Chapter #6A Cure for the Curse by: Joy   But the wolf did not smile back. Instead, he seemed to be changing shape. He stretched his neck like a pipe and howled. Immediately two big horns appeared on his head. Then he stretched his paws and his nails started growing until they were ten inches long. Then he opened his mouth and growled, as his fangs grew the size of a grown-man’s arms.
“Oh,” Sabrina said, knowing she had no escape, but her only way out was to use her head. “Oh, how wonderful! Just how did you do that?” Hadn’t her fairy of a mother told her in a dream that even the wildest of beasts could be tamed by a loving and gentle hand?
The wolf seemed to be taken aback. He stared at her with--what seemed to Sabrina as- love-starved eyes. As Sabrina looked back into the beast’s eyes faking bravery, her mother’s relentless, demanding voice whispered in her ear. “Remember your fairy blood.”
Fairy blood? Now what was that? She drew in a ragged breath as her flesh prickled cold and damp with perspiration.
“I am Sabrina, Sir,” she said in gentle voice, but without letting her eyes hold any deference in the least. “The daughter of Celine, the fairy.”
The wolf’s eyes’ lofty arrogance in their intense yellow brightness paled then, and he sat on his haunches, still staring at Sabrina.
“Celine,” he moaned. “Oh, that Celine! She broke my heart.”
“I heard my mother was wasted here in the woods,” Sabrina continued. Surely, she didn’t want to say ‘you’d eaten her.’ That would give the beast new ideas.
“A fairy is never wasted or eaten, little Halfling,” the wolf said. “Fact is, she had had it enough with her mother-in-law and the man she called husband, in fact, the entire humankind who neither respected nor understood her.”
Now, Sabrina was truly surprised. Had her grandmother and father not told her the truth? “She is still…”
“Yes, she still is here living in the woods in the fairyland with her kind, but as much as I’ve chased her, and I am using the word chase metaphorically, she wouldn’t even look at me. My stalking her annoyed the queen of the fairies, so she gave me this shape. Anytime I approach someone I like, I turn into a beast.”
“Shucks,” said Sabrina, taking a deep breath, “That means you like me. I like you, too. In fact, I like all animals and all life. It’s not fair what has been done to you. Just because you liked someone…”
“Oh to be so naïve! I had sensed that about you, little Halfling. But life is never about fairness.”
“I wish it were,” said Sabrina. “After all your mistake was loving someone. As far as the reality of justice is concerned…”
“Beings like us make their own reality, little Halfling. We love for reasons even unknown to our own selves.”
“Well, whatever the reason, still it is not fair. I am still young but I always think of love to be the hardest thing to find and keep. Love can make the worst things, the most unimaginable things, tolerable. I think it is even better than hope.”
“Hope, yes,” intoned the beast. “Now looking at you, I am finding the hope. The hope for this curse to be lifted of me.”
“So there is a possibility, you say, as hope means possibility,” said Sabrina. “Can you tell me what you hope for? Maybe I can help.”
“Yes, you can, but I don’t want to tell you what, because if I ask for the cure from anyone, it undoing of the curse won’t happen.”
“You mean, I have to figure it out for myself.”
“Yeah, exactly. And yah! Spells are fought with other spells.” The beast smiled now, baring sharpened fangs that looked fatal to Sabrina, and she wondered if the beast was eager to sink them into her. “Your fairy blood,” the invisible Celine whispered in her ear.
“Your smile hides your pain and tears, and what your outward appearance now shows to the world is only a cover that conceals what’s inside. I respect that.”
“I am lined with scars and wounds that go all the way to the foundation of my existence,” sighed the beast. “But no one sees the real me.”
“Oh, but I do, and I think you are a wonderful…entity. Very lovable, in fact. If you would only let me…”
The beast’s eyes suddenly shone as if stars from the night sky had fallen into them. “I would let you do anything you wish, anything you’d like to do.”
“May I, then,” Sabrina swallowed her next breath…”stroke your fur and hug you?”
The beast nodded his eyes tearing up. He is such an emotional beast! Maybe all beasts are really very emotional, and we don’t understand them, thought Sabrina. She believed now that she was in no danger. This beast could, would not, harm her.
Laura stumbled momentarily toward the beast, losing her stride, but regained her balance almost immediately, approaching him with unobtrusive steps. With a modest smile, she reached to his powerful neck and put her arms around it. The beast growled, but Sabrina kept her arms tight around the beast. Then she bent her head and put her lips on the smelly, rust colored fur.
The beast let out a first rasping, then a bubbling sound. His body quavered and his eyes rolled in their sockets. The horns on his head, his claws and fangs retracted, and his size grew smaller. Now he was a small wolf, not the ferocious one Sabrina had first encountered, and definitely not a beast.
The wolf turned and licked Sabrina’s face, just like Bo used to do. “Thank you, Little Halfling friend of mine,” he yapped. “You are a brave one. And you broke the curse. I will be in your debt, forever.”
“How did I do that? I don’t understand…” Sabrina was amazed at the change in the beast, but more shocking was the fact that she was the one who had caused it.
“You loved the unlovable,” the wolf said. “But come to think of it, I think you are a glutton for punishment. This could go either way, you know.”
“I trusted you, Sir,” Sabrina said. “And even in your beastly state, I loved you, truly loved you, as you have something gentle about you like my Bo had once.”
“Now, my Halfling Friend,” said the wolf. “Let’s cut through the chase. First, please stop calling me sir. Lofty titles are difficult on one’s shoulders. Give me a name, so you can call me with it or just call me Friend.”
Sabrina thought she should name her wolf as….
1120 words 
 indicates the next chapter needs to be written. |
| Members who added to this interactive story also contributed to these: |
View Portfolio
Visit Notebook
Send Gift Points
Awards
Badges
Send Email
Community Newsfeed
General Discussion
Sponsored Items
Book of Trinkets
Static Items
Books
Groups
Interactive Stories
Audio
Campfire Creatives
Community Notes
Crossword Puzzles
Documents
Folders
Images
In & Outs
Madlibs
Photo Albums
Polls
Product Reviews
Quizzes
Survey Forms
Web Pages
Word Searches
More by this author