Once upon a time, there was a Godly valley with mountains that could touch the sky and trees that cast long shadows. The people who live in the small mountain town are hardworking and happy, so long as they never stray into the forest where the wolves lurk in the darkness. Adults brave the trees in groups to hunt the vicious pack as they have for decades, the conflict is deep with no sign of victory for either side. But wolves are not the only threat, nor the village's only secret - and the link connecting them is a simple cloak of Red ...

Every night, from the highest peak of the uninhabited mountains, a single Wolf howls to the good folk of the valley – as a warning, as a message, and as a reminder of what they did:
"Beware, beware, the Path where the Witch once stood. Beware, beware, of the Wolf in the Wood."

Squall ran.

Tears fell from his eyes and all he could do was run. Cursed boy! Storm boy! Nobody likes you!

Roots, thickets and bushes tried to trip him but he couldn't stop running until he could run no more. He fell to his knees and rubbed at his eyes, too out of breath to cry anymore. He pulled his knees under his chin and hiccupped until his heart was quiet.

"Why God? Why do I have to be cursed?" came the anguished whisper, hands clasped tightly as if in prayer, so tightly they shook and turned white and left indents in the other hand.

Birds chirped overhead and distantly the bells that singled the end of Mass chimed from the village. Squall knew he wasn't meant to be here, but it was the only place that even Seifer wouldn't go. A stick drew his attention in the dirt beside him and he picked it up to prod at the mud, he drew several squiggles and lines and some semblance of objects; the flowers of Matron's garden, the Rosary of Father Hojo, the hunter's guns, then a paw print – he realized what he had drawn and quickly stamped it out.

Those murderers had struck again.

It wasn't my fault!

Three dead men …

I didn't do anything!

Three mourning families, two weeping widows, a Father, who stood to comfort the people with his words.

Why me? Why me! "Damnit! What did I do?" he screamed, "How do I deserve this?"

"And He shall smite the wicked and plunge them into the fiery pit, the Mighty Lord who gave his own son for our sins will give those who are worthy eternal life in Heaven. Those who lost their lives but two days ago will go on and be judged by our Lord as honest men, hunters who provided for their village and their families and who stood against the scourge of the Wolves so that we can live in peace."

The church floor was chilling against the young Squall's knees, his head bowed in prayer for the three dead men began to prickle as glances all uneasy and some hostile or suspicious turned to him. Trembles crept down his limbs, he couldn't help it, their eyes on him felt as heavy as stone slabs and his spine curved under their imaginary weight.

Seifer hissed at him to keep still as his elbows and knees knocked but Squall didn't hear him. His vision began to tunnel and his chest was tight as words condemning the Wolves were shouted passionately by their Priest and the heavy eyes of the villagers increased.

His head began to swim and he wrapped his hands around his chest to try and breathe, he felt so dizzy and sick …

"… and Damnation will strike from God's Righteous hand for the sake of his children! The Devil's hounds cannot outrun the skill of our hunters in our grief and fury, our weapons as much as our guns and faith. May their wails fall silent upon judgement day, pray that it be soon. Pray that the contamination-"

An angry snort behind Squall made him jump. A hand rose to his throat and one to his mouth; his stomach had lurched, his heart beat like a war drum against his ribs and his breath was caught below his breastbone. His world faded briefly and all he knew was an overwhelming fear that choked both his body and soul.

When he could see clearly again, he was outside the church doors gasping like a drowning man.

"Boy!"

Squall looked up between sweaty lashes and his breathing hitched as the entire church congregation stared him down, Edea held back by the Father's hand on her shoulder. "You run from the words of God?"

Squall shook his head, eyes widening but his voice still lost.

"You are silent before confession!"

Squall croaked weakly, a soft and startled wail left his lips. What was happening? What was going on?

"He barked!"

The lead Hunter scowled "You Devil's spawn! You dare mock the men who've died here!"

Squall hiccupped and stepped back, feeling colder than ever and he whispered, "No … no, I don't, I swear-"

"Storm harbinger! Why do you bring him here Edea?"

Edea stood her ground but her hands shook "He's but a boy, a child, what could he have done to hurt our friends? Does he not deserve God's love as much as they did? He is still young, and innocent of any sin-"

"He's cursed, Edea. We know it."

"Enough!"

Edea broke from the crowd to go to her ward but there was nothing but an empty street before them now. She ran out and looked for him, she spotted him running and her heart leapt into her throat. "Squall!"

"Come back, boy! It's not safe!" Genesis bellowed.

But he would not stop, and as the chorus of cries rose in number and volume he passed the fringe of trees and he was gone.

The chill finally returned to Squall's body and he pulled his arms around himself. The wood was quiet, but at least it didn't echo like the church. There were the calls of birds all around him, and that was better than the shouts of Father Hojo from his priestly stand.

His thoughts replayed the sermon over and over in his head like a nightmare he couldn't escape from. Squall knew that he would be scolded for running out of Mass and interrupting the warning about the Wolves and the devilish ways they sought to hurt the village but he couldn't bring himself to stay. Not when everyone had given him such disgusted looks as if he was a Wolf himself. Their eyes had made him dizzy and his heart had squeezed itself into his mouth and he had to go before he was sick!

But when he got outside where he could breathe again Hojo shouted at him in front of the entire village and demanded why he couldn't sit through God's words, unless he was Cursed. Then everyone had begun to sneer and shout abuse.

The child rubbed at his eyes again, not understanding and feeling so alone. He put his hands together in prayer like Edea told him to do when asking for guidance and protection but couldn't bring himself to speak to an absent God anymore …

Why am I cursed? I didn't mean to be. I didn't mean to … I didn't mean to …

His hands dropped from prayer and from his face.

I'm sorry …

A twig behind him cracked and he raised his head once more to look where it had come from. His eyes widened and his breath caught, the figure ducked behind a tree for a moment but remained. Both hesitated for several tense seconds before Squall dried his eyes and very slowly turned on his knees to face his visitor.

"It's you … Hello."

"Squall?"

"Yes, Matron?" Squall looked up from his concentration weaving, his little hands pausing in the intricate lacing of straw strings and when they went lax Edea spotted his rubbed-raw palms. Absently she ran the tips of her fingers against her own palms and felt the decades-old callouses made from plaiting ropes and twine, roughened skin from endless hours of weaving and twining.

Not to be distracted, Edea frowned with concern and got straight to the point. "Squall where were you this morning? I looked for you in the village but Rinoa said she hadn't seen you." She caught his palms and looked at the abrasions caused by the dried grass, it was rough to young skin and these wear marks had not appeared in just one afternoon.

The boy's face whitened just a little and he looked down at what she was examining. "Nowhere."

Edea knelt before him and looked at the string he was making into a plait, a small collection of little stones and crudely carved beads sat in a little pouch beside his crossed legs. "Where do you go, Squall? Don't lie to me."

Squall squirmed in place for several minutes under his guardian's stare, he was glad the house was empty but his silence was hanging heavier and heavier in the air and not even the warmth of the fire chasing away the chill of the setting winter could bring him comfort.

Edea held his hands still and kept patiently watching him as he fidgeted and blushed.

"I go to meet a friend … a secret friend, I promised I wouldn't tell anyone, if his folks heard that he was where he wasn't he'd be in big trouble … please don't tell anyone!" he reached out and held her wrists so tight she felt every wear on his palms.

"I don't want him to go!"

Edea was surprised with the amount of desperation in his face and in his voice as if his world would end should she say otherwise, his tiny hands shook on hers as she struggled to find her voice. When his breathing started to hitch, she caved, unable to bring herself to scold a child for keeping youngsters secrets. "Alright, I won't tell anyone."

Squall breathed a sigh of relief so great he went limp. "Thank you."

Edea smiled, but inside she continued to worry "Who is your secret friend?" she asked kindly, admiring the rosy cheeks and little laugh lines that were suddenly so frequent on his face.

Squall's brow darkened "He's mine, my secret friend." He drew away and went back to folding and twisting the string.

Edea nodded patiently and changed her questions a tad, understanding the minds of her children and what they were willing to say. As expected, Squall couldn't hold back his enthusiasm in describing his new favourite person. "He likes to play tricks, and he likes the warm. He's not supposed to meet me, so that's why he's hiding from everyone," the child hummed happily as he went back to crafting a bracelet out of the string. Edea realized the bracelet was a crude version of the ones she sold to enforce luck and banish illness.

Lips parted to ask him why he was making it when he suddenly whispered "Last time I saw him he said someone he knew was sick … and he looked sick too, but he still came to see me. I want him to get better … you don't mind do you?" he looked up timidly "I wasn't where I said I was and I'm sorry, but … Rinoa's no fun. She crowds me. She's loud …"

Edea's face softened at his upturned face and her heart warmed "No, I don't mind. I'm so glad you have someone." She reached out to brush his choppy locks from his face and smiled at the glow she saw there – the mark of a happy child. He was eating well again and hadn't hidden behind her skirts for half a lunar cycle, and even the villagers had warmed to this subtle cheer that radiated from him. She had not heard a soul call him cursed for a week, and Seifer had gone back to teasing him for his height rather than his past. The lonely, thin white child who had been run out of mass was gone, and she wished she knew who to thank.

"Introduce me some time, if he's brave enough."

At her tease, Squall smiled toothily "He's plenty brave, he's not even scared of Wolves!"

Laughing, she played along "Really? Not of the dark? Or of heights?" When Squall shook his head at each one, she kept going, playing the game until she ran out of things to add to the list, crafting the image of his friend in her head. "What of the Devil?"

"No. He doesn't know who he is," Squall threaded a stone into the braid and licked the tip of his finger as Edea often did when she concentrated. "I said he was lucky not to know, he's mean."

"Very lucky …" Edea's smile faded. A boy who doesn't know God? How can this be? Unless ...

After a pregnant pause she could only bring herself to say; "Be careful Squall. And remember to tidy up afterwards."

Edea clasped her hands tightly as she watched the snow fall ever faster in the dying light. Dear Father, who loves and protects us, I beg of you, bring Squall back to me! Protect his innocent soul and lead him home.

The forest was bare and the snow turned every twig and thicket into a strange sight, every inch looked the same and every movement caused a new shower of snow to fall from the skeleton canopy. The homeland she looked out on every day was now frozen and unfamiliar. For days the snow fell, tonight a storm had broken and the banks were building higher by the hour, the earth and rivers frozen and the sky was dark with thick clouds that cloaked the world in an eternal dusk. An in-between world that separated the warm of spring and the retiring autumn, but so unseasonably early and unexpectedly dangerous.

Her heart pounded as she watched the final hunting party return from the trees. Their covered faces made it hard to guess their luck, but the lack of child with them made her fear the worst. Her cloak was chilled and soaked with snow but she couldn't stay away from the doorway of Hojo's church for more than a moment. Restless hands wrung between her painful sobs and painful whimpers – her panic and grief brought the kindness out of the village and all hunters had volunteered to brave the trees where her youngest boy had disappeared.

Taken or led, venturing or lost – she didn't care so long as he was brought home!

The lead hunter, Genesis, pulled his bright scarf from his face and breathed a reluctant sigh over the stamping of his boots on the stone floor. "I'm sorry Edea, the men can't see a ruddy thing, if your boy's in there he's going to have to last until the morning. We can't risk getting lost."

Edea fell to her knees and wailed "No, no! Please, look again! He won't survive! He's all alone!"

Genesis put his arm around her "When the storm has cleared we'll find him, dead or alive."

Edea moaned in misery at his promise, knowing all too well that the cold was unbearable on these winter mountain nights and the snow storm was the worst seen since the one that had given Squall his name. A storm had brought him to her, and now one was taking him away.

"Merciful God … you can't take him from me so young," she sniffed.

Father Hojo put a rosary around her neck and she feverishly kissed the cross. The man extended his hand and crossed the path the hunters had just emerged from. "The Lord is thy Shepard, one of the flock is lost this night, guide him so that he may not fear death, nor the cold. Shelter him with your light and we entrust him to thy loving care for this fearful storm. Christ be with him, Christ be with us all, Amen."

"Amen," the search party murmured in unity, every weathered face pinched with cold and stern with their enduring faith.

Edea hiccupped and echoed their plea "Thank you, Father."

"Go to your children, Edea. They will need you."

So cold … so dark … where are you? Where are you!

Genesis pushed on deeper than he had ever travelled before, and every new mile made him all the more nervous. There was an invisible barrier in the woods that every hunter knew, and once crossed you were no longer in God's heartland.

At the time of year, the wood all looked the same, it was only the constant ringing of the church bells that kept his sense of direction intact and the sound was muffled in winter and made the line of God's reach that much harder to define. Even leafless, the trees were dense and the earth was hard to walk on. The white powder a more difficult barrier than even a wall at sapping strength and endurance – he doubted a boy could have gotten this far, but there was nowhere else he could have gone but further in, and by God he would find him or he would hang up his musket and hunting cape for good.

He spotted the occasional creature that had perished in the sudden snow and breathed out heavily: He'd be bringing the poor woman a corpse.

Along the line of men came the calls that kept them in contact, each man some ten feet apart or so and half the village out just for a brief look to calm poor Edea's frantic worrying. She had claimed that she had heard him in a dream and upon her pleas they were back out at first light.

The true search would have to wait until noon when there was better light. Work needed to be done to remove the snow in the village, only so many men could be spared. Paths needed clearing, wood brought, fires stoked and the Church tended to – even with one of their own in danger only so much life could be placed on hold.

Genesis heaved a bitter sigh at the brutal fact of life, a fact he had no love for.

Suddenly, a man cried out "Look here!"

Genesis turned left to the man who had called and shouted "What man? What have you found?"

The older hunter, retired but sure-footed and still sharp in instinct and wisdom, was standing at the edge of a clearing and pointing, shaking like he had seen a spectre. "There's a body. The child!"

Genesis waded through knee-high snow and stood by the gathering men. Then he too stopped at the astounding sight.

In the clearing was a mound of snow that had fallen uninterrupted from the heavens and yet there was a spot of it clear of snow altogether. The surrounding snow was shaped like that of an animal's den and tucked in the very heart of the animal's nest was the very child they sought. The snow had been packed by one of nature's creatures into a bowl that was familiar and useful for trapping limited heat, the creature was absent and there were no marks that the boy had made in the snow that showed a stumbling path to the animal-made safety. However, tracks led away from the den as if something had recently left, when Genesis took the initiative to walk over and inspect the body he felt a growl surface on his lips – wolf tracks.

Good Lord, what am I seeing? A miracle or a devil's trick?

Even from ten feet back they could see the steam from his breath rising in the frigid air. Genesis pulled the child out of the hollow of snow, by the impressions in both ice and the dirt below both the child and the wolf had been laying there for hours, perhaps even the entire storm. The wolf had curled itself around the boy, that much was clear, it was the only way the boy could have survived the deadly cold.

Genesis wished that the Father was here, he was unsure as to the nature of this unusual event. A Wolf was a demon, the Wolves were the scourge of the valley and the good folk, so how could his eyes be lying to him so convincingly.

The child in his arms began to moan.

Wrenched from his crisis of faith he snapped back to the situation at hand and started to inspect the boy for injuries. Genesis pulled a fur glove off and pressed it to the child's damp forehead.

"Damn. He's alive! Give me something warm!" he ordered. The heat given off by the boy was deadly, his cheeks were flushed and he was shivering, which was good, but he looked so fitful he may as well have been awake. His eyes moved rapidly and he moaned again.

A hunter surrendered his coat and another offered a scarf to wrap around the boy's head and mop at his brow. "It's a miracle," he gruffly whispered.

Genesis stood with the child in his arms and nodded "Yes. But a miracle of God? Or the Devil?" he looked carefully at the prints left by the demons of the forest and then at the boy that these animals had once again walked away from.

"The Devil doesn't spare those in his path," the elderly hunter argued, "God was with him."

Genesis nodded very slowly, his mind working fast but he knew that this was a question for Father Hojo and not a group of hunters. Nevertheless, he was uncomfortable with what he had found.

"Let's go home."

He turned to go and the boy stirred, his eyes opened but it was clear he wasn't seeing those above him. His silvery blue eyes rolled unevenly and he coughed as he violently inhaled, Genesis rubbed the child's back as best he could while cradling him and resolved to get him home to the local healer as fast as he could. Edea would be pleased to treat him and even more so to see her child returned to her.

Feverish and trapped in a delirious dream the boy weakly began to cry "Cloud! Oh, come back! Cloud come back!"

As the boy whimpered the hunters trekked home through the snowy wood and back to the land tamed by man and protected by the Lord. However, by the time they reached the house where Edea lived the sky was heavily overcast, a sudden change in the wind promising yet more snow and a rekindling storm. There was fresh muttering in the men.

Edea wept in joy and shouted her praise for the Lord to the heavens, but Genesis was silent as he listened to the boy call for more weather.

When the snow fell on the boy's sweat soaked forehead his lips upturned "Good … too hot …"

For the next few days, Genesis watched the worsening snow storms and questioned his actions in saving the child. The boy was just that, a boy, and he was obligated to protect all those in the village, but this boy had once again brought another storm, and another wolf. Genesis clasped his hands over his mead in the tavern and bowed his head in deep thought.

God, did I make the right choice? I brought back the boy but I brought back the curse too, have I doomed us all?

As his thoughts circled a haunting cry echoed into the valley and his shoulders tensed. Wolves.

"God preserve me; I've cursed us all!"

Please comment!