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«Aren’t you a fool! It is indeed so dark and scary, and he… horror stories.»
«Well… then what?»
«Something distracting. An… interesting story.»
«I do not know such a thing.»
«Well, for example, which of the girls did you like in the class?»
He burst out:
«What are you talking about? I’d never say this?»
«Why not? Didn’t you like anyone?»
«Well… no… I liked some, of course».
«So… tell me.»
«What for? You don’t know my class anyway?»
«I do know. Almost everyone.»
«Really?!»
«Yes. Here, listen. Guys are… Yurik Ganeshev, Pashka Smirnov, Vaska Glinkov, Taras Gromychko…»
* * *
Kanny stopped under the tree and, rising on his hind legs, stretched himself up along the trunk, suppressing the bestial growl inside of him. When he stood up like this, his height would have been more than two and a half meters. If he jumped, he could easily reach those two and rip them down. But for some reason he hesitated and could not do it. Something stopped him, as if some unknown force, completely different in nature in comparison with the power of the Spell, stood between him and these two, not allowing him to approach people and holding suppressed his bestial essence.
From here, a distance of fifty meters, he could smell every centimeter of their skin, every element of their clothes, the plucked bark of the tree where they fastened their belts, his and her metal buckles, the smell of sweat mixed with the smell of her not very expensive perfume, mushrooms in their plastic boxes, the scent of her and his emotions, changing every few seconds…
He sniffed and thought, and that was something very strange, since usually in this state he was guided more by reflexes and animal instincts, and not by human thought.
«Well… now they are settled down for the night. To the secret place there are 756 meters. They won’t go there today. There is still plenty of time until morning. I will calmly run to the place and reincarnate. Why should I touch them? If I kill them, it will strengthen the beast in me, and then the transition will be very painful…»
Nothing like this had ever happened to him before. Never before has the animal nature in him fought to such an extent with the human mind. Because of this increasing tension he wanted to shrink and hide somewhere where no one would find him, fenced off from the whole world. And that was what he tried to do, grouping and sitting on his hind legs, and lowering his head low to the ground, in between his front legs, although no one saw him anyway. This went on for quite some time. For some reason, the werewolf hesitated and could not make a decision, tormented by the choice he had to make and feeling on himself the attentive gaze of someone unknown and enormously big. It was a very strange feeling.
Finally Kanny let out something between a growl and a human sigh, abruptly jumped up on all fours and rushed away, moving in heavy leaps on the ground chilled from the chill of the night that had fallen on it.
Chapter 2
«You’ve heard it?!» asked the frightened girl.
«Yes,» he replied, peering into the darkness of the night.
«What was it?»
«It’s hard to say. I think that, most likely, judging by the size and heavy steps, it was a bear.»
«A bear?!»
«Mm… well… yes… most likely.»
«And now what?»
«Well… calm down. You can see for yourself that he did not even come close to us.»
«Maybe he didn’t see us?»
«Are you kidding? This is the animal! First of all, he heard us much earlier than we heard him. And secondly, he sensed us long before he heard us.
«Why did he leave?»
«This is exactly what you should be happy about. Since he left, it means that he realized that he couldn’t reach us. And now it’s no longer dangerous.»
«Why are you so confident? How do you know everything?»
«Well… hmm… I’ve been coming here every year for ten years in a row. And you’ve only been a couple of times, and even then… you’ve been mostly sitting at home, instead of walking in the forest and talking with the villagers.»
«They are rude, and therefore do not communicate well enough.»
«Ok, what a city-girl you have become, ah! Too touchy! Have you forgotten that you spent your entire childhood here? Rough, aren’t rough, what’s the difference? The main thing is that they know all the signs, and share their experience if you are friends with them…»
* * *
Kanny ran to a large house in a clearing, surrounded on all sides by a solid wall of forest.
He went up to the porch and, reaching out with his paw to the bell, pressed it.
Inside the house sounded a very quiet and completely unmelodious bell. Than he heard footsteps. A man being in his place would not have heard anything, but not Kanny. He have not only heard all these sounds, he also felt the vibration, and caught the smells.
«Master!» thought the werewolf, and whimpered plaintively, not realizing his actions.
«Kanny?» sounded at the door.
«Why does he ask? He sees me through the camera, doesn’t he?» a thought flashed in the back of his mind, but he only whined even more and scratched his claws against the door.
«What are you scratching? Can’t you answer?» the same voice asked irritably.
«After all, he knows that I can’t,» another thought with a bit of irritation flashed somewhere either in his head or in his stomach.
«Ok, wait, I’ll open it now,» the voice said, and the bolt inside creaked.
The door opened slightly, remaining locked with a chain, and a bearded short man in a beige cap peered through the resulting opening. The master’s eyes were small, gray and prickly. He seemed to see through Kanny’s every thought.
Seeing the master, the werewolf lowered his head and, placing it in between his huge paws, prostrated himself in front of the door, barely fitting on the rather spacious porch, expressing complete submission, as dogs do.
«You can get up, I’m opening it,» the bearded man said in his stern manner.
Kanny got up and wagged his tail happily. It was strange for him to smell that the master had a feeling of fear for him, although he suppressed it, since he smelled both.
«How can he be afraid of me? He knows that without him I can’t return to a human?» he thought, as far as one could think in his state.
The chain rattled, the door swung open, and the master ordered sternly:
«Come to the place. You know where. Wait for me there.»
Holding tail between his legs, Kanny darted past the man and went to the door at the end of the corridor. It was unlocked. He pushed her with his head and went into this mysterious, devoid of any glimmer of light room.
However, he did not need light for orientation. His scent told him every detail of what was inside; the dimensions of the room, which was the largest in this house, all its contents, including every piece of furniture, every figurine on the shelves or in specially made niches, every drawing, on the walls, or on the ceiling, or on the floor, and that very image, in the center on which he now had to sit, expecting and wishing with all his being a speedy deliverance from the wolf nature.
* * *
The mosquitoes bit mercilessly. Lera very soon realized that there could be no question of any dream. She was constantly slapping herself on all parts of her body, trying to destroy obsessive insects.
«I wonder how I’ll look like tomorrow morning?»
The brother chuckled.
«I think that after such a night, the morning will seem to you a happy deliverance in any case.»
«Yeah. That’s for sure. How did we get so far?»
«We already discussed it. What’s the use of talking about it now?»
«But after all, it was your duty to put notches on trees?»
«Yeah! And what? I did to a point. And then: „Oh, Andriushka! Look how pretty! Help me collect them soon. Oh, look again! What a clearing!“ Well, I got carried away. Are we going to blame me now?»
«Alright. That’s enough. Oh! How painful! What a bastard! Such a huge bite!»
«That’s so you don’t yell at me.»
«Like I said, that’s enough.»
For a while they sat in silence, and in the darkness only the slapping of the palms on the exposed parts of the body could be heard.
After some time, the moon, which had already been risen for a long time, apparently came out from behind a cloud, and in its silver light the surroundings became more or less visible.
«Andryush?»
«A?»
«What if we never find a way home?»
«Oh, come on! Don’t start it again!»
«Ok, well…»
She took a deep breath.
«I’m freezing.»
«Me too. And what?»
«Nothing.»
«It’s not winter. We will endure it.»
Somewhere in the distance, a lone wolf howl sounded.
After some time, another one, but a little higher in tone answered it, cutting through the darkness of the night and running unpleasant goosebumps down the girl’s back.
She looked around, and suddenly it seemed to her…
«Look, Andrey. What is this?»
«What exactly?»
She looked again.
«Over there.»
He turned to where she was pointing.
«Strange. Really. Like something is shining.»
«It does not shine. It burns. It’s clearly a light in the window.»
«Come on!»
«I’m telling you.»
«Do you have better eyesight than me?»»
«I don’t know.»
For some time he carefully looked in that direction, and then abruptly unbuckled his belt and began to descend.
«Andre-ey?!»
«Let’s get down!» he commanded in a tone that brooked no objection.
* * *
The master came inside, and all the images on the walls, on the floor and on the ceiling, as if in response to his presence, immediately came to life, starting to emit a dim phosphorescent light. At the same moment Kanny smelled that familiar bitter smell coming from the drawings.
