suggested a strong-spirited smoker, which did not at all approve with other people's interference in her own business. Even as the portrait was being constructed, perhaps she voluntarily wore this displeased look on her face to show the painter how much she hated being portrayed on canvas and later on, being placed on the wall for everyone to see.

Cobalt had stopped at each portrait to properly study it, so it took a longer time for Denna to show him to his room. She did not make the slightest attempt to make a comment at any of the pictures; on the contrary, she remained as impassible and as mysteriously-smiling as before. Five minutes after Cobalt had stopped to study the last of the Schradder family members' portrait, a large door (among other large doors, beautifully sculptured and built from ebony trunks) was heavily opened and the silhouette of a young woman made her way in the first floor hall. Her eyes and Denna's met and they seemed to have communicated to each other one of the quickest mute messages ever, since there was no need for more than a few seconds for that reciprocal glance. It was Evance and she carried with her a small, delicately built and sculptured ebony cigarette in her right hand. She smelled like tobacco and her eyes seemed slightly covered in fog. She swiftly placed the cigarette in her mouth and inspired with one quick breath, as she stared at Cobalt. He stared back and he instantly recognized the same bored, yet annoyed look on the face of the dark lady in the portrait. He also recognized in her the girl he saw in the garden quickly springing back in the house, as their carriage arrived at the Schradder House. She seemed to different now from the one in the garden he had spotted earlier on. If she were to drag in a smoke through her lips, she was to rest the arm not holding the cigarette under the elbow of the one which did. Her black dress contrasted to the seductive and almost-vulgar one on her eldest sister. However, Denna did not lack interest in fashion and the talent of combining colors in some of the finest manners a respectable count's daughter could so elegantly. On the contrary, Evance did not seem to bother with such a thing. She was the type to wear whatever she like, whenever and wherever she liked.

'Dearest Eve', said Denna with her vampires-like voice, 'This handsome gentleman here is Mr. Wolfstein. He is one of father's official guests. Would you like to come down and join them?'

Evance placed the cigarette in between her lips and the small ebony-built cylinder seemed to be a few inches away from dropping on the floor, as she left it hanging there carelessly, while she studied her black nail-polished nails.

'Maybe', she answered with a half mumbled sound, due to the cigarette between her lips. 'Nice to meet you, Mr. Wolfstein, I'm Evance!'

She grinned and when she did so, it was clearly as if for her it had been a must-do gesture. She clearly did not possess the joy of having guests, therefore fresh faces to speak to. On the contrary, she seemed to have inherited her elder sisters' vicious meaning of the expression "fresh face". She removed her cigarette from her lips and placed it behind her ear, with her hair catching fire from it in any second. She seemed accustomed with such a gesture though, since she came down the stairs humpty-dumpty style spreading the scent of burnt tobacco behind her. Indeed, the train of her black dress hid laces and patches of silk elegantly combined one with another, but since the color was all the same, it did not matter. For anyone else not closely paying attention, Evance Schradder might as well be wearing a plain black dress.

Cobalt turned to Denna' secretive smiling face. She glanced back at him, without the slightest change in her facial features and she vaguely moved her shoulder towards him, just so the large collar of her dress would slowly fall off and show some of her white velvet-like skin.

'Well, here you are, Mr. Wolfstein! This is your room. I hope you'll find it to your pleasure, mother took care of everything so that it would be perfect. If there is anything else, there is a hand-bell on the night-table, by the bed. Do not hesitate to use it, if there's anything you wish. I bit you a pleasing rest and good dreams. Until later, Mr. Wolfstein!'

She seemed innocent in everything she had just said, but the smile on her face suggested otherwise. It was as if a spider was trying hard to be a gentleman in front of a group of naïve and easy-to-catch flies. It was as if the sentences bore a secret message, something perhaps like "I'll see you later, Mr. Wolfstein and I'll show you a welcome you may never forget even if you try".

She went down the stairs in a similar fashion with the one she used when she led him to his bedroom. He stopped by the banister and stared down towards the ground floor, at the entrance hall, towards where Denna was heading and where, on a large gothic-constructed armchair, with each elbow rest's top ending in the shape of a gargoyle's head with the mouth open wide, Evance was lying, smoking in quietness and in contemplation, one leg on top of the other.

'Have you seen Kaylen?' Denna asked her and because she was too lazy to utter words, Evance shrugged her shoulders.

'Is Kara in with the guests and with father?' Denna asked again and this time, she used the kind of tone of voice to which Evance could not refuse a polite, grammatically well-built answer:

'Yes, I suppose she is. I'm coming in too. But later… when I finish this', she added, lifting the cigarette to her sister's eyes, thus giving Cobalt the impression that perhaps Count Schradder was not aware of some of his daughters' hobbies.

'Dearest child, you are covered in tobacco scent!' Denna laughed of her and let one of her hands to swiftly caress one side of her youngest sister's hair.

'Father could think I was building a nuclear reactor, for all I care!' Evance muttered revolted, almost strangling the gargoyles with her fists. The cigarette in her mouth again slowly bent down and seemed on the verge of slipping away through her lips.

Denna gave way to a clear laugh, the type used by vampiresses when they finally caught their prey and were about to put their malicious torturing game in practice.

'You're such a sweet little troubling countess, Eve!' she said. 'That is quite original, now that you mentioned it. But then again, it shouldn't surprise me. Everything about you seems original somehow. Would you do me a favor, sweet-heart?'

The cigarette lifted up swiftly and pointed up, as an affirmative answer.

'How about you go and look for our dearest Kaylen, let her know the guests have arrived, huh? That way you finish your cigarette and you will grab a bit of fresh air to take off some of the tobacco smell.'

'Alright', Evance agreed and stood up in the most youthful of her movements. She wiped off the remains of the tobacco ash on her dress and circled the surroundings with her cold-hearted gaze.

Cobalt did not expect that from her so he did not have time to duck when she inspected the first floor with her eyes. When he saw that she noticed him, he startled under the foreign cold dark gaze. But Evance did not seem to possess her eldest sister's shrewdness. It was one of those glimpses a woman gives to one of her disobedient children, when it came to strict rules indoors, which were often respected. She lifted one eyebrow, as if she strongly disapproved of something and it may have been because Cobalt had spied on them and their conversation. Still, it did not last long. She sniffed carelessly and turned away to face the entrance door to which she quickly paced, in a firm and precise walk. She used both her hands in opening the grand doors, although she could have simply asked the servants nearby to do it for her. It was direct affront. She wanted to show Cobalt that she was the woman to do things by her own way, not with the help of anyone.

3.

Evance stopped in front of the new comers' carriage and she noticed her older sister, Kaylen, close to the horses, caressing the snout of one of them. The stallions seemed as calm and as silent as babies asleep under her touch. Kaylen possessed the type of touch one would compare to the divine ones. It had the power to heal somehow all sorrows and all the inner despair. She wore her usual purely-white dress, low-necked and the servants near by were waiting for her to give them orders to take the horses of the Baron in the stables and clean them up.

Evance stopped close by. She did not like it when she noticed Kaylen taking care of animals or cuddling them. The young countess did not believe she might possess the same type of touch, having the power to calm down those subdued to her. She placed the cigarette back in between her lips and said:

'They're here, I think you know. Denna wanted to know if you'll join them. Mom would like that too.'

Kaylen smiled to her pleasantly, when she answered back:

'Will you join me too?'

Evance shrugged her shoulders as a given answer. She did not look at her sister. She seemed rather displeased with something and Kaylen could read it in her eyes that the reason was the guests themselves. She smiled heartedly:

'Am I to understand from your face that they are ugly, boring and terribly plain?'

'Well…'

'Would you have them with three heads, a pair of scissors as hands and the voice of the Grim Reaper himself?'

'Uhm…' Evance muttered thoughtfully. She still kept her eyes on the ground. After a few seconds of thinking hard for an appropriate answer, she lifted the corner of her lips and placed the cigarette there, as she said: 'Well, uhm, I wouldn't exactly say "three heads". It would have been better if they at least had a decent interesting face. But the baron's son is rather handsome, I should think. His name's Vane.'

'Who else is with them?' asked Kaylen, without the slightest interest in coming inside the house, to greet the gentlemen properly.

'Well, there's Mr. Roderick and Mr. Daggers, the baron's business associates. Only took a quick glimpse to the half-opened door of the guest room. I didn't like their faces, although you'd say they were the type Death would prefer the better if they were his apprentices. Pretty freaky-looking sort', she sniffed and tip-tilted her nose. She again inhaled tobacco. 'Oh, and then there's Vane's cousin, I think. He's called Cobalt. Skinny type, all nature-boy, I guess. Seems rather baffled by everything. He's in his bedroom now.'

When Evance had finished describing their father's official guests, Kaylen smiled wider and only then did she decide to come inside, after ordering the servants to take the carriage and the horses of the baron to the stables to be taken care of. She was closely followed by her youngest sister who, when reaching the entrance door, popped out the tobacco cylinder from its cigarette holder and threw it on the front pavement. The servants would have taken care of it immediately. She waved away the smoke and the tobacco scent with her hands and they both got ready to come inside the guests' room, where they would find their father, their mother and the official guests.

When entering, the young men, including the baron (even though he was not such a young looking chap anymore) were slightly taken aback by the beauty in Kaylen's presence. She seemed to radiate strength and fascination through every pore. She would have been the perfect resemblance of her parents, because she seemed to have taken almost everything that was good and gracious in them. Next to her, Evance would have appeared as the young version of the Wicked Dark Witch.

'Good day to you, gentlemen', Kaylen uttered with great arrogance and pride in her voice. She stiffened in her posture and took a seat next to her mother who seemed to grow in satisfaction for the result of her hard working labors she had to pain herself with in order to breed such a fine specimen of lady of the high society.

Both Mr. Roderick and Mr. Daggers would not stop staring at Kaylen and Vane, the baron's son, could not even open his mouth to properly greet the young lady. The count did nothing but smile proudly, knowing the effect his beautiful daughter often had over his guests, especially young men. Denna had only been the first of his beautiful daughters to meet the guests and they had already believed that the count had a fine treasure hidden in his grand house. But now, seeing Kaylen Schradder, they were convinced beyond doubt that the count's fortune could never extend only to the earthly pleasures of money, banknotes and jewelry, as well as lands and private property. His fascinating daughters were another precious cargo.

'Gentlemen', said the count, thus finally waking the baron's associates and Vane from their day-dreaming, 'This is my daughter Kaylen. And over there, next to her, is my youngest, Evance. My dears, please allow me to introduce Baron Schiller and his son, Vane. And these are Mr. Roderick and Mr. Daggers, Baron Schiller's business associates.'

The young ladies did nothing but slightly bend their heads as a salute, while the men smiled to them as graciously as possible and after the proper introductions were made, they returned to their initial conversation on business and politics. It seemed that the baron, whose fortune went half of it on the business he had established with his associates, had decided to extend it to the county in which Count Schradder had most authority. The business concerned that of hunting and taxidermy. The terms and the entire conversation about tracking down and killing animals for the sheer pleasure of stuffing them in with wadding and turn them slowly into purely decorative objects for the aristocratic houses had almost completely disgusted both the countess and Kaylen, but it did highly pleased the youngest of daughters, Evance. She paid careful attention to the whole conversation. At times, young Mr. Roderick would explain the process of taxidermy or Mr. Daggers would interfere and add up a few interesting hunting stories to the conversation, usually those involving as much blood spilling as possible, also the quick loss of limbs of their men. The baron was convinced that the county where the count had most authority would enjoy selling fur-coats and decorative stuffed animal heads to its rich people. It would have been proof that the people here cared very much for the latest fashion in indoors decorative design.

The talk about death and killing pleased Evance enormously so it was only natural that she gave a quick evil look to her mother when the countess announced (to her and Kaylen's relief) that dinner was served in a quarter of an hour.

Throughout the entire conversation he had with his guests, the count did not seem to be aware of the true nature of the baron's business. Not at all displeased, however, by the morbid discussion, he soon planned in his mind a future affinity with the Schiller House, if only Vane were to marry Evance. She seemed to be the only one willingly happy enough to be married to a taxidermy businessman. He did not at all consider the deaths of so many animals or his wife's disapproving look on her face, even though he had heard quite enough of the morbid conversation's content.

Dinner was brief and containing once more talks about the taxidermy business. The countess and Kaylen and, later on, Kara and Denna would not be the least bit interested in such an industrious turn in the aesthetic of the bourgeoisie society. The countess, on the contrary, believed that the minute she would find herself some time to spare, she would gladly converse with her husband upon refusing to accept such a business proposal. The fact was that the baron was only interested in having the count agree to his men hunting in this particular county and have the pray being taken into the care of the taxidermy company. There was nothing that the count would gain, as a result of this agreement.

Her daughters, excepting Evance of course, had more or less of a strong disgusted look on their faces. In fact, Kaylen had at some point stopped eating because she could no longer bare the conversation about death. She stood up, arrogantly and elegantly excused herself and went out of the dinner room, to Vane's surprise (who thought her as strong and as persistent as the dominant arrogance and pride in her eyes). Quickly after her followed Kara and Denna, who both excused themselves for having certain important business to attend to. All that the count was able to mutter was "Ah, these women… such delicate creatures, isn't it so?" under a mild smile, but his wife would have given everything at that time to have something sharp with which he could hit his head. Nothing of that description was close by and the silver knives seemed too trifle of a weapon. She asked her remaining daughter, Evance, to leave as well, thinking only of her mental health and the fact that such a morbid conversation would not be at all appropriate for such a young mind. Of course, Evance protested, to the astonishment of the other gentlemen, but her father laughed and excused her behavior, after which he asked her (growlingly, yet politely) to leave the room. She would be her mother's pretext to let the living room entirely to the gentlemen's disposal.

In the entrance hall, stuffed with the feeling of indignation due to the fact that her parents did not let her hereinafter assist to the gruesome conversation, Evance did not bother to ask permission to her mother and she lid up a cigarette. She inhaled the smoke as if she were a steam engine ready to start its journey.

'I was enjoying that, you know!' she muttered nervously to her mother.

'I know, that is what I feared the most', said her mother matter-of-factly and upon hearing her words, her daughter turned to face her with a disapproving look on her face. 'I know very well what you like and what you do not, dearest and that was not one of the healthiest conversations I rather had you assisting to', the countess continued and took a seat on the same gargoyle-headed elbow rested armchair in the hall. She laid all the veils of her dress as if she were close to fainting. 'Oh, dear, such a relief… what a horrible man, this baron!'

'I agree with you, mother', said Kaylen worryingly. 'What kind of job is this, slaughtering animals, taking away their interiors and stuffing them in? No doubt, a cruel and cold-hearted one! I would not have a boar's head hanging on the walls of this entrance hall, mother!'

'Mr. Roderick seemed so… passionate by such an image, though', Denna interfered with her devoid look. She did not seem to carry the same secretous smile, although nothing of this current discussion displeased her in bringing back the morbid memories of the previous "business" conversation. Evance read emptiness in her eyes. Denna seemed as much of a secret to her family as she was to the men on whom she practiced her dangerously seductive experiments.

Her mother and sister Kaylen stared at her in disbelief, but that was only because they both thought that Denna would grow as fond of such gruesome conversational subjects as her youngest sister, Evance. Kara was the only one able to successfully detach from the exterior world, as she often chose to show herself the most egocentric of daughters when it came to encountering something which displeased her immensely. She was the only one to wave off something invisible in the air with her hand, thus pretending to have taken away the discomfort of this current discussion.

'Oh, bullshit!' she bumped, to her mother's horror (she did try so hard to have her daughters stay away from such a vocabulary). 'They are men and men seem to enjoy morbid conversations. But I think this shall remain only a conversation. Father wouldn't accept such a business proposition. That wouldn't include profit on both sides. Seems to me only the baron would have to profit from such a deal. Father isn't stupid enough to think of other people's welfare before his.'

'I like it', said Evance matter-of-factly, but all other ladies (excepting Denna) stared at her disapprovingly.

'You do realize that you're the only one, right?' Kaylen told her. 'For once, stop thinking about what you like, and think about the animals being slaughtered if father were to agree to such a business. You could have everything, why should you have a boar's head hanging from the front wall of your room?'

'Will you stop with the boar's head?!' Evance attacked her repulsively. 'I'm going for a walk, you're no fun at all!'

She stuffed her cigarette in between her lips as if the gesture itself accounted for the anger taking over her and she once more single-handedly opened the entrance doors to come out in the setting sun.

'Perhaps we shouldn't care for such things', said Kara and shrugged her shoulders, when Kaylen stared at her in disbelief. 'After all, everyone's doing it. Father hunted as well, when he was a youth. It's not like we're from the PETA association.'

'Stupid child!' cried her mother. 'Those lands in the property of the Schradder House stood untouched and unharmed for centuries! Why should the baron make it now a hunting ground? I personally would not enjoy the gun shooting in the morning, nor the constant smell of gun powder and fresh blood. Remember how you enjoy walking through the woods with Denna! How will you be able to do that now, if the forest will be swarming with desperate running animals and bullets flying right to left?'

The surprised look on Kara's face suggested that she had never thought of it in this manner. Now, it seemed that it had been the first time since the countess had opened her eyes to see the true nature of the situation. The Schradder House had always been isolated and nothing would have pleased Kara to spend time in the loneliness of the forest and do some scouting or some hunting for herself. Of course, whatever she would hunt would later be placed on the platter for lunch or for dinner, but never sent to be cut, guts-freed, dried, stuffed with wadding and afterwards hanged on the wall of some room in the house. If her father had accepted that the baron's men were allowed to hunt on their grounds, not only would this slowly turn into trespassing private property to Kara's opinion, but the house would soon be clogged with dead animals and dead birds hanging everywhere. She would later on become afraid of going even for a few steps on the halls of her own house. Kara had never been afraid of anything gruesome or bloody, but routine would go through anyone's veins and eventually would have turned everything into a deadly weapon nurturing the fear inside a human's mind.

She turned to Denna, her twin sister and she seemed to have the same disbelieving face as their sister, Kaylen. Kara turned back to face her mother and with a quickly transformed-into-serious face, she replied:

'Well, I think I wouldn't agree to anyone hunting in my forest. Would anyone volunteer to change Evance's opinion otherwise?'

The women looked at one another, knowing that their power against the count's would not have worked to the fullest of its extend, if the youngest countess's strength wasn't included as well. If the count had met resistance from the smallest side of the female part in his family, then the baron might as well as consider himself already a successful businessman.

'I'll do it', Denna uttered suddenly and the women looked at her worryingly. 'Everyone knows how well she listens to me. I'll convince her at least not to meddle in on the baron's side.'

Kaylen smiled widely, as the hope of saving the lives of the Schradder forest-ground animals grew stronger and stronger in her heart. Kara nodded thoughtfully, as if she were as well thinking of a plan to help her twin sister in her new mission. Their mother was simply pleased with having such warm-hearted daughters, despite their weird habits.

4.

It had not been long since Cobalt had decided to take a stroll and scout the grounds of the Schradder forest. The trees stretched ahead, circling the house, with their heavy heads bending forward and backwards as if they had long ago been praying monks, cursed by the gods. The branches closed in on each other, as if the trees chose to share their power and protect the forest roads and paths from any sky-light, regardless of the season. At the moment, being close to autumn, the wind blew as hard as it could, at such a big height, but even its own determinacy to part the branches and twigs from each other would not produce the slightest movement in the strong trunks. The forest seemed to have kept songs of itself as much alive as a human soul. There were birds, somewhere hidden behind the leaves, singing and chirping with their most precious of rhythms. Anyone lost in such a forest would not consider the misfortune of the situation. The forest spread a strong feeling of fascination, immediately sent to the travelers and the visitors near by. On the outer side of the forest, Cobalt would just stare at the sea of trees stretching their leafed heads to the clouds of the sky. He wondered what the count might do with such a vast territory of wild land. It indeed seemed an immense waste of space.

He almost forgot the fact that he was resting on private property and therefore a human silhouette could make its appearance behind him any minute now. That is why, when he made a quick turn towards the house of Count Schradder, he startled at the sudden sight of a female silhouette. At a reasonable distance, the count's daughters would resemble each other, but in this case, it would have been impossible, because the blackness mantling this particular silhouette pointed out the distinct feature which separated Evance Schradder of all the other young Schradder countesses. She carried with her a thick layer of tobacco fog, following its mistress everywhere she would move. It just so happened that Evance had taken the liberty of stepping in through the garden of roses, a famous section of the Schradder family's grand garden. She would intentionally step on the thorn-covered thin shanks of the roses, as if something angered her terribly and only such a horrifying murderous act would be able to calm her down. It had been a well-known fact that when she was annoyed or infuriated, Evance took the pleasure of calming herself down with the violent act of death brought upon something which needed breath of life. Because she did not have cockroaches or mice to deal with at the moment, she had chosen to crush the life out of helplessly unmoving, but nonetheless vivid blood-red roses. A few servants had stopped by with impenetrable looks on their faces and the straight-up posture, but the glow in their eyes suggested that they did not quite enjoy their mistress's choice of distressing. They would have to later on work hard on those roses, to revive them and thus avoid the anger of their elder mistress, the countess Schradder herself. At some point, Evance stopped her killer's paces and bended over a blood-red rose, freshly bloomed, still keeping the clear pearls of the morning dew. She ripped off the poor flower and placed it somewhere on the side of her hair; it somehow seemed to avoid falling off its new place, for fear of not causing the young lady even more discomfort than she already possessed. With this, Evance ended her murderous walk and stepped away from the garden of roses. The servants were left to quickly repair the damages caused. She continued on smoking like a moving locomotive everywhere around the garden. When she would finish one cigarette, she would quickly light up a new one and would drag the tobacco smoke in as if she were afraid of getting away from her. She would often stop and close in on the forest, but from a different angle than that where Cobalt was standing. She would not take the time and stare at the trees; she would not even listen to the forest songs. She must have known them for a very long time.

Suddenly, she noticed him and Cobalt knew then that she did, because he would not be able to get away from the coldness inside those foreign eyes. They were drenched in the same disapproving sentiment as before, when she had discovered that he had been listening to the conversation she had had with her eldest sister, Denna. She, then, threw away the unfinished cigarette and folded her arms at the base of her chest. She started to search him with a terribly frowning look on her face, as if she were trying hard to prove herself a great detective by discovering a crime of his through his physical features. Cobalt did not feel well under such a thorough examination of his physical appearance. He started walking towards her, with the determined decision that he would ask her politely enough to stop her staring and her scrutinizing. But as he closed in on her, he noticed that Evance would not be the woman to be asked politely. He stopped, he folded his hands behind his back and he slightly bended to salute her.

'Miss Schradder…' he muttered matter-of-factly, as if he were suggesting her thus that it was her turn now to greet him. She grinned back and again, the newly lightened up cigarette was left hanging down from her lips, in danger of dropping off in any future second. He smiled as pleasing as he would be able to manage, but even this kind-hearted-like gesture would not defreeze the grin off her face. She seemed to have learned how to conduct the position of her cigarette (pointing upward or downward) according to her optimistic or pessimistic attitude. This time, it took her almost ten minutes to lift up the ashy top of her cigarette and answer back:

'Hello, Mr. Wolfstein. I guess you can call me Evance. All of my father's guests seem to do so every time I am acquainted with them.'

She grinned, this time showing her teeth and a strong smell of tobacco penetrated Cobalt's nose. He shortly tip-tilted and continued on smiling, although his smile was in trouble of becoming forced-looking like.

'Then, you may call me Cobalt, if you wish', he said.

He turned his eyes to the forest. He tried to think of an appropriate subject to be discussed with such an unpleasant young woman, but nothing seemed to satisfy him at the moment. And then, she came up with the most brilliant idea.

'I see your uncle's terribly interested in hunting, Cobalt', Evance said and she half-turned facing the house of her family. 'He's been talking with Mr. Roderick and Mr. Daggers to my father of this all dinner-time and even before. He likes it that much, does he?'

Her last question sounded as if she was mocking his uncle's hobbies, but Cobalt did not know well enough to see through her real intentions. He looked at her in return and saw that she smiled from the corner of her mouth in a most fox-like manner, intentionally of course.

'He likes to hunt, yes', he answered plainly. 'Everyone in the House of Schiller likes to hunt.'

'Oh, of course, which brings me to another question, now that you mentioned the House of Schiller', Evance added shrewdly and pointed something in the sky with her index. It was as if she were trying to play the austere professor. Cobalt felt as if he were back to school.

'… which I so breathlessly await to hear', he linked his words to her utterance, trying to play by the rules of irony and cynicism. He added the grin of a falsely curious child to his words.

She threw him a swift frowning gaze, but it did not have the expected effect, which is why she came back on her initial plan.

'How come, Cobalt, the family name of your uncle is Schiller and yours is … Wolfstein?'

It seemed a rather simple question to answer, but it showed Cobalt that as silly as it may seem, Evance Schradder paid attention to every detail, not just the plain-as-broad-daylight ones. He sniffed amused, somehow relieved to hear such a simple question, when he had actually expected a more complicated one. She smiled with her false grin.

'Well, if you must know, I was taken in by the family', he answered plainly. 'My uncle found me and raised me as his nephew. He insisted I should keep my initial family name, because it sounded better than Cobalt Schiller.'

'Am I to understand you're an… orphan then, Mr. – … Cobalt?'

'I wouldn't consider myself an orphan, Evance', he retorted, unaffected by her intentionally sharp poignancy. 'Given the fact that I have been raised by one of the richest families in this country, and brought up amongst the members of the high society, I would definitely not consider myself un unfortunate orphan. Would you?'

Her eyes narrowed with displeasure, but she hid the feeling with another one of her grins. The cigarette went to a corner of her mouth and she dragged a new pull of tobacco, which she afterwards blew it out in Cobalt's face.

'And do you like to hunt, Cobalt?' she asked, and he sensed that she was quickly looking for something else with which she could attack him.

'I do, indeed. It's an interesting sport. But I don't do it just for pleasure. If it's hunting for pleasure you're looking for, Evance, then you should speak to my cousin, Vane Schiller.'

'Step-cousin, isn't it?' she uttered innocently, although he felt the sting penetrating his eyes and he smiled amused.

'Yes, step-cousin, indeed. Have you ever hunted yourself, Evance? Seems to me you're quite interested in this sport.

This time, Evance stepped away from him, under the pretext of blowing off tobacco smoke away from his face. She had in fact turned her countenance towards the family house. She was staring at the horses in the stables, being cleaned up and the horses being curried by the servants. She thought of her books on death and smiled pleased at the image of herself in the bedroom, reading until close to midnight about the various ways of committing suicide in the most discreet manner possible. Her facial features' sudden change of look gave Cobalt the feeling that she perhaps saw herself as an Amazonian queen.

'No, I never hunted before. I don't hunt, I like to watch', she answered back calmly and dragged the last smoke from her cigarette, after which and she threw it on the ground. She pressed on the tobacco stub until it became nothing more than a tiny speck of ash.

'To watch?' Cobalt asked. 'To watch people hunting?'

'Hm, well, no, not exactly. It's boring to watch people trying to point a gun or an arrow towards a moving target. I just like it when… well, when the actual bullet or arrow brings down the animal.'

She drew an honest smile across her face.

'Seems that's when animals, like everything living, instantly go into the process of dying. Depending on how far away from the heart or from the brain the hunter aimed, that process can last from a few milliseconds to almost an hour. The complexity of it makes it worth while. Simply put, Cobalt, I like watching things dying rather than being hunted down and killed. At least, that way I know that death is a natural, biological process, not something forcedly produced.'

She ended her monologue with her characteristically childish grin, which formed a gruesome picture combined with the newly lightened up cigarette in her mouth. It seemed now that she had been, after all, more dangerous than her elder sisters. It left Cobalt speechless for a few minutes, after which she moved towards the house, asking him another question:

'Do you like animals, Cobalt?'

She, thus, invited him to a walk back to the house and the conduct of manners told the young man that it was impolite to let a woman alone in her walk, refusing the invitation of being her companion. He followed her close-by, thinking of an honest answer.

'I could say I do', he said finally. 'Do you, Evance?'

'Yes. I do indeed. I like wolves especially. Solitary creatures, so dedicated to survival instincts. Ever encountered one before, Cobalt?'

'I did once. I was out hunting with my… step-cousin, Vane, in the woods near our land. We went to hunt it down because it had attacked a villager's flock of sheep and had stolen away three lambs. By the time we found it, it had already eaten them.'

'Just a pile of sheep coat, bones and bloody flesh scattered everywhere, eh?' she helped him and he looked at her in frowning shock.

'Y-Yeah…' he uttered.

'Did you kill it?'

She seemed rather honest in her inquiries. It was as if she clearly wanted to drag every conversation to the point where the subject of death and bloody slaughter was involved. Her gestures of youth and energy would not disguise the thin stain of darkness inside her. There was perhaps a reason why she would wear black all the time, paint her nails black, and wear black pointy-heeled boots. Maybe there was even a reason for her giving into the smoking vice. It suited, perhaps, her devious mind to stay hidden behind the thick layer of tobacco smoke, to spread around her the feeling of unhealthiness and gloom.

'Er…' Cobalt began, no knowing what to say to her morbid curiosity. 'I g-guess I did… I don't remember very well.'

'That's a silly lie, you did remember the number of lambs that wolf had stolen away!' she burst disappointed. 'You expect me to believe you don't remember whether you killed it or not? You did, didn't you?'

'Agh…'

'How devious of you, Mr. Wolfstein', she smiled shrewdly. 'Well…'

They stopped in front of the stairs when they reached the entrance door of the house. The servants opened the doors to them and the great entrance hall remained open at their sight.

'I guess I should take you to meet my other sister, Kaylen. I believe you'll find her quite… normal…'

He looked at her surprised. Now, it seemed she had been aware that he had taken her for a scary weirdo. She was determined to let him know that she knew the kind of person people thought she was. She did not even smile cynically when she had uttered the words. She stopped in front of the door to the music room, inside from where the suave notes of a violin were heard. Cobalt stopped next to her and noticed that she still held the cigarette in her mouth. She smoked off a thick cloud of tobacco and then ushered him:

'Well, c'mon, Cobalt, women here don't bite! It's called "opening the door". You grab the doorknob and you press it…?'

She gave him a reproachful gaze, under which Cobalt was forced to do as he was told. He opened the door to the music room. There were other four women inside. Three of them were Evance's sisters (Cobalt recognized the blonde twins), Kara and Denna and the third, a brunette as graceful as a china statue, elegantly playing the violin by the fireplace, she must have been Kaylen. She was as beautiful as all the other daughters (excepting Evance) were, but obviously in her own unique way. She seemed the perfect embodiment of an earthy fairy or perhaps the flesh-and-boned angel who had once, long ago, fallen from the sky and landed blissfully into this family. She turned her face towards Cobalt and smiled kindly, the only honest and truly sympathetic smile that Cobalt was relieved to see in this family.

The fourth woman was the countess and she seemed to have given all her kindness to Kaylen, since she also gave Cobalt a pleasant mute welcome by slightly bending her head. Evance went pass by the young man and directed her body straight to a chair on the cushion of which there lied a leather-covered black book with "One Hundred Ways To Die". Still having her cigarette in between her lips, she sat on the chair relaxed and opened the book somewhere close to the middle of the content and started reading from it impassibly.

'Hello', said Kaylen to Cobalt. 'You're Mr. Wolfstein, isn't it so? Nice to meet you, I'm Kaylen.'

'You can call him Cobalt', Evance took the words out of the young man's mouth before he was able to utter anything. 'He likes to hunt, you know. Killed a wolf once too. Apparently it attacked – how many were there, now… – ah, yes! Three lambs!'

Evance smiled proudly, book still opened in her lap, but Cobalt was beginning to feel embarrassed and supplementary. He noticed that Kara and Denna smiled with intense to meek level of shrewdness, but the countess was the one to jump to his rescue, replying half amused to her youngest daughter's poignancies:

'Dearest child, if you'll be the one playing young Cobalt's secretary, then why did you bring him here in the first place? Let the man speak for himself, dearest, not all that we hear we seem to have heard correctly!' (she turned towards Cobalt smiling pleasantly) 'Please, young man, do come in and take a seat. Allow us to keep you company for a while, shall we?'

He smiled back politely.

'Sure, why not?' he answered back, but then heard a slight mean giggle from Kara's side. It was perhaps because of the way he answered. But it seemed that the other ladies pretended not to hear the direct affront Kara had made towards him. Denna seemed to be as oblivious in her devoid stare as usual, making herself useful with a pin and some threat, sewing some pieces of velvet together, while Kaylen went back to her playing the violin. Useless to think that Evance had paid attention to what was now going on in the room. She did not even hear her mother's utterance, since she was enclosed in her lecture.

Cobalt was reduced to speaking only to Kaylen and the countess, sometimes Denna, but Kara and Evance remained outside of their conversation, perhaps only closing in on it with their ears.

5.

The evening that Cobalt spent at the Schradder House had been one of the weirdest he had ever had. Close to dinner-time, the count and his official guests parted for another one of their business conversation in separate rooms. The baron was able to plan some more with his business associates (if there was a case of further planning, lest the House of Schradder did not agree to the business proposal the baron had installed), while his son and the count joined Cobalt and the ladies of the guest-house in the music room.

Vane was much impressed by Kaylen's singing at the violin, but he did not make a conversation about it. He had always considered that his father's business trouble should require his full attention first, and after everything in this section would have been fixed, only then would he be able to look into his own private matters.

For Cobalt it had been a weird evening because he quickly realized the fact that he had never met stranger women than those found in this house. A countess of unspeakable beauty had the most perfect of manners when it came to social conduct, but she seemed to have deliberately given birth to creatures of the same sex as she, who would probably transform any man into a purely empty-headed puppet. Kara and Denna, although succumbed to the arts of seduction and erotic games, acted differently when asked about men's society and the general social conduct. Denna preferred sitting quietly by the fire and listening (or at least, pretended to listen), while her eyes would check the entire perimeter of the room. Cobalt watched her doing so and he had the vague impression that the woman was actually planning something in her mind, whilst doing all the scouting. Something told Cobalt that the plan would not be to his or his family's benefit.

Kara, after Vane had appeared in the room, took a different attitude, this time not only pretending to be ignorant to the conversation in the room, but also to improve in whatever she thought it might portray the independent woman of the century. She would have herself sew alongside Denna or perhaps help her youngest sister with some unknown terms in the book the latter was reading. She would, finally, even come up to Kaylen and help her sister's singing at the violin by standing close by and turning the pages of the music book whenever the brunette finished playing the musical notes on one page. She would not give a single look to Vane Schiller, although she might have thought that his eyes were only for Kaylen.

The count asked the two young gentlemen about the weather in their county, how the people were doing, if the baroness was wonderful in health and if they were very interested in the business the baron had invested so much in. Vane was very vague about his answer, while Cobalt threw a quick glance towards Evance (who was still sitting on her armchair, reading her book about death, ignorant to the external environment) and only smiled meekly, without considering answering the inquiry at all. He feared that once he did, one of the daughters, particularly Evance (which is why he had glanced at her swiftly) would record his answer with a different meaning from that which he intended.

When the two young gentlemen announced their retirement for now, it was only when they saw themselves alone in the hallways, each towards their private chambers that Vane spoke to his cousin for the first time that day.

'Well, what do you think?' he asked matter-of-factly. 'Father did say the count is impeccable in his social ways. The house is divine-looking. And the servants are so flawless in their conduct. Don't you think so?'

Vane had always thought highly of someone who had made a most intriguing (in a good way) impression on him. Cobalt knew that and he did not know how to construct his answer in order not to sound too indifferent.

'Uhm… yeah, I guess. I like the countess. She's a very beautiful woman. And a nice one too.'

Vane laughed, because his cousin had a very funny way of expressing his thoughts to someone. But he did not turn his amusement into a comment; instead, he asked:

'And what do you think of the young countesses? I think Kaylen Schradder is the most beautiful creature I've ever seen. Forgive me, cousin, but I think she far surpasses the graciousness of her mother.'

To this, Cobalt did not retort. He knew that from the moment he had laid eyes on her, Vane had been bewitched by Kaylen's beauty. She did indeed inherit her mother's kindness, good-nature and grace. He smiled from the corner of his mouth.

'If you say so, cousin', he answered back, only to assure Vane that he had been listening attentively.

His cousin stared back at him in disbelief. He stopped walking and it had seemed a coincidence that he had just did so in front of Kaylen's painted portrait in the hallway.

'Cobalt', he said on a serious tone of voice, 'please don't tell me you haven't found any of the count's daughters attractive in any way! Just please lie to me and say that you did!' he cried cynically and his cousin smiled meekly.

'I did', said Cobalt amused and Vane narrowed his eyes to study the look on his face.

'Are you mocking me or are you being serious?'

'You said I should lie and say I did.'

Vane sniffed amused and shook his head in disapproval. He continued his way, as he said:

'Someday, dear chap, you'll find one that's not at all your type! But it'll be because she's not your type that you'll simply adore her.'

'I hope I'll live enough to see that happening', Cobalt joked optimistically and his cousin amused himself as well.

'And I hope I'll live long enough to see your face when it happens', added Vane and after this, the two gentlemen parted in opposite directions, heading each for their personal chambers.

6.

The next morning, the sun had hid away from the world's sight behind some ashy, furious-looking clouds. The wind blew cold outside, because it seemed that the weather had in plan washing away the sorrows and pain of nature, by giving way to a healthy strong rain. Yet, the clouds had not shed a single tear, even when the clock in the entrance hall stroke 10 o'clock in the morning and the cuckoo bird popped out with its usual singing and chirping. It seemed to have been loud enough to be heard by the real birds outside, who followed its example and started singing as well. Being hidden among the entangled branches of the tall thick trees of the forest was to their advantage since the count, a few of his men and the baron's two associates had started an early hunting and scouting through the surroundings.

Cobalt was with them, of course, but since he was not interested in hearing their conversation, he enjoyed being alone, exploring the surroundings for himself. He held his sword close by his side; he had never been a good archer to begin with, but he always thought that fighting at a close range was to the fighter's advantage. One would have time to closely study the physical appearance and strength of his opponent and figure a way to wound his more delicate spots.

Mr. Daggers had a unique way of scouting his whereabouts. He would narrow his eyes to the point where one had the impression he was half asleep, and moved as silent as a cat in its hunting grounds. No branch or leaf would crack under the pressure of his feet, and at some point Cobalt mistook his velvet brown jacket as the skin of a deer and almost aimed to attack him. But Mr. Daggers had a unique of making things go his way. If it were a bird to interest him, he would shrewdly track it down by carefully listening to its chirping and afterwards emit similar sounds to trick the birds into believing that he was one of their kind. The count thought it funny at the beginning, but so far only Mr. Daggers had been successful in his hunting.

Suddenly, there was a crack nearby, as if something had clumsily stepped on a pile of old branches. The hunters froze in their position and each one closed their hands in on their weapons. They thought it a large animal, since the cracking would not stop at all, once it had been clearly heard. Cobalt bended his body and tried to make out something through the bushes and tall grass in front of him. If he were the first to spot the animal, then he would surely need to give the signal and have the others aim the same target. However, even with his eyes so accustomed to such a sport, Cobalt could not make anything of the brownish and greenish colors behind the branches and the bushes. He thought it wiser to go scouting for himself.

He drew out his sword and place it in front of him, in an offensive position. He drew closer to the spot where the cracking of the braches had been heard a few moments ago.

'Be careful, boy', the count said worryingly and had two of his men follow Cobalt close by, offering him any help if necessary.

When he reached the bushes which would have hidden the possible prey, Cobalt stopped and with the arm not holding the sword, he grabbed a few of the branches and pushed them aside. Suddenly, it seemed all men froze in their place, as the pointy top of an arrow made its way towards Cobalt's forehead. The young man would not even dare open his mouth and speak, fearing that the unseenable attacker might launch his arrow through his head the instant he would sense the slightest movement in offense from Cobalt. The foreign arms that held the bow and arrow with a precise aim were rather thin, baring no muscle to show the archer was terribly skilled in this sport. It was all covered in red leather and it did not move. The leather gloves crepitated at the base of the fingers, as they held the arrow with a firmer grip, preparing it for attack.

'Please, sir…' began the count in a worrying manner, but suddenly, to Cobalt's despair, the arrow was launched. The moment lasted for only a few seconds, because when Cobalt opened his eyes after the launch, he noticed that he was still standing in his place, unharmed. The arrow had flown right pass him. The clear sound of a female giggle was heard from behind the bushes and, directionally opposite to the spot where Cobalt was standing, from a branch a wounded bird fell on the ground, arrow gone straight through its heart.

'Silly boy', said Kara Schradder as she made her way through the bushed and came out in the hunters' sight. 'Hello, father. Out hunting so early, are we?'

All the hunters (with the exception of Cobalt and the count himself) seemed highly impressed by the young lady's perfect aim. Mr. Daggers seemed particularly pale-faced, since, before Kara's arrival he had been considered a good hunter and aimer.

The woman was dressed in red leather, wearing a tight deux-pieces costume and she carried the arrows' quiver on her back, with the bow still firmly held by her right fist. She smiled shrewdly to them.

Her father breathed in relief and smiled thoughtfully.

'Dearest Kara, you scared us all, especially young Cobalt here. How long have you been following us?'

'Well, I saw you gather up this morning before entering the woods. I thought I'd surprise you.' She looked at Cobalt and narrowed her eyes, as she gave way to a shrewd-like grin. 'Apparently, I managed just fine…'

Cobalt could only smile back, but in the most forced manner, because he had not enjoyed the fright she had given him. He put his sword back in the scabbard and waited for further indications. He felt that, now that a new hunter was being added to their team, their initial plans would change.

Mr. Daggers kept his eyes on Kara and it seemed that the message hidden behind them was impossible to read. Cobalt spotted his insistent stare on the young lady not once, but twice and the young man thought that his uncle's associate did not enjoy the company of the young countess too much. But since Mr. Daggers had been a man difficult to read through his gestures and appearance, Cobalt did not know what his real intentions were.

Mr. Daggers came to be on his uncle's list of acquaintances a few years back, when the baron was searching for a good business to invest in. Vane was the one to introduce Mr. Gavin Daggers to the House of Schiller. Gavin Daggers had been his colleague in his college years, and they had even shared together a room for a year. Gavin Daggers was one year older and much more dedicated to business life than Vane. It almost seemed that the money mania had corrupted him faster than any of Vane's friends, but Cobalt had never seen Mr. Daggers act too greedily for wealth.

Once Kara Schradder was added to their team of hunters, proving herself so skillful in this sport, Gavin's facial features suffered a colossal change. He now seemed to have kept his penetrating gaze upon the young lady and not the preys he was tracking down. She looked at him in return, both of them communicating perfectly through the shrewd and narrowed gazes they shared one with the other. This was Cobalt's opinion, and he noticed that he was the single one to observe such a mute communication, since the count and his men were thenceforth interested in their hunting.

The hunt lasted only until close to the moment when the clock in the entrance hall stroke 12 o'clock. Supper was getting prepared, because the kitchens were filled with the tempting smell of steak, boiled vegetables, soufflés and baked cakes. The countess enjoyed ordering servants around in the kitchenry because it gave her something important to do for her husband's official guests.

Kaylen took a walk towards the stables, with the intention of having a ride on one of her horses before going to lunch. She found herself alone in the stables, once she got there. The servants had taken care of the horses and had curried them with care, also keeping the stabling clean. She picked the blackest of the horses and she turned towards the entrance to the stables, where the saddles and the blankets and riding utensils were kept. Just as she was about to pull out her favorite saddle off its place, she noticed the silhouette of a man coming towards her. She recognized the fair face of Vane Schiller. The casual clothes he wore gave him a certain feeling of tallness. The night before, in the music room, when he sat down, he did not seem tall and fair to her. He was indeed well-built, but not attractive enough to drag her attention. But now, in his dark-colored riding suit, he seemed handsome and close in appearance to a god. He stopped close by the entrance and smiled to her tenderly.

'Good morning to you, young countess', he said with a soft voice.

She slightly turned red in her cheeks and did not answer immediately to his greeting. She vaguely tilted her head and kept the saddle she had picked a few moments ago still in her hand. After she somehow mutely convinced Vane that she would not yet speak to him, she turned towards the stallions and went straight for the one she previously chose to ride. Vane understood that she would not have him as her company riding next to each other. He would have to follow her.

When Kaylen left the stables on horseback, Vane took a short time to saddle in his horse and quickly followed her. They did not speak to each other, but they both mutely agree to wander about the meadows near the Schradder House.

Denna stared at them from the window of her room with her secretous smile and it was then when she came up with a plan to make Evance change her opinion about death-pleasure. It would require some cruelty and some unorthodox means, but she was convinced that the act itself would definitely convince Evance otherwise. She had not spoken yet to anyone, because it was meant to be secretive and discreet. Evance, once corrupted, would not share the experience with anyone, as she would usually do in other cases. It would need all the possible discretion one would be capable of and Denna was completely convinced that her youngest sister would yield to that, immediately after being included in the blonde countess's terrible plan. All she needed was the perfect moment; perhaps, at sunset or close to nightfall.

7.

Evance was in the library, searching for a book interesting enough to make her read it. She had finished the volume entitled "One Thousand Ways To Die" (the second volume of the previous book she had read) and now it seemed to her that nothing pleased her as usual. Almost three quarters of the section with books about death had gone under her studious eyes and now Evance felt that she had run out of ammunition. Nothing seemed interesting any more. She did indeed hope so much that her father would agree to the baron's business proposal because thus she would be able to spend all day long in the forest or in the meadows, watching the wounded preys give their final breath under their predator's sight. She would ask her father to let her accompany the hunters on every hunt, because that would make her happy and would remove the boredom away.

She picked up a dictionary and started looking for words which included the death of something or the process of killing and taking the life out of something. She went out of the library with the book wide open and her eyes scouting the pages about. She would often mumble out loud what she read, but she would not stop walking, as if she had possessed a third eye somewhere on her forehead, helping her watch where she was stepping. The servants around, sitting in their places were as motionless as the statues of the fountain outside the house. They were there in case their master or mistresses needed their services. Evance, however, was one of the count's daughters who did not need the help of anyone. She enjoyed doing things by herself, and that only to show the people around her that she was capable of many things on her own.

It was when she had reached the entrance hall that Cobalt was opened the entrance door by the servants and he entered the house. He noticed her, several meters separating each other. However, Evance did not notice him, too engulfed in her reading and mumbling, sometimes raising her eyes to her left or to her right, as if she wrote the dictionary terms on the walls with her thoughtful stares. Suddenly, something made her stop and Cobalt knew it was not him, because she did not even take the time to look in front of her and spot him. She was staring at something secretly lying at her feet with a narrow look, as if she had gathered all the arrogance she was capable of in that glance. She closed the book and she placed it in a perfectly horizontal position, after which she quickly let it drop on the floor with a great bang. After a few seconds (during which the loud bang noise startled Cobalt and surprised him), Evance bent and lifted the book and she wiped off the back of it.

Cobalt closed in on her and noticed, with his hawk-like eyes, the brownish stain on the floor, which probably came from a cockroach. So Evance had taken the time to squash the poor insect with the book itself. She was grinning to him when Cobalt stopped in front of her.

'Good morning, Evance', he smiled softly, trying to ignore the fact that she had showed herself peculiar in behavior a minute ago.

She continued on grinning:

'Indeed, Cobalt. But it's late good morning to you, if you don't mind me saying. It's close to one o'clock in the afternoon I should believe'.

'Yes, I think so, sorry', he said and let his eyes down for a brief period of time, during which she passed him by. Noticing she still carried the book in her hand, he turned to her and asked:

'What are you reading, may I ask?'

'Words, Mr. Wolfstein!' she bumped arrogantly and lifted the top of her nose as if she were sniffing the air. He opened his mouth to protest to her calling him with "Mr.", but she continued: 'It's a dictionary. Of words… so, I'm reading words. Lovely ones too!'

She smiled and closed in on his face, whispering:

'Did you know that people actually invented a scientific definition for what's known as "the sixth sense?' it's called ESP – Extrasenzorial Perception. Oh, and the loveliest thing, which I shall proudly proclaim the word of the week for me, taphephobia!'

She pronounced the last word with a kind of keenness found only through the voice of those who truly delighted in being willingly subdued to the daily practice of their hobbies. She had circled her eyes around the room, as if she feared that the walls had strength enough to tremble once they heard the horrifying meaning of the word she had just uttered. She giggled after that and backed away from Cobalt, not staring into his eyes to see the disgust crossing over his face.

'Tapho-what?' he asked completely baffled and his lack of interest for scientific knowledge that she perceived with that question shocked her into speechlessness. She turned to face him with the kind of shocked look a professor would give to his student whom he had thought once very brilliant, but was unaware of his absent-mindedness.

'Taphephobia, Mr. Wolfstein! Taphephobia!' she repeated irritated. 'It's someone's fear of being buried alive! It sounds so lovely when you see it written on a very good constructed dictionary.'

She went to her day-dreaming, smiling to the walls and turned to continue on her crossing the entrance hall towards the stairs. But just as she reached the staircase and was ready to place her foot on the very first one, she half-turned to him and showed him one of her mean grins, saying:

'I do say, Cobalt… perhaps it is you who needs this dictionary after all. One may never know when some newly learned words come in handy.'

She smiled mildly and went up the stairs, leaving Cobalt with a fresh wound in his male pride. He could only grin back forcedly and have her strangled in his mind. He wished he would be able to say something appropriate in return. But he was left speechless.

8.

Lunch had been one of the most copious that Cobalt ever had so far. When he was at his uncle's house, Baron Schiller, Cobalt never actually enjoyed sitting at the same table with his uncle and his cousin kept their guests, aristocrats of social classes alike. He did not enjoy their talk of wealth, fortune, other people's inheritance, business and the displeasing conduct of those inferior to them. While the baron had always let Cobalt do as he pleased (including having his meals in the kitchen, alongside the servants), Vane never understood his step-cousin's behavior in such a case; thus, now both being at the Schradder House and Vane seeing Cobalt sharing the same table with the nobility, the young baron smiled with joy, knowing that finally his cousin had yielded to the conduct and propriety of high society.

Cobalt, however, did not share his happiness. It was true that he was sitting at the end of one side of the table, his plate close to the edge of the board, and he enjoyed serving himself to all the delights present on the plates and bowls (beautifully and elegantly painted); that was currently all of his happiness. He did not like the fact that in front of him was Kara who constantly possessed the shrewd smile of a hyena and giggled discreetly under the influence of her father's talk to the baron. She sometimes would balance her feet up and down and not once did she accidentally hit Cobalt's knees and not excused herself.

Then, the young man's discomfort took a more desperate turn when Kara transformed her playful balancing into an intentionally erotic game. During lunch-time, Cobalt felt her bare foot rubbing against his knee and he lifted his eyes to look at her in disbelief and discomfort. She smiled to him as seductively as she could and pretended, in the eyes of the others, that she was simply listening to her father's conversation. Next to her, Kaylen and Evance did not make the slightest facial change to show Cobalt that they were aware of their sister's game. Kara continued on rubbing her feet to Cobalt's knee until he looked around quickly and dragged his leg back. Because she could not reach his knee now, Kara gave him a disapproving look and she whispered through her lips something which Cobalt read as "Silly boy", but he did not have time to give her a mute reply in return because Evance caught his stare and swiftly narrowed her eyes reproachfully. Cobalt shut his mouth, while Kara discreetly giggled and then bended her head towards Kaylen's left ear and whispered something to her. The brunette suddenly stared in disbelief at Cobalt and then shook her head smiling from the corner of her mouth. Now, it was obvious that for Kara making fun of men must have been one of her favorite games; perhaps she enjoyed it more than hunting.

Cobalt slightly blushed and did not wish to have his meal at the same table with Kara Schradder. He tried to direct his interest on the other guests, as if such an activity would take away the shame. The countess was smiling as pleasant as ever and she was paying great attention (like the baron and his associates, Mr. Roderick and Mr. Daggers) to her husband's talk about business and the beauty of the county he had most authority on. The only one missing at the table was Denna. She excused herself through a servant, because she had an important business to attend to, thus the seat next to Kaylen was left empty. That particular seat was the only obstacle keeping Vane apart from the woman he found so beautiful and attractive.

After lunch, the young guests spread into separate places, while the count, his wife and the baron retired in one of the living rooms at the ground floor.

Mr. Roderick and Mr. Daggers agreed to become Kara's company and help her find her twin sister, while she would show them around the house. The plan cheered Kara up so much that she showed one of her most famous fox-like grins and she started to talk about the paintings and the small statues in the halls as if the role of a tourist guide fitted her perfectly. Slowly, but surely, Kaylen followed her and Vane sought to do the same, sensing that it was another chance for him to spend time with the beautiful brunette.

Once again, Cobalt was left alone with Evance, who did not enjoy his company either. High society politeness, however, ordered both of them to part in a more official, respectful manner. Cobalt did not like the way the young countess looked at her other sisters with a mild smile on her face, as if she could not wait to hear Kara tell her about the time when the latter had made so much fun of the two gentlemen, the baron's associates. It was as if indeed Kaylen was the only daughter of the count to lack the singlest smallest inkling of evil inside. All her other sisters seemed to enjoy torturing, mocking and laughing of society with all their might.

Cobalt rested at the table a few more minutes after the servants had cleared it up and had the lunch-room all tidied up. He and Evance were the single ones to remain. Cobalt was thinking of having a stroll all by himself through the forest. Perhaps Evance read his mind because she suddenly turned her head towards him and smiled with her unpleasant grin.

'Would you like me to show you around the house?' she asked.

He sniffed amused.

'If I had wanted that, I would have joined your sister, Kara and my uncle's associates. But thanks for asking.'

She shrugged her shoulders carelessly, but she did seem rather upset because of his refusal. She stood up and said ignorantly:

'Fine. Do as you please.'

She stepped outside of the room and lit up a cigarette. Cobalt came after her and was about to get out of the house through the main entrance (the servants nearby already opened the doors for him), when all of a sudden, she stopped him by asking:

'Would you like to walk me to my room?'

It was a weird question and Cobalt felt almost stupid enough to take it as natural as any other invitation, but then it only took him a few seconds to analyze every word in it and realize that an acceptance could have meant trouble. He smiled confusedly.

'Er…' was all that he could utter. 'Uhm… I'd rather not, Miss Schradder. I don't think it's… appropriate…'

'Hm', she gave him once more one of her disapproving glances, but she quickly looked away. 'Maybe you're right. But I wouldn't mind some company. I would have told you some more about taphephobia…'

She smiled implicitly and it reminded him of their previous encounter in the entrance hall, when she had talked to him about her discoveries in the dictionary she had had in her hand. The trouble was that Cobalt was not at all interested to know the whereabouts of such a word, but he could not say it so bluntly to the young lady. She might have taken it the wrong way. As a result, he smiled childishly and Evance slightly chortled; Cobalt stared at her confused.

'What's wrong? Did I say something funny?' he asked, but she would not stop her chortle to answer to him immediately. On the contrary, she turned her giggling into a cakeful of laughter and then lifted the book resting on her lap to cover her mouth with it.

'Nothing wrong', she answered finally. 'You had a funny face, the same face you had when Kara rubbed her foot against your knee.'

When he heard that, Cobalt turned instantly red in his cheeks and turned his look away. He had passed his 20th year with grace and now was growing into a strong and independent youth women felt quite attracted to. Despite that, in his heart, Cobalt felt that the relationship between lovers should be expresses as discreetly as possible. The rubbing Kara gave him with her foot so close to a delicate part of his body gave him weird feelings of joy and excitement mixed with embarrassment and discomfort. The battle between such strong feelings obviously ended with the victory of the second group. And now, they shortly came back when the youngest of countesses had reminded him of that moment. He saw how the corner of her lips rose into a viciously devious smile.

'You thought no one noticed?' she asked disdainfully. 'Maybe Kaylen was the only one Kara told what she had done to you, but I saw you guys. You had the face of a baby penguin watching how his mom was being slaughtered by a killer whale. Such a unique moment!' she clapped her hands together merrily.

'Er…' he began to speak, but realized half-way that he did not at all know what to say. He felt ashamed and only because the lady he disliked had mentioned to him, plain as broad-daylight, that she had clearly witnessed the shameful game Kara played on him. He felt, at the same time, that he should just disappear from her sight as fast as he could, but he did not believe himself so rude. After all, Evance was yet a woman still with the heart of a child.

The trouble was that as she laughed and smoked her cigarette in a most mature fashion possible, Cobalt felt that he was a guinea pig subdued to an experiment which failed irreparably.

'Excuse me', he finally said, as politely as he could, not being able to put up with her discreet mocking further on. But what he did not know is that Evance never mocked anyone. She was just being a childish woman, but not as evil and as shrewd as her older sisters. She never took the time to laugh of people, because she believed it a boring game, in which no one gained anything. That is why she stood up the minute he rushed to the entrance door to leave.

'Sorry bout that!' she said and thus she stopped him.

Cobalt half-turned to face her in surprise. He noticed that she held the book at her chest and dragged from the cigarette as if she were afraid that her father might catch her smoking any minute now.

'You did look funny though', she added, smilingly.

'I'm glad I amused you', he retorted half-ironically.

'You shouldn't feel bad about it, though. It's usually a good sign, if Kara did that to you. Means she won't try anything else. Which is good, trust me!' she warned him still amused.

'Why wouldn't she try anything else?'

''Cause you didn't answer back. It would've been a lot worse if you did. Anyways…'

She took off the tobacco cylinder from the cigarette and threw it away. The servants would again have to make sure that there was no smoke leftover in the hall.

'Would you like to walk with me then?' she asked. 'I need to send the smell of tobacco off of me before I meet dad. Could use some company…'

'Er…' Cobalt mumbled thoughtlessly and did not know what to make of her invitation, since from the beginning Evance Schradder presented her as a most peculiar young lady.

'Uhm… I think I would like to walk on my own', he answered back bluntly and the refusal clearly led to a complete change in her facial features. Suddenly, Evance turned red in her cheeks and not only did she make her eyes round with surprise, but she also wiped off the optimism on her face. She turned her face from pure joy to complete indignation and frustration. It was her first time inviting a young man somewhere and the whole experience ended up with her being refused. Now, she would have to go and look for many… many cockroaches and rats to kill. She would have to take the book with her, the only heavy weapon she could use against such disgusting animals. She quickly walked pass him, saying 'Fine. Whatever!', and went straight to the wine-cellar like a bullet coming out from the gun-pipe. Cobalt did not have time to see her angered face, but he could figure out by himself that she did not enjoy his refusal. He was left alone in the hall with the motionless servants, but soon he sniffed and shook his head disapprovingly, afterwards he went out for a walk around the forest.

9.

Kaylen was rather surprised to notice that Vane Schiller had stopped following her and that was because she had parted from her sister and the baron's two associates. Whilst they took the path towards the wine cellar and beyond it, she stopped and turned back, feeling that she should not succumb to similar seduction games as her twin sisters. She did not know if they were to find Denna very soon, because the latter was very secretive in her ways and she would have safely hidden away her chamber of "experiments". But when Kaylen passed by the grand hall and through the windows, noticing young Cobalt heading towards the forest all by himself, she sensed that Evance and he (both who had been left alone in the dinner-room) must have had an argument or so. She smiled from the corner of her mouth and went back to the wine cellar. Something told her that Evance was there.

She heard the muffled sounds of something being crushed to the floor and the sound of rats squeezing as if being captured and tortured before the moment of their death. She ordered one of the servants there to open the gate to the wine cellar for her and then she was given a lit-up torch and came inside.

'Evance?'

She did not like the fact that she was to step among the dead bodies of mice and the stains from the squashed cockroaches, but she had known Evance all her life and she knew that, since a young age, her youngest sister showed herself a peculiar weird-behaving young lady. She would often find the most morbid of acts quite refreshing or distressing.

Kaylen suddenly stopped and with a trembling face, she looked down. Her foot had almost stepped on a black covered book, which was almost fully covered in stains from the juice within an insect's body. She gave way to a disgusting look and then turned back on her way.

'Evance? C'mon, young lady, what's the matter? I know you're here! I saw young Cobalt out for a stroll. Why didn't you join him?'

There was a loud cracking noise behind her, as if someone was closing the gate of the wine cellar in a slow fashion. Suddenly, under the light of the torch fire, Evance appeared, her eyes all narrowed up and her mouth with their corners lowered and angered.

'He refused my invitations! All of them!' she growled. 'Agh! Remind me never to ask him anything ever again! He's conceited and stupid! Stupid, stupid, stupid Cobalt! Imagine he didn't give a rat's ass about taphephobia! And he doesn't even care for dictionaries! And when I made a small joke about what Kara had done to him at lunch, he was all scared-to-wits up! What a fuss!' she cried angrily, but all this time, Kaylen smiled to her.

A few moments of silence (during which Evance probably found a better and a non-aggressive manner to calm herself down), the youngest of daughters sniffed with indignation and let herself lean against the closed gate of the wine cellar.

'I wish sometimes I would have Kara's or Denna's skills. They would know how to make a man never refuse them again…'

Kaylen stared at her in slight disbelief. She stepped closer towards her sister and smiled pleasantly surprised.

'Then you like him, I take it', she said and Evance lifted her eyes towards her, giving her a reproachful look.

'Me? Like that idiot?! No! Not in a million years! He's got no manners at all! But I wish, oh I so wish that sometimes I would be the one refusing their invitations…'

'Well, then, next time he asks you out on something, you say "no"! How's that?' Kaylen asked matter-of-factly. Her sister once more stared at her reproachfully.

'If he asks again… which he won't! He probably thinks I'm the creepiest person in the world, which makes no difference to me. What he thinks, that is!'

'You should be as you like being, Eve. We've all got our flaws and bad habits.'

'Yeah, I bet he's got thousands of flaws!' Evance burst out angrily. 'I'll just not care what he has to say! I'll ignore him, that's what I'll do! Let's see then who's gonna ask who what!'

Suddenly, the frustration on Evance's face cleared up with the strength of pronunciation she used to utter these words. She knew that she would have something of her older sisters' shrewdness, it was impossible that she did not. She needed not worry about anything. That is why she turned on her heels and walked out of the wine cellar with the kind of face a newly proclaimed young king has once he possesses the royal crown on his forehead.

Behind her, Kaylen followed smiling. She invited her youngest sister to listen to her playing the violin, but Evance did not agree. However, she asked if they were to ride horses close by the meadows and even perhaps further on the neighboring lands. Kaylen agreed and they settled in for the stables.

10.

Evance always adored black. The first time she dressed in black was at her grandfather's funeral, when she was but a child of 6. Their mother had taken great care that her daughters wore the best tailored of garments. Back then, Kara did not possess her distinctive erotic-playful behavior and Denna did not give way to her seductive conduct. Kaylen only played sad-noted violin songs and Evance was not allowed to read about death, not even at night. The color of black had remained the only comfort for the youngest countesses. She liked her mourning black dresses because they looked so simple, so plain and yet so fashionable. It had been almost 15 years since she had worn her first black outfit and she had not changed the color ever since. Sometimes the blackness of the garment would be combined with different-colored accessories, but Evance never wore any bracelets, rings or earrings. In this, she would be Kara's complete opposite. She did not waste her time on picking the perfect jewels or the most appropriate for various occasions. Black demanded no more from her than simplicity and austerity. This is probably the main reason why she would always choose the blackest of horses, regardless of their mildness or wickedness in animal behavior.

Kaylen was close to her habits when it came to garments, but she had a neck for low-necked dresses and the purity of white. It seemed that each sister would possess something to contrast one another. She was left to choose a white horse (fairly fitting her pure white skin and her white silky-laced dress) and saddle it with her favorite saddle. The stable gates were left wide open and the near-by servants went back on their business once the mistresses settled their horses.

Evance was not a good rider, but she enjoyed the wind blowing her face when she rode off with a horse. She sometimes felt the need to run off and return back home days after she had disappeared. Kaylen was a freer spirit. She would ride every day and she would always get lost in the forest and through the meadows, regardless of the perils she might encounter in her riding journeys. The truth was that she sometimes felt the need to refuse her horse's saddle and reins. She knew how to ride too well.

The hills and mountains in the distance stretched up to the sky with great distress, fighting off the autumn fog. There was the chill of September through the plains, but both the young ladies enjoyed the intercommunion they shared with nature. The sky was blue-clear and only tiny specks of white declared the purest clouds. Nonetheless, the sun had not yet escaped a large snowy-like cloud and now the atmosphere seemed heavy and ashy-like. There was no unadulterated light from the warm raises and it seemed that only the whiteness of Kaylen's horse matched the color of the clouds from the sky.

They reached the border of the Schradder lands and stopped their horses. Far off, the forest would stretch to their right, but would not stop until it reached the bases of the distant mountains. Evance wished that somehow, she would be able to travel off on her own, without having servants following her or having the company of a male with her. She communicated her wish to Kaylen out loud and the brunette could not agree more.

'I think we could ask father to let us go for a short ride off-borders', Kaylen said. After all, we have horses, fast ones too. We would run away from danger if necessary. There is no need to get hurt. Shall we ride off now, dear Eve?'

Kaylen gave way to one of her pleasing yet welcoming smiles and Evance stared at her in disbelief. She suddenly turned her mouth into a wide-opened enthusiastic smile and bended parallel with her horse's spine.

'Of course, dear Kaylen! I'll ride you to that tree over there, what would you say to that?'

'Sounds fair enough to me!' the brunette cried in excitement and then they simultaneously kicked their horses and rode off in madness towards the distant mountains.

11.

When Cobalt returned to the house from his walk through the forest (a periless stroll), it was already close to dinner-time and the light outside had darkened and was preparing for the nightfall.

Kara and the two gentlemen, Mr. Roderick and Mr. Daggers, were in one of the living-rooms at the ground-floor, with the countess, the count and the baron. Vane was probably in the library studying the interesting books he was surely to find there. Denna, it was hard to say where one would find her, but for quite some time there was a vigorous young man, a worker at the stables, who had disappeared.

The house was drenched in silence and Kaylen's music was heard nowhere. She must have gone to her private chambers, resting; Cobalt never loved a silent house. He always had the impression that somewhere, in a dark hidden corner, someone was plotting and planning a most terrible scheme. All doors were closed, the servants were silent and stiff-positioned and the house seemed a great wide space of hollowness. He would not stay indoors, where nothing was interesting enough for his tastes. However, soon dinner was announced and the people started to gather in the dinner saloon. No one, however, noticed that two of the count's family members were missing. It was only when they all assembled at the table that they noticed two empty seats, particularly those in front of Cobalt's.

13.

Kaylen did not enjoy the fact that they were to return back home. Evance's horse was tied by the reins from a branch of a tree under which the two young ladies were resting. Kaylen's horse was close by and would not wander around without his mistress riding him.

The two young countesses had lied on the cool grass and stretched their limbs to their full extent, as if they tried to touch the horizon; they studied the sky with its dark shades of nightfall and Evance had started to count the early glimmering stars. It was the singlest moment in time when the setting sun would meet the moon and its stars. She loved to watch both of them in the sky, because it gave her a crude feeling of pure bliss. She remembered (as Kaylen would, undoubtedly) the stories their mother used to read to them, about the various legends of the moon and the sun, about the sparrows and about the hawks. There were times, real existing times once which determined the birth of such fantastic-like stories. One moment in time was this, when the sun and the moon would both be present on the same sky. It was then when Evance realized the true nature of time and its unsteadiness, its stubbornness in refusing to stop to people's desires.

She and Kaylen had talked much of this weird encounter between the sun and the moon and they would not take their eyes off the beauty of the sky at nightfall. They did not realize that dinner-time passed and it was now urgent that they return to the House of Schradder.

'Do you believe we'll be able to travel out of here someday, Kaylen?'

The brunette stared at her unbelievingly and then looked up at the sky, as if she were looking for an answer through the clouds of night. She leaned on her elbows and said:

'Why would you leave, Evance?'

'I didn't say "leave", I said "travel". I would like to travel. Barefooted, if necessary. But I would like to travel a lot.'

'Well, maybe you will someday, who knows', Kaylen comforted her with her clear calm voice. After a while, they both realized their delay at the house and Kaylen stood up to utter:

'We should return back home. I think father will be most angry to know we went off-borders without telling him.'

'Yes, but wasn't it worth it?' Evance chortled, as if she knew that her father's angry face was a reason to laugh and be amused of. Kaylen seemed to have agreed to such an impression, since she quickly shared her sister change in facial features.

They settled their horses and then soon after this, they rode off as fast as they could towards their family house. Evance soon realized that she had forgotten her cigarette under the tree, but it had already been late for that, since they were already at the family stables. She agreed with herself to take a short night-walk to return to the place off-borders and search for her favorite cigarette-holder.

14.

Their father was not as much displeased with their riding off as they had expected, but he did warn them worryingly to be careful especially at night and Kaylen sang at her violin for a while to cool the spirits off. She thus kept her parents, the baron and his associates some company, while Kara proved once more her independency and her altruist spirit by helping the singer with turning the music book pages when the brunette finished the musical notes on both sides of the papers.

Evance secretly returned to her room and spent some time with Denna (who wanted to spend some time with her and have her read some interesting passages from books about death). Evance thought that Denna did this only to show her that she cared for her morbid hobbies as well and that she was not forgotten as a sister, despite her peculiar nature.

Cobalt was the one to return early to his chamber, after keeping his cousin some company in the piano room, and he went to bed when the grand clock in the entrance hall stroke 10 o'clock.

15.

Shortly after midnight, Cobalt woke up from a nightmare, agitated and all sweaty; he even had the impression that he had cried in his sleep. He now was expecting a few of the guests and the hosts (if not all) to come up to his room and check on him worryingly. Still, there was not the slightest movement outside, which meant that Cobalt only had the impression he had cried. He dreamt of being placed on a heavy metal-constructed table underground, in a dungeon of some sort, being tortured by a dark silhouette with needles and pins plunged into his ever artery. When he looked around the room, everything was drenched in darkness, excepting the small circle of light which had formed as a result of the moonlight falling into the room through the window. The curtains were completely drawn off and the landscape outside was clear and in full sight. The meadows stretched silently towards the hills and the distant mountains, beyond the borders of the Schradder lands. On the right side, the forest trees spread their colossal bushy heads towards the night-sky. The stars sparkled under the strong trunk-structured pillars. There was no movement visible enough for the eye to record on such a night. Everything would have gone all silent and stiff, like the grounds of a cemetery. Except…

Under the moonlight, the dark flowing silhouette of a woman appeared on the meadows in Cobalt's sight, while he was staring through the window at the garden and plains surrounding the House of Schradder. He startled frowningly and he closed up his head to the glass of the window, as if the gesture helped him better to recognize the shadow. It was a woman indeed, because the flowing material was her dress and she was not yet wearing her night-gown. Even the coiffure remained unchanged. She seemed to be one of the count's daughters, but Cobalt was not aware yet that the craziest of the count's daughters to go strolling in the midnight hour would be Evance.

Cobalt quickly thought of following the silhouette, at least at a short distance behind her, to know of her safety himself. He dressed up quickly and, as quiet as he could, he passed through the hallway towards the entrance door. He had lastly noticed at the window that the woman was heading for the borders of the Schradder lands.

When he finally reached the gardens outside, he caught a quick glance of the dark shadow before it jumped over the fence, delimiting the ground-borders.

'What the…!' Cobalt stopped stupefied at the bold gesture of the silhouette to trespass on foreign lands. He quickly made his way through the forest, where there was no fence to jump over. He hid behind the trees and noticed that the woman was closing in on the trees as well, perhaps with a hiding place constantly by her side, if necessary. She had quick legs to run because she used them well enough to jump over the obstacles consisting of big rocks, ground-holes and tree-trunks cut from the base without the slight hesitation.

Whilst running after her, Cobalt tried to keep up and sometimes would not watch what he was stepping on. As a consequence, at some point, he stepped on an old rotten branch, which not only loudly cracked under his foot, but also tangled in on his trousers and forced him to trip and fall on the ground. Knowing that now his presence had been sensed by the one he followed, he stiffened in his position and looked up to see what the silhouette's reaction was. The moment the crack under Cobalt's foot was heard, the silhouette stopped abruptly and quickly turned back half of her body to look for the one behind her. The movement of her head had been too violent and a few hair strands jumped off from her coiffure. She narrowed her eyes and dropped the sides of her dress (she had held them up whilst she kept running and jumping). In the moonlight, Cobalt recognized Evance Schradder's face. Her eyes attentively scrutinized the surroundings, but the scouting did not last long. Soon, she would lift the sides of her dress once more and return on her running further away from the borders of her family lands.

Cobalt did not see clearly where she was now heading, but he took it to be a straight route and so he stood up, asking himself stupefied:

'Where the hell is she going this time of night?!'

Suddenly, closing in on a tree near by the place where he tripped and fell, he did not pay attention to the sounds around him and just when he reached the trunk of the tree, something dark, thick and square-shaped smashed his nose violently, determining him to fall back with a growling cry. He covered his bleeding nose and fell on the ground with a strong bang.

'Auch, goddamnit!' he cried.

'Oh, it's you', said Evance's voice and a dark shadow closed in on him and bended over his face. 'Sorry bout that, Cobalt.'

He opened his eyes and gave her a disapproving and scolding look. Evance was honestly surprised to see him and she now squatted in front of him, her black book in her lap.

'I thought you were someone else', she said. 'Sorry. I'll help you stand up', she said and grabbed him by the elbow to sustain him whilst he tried putting himself back on his feet. He wiped the blood off his nose with the back of his sleeve and asked nervously:

'What the devil were you doing off-borders at a time like this?'

'I was looking for my cigarette-holder. I lost it somewhere around here. Care to help me find it?'

She gave him one of those grins he so disliked and the invitation was bound to result in a new refusal, which is why he nodded and sniffed the remains of the blood back into his nostrils.

'No, I'd rather not. I'll stay close by to guard you.'

'My, my, aren't we some gentleman…' she satirized, her body half-bended over the ground she was inspecting.

'I could just run back off and cuddle back in bed, you know', he said threateningly.

'And let the wolves eat me alive? There'll be a matter of hours before everyone figures out you were with me and you refused to keep me away from harm.'

'I'll be back in bed by the time the wolves attack', he tried to retort poignantly, but she had already a shrewd reply installed for him if necessary.

'You have the face of a person who's not good at hiding anything. Once you'd find out I was slaughtered by wolves, your face would go all white and horrified, I can bet on anything!'

She kept on searching for her cigarette-holder in the ground, through the grass and Cobalt felt an instant inkling of leaving her be and returning back to the house. But the sudden howling of a wolf close by the hills, in the distance, startled both of them.

'You'd better hurry', Cobalt advised her after the sound of the wolf was cleared off in silence.

'Don't you have a sword or anything to fight him off with?' she asked reproachfully, while still searching for her cigarette-holder and furthering herself away from him with a few more meters.

'If there's gonna be a whole pack of them, that wouldn't work, now would it!' Cobalt jumped ironically and kept animatingly scouting the dark surroundings.

'Ah!' she suddenly cried in excitement, and when Cobalt turned to face her, he saw that she had lifted up a small stick-like thing and it must have been her cigarette-holder.

'Great, now let's get back to the house!' Cobalt said worryingly, but suddenly he startled panicked when he heard her short gasp and jumped off to her rescue. She seemed to have stumbled upon something which caused her to gasp. She backed up on what was soon to be discovered under the moonlight as a country snake. At the sight of such a defenseless animal, Cobalt breathed relieved and gave the young lady a look of reproach.

'Now can we go?' he asked impatiently.

'Yes, yes, certainly, go right ahead!' she invited him animatedly and he did as she asked him too, sword pulled out from its scabbard and placed in an offensive position.

'You're insane, you know that?' he said, when they had safely reached the grounds of the Schradder lands.

'No, I'm not!' she retorted revolted. 'It was a gift Denna secretly gave me when I turned 16. I would not loose it for the world! Plus, nobody asked you to follow me in the middle of the night!'

'You were defending yourself with a book', Cobalt turned his half-annoyed face to stare at her scornfully.

'Ah, but it was a good book since I managed to break your nose with it', she smiled shrewdly and he had to give her a forced smile.

'Don't rely on succeeding every time you strike at close range. I could have been aware of your attack and back off, pull out my sword and stab you. And it all would have been a well intended defense attack!' he said.

'No one's foolish enough to strike before seeing his opponent's face!' she cried irritatingly. 'Unless, of course, you've gone berserk or something…'

The last statement was uttered under a milder tone of voice, as if she were calmly explaining her theories in front of a classroom of children, in school.

'Don't you care for your own safety at all?' he turned to face her.

This time, they were a few meters away from the house, but no one, unless waiting in the entrance hall would have been able to see them from the windows. It was pitch-dark outside as well and if there was a servant or two to wonder about, he or she would not meddle in their masters' night-business, no matter the peculiarity of the situation.

'Uhm…Nope!'

Evance's answer was blunt and plain. It seemed to Cobalt that she had only given a negative answer just so she would mock him or show him that he was not being taken serious at all. He shook his head critically and opened the entrance door to let her in first. When they found themselves safely back inside the hall, with Evance climbing up the stairs in front of him, Cobalt said on a serious tone of voice:

'One day, you will care dearly for your safety and I hope there'll be someone there to protect you.'

Suddenly she stopped and turned to face him.

'Will you be there?'

Cobalt was left speechless and stared at her, eyes wide-open, lips half-parted in sheer helplessness.

'I certainly hope so… I guess…' he answered finally and then she continued on climbing up the stairs, this time with a smile on her face.

When they reached the hallway with their private chambers, they parted with night greetings and as Cobalt continued his way towards his own bedroom, Evance disappeared behind the door to her own chamber.

In his room, Cobalt threw off on a chair the belt holding the scabbard with the sword in it. He undressed and got inside his bed, breathing heavily, relieved that Evance was safely returned home from her silly night-strolling. He would not even dare to try and imagine what would have happened to him if some harm was to come to her.

16.

The next morning, the men of the House of Schradder went hunting once more. This time, they made sure that Kara was to accompany them, because she had proved herself to be of great help and she possessed good skills in this sport. Evance had insisted that her father should let her assist them, to her mother's horror (who had given Denna worrying looks at the break-fast table), but luckily, her father was not so easily convinced. Once more, Evance was left unsatisfied and so she retired to the library, to come back to one of her favorite books about death and read in annoyance. There were no more cockroaches and rats to torture for the time being.

Cobalt had not yet spoken to her, since at the breakfast table, she showed herself ignorant and distant, as if what had happened between them the previous night was of no concern of hers at all. In fact, he felt that she deliberately ignored him, trying to be annoyed on other people for now satisfying her.

Kaylen had tried to talk her out of it, in the library, but Evance was stubborn enough to pretend that he had no functional ears at the time. It was indeed Denna who called out for her close to lunch-time.

'May I show you something, dearest?' she asked and such an invitation attracted the youngest countess's attention.

'Oh? Something wicked and gloomy?' she asked enthusiastically.

'Oh, indeed it is something to your very taste', Denna smiled with her secretous smile and Evance did not catch the glimpse of shrewdness and malice in her blonde sister's eyes. She put the book she was reading aside and she left it open, thinking that perhaps she may return to it later on.

The count and his guests were gathered at lunch table. Denna and Evance appeared in the doorway and told them that they would need to delay their lunch for later.

'There is something that I need to show Evance and it cannot suffer any delay. Is it alright, father, if we join you later?'

No one could resist Denna's smile. It had the power to succumb to its mistress's every wishes, if possible. Her father, under the influence of so many curious, expectant stares, could only take yes for an answer. He smiled to his eldest of daughters and said:

'Well, if you must, Denna dearest. But do be careful if you go close to the forest.'

'Should I join you?' asked Kara and stood up.

Cobalt and Vane exchanged glances curiously, but Vane was the one to think less of the current situation as being a curiously weird one. Cobalt remained with his frowning look upon both the count's daughters standing in the doorway. Evance had something close to an enigmatic smile, but she did not possess her eldest sister's secretive nature. She was the one closer to the doorway than Denna. When it was finally settled that the blonde countess and Evance would go alone near by the forest, they both left and the people at the lunch table returned to their previous conversations.

Kaylen and her mother were the only ones to exchange glances holding many… many messages within. Cobalt noticed the worried look on Kaylen's face when she bended close to her mother's ear and whispered something. Her mother then looked at her seriously and only after a few moments she smiled to her pleasantly and spoke something which Cobalt (after lips-reading) understood as "It's alright, I'm sure Denna will know what to do". He wondered what they were talking about. He would have liked to share his curiosity with Vane, but his cousin was already engaged in a conversation with Kara and his father's two associates. Cobalt was left in suspense.

17.

Denna had taken Evance through the forest, somewhere very close to the borders, because Evance recognized a few of the trees she had passed by, horse-riding when she was off-borders with Kaylen the previous day. The forest was quiet and only a few birds' chirping enchanted the listener and attracted him into a world of fairies and fantasy. The trees were rattling their branches under the strong breath of the autumn wind and the leaves would sometimes be sent flowing in the air with the kind of charming dancing, up and down, frontward and backward, like the mute cradling of a child. The sky was not clearly seenable through the impenetrable vest of leaves and branches. Each tree had decided to give up its freedom and unite with other trees, decidedly not letting any spark of light fall on the ground without its permission. Evance stared fascinated by the silence of the forest, the dark colors it was covered in and the rattling, cracking and vivid carpet of leaves under her steps. They were furthering away from the house with each pace.

Denna had not spoken to her so far, ever since they've gone out of the house. She specifically asked that no servants follow them, and Evance would not stop her heart from crazily beating under her stern, at the thought that what her sister installed for her was probably one great pleasing surprise. But she did not notice the dagger in her sister's hand. It had a curled wide blade, the type of daggers used for skillfully cutting big animals' throats after they had been put down with a single blow.

They stopped close by a small glade where the trees had given space for some soft grass, still holding the morning dew tears and where the wild flowers were still in bloom, safely tucked away from the coldness of the autumn weather. Evance was delighted by this spot and she asked Denna to stop here and settle down on a cold rock, close by one of the surrounding tree-trunks. Denna silently agreed, still smiling secretly.

They wasted almost half an hour in silence, during which Evance did not dare interrupt her sister's plan, thinking that if she did so, perhaps the entire surprise would go away after that. But Denna had her plan already well-built in her head and so far, it was going very accordingly.

At some point, she stood up from her seat and she pulled out her dagger in Evance's sight. The girl seemed to have slightly startled at the sight of the small weapon. Denna scouted the surroundings and without looking at her sister, she asked her to follow her. Evance did as she was asked and followed Denna through the depths of the forest. She now did not have the slightest clue what her sister wanted from her. Suddenly, she heard the mumbling growl of an animal and she stopped, freezing in her position with fright. Denna seemed to be aware of the sound as well. She drew her dagger close to her chest, in a defensive position. She turned her body half-way towards her sister.

'Evance darling, what's the matter? Are you frightened?'

Evance stared at her in disbelief. She noticed now that Denna did not make the faintest movement as to be aware of the eminent danger. On the contrary, after questioning her, Denna put away her dagger.

'What are you doing?!' she asked stupefied. Then, after a few seconds of scrutinizing her eldest sister with unpleasant surprise, her eyes grew in size with horror, as she noticed something visibly moving behind the bushes in the back of her sister. Denna slowly turned towards the place which had suddenly given her youngest sister the look of fright. There was the growling sound of an animal, possibly a wolf. Something like a sniff was heard behind the bushes and soon the big paw of a quadruped animal made its appearance through the visible roots of a tree near by and it look gray, dirty and filled with the smell of fresh blood.

Denna turned to face the monstrous animal with full body. She now replaced the dagger at the base of her chest defensively. Evance would not make the slightest movement, she was too petrified with terror. Her body clearly trembled and her muscles contracted with the inner struggle between the instinctual feeling of running away and the rational one of not leaving her sister alone in the face of obvious danger.

The creature proved itself to be one of the largest species of wolf Evance had ever seen. It was common in these parts. It was the single wolf-race to have everything about it in large size. The claws springing from the furry fingers had half the size of Denna's dagger. They were sharp and they curled up dangerously inside, as if once under their pressure, no prey could escape their threatening cut. The wolf had an imposing stature and the back bones had grown too accustomed to emerging, since they stretched towards the sky like the strong mountains of a powerful nature enemy. The wolf, if standing on its back paws would have been almost 6 feet tall and would have easily surpass both Evance and Denna. The legs were covered in a well-built muscle structure, pointing out healthy curves and a strong countenance. The grayish color covering it glittered with the health of so many years spent on food constituting of human flesh. It growled unstoppably and its red-blooded sight glowed with irritation when it saw the dagger in Denna's hand. It knew the shape of danger when it saw one. But it also succumbed to the taste of human blood and the aroma of fresh meat. Thus, it did not care for the consequences of fighting an armed opponent, as long as that opponent afterwards ended up as his next meal.

Evance gave way to a gasp and thus the animals' attention was drawn away from Denna's countenance. The blonde beauty took this moment to her advantage when she quickly aimed the monster's eye and threw the dagger off with precise target. The monster was soon struck with horrendous pain when the blade penetrated its eye. It cried with all its madness and it shook its head violently spreading blood everywhere. The red stains reached most of Evance's garments and she screamed with terror, as she saw that the monster suddenly plunged off towards Denna. The blonde young countess cried also, but with all the strength of her lungs, as she jumped on one side and let the monster fall in the void and cry once more with fury. Suddenly, the lonely fairy-like glade turned into a deadly battlefield between the predator and prey. Denna did not have the dagger with her anymore and she did not want to show the fright in her eyes to her sister. She would not have known the consequences of such an act. She searched for something with which she could be able to defend, if not attack. The thought would be a swift one, because quickly after this, the animal attacked jumping in the air and crying menacingly. It attacked Denna in surprise and managed to pull her down, sinking its paws into her neck and chocking her. Denna caughed and emitted sounds of forced gulping and chocking. Her closing up on her moment of death made her youngest sister gasp once more with terror. Attention drawn away from the prey currently caught under the weight of its paw, the crature aimed Evance and the girl started to run off, tripping and falling in her despair to survive. It those moments, all she could think of was the image of the foreign bloody teeth sinking deeper into her shoulder. Her dress had a long train. She never thought she would have ended up hating her black dresses so much as she loathed them now. They kept her away from running further and further away from danger. She screamed and she cried and she feared so much to look back, because she heard the terrible sound of crushed nature, ripped-off branches and crazy dancing of the leaves, under the maddening race of the monster. The wolf would often shriek and growl and call for its mates, but the running would continue on and on because Evance had long completely yielded to the survival instincts and had gathered all her strength in her legs to go on faster and faster. She did not once think of those animals she adored watching how they gave off their last breath. She did not think of the torturing she gave to the rats and to the mice. She did not think of the books she read about death, nor about the fact that she would never have to think about what deer-life was like before the deer was arrowed down in the heart by a hunter. She did not think of anything else, but about her safety. She needed to get away, she needed to keep safe, to get off of the predator's sight.

The wolf was closing in on her. Soon, they had reached the borders of her family lands, but she did not care for stopping. She would need to run further and further away, since the chasing would not end. When she heard that the last cry of the monster was answered back by creatures alike it, the fright overcame her and she placed once more all her strength in her feet running even further. The dress had been torn off severely at the end of the train and now her feet had the liberty of jumping off and dashing towards safety like the deer under the influence of a powerful drug, which drew out all her rational senses. At some point, she could hear Denna calling her name or at least, something calling her out but she could not stop, she could not let the predator plunge its teeth into her shoulder.

Suddenly, with the swift thought of coming out of the forest and into the clear meadows, lest someone would see her and come to her rescue, she tripped over a visible root of a tree and she fell flat on the leaf-carpet. The leaves danced up and would have been a good coverage blanket, if they had decided to save her and swathe her with their dark autumn color. But it would not do. Today perhaps Evance was being punished for something evil that she had not ceased doing in the past. The wolf quickly sniffed her through the abrupt sound of her fall and jumped off in attack. The wide opened saw-mouth almost covered her head, but the teeth would swiftly plunge into the foreign fleshy shoulder. Evance gave way to the most terrifying cry she had ever subdued to. The teeth would sink in further, until she felt the slight crush of the bone at the strong pressure of the two pairs of saw. The instinctual feeling of survival drenched her in the madness of rapidly reacting in offense. She pulled out the dagger still sunk in the animal's eye and this made it let her shoulder go and cry in rage. She took advantage of the moment and she imbedded the blade in the monster's carotid. The blood instantly gushed out and went straight for her face, almost blinding her instantly. The whiteness of her skin soon soaked under the blood-spring, while the animal cried in ultimate despair and pain. It quickly pulled away from its hostile prey and it jumped, it danced morbidly, it cried and it stroke in agony the tree-trunks with wrath, until its head accidentally clashed into one of the thicker ones and instantly fell on the leaf-carpet. A few leaves danced under the blow from the sudden fall of the gigantic wolf, but they were soon to cover its deadly silent body.

It no longer cried now, it stood there breathing heavily, slower and slower, chest inhaling and exhaling with a growling sound, as if something was stuck inside its neck. Evance breathed relieved, but still kept her tensioned body ready for a new run if necessary. The animal, however, seemed to be close to its last breath. Evance gathered all her courage and sprang closer to the half-dead wolf. She reached for its face and pulled out the dagger, and then she dropped it close by its face. The red eyes stared at her in stillness. She would not have wanted to touch them, but she could not bear the staring either. She had the impression that the animal was scolding her, was crying out for her punishment, the impudence with which she had plunged the knife into its neck. The moment prolonged with a few moments more, but it seemed to Evance that many years had gone by, by the time the animal's piercingly red eye suddenly felt the need to close up slowly. She knew, the minute the eye-lids were tightly placed together that she had solely taken this animal's life and nothing of this experience had brought the slightest drop of happiness. She would no longer be able to breathe life into it and have it tell her with its reddish eyes what was like to die. The experience of dying is unique and irreparable. She had killed this animal and it was only for the sole purpose of surviving. She never cared much for her life, since it pleased herself to have to die. She promised herself that before she dies, she would have to do everything so that she was to possess the knowledge of knowing how to return back to life. But this had been an experience to teach her that not one's all plans go accordingly and humans were such fragile creatures, as fragile probably as all the other living beings. Each has the same feature, that of having the instinct of survival within. She was no exception and this animal was not either. Killing this wolf taught Evance in that moment that she should never wish anyone's death, least of all provoke it or enjoy it. Someday, somehow, someone would enjoy her death, while she would also stare into her killer's eye, breathing her last breath.

She stood up, wiped off as much blood as she could off her face and she ran off, hand pressing on the shoulder's open wound, with the dagger in her hand, leaving the animal's carcass to rot under the penetrating sun-light through the thick trees' heads.

18.

Lunch-time had been over for the past two hours, but there had not been any sight of Denna or Evance. It was close to evening-fall and Kaylen was still resting close by the window in one of the living rooms on the ground floor, alongside the other people in the House of Schradder. The count and the baron were discussing business, while Mr. Roderick, Mr. Daggers and Vane were being served tea by the countess. Kara was also standing on a chair close to Kaylen and would scrutinize the room they were in, as if this was one fine activity to keep the boredom away. She sometimes turned to face Kaylen's profile, but she read the same restlessness in her sister's face which had taken over her an hour earlier, after lunch-time. Kaylen was worried for her two missing sisters, and no one seemed to care. But she was wrong. Cobalt was near them and his eyes scouted the surrounding forest and meadows from the window of the room. He sometimes would lean his elbows against the windowsill, but nothing important came into his sight, just a few servants passing frontward and backward the house with their business. The clock finally stroke six o'clock and this time, Kara leaned her head towards her brunette sister.

'Kaylen?' she whispered. 'Where do you think Denna's taken Evance?'

'To cure her, no doubt, but I never thought they'd be this late!' answered Kaylen worryingly. 'I just hope everything went alright'

She gave her mother a quick glance and the countess read the anxiety in her daughter's eyes. She knew that the time it took Denna to show Evance something in order to make the latter change her mind about liking death and everything about it was already too much. She rose on her feet and according to the custom, so did the men in the room. She turned to face her husband.

'Dearest? I don't mean to bother you with this, but I think it's time you sent someone for your daughters. It is growing late outside and it'll soon be nightfall. I wish they are back and safe by then.'

The count considered his wife's wishes and nodded thoughtfully, after which he stared at the other gentlemen and said:

'You must excuse me, my wife is right. Denna and Evance are quite late. I should see to their whereabouts as quickly as possible.'

'I'll help, sir', Cobalt jumped helpfully and Kaylen gave him a glance filled with hope. He smiled to her softly and the gesture was meant to comfort her in any way possible. He did not wait for a refusal, and he got out of the room, passed through the entrance hallway and waited there for any other help.

Soon, his step-cousin, Vane and Mr. Daggers descended the stairs. The baron and his other associate followed close-by and the countesses stopped half-way on the stairs.

'Do be careful, gentlemen!' cried the countess worryingly.

'Not to worry, my dear, I'm sure Denna is – '

The count stopped talking the moment the entrance doors were pushed aside and a servant made room for another to enter. The last one entering was carrying a half-dead body in his arms. It was a woman and recognizing her, Kaylen and Kara shrieked, while the countess gasped and the three of them rushed down the stairs.

'Denna!' they cried simultaneously and the men gathered around the two servants. The count was most distressed, his eyes and face going all red with wrath and despair. The baron held his hand on his shoulder friendly-like, while Mr. Daggers and Mr. Roderick tried to find out the whereabouts of Denna by questioning the servants who had brought her in. The wounded countess was hurryingly being taken to her bed chamber; she had several cuts on her legs and arms and her dress was terribly stained in blood. She smelled like a prey freshly freed from the horrifying claws of her predator. She smelled like a wolf, Cobalt sniffed and recognized the scent immediately. He communicated his beliefs to Denna's father and soon, they found out that the blonde woman had been found half-dead in the depths of the forest by the servants very far away from the house and had been brought home as quickly as possible. Evance was not found, not a sole clue as to where she was.

The countess fainted and was soon brought to her chambers as well. Kaylen was as agitated and as passive aggressive as a bored tiger severely annoyed by poachers. She would not let anyone touch Denna' face, or speak to her or even stand in her room. Kara was to take care of their mother, while the count, the baron and the young gentlemen organized a search party. Cobalt rushed first into the depths of the forest, as fast as a bullet unleashed from the gun-pipe, waiting for no instructions. Vane and Mr. Roderick followed close-by and they soon disappeared in the forest, leaving behind a trace of hope almost on the verge of being drenched in despair and suffering.

19.

Cobalt was thankful that Gavin Daggers was with them, searching the section of the forest on the right of the house, close to the borders of the Schradder lands. Gavin Daggers proved himself very skillful with tracking down missing people or animals. So far, it seemed they had gone on the right track, because they had found human foot-prints. These had the Schradder House badge imbedded in the shoe-soles, which meant that the foot prints belonged to Denna's shoes. There was no sign of Evance yet, though, but Cobalt was confident that something would soon come up concerning her. Vane and Mr. Roderick, with some other three servants were scattering behind them, in case something had slipped their attentive, scouting glances. But soon, it was close to sunset and the search party ended up in finding nothing really. Denna' foot-steps stopped somewhere in a fairy-like glade; searching the glade up, the men discovered two pairs of human feet and two belonging to a dog or a wolf, but Cobalt was the one to recognize the specie as being one of the largest wolves he had ever encountered.

'What the hell happened here…' Vane muttered, purely oblivious at the terrible sight of the foot-prints depicting the past battle which had occurred between the two young ladies and the beast.

This was as far as the tracks would go. They also found the carcass of the large wolf. Its carotid had been slashed open, lying over a blanket of dead leaves, dirt and blood gore. There were pieces of materials all over the place and they must have belonged to Denna and Evance's dresses. There was Denna's golden locket underneath a pool of blood from the animal and the broken shard of a dagger's blade. Cobalt recognized a wolf's attack when he saw one. One of the women must have irritated or threatened the animal and infuriated it so much that it had viciously attacked them. It smelled of putrefaction everywhere around the glade. There was, again, no sign of Evance…

The men soon regrettably gave up on searching for the time being. Vane was the one to give way to another one of his impossibility of understanding the situation, but Gavin Daggers suggested that their continuant search would have been futile under darkness.

'I know this will much displease the count and his family, but we can't search in the dark. Torches would only slow us down, they'd need to be refilled and the forest is wide. There will be other dangers to encounter, if we continue on for the night. We'll get back on this tomorrow morning, and I am positive we shall have luck by then', he said comfortingly and Cobalt, despite his agitation to refuse ceasing the search, was forced to review the possibilities of finding Evance at night-time. They were close to null and Gavin Daggers was right. They had to return.

Vane and the others prepared to return to the House of Schradder with sinking hearts in sorrow and a few servants laid behind to re-search the places around, for any new clues. Cobalt was behind them, as well. He had lingered a while longer in the glade, trying to make something of every shattered nature-spot he would find in the surrounding area. While closing in on the animal's carcass, he tried to look for other clues, for tracks or anything that would lead him to an answer. Everything that had happened here was still a mystery to him and he wondered where Evance could be now. The prospect of her having been killed and eaten by the animal, after it had attacked her sister, Denna, was not even a possible hypothesis for Cobalt. He would not even dream of it. Suddenly, while scouting around the pool of blood on which the carcass was resting, he noticed three tiny stains leading out of the blood-pool. When he closed in on them, he noticed other stains furthering away from the glade. And when he closed in on those stains, others appeared into his sight; he noticed that the wounded one from whom these stains came had managed to run away from the glade. Perhaps it knew something about Evance. Perhaps there was still hope somehow. Without a slight hesitation, Cobalt dashed off after the possibly-still alive witness to this fight, following the tracks of blood stains. They drew a visible trace which led Cobalt far, far away from the glade and from the house of the count's family, possibly closing in on the borders or perhaps he had already crossed them without knowing.

The terrible thing was that the run had lasted a few good quarters of an hour, before Cobalt noticed that the stains had gotten bigger and bigger, as if he was truly closing in on the wounded person. In some way, he was happy that he would finally meet the sole witness to the tragedy in the glade face-to-face, but in another, the growth in size of the blood-stains meant that the wounded person was loosing more and more blood and urgently needed medical care. Nonetheless, Cobalt did not loose hope. He needed to leave a light turned on for the countess and her other daughters. He needed to know that Evance was safe and still alive.

Suddenly, he ended up in what appeared to be a larger glade, rigorously protected by the tree-trunks and the mixed branches above, like the solidly-constructed roof of a tunnel. The bushes around and the grass possessed a strong shade of green, influenced also by the dark shadow of the glace, due to lack of sunlight. No animal's sound was heard, not even a cricket singing or the birds' chirping. It seemed that here nature had settled a pact of silence, not yet defied. There was a thick tree facing Cobalt with its oldest of trunks in the glade. It had a weird countenance, its body twisting and turning into an undecided shape of a spiral. At its ground-root there was the glimmering blade of a dagger. It was covered in blood, but Cobalt rushed and raised it in his hand as if it were the greatest discovery he had ever made that day. The blood did not smell of an animal, which must meant that it belonged to a human being. Cobalt refused too think the worst of the situation. When he looked forward, scouting the front perimeter, he noticed the large crack in a tree-trunk, from which there was some sort of black material coming out. It displayed traces of blood-stains on it. Cobalt recognized the material as being part of Evance's black dress. He worryingly rushed towards the crack in the tree-trunk and pulled out the material, which succumbed to the brutal movement, until Cobalt reached what seemed to be the dress-girdle. From then on, it ceased to move, as if it were stuck on something. Cobalt jerked the material once, and the foot from underneath dropped in sight. It was covered in blood and it had a few scratches here and there. Cobalt grabbed the body hiding in the crack of the tree-trunk and when he managed to carefully place it on the ground, he discovered it was Evance, motionless, without a single breath. He grabbed her shoulders and shook her a bit, but noticed that one of the shoulders had a widely open wound, from which the blood gushed out, when he moved her brutally.

'Oh, my god…' he muttered and took off his leather vest to cover the wounded shoulder with it.

Evance had half-opened eyes and her face was drenched in dried blood. Because her head had lied face down, the blood had leaked through the lines of her mouth and her eyes and now it looked as if she had been crying with red tears.

'Evance? Evance?! Talk to me! Open your eyes! Can you hear me?' Cobalt shook her face a couple of times, but he only managed to make her eyes open up wider. Then her look fixed on something in the sky, but Cobalt did not know that she was still mindedly facing the act of killing she had succumbed to earlier on.

'Thank the spirits!' Cobalt said. 'You're alive. Listen to me, Evance, you're alright and safe now, ok? I'm here with you. Can you stand up? You lost a lot of blood, we have to take you to a doctor. We need to go home. Can you stand?'

She only closed her eyes back and the gesture frightened him. He grabbed her shoulders again and cried her name desperately.

'Evance?! Evance, don't close your eyes! Stay with me, ok? Open them up! Talk, ok? Talk to me. Tell me what happened. Evance?'

'My shoulder hurts…' she mumbled voicelessly.

'I know, you were pretty badly wounded. Other than that, are you hurt anywhere else?'

'N-not that I … know of…'

'Great! Ok, you're still breathing. You were attacked by a wolf, right?'

'Denna…' she mumbled and then she started to agitate her arms around and call the name of her blonde sister, until Cobalt calmed her down by saying that Denna was safely back home.

'I'll take you home too!' he said and rose on his feet, but she would not follow his example. She stood clutching to the tree-trunk, where she had been hiding for the passed few hours, where under the darkness inside, she had meditated on her crime and on the blood on her face and dress, which did not only belong to her. She closed her eyes again and this time she fainted. The last thing she heard was Cobalt calling her name. She was glad to have him by her side, the moment she really cared for her safety. He had promised her and he kept his promise now.

20.

The next time Evance woke up was when she was lying under a tree, her back against the trunk. It must have been close to two or three o'clock in the morning. She had been lying with her chin pressing her chest, and now any other movement resulted in atrocious pain from her jaws. But she did not cry because she already had her wounded shoulder paralyzed. She did not feel it any more. She stretched her opposite arm to touch it and noticed that it had been carefully bandaged.

The night had given a darker shade to the glade she found herself in. There was no sound around, as if everything had been drenched in a kind of deathly silence. One would expect monstrously creeping animals lurking from every side. A few branches from the top of the trees above had agreed to let some moonlight pass through the dead leaves and now the glade had an aura of enchantment and fantasy about it. Evance pretended that her ears heard the silent song of the forest at night. It was important for her now not to believe that she was alone. She studied the glade with her eyes half-asleep and the pain in her shoulder tortured her. She could not find a position to suit the wound and cease its annoyance. Then, next to her, she noticed Cobalt lying on the ground sound-asleep, with mouth half-opened, rather growling as if he were snoring. The sword by his side, it seemed that not long ago, Cobalt had kept watch over Evance, to protect her. But now, he finally yielded to the languor which quickly overcame him. His hands were stretching on the ground and he did not seem to be troubled by the tensioned silence of the forest. He was perhaps accustomed to sleeping under the night-sky.

Evance bended over his head with great effort, gnashing her teeth, growling and she called him whisperingly:

'Cobalt…?'

'Hm…?' he mumbled in his sleep.

'Can I sleep close to you? I'm afraid of the silence…'

Cobalt gave way to a snort, but did not move and he agreed with another sleepy mumble. Thus, Evance once more, under great effort, turned to sit face down on the ground and she carefully placed her wounded shoulder on his chest. She pressed his arm with her cheek and faced the dark glade, without closing her eyes. She should be safe enough with Cobalt, who possessed a sword and had managed to keep her protected so far. She closed her eyes and tried to fall asleep, but the pain from the shoulder would still give her jeers from time to time. She knew that somehow, she would not be able to sleep well on this night.

21.

On that night, the count did not close one eye, still thinking of his daughters. He would have been more at ease if he were to know Evance safe and sound asleep in her room, like Denna. But the search of his servants, Vane and the baron's associates had proven itself fruitless and what's more, now even young Cobalt had gone missing. He must have stubbornly not given up on searching for Evance. The count's only hope of ever seeing his daughter alive was now in the hands of the baron's nephew.

During the night, he woke from his chamber, he placed a cape over his body and went outside for a walk, looking around, scrutinizing as if he may spot two silhouettes heading his way in any minute. But, alas, he did not find anything and he kept on walking close to the forest and circling the house; he often stopped by the stables and stared at his stallions thoughtfully, struggling hard not to let himself under the influence of his impulse to go riding off through the forest and search for his daughter. He could not cry because he had never done such a thing, but the tears were visible if someone had cut open his chest. His heart would beat slowly and for once he wished that he had literarily given a piece of his body to his youngest of daughters so that her pain or her joy might be one with his and thus, might have given him an answer about her condition and whereabouts. He was sure that young Cobalt had found her and he had to be sure that she was still alive and safe, now in the hands of that young man. He knew that Cobalt, somehow, would bring her home safely. Tomorrow he will have to ride off with the search party once more through the depths of the forest and he will not give up until he would know Evance back home safe and sound.

Close to breakfast-time, he refused to eat and kept on insisting that they come back to searching the surround area. This time, Kara insisted also that she should help, and so she dressed up in her hunting costume and the search party left off, starting from an early hour. Kaylen was left with her mother to make sure that she and Denna (still unconscious and sleeping in her bedchamber) were not alone and constantly kept under surveillance. The countess was in a state of mind-block, and she kept on staring in the void, as if she were reading invisible signs written on thin air. Kaylen was much distressed by this critical situation.

22.

Cobalt opened his eyes and he could see through bits of empty spaces through the tree-heads that it was morning. Perhaps it was very early in the morning, but he knew that it was necessary they got back on their tracks as quickly as possible. Evance needed medical care immediately, because the bandages he had wrapped around her shoulder would not have kept the wound from severing much more if the girl lacked medicinal cure for a long period of time. He noticed that she had been sleeping half-lying on his body, her face down. She did not move by her own when he tried to pull out his arm from under her cheek. In fact, once he freed his arm from under her cheek, her head fell motionlessly on the ground. The lack of vividness in this movement frightened Cobalt, who rapidly squatted in front of her and grabbed her other shoulder.

'Evance?! Evance, wake up! Evance?'

He turned her over to face the sky. She had her eyes open and fixed immovably on something standing perhaps in thin air, covered by a thick lair of invisibility. Her mouth was closed and her chest would not move up and down. Worryingly, Cobalt placed his ear against her chest to sense the beating of her heart. There was not a single sound underneath her stern. He checked on her pulse. She had none. Following all clues, it seemed that Evance Schradder was dead.

'NO!' Cobalt cried furiously and he stood up, pulled her in his arms and started to scout the surroundings, in search for some place where he could meet someone and ask for help. He would not have himself believe that she was dead. It was impossible, last night she was breathing and she spoke to him. He remembered that in his sleep, she had asked him if she could sleep close to him. She was afraid of silence… he should have kept her speaking to him, tell him what had happened in the glade. He should not have fallen asleep or else Evance would now still be alive.

He started to run with her in a randomly selected direction. He kept on running and his run would visibly become angrier and angrier, the more he thought of his foolishness and his succumbing to his fatigue. He would have been able to keep her alive if he sensed that she was out of breath. He would have done anything within his powers to keep her alive. But instead, he fell asleep and left her to die in loneliness, away from her family and in agonizing pain due to the open wound on her shoulder, not properly taken care of. He kept swearing himself and kept running in what appeared to be an endless direction further and further into the forest. But soon, his hopes reached the peak of their glory and Cobalt was able to spot a small cottage by a tiny river-stream. The water was too shallow and small to even be clearly heard murmuring in the depths of the forest. To Cobalt, however, now it did not matter because he was sure to find someone inside. He noticed that the horn blew out black smoke, so it must have meant that inside the cottage, someone had set the fire in the firehouse.

He ran towards the cottage and managed to push the door aside. It rather opened without the slightest resistance. When Cobalt stopped in the doorway, from there he could see a small bed covered in thick blankets, a few pots and plates hanging from the walls by nails and a few chairs here and there. There was also a big table to the right of the door and behind the table there was the fireplace with its warm friendly fire burning under a small boiling tin kettle, usually used for soups and other potions. The small cottage indoors reminded Cobalt of those weirdly decorated, gloomy houses of witches in the fairy-stories his cousin used to read to him in his childhood. The smell that came from the boiling kettle was a mixture of boiled vegetables, meat and perhaps blood, but Cobalt could not tell. And no matter how frightening or peculiar the inhabitant of this cottage was, Cobalt was sure that he or she would not refuse his call for help.

'Excuse me? Is anyone here?'

Because no one would answer, Cobalt made his way through the many broken pots, books and pins on the rugged old carpet inside the room and placed Evance's body on the bed. She was still warm despite the fact that she no longer had breath, which meant that she must have died a few minutes before Cobalt had woken up. He started to look around the room for something to revive her with. He forced himself to believe that she had lost consciousness or something, that it was impossible for her to die. Not yet and not now. There were a few bottles with weirdly-colored liquids which to Cobalt appeared to be potions, but he was not sure which one to pick. There was one bottle which had a strangely light-blue liquid inside and the color seemed to give the young man a feeling of familiarity. He thought that he had seen this type of potion before and he now had to try anything with which he could save the girl's life. He needed to try, at least.

He grabbed the bottle and took the top off. He closed in on the bed and then just before he was to pour the liquid through the girl's lips, he noticed that Evance had changed her appearance. Her face, still wide-opened-eyed, now possessed the livid color of the dead and yet the eyes had been circled by a thin red line, as if the blood on her face had taken life and had started to fumble through her physical features. Her cheeks now seemed to have lifted the corners of her mouth in an enigmatic, yet gruesome grin and something popped visibly from under both sides of her upper lip. Hesitantly, Cobalt pushed away the upper lip and noticed the form of her canines. They had been prolonged and thickened a few inches more. The bone-knuckles from her shoulders and elbows bulgingly grew underneath her skin and Evance seemed to have been through a process during which her skin had dried up of blood, while the bones had grown within.

Cobalt shook his head in confusion and closed in on her mouth with the potion bottle. He was almost pouring a drop on her lips, when suddenly the cry of an old woman popped out from somewhere, saying "Don't!" and immediately after that, the bottle exploded in his hands. The liquid gushed on his chest and hands but none of it dropped on Evance's face.

Cobalt turned to face the new comer frightened. He narrowed his look and he prepared his hand over his sword prudently.

'Don't you dare pull that sword out, boy!' said the old lady's voice and now Cobalt faced an aged woman, dressed in a rugged gown, which once must have belonged to a fairly strong and beautiful witch. She shrank in size, with her back in the shape of a heavy hunch, while her shoulders stood up like body-shields on both sides. Her hair was gathered all up in one complicated coiffure and it seemed that she had stopped combing it a long time ago. She had many wrinkles circling her eyes and mouth and the cheeks looked like two rotten aged oak leaves. The color of her face, though, was brown and vivid, as if this woman could not have been healthier than she already was. She held a bunch of dried sticks under one arm and the other hand was stretched towards Cobalt, fingers widely spread. It appeared that she had cast a spell of destruction on the bottle in the young man's hand. When Cobalt stared at her prudently, she put aside her arm and stared at the motionless figure on the bed.

'Has she stopped breathing? Already, has she?'

The old voice now seemed rather ironical and the old woman threw the sticks away, somewhere in the corner of the room, behind the entrance door.

Cobalt took his hand off the sword and breathed relieved. At least, this woman did not seem as threatening as a wolf.

'I… I woke up this morning and she was… as still as a rock. I thought… I thought that potion might help her or something. It seemed familiar…'

'Sure it would have helped her', cried the old lady cynically. 'It would have helped her to have a nice and quiet death. That's rats' poison, boy!'

Cobalt pressed his chin against his chest.

'Help her, please, I don't think she's dead. She can't be!'

The woman closed in on the dead body and pressed her ear on the girl's chest. She did not hear a single heartbeat.

'She's dead alright, boy… I'm sorry, but she's dead.'

Cobalt clutched his fists and ordered her with a clear, shivering, but decisive voice:

'You will help her. Right now, if possible! She's not dead, I'm positive! She's alive!… somewhere…'

The old woman studied him thoughtfully. It seemed that his threatening voice did not give her the slightest hint of fear. Perhaps she was too used to such threats or perhaps there really was nothing to be done to Evance. Or perhaps she knew of a way, but had never thought it possible before.

Suddenly, she pulled up her sleeves and said:

'Well, you'll need to tell me what attacked her and when.'

'I don't know when, but she was attacked by a giant wolf. They have a few packs here, they only live in this county. Will she be alright?'

When the woman bended over the girl's head and studied her canines, she whispered as if she had just made a fascinating discovery. She pulled the dead body's hand towards her eyes to study it closely. Cobalt noticed the change of shape in Evance's fingers. The bones within seemed to have curved inside and, like in the case of the shoulders and chest, the skin had been dried up and the arms were rather… hairy…

'Well, this is going to be a nasty business', muttered the old lady. 'She's already gone through the first step of the process.'

'Process?' asked Cobalt stupefied. 'What process? What are you talking about?'

'Oh, you are a stupid kid! You just said she's been bitten by a wolf, haven't you? What do you think would happen to those who have been bitten by wolves?! Please tell me your mommy told you creepy bed-time stories at night!' she cried ironically and Cobalt's eyes turned wide with surprise and panic. Now, he would not have himself believe that Evance Schradder would soon become a werewolf.

'She'll be a – !'

He stopped half-way, but the woman seemed to ignore him, still staring at the girl in front of her.

'If she were dead, now that'd be fine. She was such a sweet child…'

Cobalt stared at her in disbelief.

'You knew her?'

The old hag turned to face him with all her wrinkles narrowed up in a gesture of total indignation.

'Of course I do, boy! She's the youngest daughter of Count Schradder. She's Evance isn't she? Peculiar child… always visiting me in her childhood to show her how I make my weird potions. Used to be a famous clairvoyance once. Now, everything's so blurry… she and her other sister, Kaylen, used to visit me often. She was very keen on death and all processes revolving around it. Never understood why, but she was all in all the harmless sort.'

The woman looked at Evance' blood-shot eyes.

'Now, she's on the verge of becoming a werewolf. I wonder if she could hear me somehow…'

The muttering if the woman was taken over by Cobalt, who answered for her.

'No, she doesn't. I tried everything. She would not listen. I think she's lost somewhere inside…'

He almost pressed his chin against his chest with sorrow and tears, when he noticed that the old woman, despite his warning, called Evance and closed in on her ear. He noticed that when the woman called her the third time, Evance seemed to move her head towards the wrinkled face and parted her lips only to let go of a constant growling, harrumphing sound.

He rushed to the bed and grabbed the sheets in his fists, while bending over to look at her.

'Evance? My lord, she's alive…' he muttered relieved, but the woman gave him a scolding glance.

'Of course she's alive! She's on the verge of becoming a werewolf now!'

'Is there no way to stop her?'

'Well, it only depends on the age of the wolf that bit her. There may be a way to stop her from becoming a complete werewolf, but that would only depend on her from now on. I'll do what I can.'

After finishing what she had said, the woman started to de-bandage the girl's shoulder and prepared a weird looking greenish paste made from oddly-shaped plants, which she had boiled in the tin kettle, in the fireplace. After preparing the paste, she anointed the girl's shoulder with it and bandaged the wound back.

'This should keep her human thoughts with her long enough', she said, after she took a seat on a chair by the table. 'And I'll fix you something to eat. You'll need all your knowledge of her to talk to her. She needs to keep her human side inside, to fight off the wolf-side within. So tell me what happened.'

After Cobalt told her what he knew, she asked him to come closer to Evance and hold her ears close to his mouth to force her to hear his familiar voice and keep her human ability to understand wording conversations. Cobalt did as he was told and he kept Evance leaning against his chest, while he continued his story.

'… and that's how I found her', he finished story-telling and the woman raised one eye-brow.

'In a tree-trunk crack? How peculiar of her… she really hated silence and narrow places as a child. Said they gave her a claustrophobian feeling. I guess she could tell us all about the missing pieces of this story. How about I set the table and you try talking to her, make her talk back?'

The woman let go of the first smile Cobalt was given to see that day. He nodded and after she left the house, to go through the back and pick up some supplies from the basement, Cobalt looked at Evance and said:

'Evance? Can you hear me? You can hear me, right? Why don't you tell me what happened in the woods, eh? What happened in the glade? Did Denna take you there? C'mon, Evance, you need to fight off the wolf-side within you, ok? Please, try to talk to me. I know you can do it.'

Suddenly, her arm moved slowly upwards and she stretched her hand towards his face. She touched his cheek and Cobalt turned tensed, having the impression that any minute now, the girl would turn on her animal instincts and would jump to slash open his neck. But she did not do a single threatening movement. She grabbed his hand and placed it on her heart. Cobalt sensed a vague heartbeat, but it was so rare and so slow that it would hardly ever been sensed to begin with. But Cobalt knew that even the slightest heartbeat would be vital for Evance and so he drew her closer to his chest and pulled down his hand on her hair a few times, before he said:

'Don't worry, you'll be alright, Evance. I told you once that I'll certainly be there when you need help. I'll make sure you're safe. I'll take you home. But now, you need to show me that I'm not alone on this. You need to fight back. You need to keep your human side alive.'

'It was…'

The first words she uttered were trembling and filled with the strong force she used to fight the wolf-side within her. It was as if someone was torturing her inside and kept the words from coming out of her mouth. She had to practically spit then, gnash her teeth, growl them and harrumph.

'It was', Cobalt repeated helpfully. 'It was what, Evance? Talk to me! C'mon…'

'It was… the gl-… the gla-glade… D-Denna wanted to… show m-m-me… some-… something!'

The voice suffered severe change of rhythm and tone. It sometimes sounded like Evance, it sometimes sounded like the murmuring of a river, like the growl of a dog and like the thick harrumphing of metal scratched to a neat rocky surface. Cobalt would not be able to imagine the difficulty of such a human process.

'We w-aaaaaaaalked! – for a l-l-l-long time and then it wasssssss… there! The wolf… It attaaaaa…'

The vowels stuck to her tongue. The wolf-side was fighting back. The letter A quickly ended up in a howl which panicked Cobalt and made the old lady return to the house frightened.

'What happened?' she cried, after she covered Evance's mouth. 'I told you to talk to her, not make her howl like a bloody dog and have a pack full of wolves circling my house!' she scolded Cobalt viciously and he was unable to explain himself. She pulled him away from the girl and she started to shake Evance by the shoulders, despite the open wound she had just taken care of. 'Evance? Girl, you listen to me and no one else! You will need to fight back no mater what, you got that?! Don't you dare howl in my house, d'you hear me?! Or I'll tie you to the bed and keep you starving until you ask for a decent meal which will not include raw meat, d'you hear me? I'll tie you up and keep you locked in the cellar until you cure yourself of every howl you are able to utter, you got that?! Snap out of it and get back on your senses, I'm trying to cure your wound and a nasty child like you is what I lastly need!'

Evance seemed to calm down and she lied back on the bed, while the woman turned to face Cobalt with a scolding look on her face:

'Listen here, boy, I don't want any more howling in this house, you hear me? I haven't agreed to become wolf dinner for you, you know. I'll try saving her but you've got to find a way to keep her quiet, alright? Make her talk if that's what you think proper, but don't let her experience something similar to canine behavior.'

'Alright…' Cobalt muttered helplessly and the woman went out of the house once more.

Cobalt drew closer on Evance and noticed that now she was beginning to breathe visibly; what's more, the heartbeat (when Cobalt touched her chest with his ears) seemed more active now. Evance was trying hard to fight off the wolf-side within and she seemed to be doing well so far.

23.

The next day of searching proved once more successful for Gavin Daggers, who had managed to find the hidden tracks of blood-stains leading further away from the glade. Like Cobalt almost two days before him, Gavin Daggers followed the tracks towards another similar place, where they finally found the thick tree-trunk with its wide open crack. There, the count, his men and all the other members of the search party found pieces of Evance's dress and now her father was definitely sure that she was alive; what's more, he was definitely under the impression that Cobalt had found her and now was keeping her safe somewhere.

'They should be around the forest somewhere', said Vane. 'I think they're still lost, but at least it's good news that Evance is still alive.'

'And she's with Cobalt!' said Mr. Roderick. 'I could think of no better protector for the young lady. Fear not, my lord', he addressed himself to the count, 'I'm sure we'll find them soon. It's just a matter of time.'

The count gave way to a forced smile, but within him everyone knew that his heart was beginning to feel at ease. He was not concern with finding the two young persons as quickly as possible. The blood-stains and the ruffled glade where the fight between his daughters and the beast had occurred depicted a rather terrible ending: not only was the monster killed, but possibly Evance was severely wounded.

He sent a few servants back to the house to give the news of Evance's safety in Cobalt's hands to the ladies back home. It was important that his wife should get out of that state of mind-blockage from which not even Kaylen's comforting voice could pull her out. After he sent the servants away, he remained with his search party to continue on the investigation. They scattered the glade with the thick tree-trunk and its crack very attentively, but it seemed the tracks stopped here. Gavin Daggers had stopped by a place near the tree-trunk with the wide open crack; the spot on the ground had been rather cleaned up and the leaves had been pressed down by a heavy burden, as it appeared. It was as if someone had slept by this particular tree. Gavin Daggers drew out a very well-built hypothesis, based on the clues they had found so far. He kept his story for himself, until they reached back the House of Schradder and at dinner (which did not prove itself much of help, since the countess was still missing and Kara now took Kaylen's place to take care of her, while the atmosphere at the table was gloomy and serious), he expressed his beliefs, to the relief of the count.

'I believe that young Evance is alive indeed', he started, as if he wanted to first assure both the count and Kaylen of the family's good fortune. 'What's more, as the count said, I too believe that Cobalt found her and took her to a safer place. I believe that she's fine at the moment, but perhaps Cobalt himself lost his way through the forest.'

'He's good at medicinal herbs and such', Vane added. 'I think he's taking good care of her wherever they are. And I'm sure that he'll soon find the way back to the house, but we need to keep searching.'

'Of course', said Mr. Roderick. 'We will not stop until we've got them under this roof, safely tucked in bed, with a doctor by their bed-side.'

He then turned to face Kaylen and asked her most prudently:

'If I may be so bold as to ask… how is Miss Denna coming up? Is she alright?'

Kaylen sniffed with worrying feeling.

'She's alright, but she would not talk. She keeps on staring at the window and keeps mumbling things… Father, I think it's time you saw her. I think she needs to speak to you.'

The count breathed heavily, under his strong old chest. He did not wish to see his eldest daughter before he would know of Evance's safety. But as it was, the situation would not improve itself so quickly and it was necessary that, in case of any future tragedy, the Schradder family must keep being united. He got up from his seat and without excusing himself, he went out of the dining room and passed through the entrance hall, heading for the stairs. Kaylen was left alone with the young gentlemen and the baron. She kept on questioning them about the whereabouts they thought Evance and Cobalt might be in and what they had found in the glade where the monster's carcass laid. When she found out about the other glade, where pieces of Evance's dress were found, she knew that there was still hope left, if they were to find her youngest sister still alive.

24.

The count did not knock at the door. He simply pushed it aside, requiring no help from the servants who were guarding the door. In fact, he sent them away and he closed the door behind him. His daughter, Denna was lying on her bed, half-covered by the blankets made from the finest silk materials. She rested her back to the pillows raised up to comfort her. She held her head slightly leaning down, chin pressing against the chest and her eyes were moist and empty of any feelings whatsoever. Within her probably a multitude of sentiments gave ferocious battles between themselves. She was probably cursing, scolding, mocking herself terribly and the count, even though he did not read the pain on her face, knew about such feelings of remorse.

He drew nearer to the bed and sat at her feet. He studied her face and read the heavy burden of guilt in her eyes.

'Denna… she'll be alright. They think she was found by Cobalt and now the boy's pretty good at taking care of her as well as of himself. She's fine.'

She did not yet raise her eyes to look at him. She still possessed the look of guilt on her face. The count stretched a hand towards her and found the back of her palm as cold as ice. He kept it warm by placing his hand on hers. He smiled to her mildly and when their hands touched, Denna looked at him and saw the raised corners of his lips.

'There is nothing to fear', he said. 'Your sister is alright. And I am not angry with you at all, if that's what you think. All of this has not been your fault. You drew your dagger out. You wanted to protect Evance because you knew that she couldn't know how to fight. I could never be angry on you for something you did not do. It is not your fault. Now get back on your tracks, Denna, please. Your mother needs you. I need you as strong as you can get.'

He pulled himself away from her bed, after he rose up and then he closed in on the door. Denna had not yet said anything to him, but she still kept her eyes on him.

Suddenly, just as he was about to press down the doorknob, she stopped him by crying his name in a soft voice. It determined him to half-turn to face her.

'What if…' she started, but it seemed that she could not put herself to finish the sentence. Her father probably read that impossibility in her eyes and knew what she wanted to know. It was purely a hypothesis. It had to be.

'… If this family suffers a tragedy?' he continued on, helping her. His voice did not sound as guilty and as drenched in future tears as Denna expected. She nodded her head slowly. He breathed heavily and added: 'We must not think of that now, dearest. But if indeed such a terrible thing were to happen… well… the world would go on, even without her… it's a terrible thing to say, I know, but the truth is that… no matter what, the House of Schradder swore that its members would continue living on, with or without success.'

After he spoke, he got out of the room, but his answer made Denna get up on her feet and get out of the house to scream for her sister in the depths of the forest. She wanted to show Evance the tragedy of enjoying someone's or something's death, but now her plans had gone way ahead of her and a real tragedy had occurred. She feared that Evance would never come back to them and then she would never have forgiven herself. But for her father's sake, for her mother's and for her other sisters', she needed to get stronger, get better, help them out as much as she could, repair what she thought was her irrefutable mistake.

She soon got up on her feet, dressed off of her night gown and into one of her soberest dresses, then came down in the entrance hall. Kaylen found her while the brunette was returning to their mother's chambers. She seemed surprised to see Denna so quickly on her feet, after their father had talked to her, but perhaps this image had an optimistic result. Denna had always been the strongest, the most cold-hearted of daughters. It was time now that she once more inspired them courage and objectivity, even on such a critical situation.

Denna came back to her usually mysterious face and tilted her head slightly backwards.

'Is mother in her room?' she asked and Kaylen, still under the disbelief of seeing her sister back on her strengths, nodded half-smiling.

'Alright then', said Denna. 'I'll take it from here. I'll go and talk some sense into her. You better have some tea fixed. And keep me informed of any changes in the situation. Oh, and Kara's such a good girl at hunting and scouting. Almost as good as Mr. Daggers and young Cobalt, as I've heard. Have her go with them to search the forest every time it's necessary. We need a woman among them. Men have such a quick eye, one thinks that they often miss the clearest and most banal of clues…'

With such a positive attitude all of a sudden, Denna turned on her heels and went towards the stairs, to go to their mother's bedchambers. Kaylen was pleasantly surprised and was secretly grateful that her eldest sister was back on her tracks. She would have been the only woman among them to know what to do in such a situation. She quickly went to make sure Denna's requests were immediately attended to.

25.

Cobalt snorted once and the sound scared him. He opened his eyes and noticed that, while watching by Evance's bed-side, on a chair, he had fallen asleep.

The old lady was cooking something in her tin kettle, under the fire. She was now, continuously spinning a big wooden spoon in the kettle. She wore a weirdly calm smile on her face and whatever she was boiling by the fire sent a peculiar scent indoors. Cobalt recognized the smell of cabbage and sheep-meat, mixed with different spices and vinegar. It seemed rather an odd combination, if the woman was to cook some sort of dish, but he did not get curious enough to ask what it was all for. The woman had proven herself helpful so far. At some point, she went out of the cottage, without noticing him studying her. When the old woman opened the door, Cobalt noticed that it was already nightfall. There was no sign of any clear starry sky, but the air was cool and clean.

He checked on Evance and saw that she held her eyes closed, but her chest was rhythmically going up and down and when he placed his hand on her heart, he sensed the vivid, normal heart-beating. This time, Cobalt breathed relieved. Evance was successfully fighting off the wolf-side within her.

Her skin and her fingers kept the weird shape they had transformed themselves in and now the tip of her canines had visibly surpassed her upper lip in length, but other than that, she seemed calm and as human as possible.

For a few quarters of an hour (during which the old woman returned indoors and kept on taking care of the strange potion she was boiling in her tin kettle), everything was as quiet as the graveyard of an old haunted village. The rattling sound of the branches, the dance of the leaves under the night-wind blowing, the crickets' songs and the stillness of the darkness outside, everything drenched in silence.

And suddenly…

As quickly as the wolf-howl shut off in silence, the atmosphere in the cottage grew tenser, as the old lady stopped her business with the kettle and turned wide-opened-eyed towards the body on her bed. Cobalt stared at her agitated and confused, but soon his eyes grew in size with horror, when he noticed that Evance's body started to shake with violent spasms and the hands and fingers searched to crouch and scratch the bed-sheets.

'Evance!' he cried and pressed her shoulders with his hands, as the old woman rushed to help him sustain the girl to her place. But soon they discovered that the human and the wolf-side within this young body had united and now was struggling to set the host free at any price. The head shook left to right as brutal as possible, spreading foam on both sides, as if Evance was suffering a severe epileptic attack. She opened her eyes, and Cobalt turned frightened at the sight of so much blood within them. They had turned red, like the rabid look of a wolf's and the canines took life of their own, while they tried to grow longer in size and influence the rest of the teeth to become sharper and stronger. When Evance screamed, she no longer possessed a human voice. The roar that she unleashed seemed to liberate all the wrath and hatred she had carried inside. The human and the wolf-side of her both took control of every senses and were clearly fighting a most horrifying battle within.

Both Cobalt and the old lady, with all their vigor, could not sustain her anymore. Evance pumped with strength and the muscles had curved and grown bigger with brute force. She simply pushed them aside, throwing both of them on the floor.

'Don't let her get out or she'll be gone forever!' yelled the woman, as she reached for her kettle, but Evance threw the blankets off on her, confusing her.

Cobalt was desperate enough to draw out his sword, but he stopped himself, thinking that Evance Schradder still lived in that body, perhaps all taken prisoner by the wolf-side within, but he could not harm her in any way. So, he grabbed the broken foot of a chair and threatened Evance with it. She was no longer rational. The sight of a weapon in her prey's hands turned on the most brutal and impulsive animal behavior. She gave way to another one of her terrible roars and rushed to attack Cobalt. She grabbed him by the neck with her fingers, which seemed to have grown in size, due to the growth of the bones within.

Cobalt felt the plundering grip of his neck as a sharp, crude piece of leather being knotted up tighter and tighter around his throat.

'E-Evance…' he uttered with a growling, slow voice, under the pressure of the tight gripping fingers.

The half-human-half-beast gave him a terrible grin, through which Cobalt could see the horrifying length of the canines and the sharpness of the other teeth. The skin had now shrunk into attaching itself of the bones growing visibly in size and in force. There was a kind of ruggedness, a kind of furriness and sharpness in Evance's facial features and her eyes grew with the bloodlust generated by her predator's instinctual feelings. She needed to feed herself on meat, she needed to satisfy her bloodlust and that is what Cobalt frighteningly read in those blood-shot eyes staring at him, studying him.

'Evance… fight… back… it's me… Cobalt…' he uttered slowly and felt the fingers sinking deeper and deeper in his throat.

And suddenly, it happened. Her right eyes drew off the red-blood color from its iris. The action resulted in another one of the monster's cries, only this time it did not sound like the roaring of an animal in its maddening despair to attack. It sounded more… human. Evance cried out and forcedly pushed herself away from Cobalt, setting his neck free. He fell on the ground coughing, but he looked at her.

'Evance…!' he managed to cry out.

The girl circled the room with the kind of visible struggle with something within her, trying hard not to succumb to her darker side. She grabbed her wounded shoulder and screamed of pain, when she pressed her fingers on it. The blooded quickly spilled out and the wound reopened.

Next, what Cobalt was about to see would have been pure dark magic for the outsiders. The old woman grabbed the tin kettle from the fire and threw the boiling potion towards Evance. The boiling water, when touching the girl's body, generated Evance's scream of pain and the visible pushing out of a dark fume, a black smoke in the shape of a wolf's head, which gave way to one of its outstanding howling. It quickly drew back inside its host's body and Evance fell on the floor, face down. Hurriedly, the old woman rushed to her ears and cried to her worryingly:

'What size was it, Evance? What size was the wolf? Tell me how old he was! You're the only one to know how he looked like. Tell me, so I can treat you accordingly, I can't do it with herbs and magic anymore. Soon, you'll be a complete werewolf. Remember what I told you about werewolves once, Evance? You remember, don't you? They kill. They even kill their loved ones because their only aim is food. Tell me what it looked like. Pick a number. A number, do you hear me?'

While the woman spoke in despair to the girl, Cobalt managed to move away from his place and draw near to the both of them. He noticed that Evance's face was resting on the floor, eyes wide opened and they soon lifted themselves slowly towards him. Cobalt could only give way to a comforting smile, promising her thus that he would protect her no matter what. Those eyes of hers trembled and feared that she were to be put in a similar situation in the future and next time she might not be able to stop herself from slashing his throat open and feed herself on it. Upon hearing the old woman's demands, she remembered the stories the clairvoyance used to tell her and Kaylen and she knew that none of them would end well for the werewolves and their casualties. They would forever prey and hunt and kill, while the people they once were too attached to would loose their sanity and their lives in their despair to save them from such a tragedy.

'… six…' she mumbled through her teeth, with the last effort to speak.

'Six?' repeated the old lady. 'You have to do better than that, dearest. C'mon, I'll help you stand up. You'll need, at the price of going through the battle inside you once more, you'll need to tell us everything.'

'She needs to rest!' said Cobalt decidedly. 'She's weak now, she just fought off the wolf within -…'

'Listen to me, boy', the woman ushered him, 'She should be strong enough to fight it off. She can be helped but only if she doesn't delay speaking out the truth any further. She needs to tell us what happened and I need to know the size and age of that wolf so I know how to treat her. There is a way, like I said before, but it solely depends on her and on the whereabouts of the wolf which bit her. Now, if you would be so kind as to put her back in bed and tie her hands of the bed…'

They both stood up and Cobalt stared at the old lady in disbelief.

'Didn't you hear what I said?' she cried ironically. 'I'm trying to keep this child indoors! You wanna help her or not?'

Cobalt nodded and did as he was told.

'Now, then, Evance', said the old lady, after the girl was tucked in bed and safely tied to it and Cobalt took a seat on the chair next to the bed, in case any help was necessary, 'care to tell me how it happened?'

Evance had a redder color in her cheeks now. It seemed that the potion the woman had thrown on her had withdrawn the power of the wolf-side within her at least for a while. She had come back to her human senses and now she nodded softly as an answer to the woman's request. She told them as fast and as clear as she could the whereabouts of the tragedy in the glade, when she and Denna were attacked by the wolf.

'About six feet tall, you say…' mumbled the old lady thoughtfully. 'Well, I'd say that the wolf is just a pup at that age. They don't grow any taller than that, but they're particularly sensible at the slight sight of a weapon in their opponent's hand. And you say it attacked Denna for no apparent reason. She did not attack it first, right?'

Evance shook her head.

'No', she added. 'It just… attacked her… and it pulled her down and that's when I screamed and attracted its attention.'

At this point of the story, she drew her chin closer to her chest.

'Young lad here tells me the animal's throat had been slashed with a knife', said the woman softly. 'Did you slash it, Evance? Did you kill it?'

Cobalt stared at the girl frowningly. He tried to fit in her skin and understand her current feelings, but was not able to at all. Evance's face turned paler and for a moment, both the young man and the clairvoyance had the impression that the wolf-side in her had come back. But Evance was being hesitant about answering the last question. She bit her inferior lip, a gesture as human as possible and nodded slowly.

'And I suppose that's why you hid yourself in the trunk-crack', muttered the old woman. 'It was the first time you killed an animal that big, eh?'

'N-Not only that…'

Evance looked up into the woman's face.

'It had a look… it was very… scolding… as if it told me somehow that I had committed a terrible sin… like I should not have let myself kill it. I didn't want to see that face anymore. I didn't like it at all and so I left. I didn't care where, I just needed to go. I cut it open because the pain in my shoulder… I couldn't take it anymore, it was practically chewing my bone, I hated it, and I didn't want it there anymore. Was that wrong?'

'Wrong? Child, that is what the maddening reaction to an attack causes us to do. You acted in self-defense. But I imagine that when you saw those eyes, you thought of all those animals you killed or you witnessed giving away their last breath. Now you know that it's not good to enjoy or consider the death of something interesting and scientific. Do you remember anything of what happened the night you spent with Cobalt outside?'

Evance rolled her eyes around the room. She shook her head.

'No. My heart stopped beating and I felt like suffocating, but at the same time, I had the impression that whatever I'd try to keep the asphyxiation away, everything would be futile. It was as if I just… had to die…'

'Well, now you don't need to die anymore', the woman smiled to her. 'Now that I know the size of the wolf, I can determine its age and therefore, treat you accordingly. Just try not to succumb to the wolf-side's control when you hear a howling or you feel the smell of meat. Alright?'

Evance nodded obediently and the woman stood up and went back to her making and boiling potions in the tin kettle under the fire, after she decided that it was best after all to set the girl free. She untied the young countess's hands off the bedside.

Evance and Cobalt were left alone. She turned to face his tender smile and she grinned, as she usually did, but this time the young man was most glad to see such a familiar gesture on her face.

She noticed the bruises and the scratches around his neck and she tilted back her head.

'Sorry about those', she said. Her voice sounded a bit thicker and more close to that of a man's now, but it did not seem to bother anyone. At least, she was human for the time being.

''T's alright', said Cobalt and leaned his elbows on his knees. 'Feeling any better?'

'I guess so…'

She pushed away the wet hair off her face. She stared at her long fingers and the shrunken skin on the bones. It scared her to know that perhaps she may remain thus forever. Suddenly, she startled when she noticed that Cobalt took her hand in his and smiled to her as friendly as possible.

'You'll be fine. I said I would certainly be there when you cared for your safety. And I also promised you I'll take you home alright. Nothing to worry about.'

'I might turn vegetarian for life', she said cynically, ignoring his comforting words. 'And I might always look like a walking zombie… oh, and my canines…'

She pressed her fingers on her teeth to make out a calculation of how much they had grown in thickness and in length.

'Do you think someone will marry a skeleton-looking countess like me?' she asked and looked at him. Although her facial features showed signs of illness and advanced agedness, her eyes had stayed as youthful and as energetic as usual. Cobalt did not know what to answer to this, but he was sure that there must be a good answer for any type of question. He smiled friendly.

'I think someone will indeed. But I also think that these symptoms will go away one you're cured. Maybe they'll take longer to wear off, but I think they'll die away in time.'

'Thanks for everything. But especially, thanks for being there…'

'It's not true. I wasn't always there!' he suddenly scolded himself harshly. 'If I hadn't gone asleep that night, I may have managed to find this woman faster and she could have prevented this from advancing to a new stage.'

'Not always your fault in these things. It could have happened even without you sleeping. I think it was all about a matter of time. Just like it is now, while I'm being cured.'

She smiled and assured him that she was as optimistic as possible. He smiled back and agreed to such a theory. He noticed that she had still kept his hand in hers and now both hands were resting on her lap. He would not dream of asking for it back, because Evance was never the type to be treated like a pious, well-educated high society lady. She would simply do what she thought best for her.

After the old lady administrated her some sort of new potion in the form of a delicious-looking vegetable soup, Evance went back to bed, but not even then did she let go of his hand and Cobalt smiled softly, staring at her, watching over her.

'I'd have to warn you, though', said the old woman and Cobalt stared at her, 'that I do not know the way back to the House of Schradder. You'll have to make it on your own back home.'

'Never mind that now', he answered back calmly. 'Just get her back on her feet first.'

The old woman nodded and returned back on setting the table and fixing something to eat for herself and the young man.

26.

In the middle of the night, the old lady woke up and had the impression that something somewhere had howled in the forest through the night. When she turned her face towards the body on the bed, she noticed that Evance was still lying asleep under the blankets, while Cobalt was resting on a chair by her bedside. His left elbow draped on the chair's corresponding arm, while the other elbow helped sustaining his face in a sleeping position as comfortable as possible. He snored carelessly and did not seem to have taken notice of the constant harrumphing sound coming from the girl next to him. Evance held her lips slightly parted as if this was the only way for her to breathe. Her canines were visibly longer now, a few inches more and the old woman woke up from her impromptu bed, made out of hays, a rugged pillow and a lot of blankets, all stretched on the floor by the bed. She closed in on the bed and thought that she should better tie the girl's hands of the bed after all, to make sure that everyone would be safe and that the young countess would not run away at the sound of another wolf calling for her.

She turned back to look for the ropes around the room. Her fumbling and searching made Cobalt open his eyes and rub off the sleep from his eye-lashes.

'What's going on?' he asked in a whispering voice, but the woman did not answer back immediately. She kept on exploring her room with her hands and turned almost everything more and more upside-down than before, in search for the ropes. She finally found them, tucked away under the bed and at this point, Cobalt was staring at her in frowning surprise. 'What are you doing?' he asked again and this time the woman started to tie the girl's wrists of the wooden bedside edge, while answering:

'What does it look like I'm doing? Keeping her indoors. There was a howling sound a while ago. She didn't react to it, but I can't risk her out of our sight. Not yet.'

Suddenly, Cobalt stopped the woman's moves and business with the rope and the young lady's hands when he firmly grabbed her wrist with his fist.

'Why are you tying her back to the bed?' he asked matter-of-factly. 'She's perfectly alright, I'll protect her.'

'You were sleeping a while ago. You need your rest and she needs hers in peace. She won't mind', said the old lady, but even then the young man did not take off his hand from hers.

'You don't need to tie her up, believe me. I'm awake now, I've got all the rest I needed. I'll keep an eye on her.'

'Listen, boy, this is not the time to play the gallant gentleman here. It's for her own good. You don't know what might happen to her and tying her to the bed might ease your job if something tragic were to happen. And take your hand off mine before you anger me and I turn you into a frog. You won't be of much help to her then, eh?'

The threat seemed to convince Cobalt, because he took off his hand, but he did not change the disapproving look on his face. He was convinced that once Evance found out that she had been tied up all through the night, she would be sad at the thought that she had once been such a harmless creature and now she was being chained for other people's safety.

He looked at the sleeping girl and would not have himself believe that she was capable of anything evil, although a while ago, she had thrown her dangerously sharp-nailed fingers at his neck. If she had not stopped herself, the wolf within her would have won and now Cobalt could have been a pile of flesh and bones.

Suddenly, the howling of a wolf cried out through the cold dark night and then both the old lady and Cobalt stared at each other in despair, but when they watched Evance, she did not suffer the slightest movement. She seemed truly deeply asleep, soundless and quiet. The woman closed in on her and placed her fingers at the base of the girl's neck, to take her pulse. It was again vague and slow. She listened to the girl's heartbeat. It showed almost no movement at all. She drew her lips closer to the young ears and she whispered to Evance:

'Fight it off, sweet-heart! I've already given you some medicines, but you need to keep strong against it. Now it's trying to take your heart away and you can't do that, can you? Remember those tales I told you about? Remember when we used to talk by the fire and I would read you about those princesses and their knights in shining armor? Remember what those knights did to werewolves? Do you want to end up like that? Do you want to have your head slashed off and your body nailed down on two wooden blocks the shape of an X? Believe me, you don't. You can't wish that, dearest…'

She caressed the hair off of Evance's forehead. The girl was still sound-asleep. The old lady pressed her palm against the girl's forehead, covering her eyes and she also closed hers, trying to enter a certain state of meditation. She was trying to read Evance's dreams. Cobalt had once seen this ritual being performed in a village near by his uncle's lands. Only strong witches or psychics used to perform such difficult rituals, because they were both extremely dangerous and complicated. This old lady seemed to have mastered it very well, up to the point where the dream-reading was just another one of those routine rituals she'd perform, alongside, say, reading, writing or cooking. She slowly drew a smile on her face and then she opened her eyes.

'She's alright. Not a thought about wolves', said the old lady.

'What's she dreaming about?' asked Cobalt frowningly.

'You. And her. But mostly, about you', answered the woman plainly and she returned back to her sleep. She left Cobalt with a half-opened mouth. Evance was dreaming of him. Whatever for?'

'What did she dream about with me?' he asked confused, when he turned to face the old woman. She smiled to him shrewdly.

'Wouldn't you like to know', she muttered cynically. 'Well, she was dreaming of you dancing with her. Nothing else. Did you ever dance with her before, boy?'

'Uhm, no…'

'You should. She's not very good at it. You two might make a great pair.'

She laughed mockingly, but the statement did not sound like that to Cobalt. He leaned back on his seat and once more pressed his cheek against his elbow, to rest on the arm of his chair. He remained open-eyed, thinking of nothing for a while, listening to the continuous harrumph coming from the girl.

27.

Kaylen was the earliest to wake up the next morning. She dressed up in her housecoat which resembled the same illustrations found on her night gown. The whiteness of the gown had strongly contrasted with the still-dark sky of the night. It must have been perhaps 4.30 to 5 in the morning. The great clock in the entrance hall had not struck its cuckoo bird-song. Kaylen had a nightmare this night. She dreamt that their sister, Evance, would never find her way back. She thought so much about where her youngest sister might be, even while lying still on her bed, with her eyes staring at the darken-colored ceiling. She thought so much about how much frightened Cobalt must have found her, all wounded and trembling, if not worse than that, half-dead, mumbling through strong feverish moans.

Perhaps now Evance would have been safer with the young man, but still, wherever they were now, they sure were very far away from home, and would not so easily find their way back to the house of Schradder. It almost sounded extremely impossible that they would ever manage, through such a widely-spread forest. All of a sudden, this nightmare showed Kaylen that her sister was still in danger. More over, Cobalt was too. They would hardly find their way back. If only she knew where they were… if only she had something which could have given her a sign about her sister and the young man's whereabouts… but, alas, there was no way that could possibly give her the slightest idea where those two were. She looked up at the darken clouds on the sky, staring at them through the wide windows from the entrance hall. She had strong impulses to go out in the depths of the forest and look for both of them all by herself.

After waiting for a few minutes, just so the clock in the grand hall would strike 5 o'clock and let out its cuckoo bird-song, Kaylen looked to her right and to her left and noticed that the servants who usually took their places by the sides of both the entrance doors were not yet there. She was all alone in the hall and when she grabbed the doorknob and pressed it down, she thought of the only person outside of this house who might offer a bit of comfort, perhaps even some advice about what to do in such a critical situation. She left the house in a rush, almost running towards the stables to grab a horse and have it saddled and ready for a ride.

She was careful enough to ask the servants to keep quiet about helping her out with a horse. She picked the blackest of stallions, because it had been the one Evance had rode on when she and Kaylen had gone off-borders. She had the feeling that somehow, her youngest sister's horse might also be concerned with finding his mistress.

When she rode off with it through the forest, under the now-dawning sky with its stretching pink-and-golden clouds up ahead, the horse seemed to have rested well all through the night and now spread its hoofs with great force, leaving behind deep traces in the morning-dewed ground. The horse splashed dirt everywhere and the more he and his rider deepened through the forest, the faster he seemed to have galloped, as if he had already known where his late mistress was. Kaylen rode off with despair, thinking that she needed the old clairvoyance now more than ever. She knew the way towards the rugged cottage by heart. She would have easily done it with her eyes closed. Soon, she reached the place where not far, the old clairvoyance's cottage lied. It was now close to sunrise. In the distance, the dark-orange light of the sun spread a wave of strongly-glowing colors of red, yellow and gold. It seemed to stretch its warm rays further and further and under it, the rider and his stallion ran faster and faster, to keep away from the hotness of its touch. They almost reached the cottage, when Kaylen quickly pulled away the reins of the horse and made it neigh and stop, a few feet away from the entrance door. There was the strong sound of a howl coming from inside the house. There were other strong noises following after that, as if many things were continuously bumping into each other violently. Someone called Evance's name and it was a man's voice. Then, as Kaylen was about to dismount, the door cracked open, and in the doorway the silhouette of a weirdly-shaped creature appeared. It frightened Kaylen to her core, when she recognized the dark torn dress belonging to her youngest sister covering the body of a half-human-half-beastly creature. The dry skin, the salience of the bones, the long curled-up fingers with their long sharp claws, the furry skin and the blood-shot eyes staring at Kaylen gave the brunette the impression that this creature was now a dangerous threat to her life and safety. It was aiming her neck and her heart, as if it had already spotted the carotid and the heart within. It searched for bloodlust satisfaction and it seemed to have already settled its predator instincts on Kaylen and her horse. The stallion neighed loudly and it seemed to have sensed the danger faster than Kaylen. The horse lifted on his back feet and started to jump towards the monster and threaten it, while protecting the brunette. Kaylen was frightened. She had stiffened in her place and could not bring herself to step away from the creature's sight. The monster was growling and harrumphing at the horse's threats but the deadly, strong-looking hoofs seemed to keep it away long enough. It kept on pulling out its sharp canines and crouching on the ground, as if the stallion had a secret strong power within, which emerged from every pore of its body.

Kaylen remained in her place. She now trembled with fear and disgust. She had finally recognized the color of eyes in the monster's look. It identically resembled her youngest sister's color of eyes. Suddenly, under the stress of having the dangerous stallion keeping it away from attacking and jumping on its prey, the monster gave way to an awful howling and it seemed, thus, to have called for its mates. Kaylen burst out into a crying scream and fell on the ground. She recognized her sister under that monster's skin and through that terribly horrifying howl…

28.

Kaylen woke up in the middle of the night. Her face was sweaty and she slightly trembled as if she had just been through some terrible shock. Her eyes started to search the room with fear, as if she dwelled on the impression that her nightmare had taken the shape of something visible and real and now it was lurking through the darkness of her bedroom. But there was nothing anywhere. Just the wind blowing through the wide-opened window in her room. The moonlight was strongly contrasting with the darkness of the night through their colors. It was a battle between purity and nothingness, drenched in black and void. She woke up from her bed and she had the feeling that the nightmare had communicated something to her. It was as if she had been given signs of her youngest sister's whereabouts. She must have been still through the woods; that was a fact. She must not have been far away from their house. That was only a hope of Kaylen's. She was still with Cobalt and she was alive and still breathing. But where was she? The cottage… Kaylen knew the cottage too well. Could it have been possible that the spirits had blessed them with such good fortune? That Evance was in fact at the old woman-predictor's cottage in the forest? It would have been better that way. Kaylen knew where the woman lived. It was easy to find it. She would have to speak about her dream to her father tomorrow and check if indeed the signs given to her were true.

She went back to bed, but did not close her eyes immediately. She feared that if the signs would be indeed true, then… did her sister become a… monster…?

29.

When Cobalt woke up the other morning, it must have been very close to sunrise because although the daylight was strong and it penetrated his eyes through the wide-opened windows and entrance door of the cottage; the sun had only recently shown its face through the clouds. The sky had the beautiful colors of gold, bronze and red-blood mixed in the most genuine style ever known so far. It was a general knowledge that what would not be created by men, it would look different every day and every night.

Cobalt noticed that he had fallen asleep on his chair again and that the woman was right after all to have tied Evance to the bed just in case. Apparently, Cobalt was a lousy guardian. But speaking of which, Evance was not in her bed. The blankets were all tidied up, like the pillows, placed on one side of the bed and the tin kettle under the fire, in the fireplace, was again boiling with weird vegetable and meat flavors, as if the woman had cooked up one of her peculiar potions once more. The cottage was empty with the exception of Cobalt.

He got up and yawned involuntarily, after which he stood up on his feet, stretched his bones and peeked through the window to see if he could spot the old lady or Evance anywhere. A few moments later, the old woman came in, a new bunch of old rugged sticks under her arm, and the other holding a strong-looking house-ax. She did not seem to notice that Cobalt was now awake and on his feet, ready to work.

'Everything alright?' he asked and his voice seemed to give the woman a startle. She looked at his disapprovingly.

'Dearest boy, I'd rather you didn't speak to me in that screaming tone of voice. I drank of nerves all night and now I have a bit of a headache. You'd better give Evance a hand outside, she's trying hard to play the house-woman, by cutting wood. Very keen on chopping, if you ask me', she muttered grumpily, but Cobalt did not wait for another one of her scolding moments. He put aside his leather vest and went outside, by-passing the cottage to the back, where he indeed found Evance just lifting another one of those heavy-looking house-axes, threatening a chump of wood to slash it off. Her physical appearance seemed to have come back to normal, but her arms were chubbier and her entire stature gave way the feeling of assertion and independency.

Her black dress, which she had successfully worn throughout her adventure in the forest and in the old lady's cottage (despite the many attempts to being torn off, scratched, dirtied or sewed back in one piece) had long ago lost its simplicity by becoming now a complex piece of fashion-art with all the patches added over and over again. It no longer possessed a tall collar, not even those wonderfully interesting bits of laces around it. It missed the sleeve corresponding to the arm with the wounded shoulder. The train had shortened up considerably and there was a long cut on one side of her legs, which started from a few inches above her knees. One would have been able to see her boots under the dark garment now, but since Evance had long ago been acquainted with barefootedness, it was almost futile to even try and take a long peek at how a lady looked like under all those layers of dress-material.

She had raised the ax many times above her head and had successfully put the effort of cutting wood, but her aim was often multidirectional, which meant that the strikes she gave to the poor chumps would have definitely been more than just one or two. It was, however, unimaginable how she managed to place such great strength in her arms and strike down something with such a heavy-looking weapon, considering that she had a wounded shoulder and a rather weakened body.

Next to her were a bunch of newly split-in-two chumps of wood, but the rather small number of them gave Cobalt the impression that this job was quite difficult for Evance. Just when he came by to help her, she struck down the ax and penetrated the chump half-way. She growled slowly, under her lips and then felt the cold hands of the young man trying to gently take away the ax from her grip.

'I'll do it, alright?' Cobalt said and smiled to her gently. 'You just sit by the bunch over there, ok?'

Evance raised an eye-brow and did not so easily let go of the ax's body.

'I can do it, thank you very much. It's just going to be in slow motion.'

'You're still wounded. That old hag shouldn't have let you do this in the first place', said Cobalt and Evance noticed that he had just started to pull out his light-blue shirt from under his trouser's belt. The notice gave way to a slight pinky color in Evance's cheeks and she backed away, turning her face away from the man who now was half-naked, holding the ax in his hands.

'Plus, you've been doing it wrong', Cobalt continued and stroke down the chump with one movement and the piece of wood easily cracked in two. He threw the two pieces on the bunch, by his side and grabbed another one of the wooden chumps to split in two. 'You don't keep the ax-blade in a vertical position. Obviously, it'll be harder that way to chop the wood in two. You need to keep it in a rather diagonal position. At least, that's how I do it and it's been ok so far.'

'Aha', nodded Evance, sitting on the ground, with a new growl under her lips and the nodding sounded to Cobalt more like the girl's attempt to assure him that he was being listened to.

She let her body lie on the ground, with her knees pointing to the clouds. She breathed heavily as if she was sort of glad to have shifted her mission with the ax to someone else. She was taking a break.

'Are you alright?' Cobalt asked, after cutting in two a new chump of wood.

'Perfectly!' Evance bumped with a too-strong enthusiastic attitude. 'Just tired, but perfectly!'

She pressed her hand against the wound on her opposite shoulder and looked at the clouds and the sky. It appeared to be a wonderful morning, bright and sunny, warm and pleasant.

'Are you sure?' asked Cobalt again. 'Seems to me like you're lying.'

'Oh, don't bug me now, I just said I'm alright, right?'

'No, actually you said you are perfect, which sounded a bit weird, given the circumstances.'

'What do you mean "given the circumstances"?' she asked indignantly, and leaned open the elbow belonging to the healthy arm.

'Well, you're still wounded and you've been through a lot. If I were you, I'd rest as much as possible.'

Once more, Cobalt stroke down a wood-chump and threw the two pieces on the bunch of newly cut wood.

'I'm alright', Evance answered matter-of-factly. 'I don't need to stay in bed all day. One can heal oneself through work too, you know. Can't let other people help me all the time.'

'Well, if they wanna help – '

'I don't want them to.'

Cobalt stopped cutting wood and looked at her. Evance was lying on the ground again, face towards the sky. She seemed bored and playful at the same time. She was much more different than she had been these past few days. In fact, these past few days, Evance was being weak, vulnerable and in a constant battle with her wolf-side. Now that she was under the old lady's medicinal care, which would cure her in a few days, she seemed to have gotten back to her original self. But then again, there was something of a great change somewhere within her and it appeared to have resulted not from the dangerous experience she had been through. At least, not from the becoming-a-werewolf threat.

'I don't want to go home.'

The sentence had a straightforward way if showing one what she thought. In fact, Evance had thrown the words out as if she were expressing her opinion about the weather. But when she managed to get up on her feet with the help of her healthy arm, her face showed determination and high-spiritedness. The rigidness and sharpness given to her facial features by the wolf-bite and its fatal reactions reflected her inner change in spirit very well. She also kept her thick voice and the enforceability of her newly-vigorous bones and muscles. She looked like a strong fellow, only in the misguided shape of a woman's body. She kept her nice facial features and her female lines, however in a more… voluptuous radiance. She had never been as beautiful or as breath-taking as her other sisters were, to begin with, but the canine sharpness of her features now had transformed her into a much more interesting and attractive woman. It … matured her somehow.

'Why wouldn't you want to go home?' asked Cobalt in disbelief, which is why he also smiled confusedly. 'Back at home, people must be worried-sick! Your mom and your dad – '

'I just don't! That doesn't mean I'm not going to go home. But…'

The word melted away with her eyes falling down on the ground. She did not seem to possess a solid reason to protest to going home. The "but" word clearly showed that she had a reason to protest, but she just did not know which it was.

'Ah, never mind!' she burst out. 'You go back on your cutting wood, seems you're better at it than guarding me.'

Once again, Cobalt swiftly went through the same feelings that he went through when she had mockingly confessed to him that she had seen the reaction of his face when Kara had played her legs down on his feet under the table, on his and his family's first dining at the House of Schradder.

'You fell asleep like a little baby', she smiled through her lips and gave sight to her sharp canines, after which she giggled.

'I didn't – !' Cobalt started but it was already futile to convince her otherwise. 'I was – … I was tired!'

'Aha', she mumbled half-convinced. 'But you know, you really did sleep like a baby.' Evance smiled visibly with the intention to mock and patronize him.

'Ah, well, if you're being like that, I suppose it's enough to say that the old lady told me you dreamt me dancing with you!'

Suddenly, there was a swift change in Evance's facial features. Cobalt noticed that through the corner of his eyes, while continuously cutting wood. He smiled rascally and noticed that Evance was staring at him in shock and with the full pink-to-red bloom in her cheeks. She quickly drew down the corners of her lips and her eyes narrowed up disapprovingly.

'Well', she said, after a few moments of mutedly planning a shrewd scheme, 'she probably saw you so desperate about my state that she had to give you comfort of some sort. But in fact, I dreamt I was stepping on your feet and all you did was embarrassing me in front of the other dancing pairs.'

'Oh, was I?' asked Cobalt half-amused. 'Seems queer to me, since the old lady told me you're not at all good at dancing. Perhaps we were both embarrassing each other.'

'No, I'm quite sure all I did was step on your feet. I was wearing high heels. Very sharp high heels. You kept on squeaking. It seemed to bug away the people around us.'

'Must be that my dancing partner wasn't very good at dancing after all', Cobalt muttered under his lips and noticed form the corner of his eyes and Evance was growing slowly but surely in anger and at the same time, the twisting vein on her forehead was telling everyone else outside that she was trying hard not to give away her annoyance, without have something terribly mean to say to him. There was a muffled sound coming from both her tightly-closed fists, as if the skin was grinding with the forced strength to control the instinctual reactions of the fists.

'It's a pity I don't have my boots on', she finally said, in a most cold-hearted, distant tone of voice. 'I would have definitely showed you that I progressed in dancing since the old lady last saw me.'

'You can show me now, if you like', Cobalt said and optimistically straightened his posture to show her a curious look. He plunged the blade of the ax into one of the chumps he was about to split in two and waited for Evance's approval. He smiled pleasantly.

'Well, I did say "I don't have my boots on"', muttered Evance and even though the annoyance had not gone away from her eyes, it was clear now through the vagueness in her voice that she was trying to back away.

'You need your boots to dance with a man?'

'I need my boots to dance with you!' she narrowed her eyes even more and folded her arms at her chest indignantly.

'Well, alright, suit yourself', replied Cobalt plainly, and grabbed the ax's body, returning to his chopping-wood job.

'I knew you weren't very good at it!' she suddenly bumped victoriously. 'You were just waiting for me to have something against our dancing right now. You couldn't say "no" yourself, so you needed something from me to come as a refusal. Hah!'

She clapped her hands triumphantly, but it seemed that her victory was hers and hers alone, fruitless in producing any kind of reaction from the person she was victorious upon. Cobalt watched her amused, with friendliness written all over his facial features. He was glad that Evance was back to normal; at least for now.

'I guess so', he said, more or less trying to help her vanity. She did not seem to notice his game, being too happy of her triumph.

'What is it with you young people?!' bumped the old lady's voice from inside the cottage through one of the wide-opened back windows. She startled both of them. 'Boy, I need some wood, is it going to take all day for you to chop all those chumps?'

Evance giggled under her palm over her mouth, while Cobalt stared at the old lady with surprise.

'Uhm, no… sorry', he mumbled guiltily. 'I'll send Evance with some in the house now!'

'Great!' bumped the old lady and disappeared from the window, but Evance was left to stare at Cobalt in disbelief.

'What am I now? A deliverer?!' she bumped revolted, but he already had an answer for that kind of expected poignancy.

'Just because you don't like being helped, that doesn't mean people can't ask for your help instead. While you're here and so full of life and perfection, as you claim, you could at least help out. Now, go and take come wood from this bunch, bring it in the house. Go on!' Cobalt requested from her decisively when he noticed that the girl had not yet made a move to do as she was told.

Still under a strong disbelief of actually been ordered around, Evance bended above the bunch of split-in-two pieces of wood and grabbed a few of them under her healthy arm.

Cobalt listened to her bare feet rustling through the dead leaves on the ground, as she left. But soon, something like a piece of wood went flying right under his nose, a few inches away from the tip of it and it surprised him terribly. When he looked up, he noticed Evance at the same window from where, a few minutes ago, the old lady communicated her wishes to them. She had her narrowed disapproving look upon him and she possessed a piece of wood in her healthy hand. It was obvious that she had thrown the wood at him a second ago and now was probably aiming one more time at him. But she turned away, with the quick "death-threat" in her eyes, somehow promising him that next time she aims at his face, she will definitely make the most of it and not miss.

30.

Kaylen soon finished her break-fast in haste and was about to come closer to her father and enable him to speak to her, when Denna was the one to stop her and place her hand on the brunette's arm.

'Dearest, would it be alright if you went with mother for a walk in the garden? I dare say you are the only one she'd listen to at this moment. I tried to help her out, Kara too, but it seems she prefers your company best. It doesn't do to have her in her room all day, resting in bed, until we find Evance and Cobalt and bring them home safely.'

Although Denna seemed not to have placed much thought on what she had said, it was obvious that she was terribly concerned with her mother's mental state. Kaylen read only anxiety in her eyes. She smiled to Denna tenderly.

'I will. In fact, I was about to speak to father about something that might help us find Evance and Cobalt faster. But I need to speak with him now, before it's not too late. And then I shall do as you say, I promise.'

'Well, alright, dearest, I hope that whatever your plan is, it should be greatly fructuous with fortune.'

'I hope it is. I certainly hope it is.'

She caught their father right on the verge of pushing down the doorknob to his office. Young Vane and his two associates were already leaving with a few other servants to search once more for the missing young countess and her savior.

'Father? I need to speak with you', Kaylen said and the seriousness in her tone of voice attracted her father's attention most intriguingly.

'Yes, dear? Please hurry with whatever it is you want, I need to be alongside the riders in the forest, to continue on searching for your missing sister. She can't have left the forest; our neighbors would have easily spotted her trespassing their private property.'

'I wish to visit the old lady in the woods, that's all I need to ask of you. Let me ride off and see to something very important.'

Due to the fact that she had been visiting the old clairvoyance in her past childhood and with other occasions, without asking permission for it ever before, not doing so, the count figured out the gravity of her request. He looked at her frowningly and asked:

'Is there something… wrong, my dear?'

Thus Kaylen knew that her father had figured out what she really intended to tell him. It was a serious business, what she had now with the old lady in the forest and her father was aware of that. But she could not make it so she would tell her father about her nightmare and her strong belief that her youngest sister might be with the old woman in the forest. Her beliefs had no certainly in the content whatsoever and she could have easily been wrong about everything. Her nightmare would have proven itself a simple nightmare, which bore no relevance at all. But it was important that she at least try and verify the facts within this strange dream. It was something which Kaylen felt she had to do. The decisiveness in her eyes convinced her father that the brunette was not up to a refusal. He smiled to her slightly forcedly and nodded his head once.

'Very well then, dearest Kaylen. You go and do what you must do. Perhaps it would be wiser if you took Kara with you. You both are good riders and may be able to protect one another in the woods.'

'Alright then, father. I shall go at once and ask Kara for help. Thank you so much.'

'I trust in your judgment and what you think it's best to do, Kaylen. You know I've always done so', he assured her with a kind-hearted voice and then he disappeared in his bureau. Kaylen was left to hurry and talk to her blonde sister, to see that she gets the help her father had suggested her.

31.

Evance had already finished breakfast when Cobalt decided to come inside the cottage and take a break from cutting wood outside and have something to eat. The old lady's breakfast did not look very pleasant in appearance, but the smell and the taste (after Cobalt had tried once some of the weird-looking food lying in his plate) seemed good enough for someone who had not eaten anything for almost a day. He sat at the table and asked what the food was made of. The old lady smiled and stood silent for a few seconds thoughtfully.

'Well, let me see… Evance insisted she cooked you something to thank you for all that you've done to her. I fairly say I don't know what the food is made of.'

Cobalt almost choked in his chewing the piece of bread he took from the table. He could not spot Evance with the eye around the room, because the girl had gone outside for some fresh air. But he was sure that if he would indeed watch her, her eyes would tell him everything about vengeance rather than gratitude. Still, he gave it a try once more, this time a bigger bite and the food seemed to go pleasantly warm enough through his neck and down his stomach. He was indeed hungry and after passing the "Evance's vengeance" moment, he started to enjoy his breakfast, without caring if it was poisonous or not. The seat he had taken at the table was placed facing the back window. When he raised his eyes to stare at the forest through the open pane, he noticed Evance's silhouette around the bunch of wood chumps and playing around with the ax he had used a few moments ago to chop down wood for the cottage fire. She seemed stronger now to lift the heavy weapon up in the air and swing it back and forth, as if she were dedicated to some daily training. But perhaps she had one of her moments when she was aware of her physical ugliness, now that the wolf-features had completely taken over her body and changed it into something weirdly sharp and furry. She was probably like all the other high society young ladies who believed that fame and fortune must also come with beauty and the power to seduce handsome rich young men. Now, it seemed that the sadness in her eyes somehow depicted her awareness of the fact that one or two of these characteristics for high society young ladies was forever gone along with her experience of almost becoming a werewolf. She was never beautiful to begin with, but now it seemed that the half wolf-transformation left visible changes on her physical appearance. She was stronger in muscles and bones, but she was skinnier in constitution. She was sharper in the eyes and the jaws and her canines were visible under the upper lip, but to the old lady's opinion that would change in time, alongside the cure of her illness. The eyes kept their red-blood color and their sparkling whenever there was talk about preys and hunters. Her stature suggested powerful authority and animal instinct, but other than that, Evance remained as she was before. The wound in her shoulder was healing faster, now that the old lady knew how to cure her, but the physical changes would have to wear out in a very slow motion. Until that ended, Evance would carry the ugliness of this sort of transformation too much to ever consider herself as pretty as any other high society young lady. In the eyes of others, Evance Schradder would be considered an unfortunate girl, who God cursed with a queer physical appearance and too much of a threatening countenance. That is why when Cobalt noticed her, she was rather sad in gestures and in the look in her eyes, as if she knew somehow that when her ugliness was gone, it would have already been too late for those around her and she would have already succumbed to a life of loneliness and social exile.

Cobalt stood up and placed his empty plate by a jar of water, so that the old lady would wash it for him.

'Something tells me you'll convince her otherwise', said the old woman and when Cobalt stared at her confused, he noticed her half-giggling smile and remembered that she was a witch and may be able to read beyond the visibly clear signs. He raised the corner of his lip and sniffed.

'Otherwise? What do you mean?' he asked and the old lady laughed discreetly.

'We both know she's not that ugly, now, is she, Cobalt? You can get along with her just fine, I guess. Bt you've got to tell her, right?'

'Tell her what?'

'That you love her.'

Cobalt stared at the woman in disbelief. She had said it to him as if she had given him an answer about the weather next day. She did not even look at him to see the reaction on his face (which definitely proved itself shocked and confused). But it was a fact that the woman knew better than him what his feelings were towards Evance, because Cobalt knew that he would only act according to his feelings and let the people around him figure them out.

'But I don't – !' he started but the woman jumped in quickly:

'Aha! I wouldn't deny it unless I'm sure. And since I know what sort of happens in the future, I kinda know that your denial would be futile at this point. You've fallen for her and it's up to you if you should tell her or not. Unlike me, she doesn't know how you feel about her. And in my experience, these things should be talked about. You're mature enough to do it, right?'

The woman went back to her washing the dishes and house-working, rather silly tasks for a witch to do, but the clairvoyance was a strong believer in normality.

Cobalt started at Evance's countenance, as she stood outside the house, close by the chumps of wood and thought about dancing with her. He went outside, circled the cottage and stopped close to her. Evance did not seem to mind his presence.

'Can I talk to you about something?' he asked matter-of-factly.

Now, Evance straightened her body and looked at him curiously. It was not that type of child's curiosity at the sight of a strange-looking toy, which would suggest the humanity in her. It was the type of curiosity dogs give someone when they see that they are trying to communicate with them non-verbally and the attempt is doomed to fail. It would have more suggestive if she were also to tilt her head to her right, like a curious puppy.

'What's wrong?' she asked.

'Wrong? Oh, there's nothing wrong really', Cobalt said and started to walk closer to her. He stopped in front of her and noticed that she no longer seemed to have that shrewdness in her eyes, suggesting that she was preparing a verbal attack. 'I wanted to tell you something.'

'Aha', she sniffed bored and she pushed herself away from him, making him think that she somehow tried to offend him with something.

'What's that supposed to mean?' he asked slightly irritated.

'Nothing really, just like you said. Thought you'd say something about my wound, a wolf's attack or me wanting to go home, but not being too enthusiastic about it.'

She sniffed wolf-like and threw herself on the ground. She kept her hands away from her face and this image suggested more and more of her displeasure to the new change in her physical appearance.

'Well, aren't you?' Cobalt asked confused and once more closed in on her, this time leaning a side of his body to the tree facing Evance.

'Uhm, no!' she gave sight to one of her grins, which now seemed more frightening than how it was before.

'Look, if you're sad about how you look, you're not the worst kind, you know!' Cobalt suddenly jumped in with a strong tone of voice and the abruptness with which he approached her problem sent the wrong message to Evance. She glared at him with that kind of dissonance that wolves give to the guns in hunters' hands.

'You didn't have to be so blunt about it, you know', she said and still not come out from her layer of depression. 'I know I'm not the ugliest sort, but I'm close to those who are.'

'It'll wear off!' he bumped annoyed. 'And no one said you're ugly either, so stop being so down with it! You're being childish about it! You're gonna get married someday!' he cried half amused and half annoyed.

'Oh really?' she jumped on her feet hastily and rushed him with a narrowed gaze, as if she were scrutinizing him and checking to see if he was a good prey or not. The narrowness of her eyes turned her entire face into that of a beautiful wolf and in some way it took off the strong scent of sharpness and rigidity in her countenance. When she showed herself angry for a few seconds, she gave sight to her canines and growled wolfishly.

'You know', said Cobalt after the slight shock of having a humanized wolf in front of him, 'You kinda look… interesting, if I may say so…'

She let go of the narrowness in her eyes and this time went back to her wolfish curiosity. Cobalt smiled half amused and slightly tilted his head on one side. He sniffed and waited for an attack from her.

'Interesting?' she asked half-mockingly. 'In what way "interesting"? The scientific way?'

'Uhm, no. I did say you'll get married one way or the other, so that should be taken as a compliment.'

'Married?! To who?! You?'

'Er… if you'll have me…'

She startled and looked at him in complete disbelief. The look that Cobalt gave her was nothing like the cynical or the mocking type. It seemed honest enough and he smiled from the corner of his mouth very suggestively. A minute ago, he seemed annoyed by the fact that she tried to pour her vengeance on him through the breakfast she fixed him and through the attack with chumps of wood on him. But now, it seemed that everything of all those devilish games had gone and disappeared and here stood a young man who waited any kind of reaction from her, even the worst.

'Argh…' he sniffed. 'I think that must have sounded wrong… you being almost a werewolf and all… not have me for dinner. Have me as… uhm, your husband, I guess. Well, not now, maybe. But someday.'

There was a brief moment of silence, during which the look on Evance's face was beyond funnily filled with shock. It seemed that the whole sky with its clouds and sun and all had fallen on her shoulders. All she could utter was a long "Ah!' and prolong it to the point where it became a real pest for the outside ears. Cobalt was forced to reduce his pleasant smile to a smirk and make sure that she understood the annoyance of her inaptitude to speak at the moment.

'I'm sure there are other vowels more pleasurable than just "Ah"', Cobalt said. 'Plus, if you add consonants, it's even better. They make sense. Uhm, more or less, they might constitute an answer for me.'

'A-answer to what?!' she suddenly asked shocked.

'Well, I believe I just asked you to marry me', he said softly, but again all he succeeded was making her go through the trouble of "Ah"-ing once more.

'The words "yes" and "no" don't contain the "Ah" sound, you know', Cobalt added, after another one of his smirks. Unless, perhaps you take "yeah" into account…'

There was a third "Ah!" on the loose and it made him smirk again and this time rush things a bit.

'Alright, alright, I'll give you some time to think, how's that?' he said. 'And this does require an immediate "yes" or "no". Or a nod…'

She nodded. That was all she could do at the moment, but soon they both startled under the audible sound of hoofs beating the ground and horses galloping. There was the call of a woman's voice and Evance startled when she recognized the voices. She turned to face the riders coming towards the cottage of the old lady and recognized both her sisters, Kara and Kaylen. She opened her moth like a fish on the shores and then a quick feeling or running up and down came over to her, demanding her to obey to their request of having her run towards her relatives.

Both ladies jumped off their horses, the second the animals stopped galloping and they both spread wide-open their arms to embrace their youngest sister, who proved herself to be quite safe and sound.

'Evance? Evance, thank heavens you're alive!'

Evance was not aware that a swift freedom permitted to her feelings would be taken over by her wolf-side. She gave way to a howl which seemed to stop stiff the living creatures and even time itself. Kaylen grew paler in her face. It was obvious that she was going through some drastic change within herself and was now on the verge of bursting into tears. She had stopped a few inches away from her youngest sister. Kara stopped because she had never heard Evance scream like that.

The old lady came out from the cottage and since she had heard the howl from outside, she knew that there would have to be some sort of bad reaction from the girl's sisters with regard to the weird behavior they had just witnessed.

Suddenly, Kaylen gave way to a cry and grabbed her youngest sister by the arm, pulling her into her arms. As she cried in silence, she exhaled heavily.

'Oh, dearest God… have mercy on our family…' she mumbled in Evance's ears and in that moment, the youngest of the count's daughters was aware of her older sister's fear.

'What's going on?' asked Kara confused. 'Why did you cry like that, Evance? For heaven's sake, it sounded terrible!'

The old lady sniffed.

'You better come inside. We'll talk and you'll see what's going on – '

'There's nothing to talk about!' jumped Kara annoyed now that she had not been given any pertinent explanation. 'We're taking our sister home, now that we've found her. Cobalt, you're with us, aren't you?'

'Yeah, uhm…' mumbled the young man confused and stared at Evance hidden under Kaylen's arms and the tears on the brunette's cheeks. 'But, there's got to be some explaining to do first. No one will like it, but you have to listen to what the old lady said.'

Kaylen freed Evance and then she followed her suspicious blonde sister, Kara, inside the cottage of the old lady. Evance was left to stare at them with the look wolves give to their puppies when the parents know that now the children are old enough to be left on their own, to build their own independence. Cobalt would not stand that depressed look on her face anymore. He drew closer to her suggestively and stretched his hand demanding hers in return. Their fingers slightly touched at first but then, Evance grew bolder in gestures and wrapped her long skinny fingers around Cobalt's hand and they both followed her sisters inside the cottage.

32.

It was close to afternoon, when Kaylen and Kara decided that what they had heard was enough. Kaylen often pressed her youngest sister to her chest, in her arms, as if she mutely communicated to her all the love and the anxiety which Evance had produced her. She did not care whether Evance would keep her ugliness or some of her wolf instincts and behavior, as long as the girl was healthy and still alive and as human as she could possibly remain. Kara, on the other hand, gave quite a few weirdly confused looks to her youngest sister as if she expected that any second now, Evance would transform into a werewolf and would jump on their necks with the animal instinct of feeding itself on human blood. She looked towards Cobalt a few times and noticed how comforting his stature was; perhaps he had been already acquainted with Evance's wolf-side. The old lady had told them about all her and Cobalt's adventures with helping the youngest of countesses to keep the wolf-side inside her and control it somehow.

'She's fighting it almost every day and she will continue to do so until she's fully cured', said the old lady and thus she ended her story. 'That is all I need to say and I think you needn't know more. As long as you help her out by treating her as human as before, I think she will never succumb back to her wolf-side.'

'Are you saying it's still there somewhere inside her?' burst Kara stupefied, but Kaylen quickly called her name attentively. 'I'm trying to be reasonable here!' she cried back to her brunette sister. 'It's a fact that we've now… kind of… have a werewolf-sister. I'm trying to know how long it'll take before Evance comes back to us as she was previously.'

'I don't think I'll ever come back the same, Kara', said Evance and everyone in the cottage-room looked at her surprised. Evance only stared back at Kara and she did not seem to wear the same devious look as her blonde sister used to have whenever she noticed that she was not being included in a conversation. 'It's a part of me and I think it's impossible to come back to the same way I was. I could fairly say you have a new sister from now on.'

Kara burst into tears and growled furiously:

'I don't want a new sister, I want my old one!'

'Kara!' Kaylen rushed her hastily. 'It's not Evance's fault!'

'Oh, and I suppose you'll say it's Denna's!' cried Kara and suddenly the atmosphere indoors became stuffy and unpleasant. Knowing that at this point, this was none of her business, the old lady sniffed and stood up on her feet. She excused herself and went outside of the cottage, although her announcement had been futile since now the other persons seemed to be interested in something else now.

Suddenly, Cobalt became the involuntary witness of a verbal fight between the daughters of the count. Kaylen immediately jumped to her blonde sister's offense against Denna by saying that no one thought such a thing. Kara burst back that Kaylen did not know anything about guilt and innocence, since she would not properly examine the obvious facts of the current situation. Evance kept still between them, like the puppet which two children fight over between each other. She knew that one way or the other, they both were right, but fighting would not solve anything. She stood up and howled suddenly, scaring everyone around. The old lady came back inside in a rush, frightened and only witnessed the shocked looks on the faces of the people in the cottage, staring at the youngest daughter of the count. The girl scrutinized her other sisters with the kind of look wolves give to a dead prey they had just found on their way and which they at first believe to be suspicious and possibly dangerous. Cobalt leaned back against the wall next to the fireplace and changed his position in the chair. Somehow, he was happy that Evance had howled and thus had stopped the verbal brawl in the cottage.

'Please, stop fighting right now!' said Evance. 'I'm as human as I can be. And there's only a matter of time before I'll be completely human again, didn't you pay any attention to what the old lady said? I know it's hard on you and it'll be very hard on mom and dad, but won't you please think of how hard it'll be for me? I get to control myself every step of the way, because I'm afraid that if I don't, somehow the cure will wear off and then I'll put everyone in danger, including me.'

She stood silent for a few minutes, during which apparently she noticed that her words had a certain strong effect on her sisters, because both Kaylen and Kara leaned down their heads with sadness in their eyes. Evance threw a brief look towards Cobalt and he smiled friendly. He nodded his head, mutely convincing her that everything she had just said had been the pure truth. Evance turned back to looking at Kaylen and Kara.

'Please, just take me home and let's help each other, ok? And I don't blame Denna for anything, because it wasn't her fault the wolf attacked us. She didn't plan it to happen.'

She waited for a few seconds in silence to see what the other ladies' reaction would be. Suddenly, Kaylen stood up and took her in her arms.

'You're right, dearest', was all that she said.

Kara stood up afterwards and petted her youngest sister on the shoulders friendly. She was not exactly the type to show off her feelings, which meant that if she were to comfort anyone (including her sisters), she would need to use as fewer physical gestures as possible and as cold or distant as they could possibly prove themselves to be. When Evance stared at her, Kara smiled from the corner of her lips and then accepted her sister's embrace, knowing that if she still kept her distance, the persons around them would not conclude that she was a softy after all.

Soon the horses were saddled and the old lady bit them farewell, whilst the two horses, each carrying two riders on, galloped back towards the House of Schradder. Kara and Kaylen rode on the latter's horse, while Evance was given her old black stallion to ride, alongside Cobalt.

33.

Cobalt was overwhelmed with the countess's kisses and hugs, when the four riders arrived safely at the Schradder House. He was also greeted by Vane's and his uncle's congratulations, also by the count's most sincere gratitude. After all, if it wasn't for Cobalt's persistence, perhaps they might have never seen Evance alive. He was her savior and no one would deny it. Cobalt felt overwhelmed and did not know how to react to the countess's strong emotions of happiness and joy.

Immediately, a doctor was summoned to look at the youngest daughter of the count and it was a final conclusion that the old lady had taken great care of her. The wound on the shoulder was almost healed and it seemed that Evance had quickly gotten back on her habit of reading dark-leathered books in the library and sitting in bed. Everyone paid her a visit once every one hour and chatted with her (even Mr. Roderick and Gavin Daggers, accompanied of course by Vane and Kaylen). Denna was, however, her most frequent guest and they spent much time together alone in the girl's room, the blonde countess reading to her or writing letters for her, sometimes even drinking their tea together. Evance seemed to have quickly gotten back to her previous happy state of mind, perhaps even her vanity had grown, due to the fact that now she was in the center of attention.

A few days passed with Evance sitting in bed and soon, the baron and the count were back in their business conversation. The countess and the daughters (now including Evance on their side) asked the count secretly to refuse the baron's business proposal. Even though Evance had gone through one of the roughest experiences, the forest in all must remain untouched, with respect to the family's ancestral protective power over the Schradder lands.

Soon, autumn turned to the coming of winter and the winds grew stronger and colder.

Evance got back to the blackness of her dresses, Denna returned to her seduction games and experiments, Kara played her fascinating erotism once more on young men and Kaylen got back on her musical instrument, playing for them almost every night, before going to bed. The countess reopened her beautiful smile and the count became as calm and as kind-hearted as before. He even thought that the looks Cobalt often gave Evance (as well as those she gave to him in return) might be interpreted as a good sign and the young lad would do very well as a future son-in-law. He did not know – in fact no one knew – that Cobalt had actually asked Evance to marry him, in some way.

It was close to the beginning on November when the miracle happened and little did the count know that his dream might actually come true, without his help at all.

34.

Cobalt woke up with the feeling that he should go for a stroll around the great garden of the Schradder House. In the distance, the mountains stretched like the strong imposing wall of a long forgotten fortress. In fact, it was these mountains in particular that protected the count's lands of terribly cold blizzards and snow-storms. Only the kindest and quietest winds blew through the meadows and rustle the branches of the trees. The chilliness of winter took over the entire landscape. The forest now seemed empty and naked in front of the coldness of the winter. The leaves have all gone; the branches had grown old and weary, weak with strength. The howling of the wolves was heard rarer and the bears' footsteps almost disappeared. Nature was setting itself for a cold winter.

Cobalt studied the forest's appearance and thought of so many things at the same time, but mostly he thought that right now, the most difficult of problems in the count's family was almost gone. The last time they had visited the old lady in the woods (visit which took place a few days ago), the count and his wife expressed their gratitude to the clairvoyance and they invited her to come visit them most often. Now, she must have started to prepare her cottage for the winter weather.

Cobalt got lost so much in his thoughts that he did not sense the foreign presence behind him. When Evance placed her cold hand on his shoulder, he startled visibly and turned towards her with a frightened look on his face.

'Oh, it's you!' he burst, and he breathed relieved at the sight of the youngest countess. She laughed shortly.

'Who did you think it would be? Kara? Denna…? Kaylen…?'

'No!' growled Cobalt annoyed. Whenever Evance pronounced the name of Denna or Kara (apropos of their getting back to their erotic games and experiments), Cobalt got the impression that she was making a very strong suggestion, too subtle for him to read, but visible enough to give him a slight idea as to where she was heading with it.

'Well, I can't help it, if I sneak on people like that!' she cried falsely innocently. 'I like it, as it happens. It's one of those things the wolf-side left me that I like.'

She had kept the sharpness of her features, but it seemed that she had suddenly stolen away the beauty of such a graceful forest-animal. The wolves on these parts were well-known for carrying a sort of fascinatingly dreadful beauty, due to their power, intelligence and shrewdness. Evance, now, seemed to have carried a few of all those features.

'Oh?' sniffed Cobalt and slightly smiled from the corner of his lips. They mutely headed together towards the border-fence, having the mountains and meadows stretching ahead of them. 'And what other wolf-side parts do you like?'

'Well, there's the… (she growled wolfishly, having her eyes narrowed and giving them a darker shade than usual)… and then there's the howling too. Sometimes I think that if I ever got lost in the forest again, I might scare off people with my howling. I wonder if I can communicate with them…'

She placed the tip of her index on her lips thoughtfully, narrowing her eyes, but Cobalt laughed.

'Let's hope that doesn't happen in the near future. You may be fully cured, but who knows… you still have your wolf-features there somewhere. Once you've gone through some rough change, even if you do come back to the way you were, nothing is gone completely. Not forever.'

He did not notice that while he kept his speech, Evance was staring at him curiously, the kind of curiosity Cobalt attributed to the puppies staring at children who waved at them or tried to transmit messages through some hands' gesture, but obviously failed irreparably.

'You're looking at me very weirdly', he muttered.

'So what? Are you afraid I'm gonna turn into a wolf?'

He stared at her confused.

'Well, uhm… no, not exactly… it's just… weird. Like having a dog watching you, staring at you. It's weird.'

Evance stopped staring. She looked at her hands. The fingers had still kept their skinniness, but at least they were no more curved than normally and they were long-nailed. Humanly long-nailed. Cobalt gave her an indifferent look and noticed her studying her own hands.

'You know, when you admire your hands so much, it's said there's someone talking bad of you', he said.

'Oh?' she startled and looked at him with her wolfishly narrowed eyes. 'And who's that talking bad of me? You?'

'If you think so', he answered back amused. 'I was just warning you, that's all.'

'Oh, how very thoughtful of you!' she suddenly cried cynically. 'A second ago, you almost directly told me I'm frightening you and now you're being thoughtful enough to keep me away from self-harming myself.'

'That's a way of putting it', he laughed. 'I was just saying, you don't have to listen to everything I say!'

'Oh, really?!' she burst out irritatingly.

'You never did, to begin with', he smiled amused.

'Oh, and I suppose I didn't when you said I was to fight back the wolf-side in me, eh?'

She placed her hands on her hips and annoyingly patted the ground with her foot. She was all but calm and amused of this turn of the situation at this point.

Cobalt did not know what to say next, not to angry her anymore. After all, she seemed to have become very sensitive at her nerves.

'That was a different thing, you know', he answered calmly and stopped staring at her. Since they had reached the forest and now were very close to the first line of trees, he threw himself on the ground, sitting under the great leafless head of one of them.

'"A different thing" how?' asked Evance, clearly in want of starting a fight.

'You wanted to become a werewolf?' Cobalt replied in disbelief. 'Well, excuse me if I read your message wrongly. I didn't think you wanted to completely become a werewolf and never have to return back home to your sisters.'

'Would you have asked me to marry you, if I had wished to remain a werewolf then?'

Cobalt stared at her frowningly. He sniffed with seriousness.

'I guess I would first do something to prevent you from becoming a werewolf. Then, I would ask you to marry me.' He smiled to her forcedly and continued: 'I don't want to marry someone who gets to be a dog every night.'

'… wolf', Evance muttered under her teeth.

'Whatever!' Cobalt cut in rather annoyed. 'Anyway, I'm sure you haven't given it a single thought.'

'Thought about what?'

'Marrying me, stupid!' he burst on his feet annoyed and stared at her frowningly.

'Well, actually I did', Evance answered back, folding her arms at her chest and turning one side of her body to him, raising one eye-brow.

She expected him to say something in return, but Cobalt kept quiet. In fact, he leaned back against the tree-trunk and placed his look on the ground.

'Aren't you going to ask me anything?' she inquired slightly indignantly.

'No', was Cobalt's blunt answer. He sounded a bit grumpily as well. That is what infuriated Evance the most. She wanted him curious and desperate enough to get down on his knees and prepare to convince her otherwise if she were to refuse him. Of course, she was not going to force him to do such a humiliating thing, but it was a good thought to have in mind. However, things seemed to have gone on being planned differently than Evance had imagined. She sniffed irritatingly and burst a very strongly spirited "Fine!", after which she turned her back against him. She was about to decisively head for the house, to get back on her reading in the library, when Cobalt stopped her by asking:

'Is it worth listening to?'

'Well, I hope so!' she cried ironically back. 'It's a three-letter word!'

She stared at him and saw that Cobalt's eyes widened when he figured out the message she had communicated to him through the last sentence. He stood up and straightened up. She came to him and stretched her hand towards him.

'I think it's best of we told dad together. Or would you rather have only me doing it? I'd understand, you know, that way he would definitely not disagree.' She gave him a grin which showed her sharp wolfish canines. She took his hand and dragged him towards the house. 'C'mon, you're brave enough to hunt down a wolf, I guess you're brave enough to discuss marriage with my dad', she said.

Cobalt looked at her surprised and when Evance smiled to him back, he gave way to raising the corners of his lips as well. He smiled back to her and tightened his grip around her hand.

The End