Chapter 20 - Midwinter Songs

"Leave the pain behind and let your life be your own again. There is a place where all time is now, and the choices are simple and always your own. Wolves have no kings."

Robin Hobb

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..::The wolves Geri and Freki were the Norse god Odin's faithful pets who were reputed to be "of good omen."
In the Lay of Hyndla, the völva (witch) Hyndla rides a wolf, and to Baldr's funeral, the Giantess Hyrrokin arrived on a wolf.

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Wolves are the witches of the animal world.

Katherine Rundell

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Morning came. It was unlike any Emlyn had hitherto experienced. Upon opening her eyes, she was momentarily disoriented, then recalled where she was.
  The light was different. Brighter, whiter.
 

Arising, she went to the window.
  White...everywhere. All was snow-coated overnight.
'...Glory,' she breathed. Wrapping herself in a quilt, she edged into her shoes and headed downstairs.
                                                                                                                                                                   

'Egad, it's freezing,' she mumbled, shuffling about the kitchen. Need to get the old woodstove up and sparking before she could even think.
   'Complete madness, this...quite possibly catching pneumonia here,' and other murmurings were uttered in little puffs of breath which Em could see before her in the frigid morning air.
   'Tea, tea, tea,' she chanted as she filled the kettle with shaking hands, then hugged the old stove against herself as it heated. 'Ahh, mi amigo, si, muy caliente...'
   Speaking Spanish helped her forget the chill as she urged the great iron monster to life.


Eventually it did flame on and it didn't take long before the kitchen became comfortable enough. With her first sip of hot tea, Em's shoulders relaxed and she finally found the stove too hot to hold, reluctantly moving away somewhat.


'Fantastic,' she breathed, edging to the window and gazing at the great shining, pure white sheeting which covered all.
   '"In the bleak mid-winter, frosty wind made moan,'" Emlyn quoted  Rossetti, thinking she'd the right of it, indeed.
   '-- And howl,' she added, recalling the wolfish song of the evening before. Hm. Yes. It's out there the Great White.


Feeling quite warmed now, Em couldn't wait to head outdoors into the Great White Cold. She'd just take a peek out now and see how things stood.
  To the front door she went and unlatching, opened it just enough to poke her nose out...
  ' -- Yeeeooow!'
    The door slammed shut.


'Oooh, no no no...,' Emlyn scurried back to the stove.
More tea and some hot breakfast were uppermost in her mind now. Later, perhaps that dim sun would show his face more.
   'I'm not coming out until you do,' she told him.

..........

That was sooner rather than later, as it happened.


First, Em had managed to scrounge up some heavy dungarees of Daryl's which she tied about her waist with a rope, as belts were all too large for her, then rolled up the hems enough to walk. She also located a thermal undershirt and a heavy sweater of his that would suffice. Staying warm was the main idea, and this was hardly Main Street.


She wore her own boots. A stocking cap and a woolen scarf completed her snow suit, and Emlyn made another attempt to open the door. Edging it wider a bit at a time, she at last managed to squeeze outside, feeling rather like a stuffed scarecrow.

The sun was a welcome spot of pale butter yellow.  She gazed about, a wide grin upon her face.
   Everything looked so pristine and pure without a mark of bird, beast or man. Em wondered how far away the wolves were. They sounded rather far, than near. But they moved like the wind.

Emlyn recalled there was a lake somewhere near the great dark forest. 'The Schwarzwald,' she whispered to herself, not wanting to make any loud sounds, to blend in with the quiet world around her, trying to breathe softly.
  She headed toward the lake.

Entering the great wood of mostly conifer, it was darker, colder. But the sun was growing brighter and soon shot beams of gold through the spaces amongst the boughs and branches. It wasn't all evergreens she found, as she penetrated deeper within the forest, but stands of birch gathered together, denuded and picturesque, white on white. Pine and fir, some spruce, curly-barked beech she found, too, and alder. Snow hadn't covered all inside the wood, and patches of bare pine mulch showed a sort of path. This she followed.


She heard birds about, and occasionally caught a flash of red here and there. Hoping she might actually see a real cardinal, her first, she tried to follow these flickers of red, but found them too fast for her.
    Ahead she spied a broad swathe of sunlight and hoping for a clearing, she stepped up her pace to find, more snow, yes, but also a nice view of the remembered lake, looking fast frozen now, like a mirror of ice. A gathering of birch trees ringed it on this side.
    She recalled the howls in the evening. She could see all the wolves congregated here, circling the lake reflecting the moon...
                                                                 

   Turning from the path, she trundled through the snow drifts down to the lake, lifting her knees high to get through the brush and fallen logs, then she felt herself going down and down into rabbit and gopher holes unseen, but she pushed on and at last found herself lakeside.  Emlyn was desperately wishing she had her old ice skates with her now!


Nicely open to the sun here, Em rested a moment, enjoying the wan warmth on her face as she looked about her. Birds chirped and flitted about the frozen reeds along the shoreline. No red feathers showed themselves as yet, however.
  Moving along the bank, Em crunched her way, seeking signs. And finding them.


Paw prints. Rather large ones. Paw prints were edged around a hole in the lake ice.
  Emlyn stopped and looked about her. Proof positive: she was not alone.


Perhaps she should have brought Daryl's rifle after all, she thought belatedly.
  They were much closer than she'd first thought.
  She gingerly drew nearer to the prints, however, studying them. They weren't very fresh, snow had nearly covered them.
But they were visible enough. Still, only one wolf was here, it seemed. Not wolves, plural. Not yet...
                                                                      
                                                                                                  

She shivered then. And bethought that she'd had enough of adventuring for now.  Although she
had her mobile unit at the ready, and knew it would have her out of any danger in a second, still,
that was only if she could see it coming...
     She turned and began heading back the way she had come, back to the kitchen and the wonders of warmth.
     She was nearly through the Schwarzwald, when she stopped, listening. She seemed to be hearing something heading through the brush farther down and to her right...
  She ducked down behind a fallen snow-covered log.


Willing herself to silence, she slowly poked her head up. There was something. Or, someone?
   Much taller than a wolf it was:  Emlyn spied a dark figure
moving through the trees, followed by another, slightly shorter.
People' But, who? She knew only of Athena, or Manuel, possibly.
Although, Athena had intimated that she had 'friends' who would miss her here.


Still, something kept Em in hiding. She watched as the two figures stopped briefly, then the smaller form took the lead, the taller following. As they moved off, Emlyn slowly stood, staying quiet as she could, watching.


The smaller person in front moved like Athena, but they were still too far away, and in too much shadow, for Em to be certain. Coming up behind, the larger appeared to be male, but although certainly tall, it was not at all like the seven-feet-and-more that made up Axelis.


Em thought she might try to catch them up, but just as she was about to make her move, suddenly, the taller figure was eclipsed by a stand of fir trees...and later emerged as something else altogether:
  It was much shorter now. Although slightly shorter than Athena, its back came rather above her waist. A large broad head, with shorter ears than a coyote, with a thick white coat of fine fur, it followed along after Athena, looking quite amiable, yet fantastically outre': a wolf in place of a man!


Emlyn's mouth went dry. She couldn't swallow; she could barely think. No, she wouldn't think...
  It did not bear thinking of.
But, no one else came out of the trees. Athena, and The Wolf, moved together in line, one after the other, out into the park, and then turned to head toward the gatehouse.
At last, Em shook herself a bit, shivered, really, and moved off, returning to her path through the woods and home, with much on her mind.



What, exactly, had she just seen here? What other secrets did Athena keep? Em knew she had a way with creatures and kept the odd wounded ones, nursing them back to health and wholeness. 
   Axelis had been the oddest of her companions thus far. Em pondered on that word a moment, the etymology which rendered 'com' or 'with' and 'pan' or 'bread' = a companion, someone  with whom one shares bread.
       Wolves would share bread, only if there wasn't meat, Em knew. But, a man-wolf? What of these?
   Emlyn wondered about bringing a rifle, now. It isn't murder to shoot an animal, but...perhaps this being was more of a 'who' than a 'what'.
                                                                      

 Always interesting, Athena had said, about the weather here.

  'And that ain't all!' Em shook her head as she slogged onward, glad, for once, to see the house at last.

Emlyn had returned to the kitchen and built up the fire in the woodstove, making tea. This she took with her, pot and all, into the library.


Good, she thought; wood and kindling awaited by the fireplace. Manuel's welcome touches became evident to her now that she was here on her own...the Lady of the Manor, if she wished. She didn't.


Sighing, she stared about her, hands on hips. This enormous house, grand though it was, was a white elephant, in both size and practicality.
  Em began work on her second fire of the day, building up this one to last a while. She poured tea, and sipped as she strode about the room. Glancing upward, she espied the loft.
   -- And! Yeats' day bed! 'Of course!' Emlyn had an idea.


'I'll simply move everything down to the library...and sleep, live, move and have my being, right here.'
   It seemed a perfect solution. 'Naturally, I'll have to exit to cook, or bathe, but otherwise, I can function quite well in the library...' Indeed, Em had easily fallen into the habit so beloved of old bachelor uncles and other glad lunatics, shut-ins and guests on permanent vacation in the Bastille... talking to herself, inanimate objects, plants and animals, and for no reason at all.

'Let's just give this bed a test rest first...' She scampered up the spiral stairway to the loft, enjoying the view from above.
    'It's perfect.' Her gaze roamed about the floor below; books from floor to ceiling and wall-to-wall. The ideal place to lodge a librarian, indeed.                                                           
                                                            



 Sitting upon the bed, she let herself fall back onto the pillows. Not bad. Could be a bit more firm, for support. Em sighed, and imagined herself going quietly, peacefully mad here...
  'Could be worse fates.'
Suppose the piano will have to stay where it is, she mused, sitting up, elbows on the wooden railing bordering the loft.

'Can always bring mandolin and guitar up here, though.'

She studied the titles surrounding her here; presumably Yeats' and Daryl's favorites of the moment. Much to do with the Knights Templar, and the Cathars; Em knew why Daryl was obsessed with these, she was curious about their past lives as well.
    Books on Ley Lines; the 'dragon' lines of electromagnetism that ran along water courses and such that dowsers followed. Knightly orders and books on heraldry and Scottish clans and tartans. Hmmm...
     To Emlyn's delight, there were also well-used books on Myths and Legends of Olde Europe, Fairy Tales and such. Herbologies, Culpepper's and others, and books on birding and wild edibles of local field and forest.


Soon Emlyn laid hands upon a book which gradually laid hold of her as well, about the goddesses and spirits of the Baltic countries, called a rusalka:
   'The Rusalki live in the depths of the rivers,
    but in the month of May, in the morning at sunrise,
    they come out from there, naked,
    and dance in the rye fields with their pestles and sing.'

                                                                             

  And, wouldn't you just know it, again Emlyn found the story of the vila or vilies, Anglesized as 'willies', as in: 'just being in that place gave me the willies!'
And in that place where the 'willies' danced, they took off their wings, their white chemises and the ivy twined about them, and swam and sang and danced together, as, unbeknownst to them, a shepherd watched, enraptured.


Of course he became greedy and wished for one of them for his own, and so stole the willie's things to keep her from returning with her sisters. And so the shepherd pressed her to come home with him, and to be his wife.


'Typical,' Em sighed, turning the page. Naturally, however, a willy does not change within, simply because they are temporarily bereft of their accoutrements. Although she does bear the man's children, eventually her sacred items were restored to her, when her husband wishes to show off her dancing to his friends...

"Surely you know, Stoyan,
that a willy cannot keep house,
a willy cannot nurture children.
Seek me, Stoyan, there in the forest,
On the peaks of the Rila Mountains,
On the willies' playground,
Beside the willies' lake.'

Then she flew away.
                                                               

 'Ah, at last!' Em congratulated the rusalka, then read on: Apparently, she found, that within the Eastern Rite countries, it seemed these spirits were the girls who had died without issue, 'without becoming ancestors, themselves'.


'Utterly fantastic!' Emlyn could hardly believe her eyes. This made her relieved that she lived in the West. Imagine a world where one was considered  'worthless' for not having borne a child. Nothing was said about men who had not become fathers.


Apparently, as usual, only women were without a soul if they couldn't incubate and produce issue. How convenient that men had written up laws to sanction their Male God who made MEN in HIS image. His-story, indeed.  Em felt rather queasy to her stomach suddenly.


She did come upon, in Greece, however, a single listing of Euripides which points out Medea's conclusion:
'Three times in battle I would rather stand
 than once in childbirth.'

Good on ya, Medea, as her Aussie friends would have said. Following the asterisk, Em read the footnote below which stated the remarkable statistic that: "during World War I, more American women died in childbirth, than American men died in war."


Sobering, that. Em was brought up short to realise how Out Of Time she actually was here...and with war looming on the horizon, for those back in her own epoch.


She closed the book, The Dancing Goddesses by Elizabeth Wayland Barber, and fell back upon the bed, slightly stunned. For here, she was surrounded by Jack and Daryl's Time Lock. With books, from Out Of Time. She did not even glance at the copyright date...it was from Daryl's time, not her own.
  But here she knew that somehow this estate and surroundings were outside of Time. Where was she, then? And all outside of the designated demense, a world of absolute hell reigned...The Future.


If one were a serious student of history, however, the world had always been embroiled in one sort of hell or other; what with plagues, invasions, natural disasters and the like. It boggled the wee mind to think that this one area, was somehow immune.


'Interesting weather, indeed,' Em mused to herself, and interesting creatures here, too. Had Athena brought someone here, to offer asylum, perhaps? A creature, like herself, rescued from Time's Onslaught? 
                                                           

She needed a book on shapeshifters. Perhaps something detailing First Nations and their medicine people. Rising, she sought amongst what was available in the upper loft, surely Daryl would be curious about local tribes...


Noting the graceful artwork on the spine of one book led Emlyn to delve into some writings on wolves, at least, and how they were honored or denigrated, depending upon the area and tribal affiliations:


"Wolves were generally revered by Aboriginal Canadians that survived by hunting, but were thought little of by those that survived through agriculture. Some Alaska Natives including the Nunamiut of both northern and northwestern Alaska respected the wolf's hunting skill and tried to emulate the wolf in order to hunt successfully. First Nations such as Naskapi as well as Squamish and Lil'wat view the wolf as a daytime hunting guide.


The Naskapis believed that the caribou afterlife is guarded by giant wolves that kill careless hunters who venture too near. The Netsilik Inuit and Takanaluk-arnaluk believed that the sea-woman Nuliayuk's home was guarded by wolves.


Native Americans have long seen the wolf as an animal of power. Many tribes credit the actual creator of the earth to be a wolf. The Arikara and Ojibwe believed a wolfman spirit made the Great Plains for them and for other animals. Many tribes consider wolves to be closely related to humans.. The reason for this belief is because of the wolf’s dedication to its pack, a trait the tribes attributed with themselves."                                                                                                                                                          

Em closed the book. Running with the pack. That sounded good to her, pack ethics...far outshone human of late.
   Oddly, she found herself yawning...shouldn't be at all sleepy...it was only mid-afternoon. But, all this reading somehow, and snow slogging, and now having an actual bed in a library...set her mind to dreaming awake, and as she took up the bed quilt, wrapping it about her, she allowed herself to slide fully into Yeats' lofty library world and dreamland...
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In The Bleak Midwinter : Choir of Kings College, Cambridge