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  My mother had become a member of Father Paul’s church. It was something I think he encouraged the Lycanthrope to do. He believed that if they prayed and worshiped the Elders, they would lift their curse. After all, it was they who had placed it upon them. Believing this, my mother spent much of her time on her knees in the small stone building with a twisted spire, which was where the Lycanthrope who wanted to find redemption gathered. It was surrounded by an overgrown graveyard. The headstones were grey and old, covered in cracks, ivy, and moss. None of them looked as if they had been visited in hundreds of years. Behind the church was a hill where Father Paul lived in a small house. The tiny church and graveyard were set at the end of a narrow dirt track, which weaved its way up the side of the small hill.

  My mother would rarely take my sisters or my younger brother along with her, but she would take me. Every Wednesday morning, she would wake me at five a.m. to attend the church.

  My weekends were also dominated by visiting this small church. After the service, I would sit in Father Paul's lounge before a roaring fire and clean the brass candlestick holders. Father Paul would make me a large pot of sweet tea, and butter several slices of toast for me to munch away on while I worked. I really enjoyed being in his company. He seemed to take a real interest in me and encouraged me to draw and paint. He would give me sheets of brightly coloured paper and pencils to draw with. Although I enjoyed my time with Father Paul, I guess, so did my mother.

  Sometimes, as I sat cleaning the brass candlesticks or drawing before the fire and eating the warm slices of toast, my mother would slip away into another room with Father Paul. I guessed she was praying with him, trying to get the curse lifted.

  Just before that first Christmas living amongst the humans, and much to my own happiness, we left the safe house – Lycanthrope holding centre as I thought of it by then – and was relocated to a new house on a rundown estate on the other side of town. Our departure from the safe house couldn’t have come at a better time. My mother had become very unpopular amongst some of the other female Lycanthrope that lived there. I believe some of them thought she considered herself to be better than them. I got the impression Father Paul's ever increasing visits – where he would spend the majority of his time with us – only led to resentment amongst the others. After all, wasn’t he meant to be helping all them? I guess he wasn’t allowed to be seen helping us more than others.

  “How come that Blackcoat is always round here with you?” one of the other women asked my mother. This woman had a mass of frizzy blonde hair and a pinched-looking face. She wasn’t the prettiest wolf I had ever seen.

  “He comes here to help support me and my children – and yours,” Mother explained.

  “Bollocks,” she said. “You’re in that room with him for hours while your kids are out in the backyard. I reckon you two have got something going on!”

  “How dare you!” my mother exclaimed.

  “He’s a holy man!”

  “They’re the worst!” She continued to press my mother.

  “Besides, he is a Vampyrus. It is forbidden for us to mix,” my mother gasped. Then looking the woman up and down, she added, “I wouldn’t expect someone like you to understand.

  You have no faith. I’ll have the curse lifted for mine and my children’s sake”

  “What makes you so special?” the woman sneered just inches from my mother’s face.

  “Because I’ve been praying to the Elders,” my mother replied, implying we were in some way superior to this woman because of her prayers.

  A few days before we finally left the holding centre, we returned to find someone had been into our room and had pulled apart a set of praying beads that Father Paul had given to my mother. The wooden beads lay scattered across the makeshift beds on the floor. Mother dropped to her knees and let out an agonising moan. She slumped forward as if being shoved from behind, and picked up the scattered pieces. Her shoulders shuddered as she sobbed out loud. I looked at my brother and sisters. Lorre squeezed my mother’s shoulder. I saw Kara begin to cry. Seeing my sister’s crumpled face made me sob, and then Rik began to wail along with the rest of us.

  Above the sound of our weeping, I could hear sniggering coming from the lounge. It wasn’t the sound of children sniggering, it was worse. It was the sound of adults taking pleasure in someone else’s misfortune. Mother bolted from the room and we stampeded after her. We charged into the lounge behind my mother’s flapping skirt to see three women laughing. One of them was the woman who had argued with my mother a few days before. On seeing my mother’s enraged face and burning eyes, their laughter subsided. The woman with the frizzy blonde hair shouted, “Oh look, here comes the Blackcoat’s favorite!”

  “He’s trying to help us,” my mother barked. “Don’t you see that?”

  “The only thing he has been helping himself to around here is you!” the woman snapped back, her eyes now flashing orange to match my mother’s.

  This comment brought more cackling laughter from her allies. Then, without warning, my mother was on the other side of the room. Her hands didn’t have fingers anymore, but long, hooked claws. She thrust these into the woman's frizzy blonde mane. The woman howled in pain, pin-wheeling her arms and her own wolf-like claws out on either side.

  The other two women stopped laughing at once, got to their feet, and moved out of harm’s way. Any Lycanthrope found to be fighting – breaking the Vampyrus rules – would be banished back to the caves. I stood by the door with my brother and sisters, my mouth wide open and feeling sick. This was the first time I had ever seen my mother as a wolf, and it terrified me. Her face had changed shape, long with a pointed snout. She had rows and rows of jagged teeth brandishing through her gums. Her hair had grown thicker – longer – somehow, and her eyes blazed a fiery yellow like two burning suns. I remember the woman thrashing around on her belly on the floor, as my mother continued to pull and drag at the woman's hair. Although the other woman now looked like a cross between a wolf and woman, my mother seemed far stronger than her. Part of me wanted to cheer my mother on as I was upset for her, but another part of me just wanted to scream, “Stop! Please stop! You’re scaring me! ”

  The whole thing seemed so fucked up. My heart was racing and I felt like pissing all over the floor.

  I didn’t like the expression etched across my mother’s face. She looked like an animal and I never wanted to look that way. Worst of all, and what scared me the most, was behind her crazy spinning eyes and foaming snout, she looked scared. I wanted her to stop. I hated seeing her like that. My mother was no longer the woman with the mop of curly black hair, dark brown eyes, and pretty smile. She was someone I didn’t recognise, someone who looked as if they had lost their mind.

  During the remaining few days at the safe house, we spent as much time as possible away from it. The Vampyrus didn’t seem to have found out about the fight which had taken place between my mother and the other woman. We would walk the village High Street or along the sea front for hours at a time. Strangely, and although my mother had scared me and my brother and sisters, during those last few days I felt we were thrown closer together. Our little unit became even tighter and more secluded. The only non-family member we were prepared to let enter our pack, was Father Paul.

  I hadn’t spoken about my father for some weeks now. I had come to understand he was a taboo subject and I dared not speak about him in front of my sisters, for fear of raking over painful memories. I had no idea or understanding of how to broach the subject of my father, although I had a thousand questions that I needed answered. Day by day, my previous life, along with my father, diminished to the remotest corners of my mind. So much had happened in the year we had left my Dad, it seemed an eternity ago.

  Chapter Eight

  Jack

  My mother collected the keys for our new home from Father Paul and he gave her directions. It was nothing at all like my home – the cave – I had lived in, hidden from the humans behind the fountain. It
was an end of a terrace, with four bedrooms, and had a small front and back garden. As mother closed the front door on the rest of the world, we stood together and soaked up our new surroundings in silence. All the floors were bare and the walls were painted battleship grey. It was barren. Even so, we sat on the cold floor in the dining room and made plans of how we were going to decorate it, and how we would make it our own. We sat there and dreamed until the day grew tired and old.

  The following day, a few fellow Lycanthrope, who had been relocated from the caves into the human world, arrived at the safe house and helped us carry our belongings to our new home. Our first Christmas – my first Christmas ever – in our new home, was bleak.

  We had no real furniture and we sat on cardboard boxes, with pillows placed on them for extra comfort. We had no carpets and the floors were always bitterly cold. Even though the floors in the caves were made from stone, they were kept warm by the heat from the fire place. There was no fire in our new home. The bedroom floors were wooden and I lost count of how many splinters Rik and I picked out from our feet. We shared the same bedroom and the single mattress on the floor. This didn’t trouble me, as I loved to cuddle my brother. My sisters had their own rooms, where they too slept on the floor, as did my mother in her room. Gradually, as time evolved, Father Paul often arrived with secondhand furniture that had been donated by other Lycanthrope and even some Vampyrus. It was in their best interests to help us settle amongst the humans. It wasn’t too long before our home began to resemble something habitable.

  About a week before Christmas, Father Paul arrived. Once he had knocked on the door, he would call my mother’s name through the letterbox so we knew who it was. The estate we lived on had a bad reputation and you didn’t open the door after dark, unless you knew who was on the other side. Crime seemed to be rife in this part of the human world. Father Paul came in holding a bag containing sheets of brightly coloured paper.

  He then taught us how to make glue with flour and water and got us to cut the different coloured sheets of paper into thin strips. Together, we all sat and made ream after ream of paper chains.

  Once they were complete, we hung them from the ceiling and decorated our home. I looked at them, and although they looked colorful and bright, they weren’t as spectacular as the candles we lit during Candlemas in the caves. In fact, Christmas was different from all the Candlemases we had spent in the caves. My father would hang glass lanterns, lamps, and display the most beautifully carved waxed candles, until every room in the cave shone a brilliant warm glow. If we were really lucky, he would bring chocolate back from the world on the other side of the forest, slowly melt it by the heat from the candles, and let us dip our fingers into it and then lick them clean. For some reason, he called our chocolate-covered fingers ‘Chocolate-Do-Dads!’

  As we sat in a circle on the floor and made our paper chains, I asked my mother if we would be having any ‘Chocolate-Do-Dads’ this year. On hearing this, mother glared at me as all subjects relating to my father were banned.

  Smiling and bemused, Father Paul turned to me and asked, “What on earth are chocolate-do-dads?”

  Ignoring my mother, I explained what they were and how my father would sometimes bring chocolate home during Candlemas.

  “Humans have something very similar,”

  he smiled back at me. “They hang chocolate wrapped in brightly coloured foil from their Christmas trees. They call them chocolate novelties.”

  “Chocolate novelties?” I gasped in wonder.

  Seeing the look of amazement on my face, Father Paul laughed and said, “That’s right, young man, chocolate novelties!”

  I liked the sound of these ‘Chocolate novelties’, and thought that perhaps some of the changes happening around me weren’t so bad after all. That Christmas did bring with it another change for me. I began to feel I was being left out by my mother, as if I was no longer a part of my family.

  It was Christmas Eve and our mother informed us she was taking us all into the local town, as she needed to buy some things before the shops closed for Christmas. In the weeks building up to Christmas, I had loved visiting the shops and looking in wonder at all the displays in the windows. The whole of the High Street had been brightly decorated and a huge Christmas tree had been put in place. As it towered over me, I looked up at all the twinkling lights, and began to wonder if Christmas wasn’t as beautiful as Candlemas after all. I felt a buzz of excitement as I watched the human’s dash from one shop to another, buying presents for their family and friends.

  We had arrived in town early and the shops had only just opened. The High Street was already busy with the last minute shoppers. My mother took us straight to a store, where at the back, there was a small café. She found an empty table and me and my brother and sisters perched on the chairs as she went off to the counter.

  Mother returned within a short time with a glass of milk. She placed it on the table in front of me and said, “Jack, you’ll have to wait here while me and your brother and sisters go shopping.”

  At first I thought she was joking, and said, “Really?”

  She gathered the other children around her and began to move away from the table. I felt scared, as I was still only nine years of age and had never been left on my own before – not in this new world.

  “Don’t leave me,” I said.

  Mother must have sensed my dread and said, “Don’t be so ridiculous, we won’t be long.

  Just make sure you don’t go off with any strangers!” Then leaning close, her eyes bright, she smiled and whispered, “Don’t go off with any humans.”

  With that, they turned and left and I sat staring into my glass of milk. They were gone for the rest of the day and I just sat there. Every now and then, the waitress would come over and ask me if I was okay. I simply informed her I was waiting for my mother and that she would be back soon. I remember feeling hurt at being left on my own and feeling left out. As I sat there, and one hour rolled into another, I began to justify my mother’s actions. I wondered if she hadn’t really done this so she could secretly buy some of those chocolate novelties that Father Paul had told me about.

  Not possessing a watch, I didn’t know how much time had passed. I didn’t have the courage to leave the café, as I wasn’t sure of my way home. So I waited and waited. In the end, the store began to empty. Again the waitress approached me and asked where my mother was.

  I explained again that she had told me to wait until she came back. The kind lady explained the shop was closing, and if my mother didn’t arrive soon, they would have to contact the police. To hear her say this filled me with fear. What if the police were to come? What would I say? What would I tell them?

  The waitress took me by the hand and escorted me to the front of the shop. The store was now closed and the last remaining members of staff were getting ready to go home for Christmas. I remember some of the lights being switched off and the shop being thrown into semi-darkness. I continued to stand with the waitress by the large glass door. I began to scan the last remaining shoppers on the High Street for any sign of my family. I tried to fight it, but by this time I had convinced myself that I would never see any of them again. The police would discover that I was a Lycanthrope – then what would happen?

  My lips began to tremble and pucker as I started to cry. It was then I heard the sound of knocking on the glass door, and I looked up to see my family standing outside.

  A huge wave of relief washed over me.

  The waitress who had taken care of me opened up the shop door. My mother apologised to the woman, explaining that they had been delayed. I took hold of my mother’s hand and gripped it tight for fear of being separated again. Once outside, I rubbed the tears from my eyes with the back of my free hand.

  “Why are you crying?” my mother asked.

  “I thought you weren’t coming back for me.”

  “Don’t be so stupid!” she replied.

  That was that. No further explanation.
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  The comforting thoughts that I had conjured up of my mother buying me secret chocolate novelties had also been a waste of time, as I couldn’t see one shopping bag between them.

  So our first Christmas in our new home came and went. We heard nothing from our father, and Mother seemed delighted by that.

  “He must’ve forgotten all about you…

  see? Time for you to forget all about him,” she told me with a smile.

  Chapter Nine

  Kiera

  I didn’t want to cry for Jack Seth. I didn’t want to shed one single tear. He didn’t deserve it, but I couldn’t help but feel the sting of tears in the corners of my eyes as he told me about how his mother had left him alone in that café. To hear his story reminded me he had been a child once. He hadn’t always been a monster. I just couldn’t get the image of that small boy sitting alone on Christmas Eve, hoping that his mum had left him alone to go and buy him some chocolate. How could she have done that, and what was the point of it? I wondered.

  I looked at Jack as he sat before me. He sat forward on the chair, his arms crossed over his knees, head hung low. I didn’t want to feel sorry for him – I didn’t want to know his hurt and pain. I had to hate him if I was going to get out of this alive and save my father and Potter. To rid my mind of that little boy sitting alone, I looked past Jack and at my father again. As I lifted my head, I noticed it was harder for me to do so. My neck was stiffening, as was the flesh that covered my face and body. I twisted my wrists a little faster in their chains.

  To see my father slumped forward in his chair helped push those pictures of Jack as a boy from my mind. He wasn’t that little boy anymore.

  Whatever had happened to make him change had nothing to do with what was happening now – what was taking place in this room. I had to hold onto that thought, but it was hard.

  Suddenly, Jack stood up. He looked down at me. I looked back up at him. He pulled the baseball cap low over his brow as if trying to hide his eyes. I stared through the shadow covering his face, but he turned away. He crossed the room to my father, pulled his head back, and looked into his face. My father cried out deliriously as the wound in his stomach opened. It looked black and wet in the light from the lamp. That was what it took to rid my mind of those images of Jack as a boy.