Weresheep Girlfriend: Mary 2 (rough draft)

Several years ago, Henry and Braun both went off to war. Land disputes between the kingdoms had come to our lands, and our people decided it was not up for grabs. Our lands were defended as best as possible, but Miror still ended up taking us as part of their property. My fiancé died in battle, and my brother, Henry, came back changed. War changes everybody, especially the soldiers, so we had expected him to come home perhaps less of what he was.

I was mourning for Braun and suffered many sleepless nights, as did Henry, so we often stayed up together, talking in the dead of night. He told me about his nightmares, of a creature taking him and biting him repeatedly until he was riddled full of holes. I thought his dreams were about the guns of the Miror army. Henry showed me his wounds, though, once they were healed enough. They did look like bite marks, dozens of them. Henry told me in secret that Miror had sent wild animals into their camp. But the animals were strangely shaped, large, and vicious. They had attacked many of the soldiers, killing some, wounding others, and one had dragged off my Braun, who Henry had thought was dead.

I begged Henry not to tell me more, but I still began having nightmares of this monster attacking me and stalking me on the farm. It took time, but eventually Henry returned to life on the farm. About a year after, though, strange things started happening around our village. People made reports of a creature attacking their chickens. Which at first was blamed on coyotes. After that, the attacks began to escalate, this creature started to hunt down geese, who are quite dangerous themselves, then goats, and sheep. The villagers began to prepare, building bigger and better barns to protect their animals at night. Some used straw fortified by mud or cement, others used the same method but with strong sticks and lumber, those who could afford it built stone structures to defend their livestock.

Well, aside from the stone structures, the other two didn’t work out well. Eventually, the creature was taking pigs after destroying the stick and straw structures. Hunts for the creature began in earnest, with large sweeps going through the woods. At night, men would hide out with their weapons, hoping to catch a glimpse of something strange stalking around.

One man allegedly came across the monster and when he told him his livestock were safe in a structure, the creature told him: “then I’ll just blow it down!” For a few weeks, the hunt was all anyone could think about. Rewards were put up for the capture of this monster, people were building traps and finding ways to hide their animals. Henry would guard our barn every night, going as far as sleeping out there, while our father stayed inside with mother and me. Then, one night, someone actually shot the creature. They were able to track it because of the trail of blood it left behind. Unbeknownst to us, the trail led right to our barn.

I was terrified. Henry was in the barn! What if that monster had him! Father kept me and mother locked in the house while he joined the rest of the hunting party. It became known all too quickly what the truth of the matter was and it ruined our lives forever.

Whatever had bitten Henry had caused him to become this monster, this wolf like thing. He was able to run off that night, but everyone was still on high alert, even against the rest of the family. Apparently, something similar had done the same to Braun. Now, Mary’s family was in danger of suffering like mine had. They are not my favorite people, but even they deserve a fate better than mine.

I have been thinking hard about what to do, and I still can’t find the key to Henry’s room. Mom locked it up and hid the key somewhere. All I can do now is go about my day as usual, and ponder what to do. The sheep are grazing, wandering around between rocks at the base of the mountain, and happily playing between bites of grass. Demeter is standing beside me and she lets out a long, heavy sigh.

“What do you know about this?” I ask her.

Demeter tilts her head to the side. “About how to save your girlfriend?”

I grit my teeth and huff. “She is not my girlfriend. She is just a girl I know.”

“Sure, sure, sure.” She tilts her head again. “I may know something. But my powers aren’t quite yet up to what they used to be.”

I kneel down beside her so I can look Demeter dead in the eye. “Mary’s life is at stake here! What’s it going to take for those supposed powers of yours to come back? You’re a sheep! Surely you know the way to stop this. Do you know the monster that caused all this? The evil sheep that bites people?”

“Calm down! Just because I’m a sheep deity, you think I know them all?” Demeter sniffs. “These things take time, you can’t just simply force it. Great power takes a lot of care and nurturing. You can’t just take it or else you really become a monster.”

I frown. “Is that what happened to Henry and Braun?”

“They had power forced upon them.” Demeter looks out across the field. “I may not be able to save your girlfriend, but I can get something going to be able to protect her.”

“She’s not-” I huff and let it slide. “Fine, what is it?”

“There is something out there,” Demeter tells me. “Between the mountains and hidden close yet far away. I need you to trust me if we are going to go there.”

I huff and rub my face between my hands. “What is it?”

“I can’t tell you, I have to show you.” She looks up at me. “Is it a relief or a burden knowing it isn’t your brother this time?”

I rub my eyes then gaze up, looking over my sheep and doing a quick count. “What do you know of it?”

“More than you think.”

I tighten my jaw and shake my head. “It isn’t something I like to think about. I try to ignore it and hope it goes away.”

Demeter stands and faces me directly. “That is why you cannot sleep and why you are having the nightmares that you do. You’re forcing down all these things that need to be faced. You cannot bury it, it is not dead yet.”

“Once again, what do you know?” I snap at her. “If you have been slumbering, how do you know? What could you possibly understand about what happened to my family?”

Her eyes take on the human guise again. “I know that you still love him, or else the things that have happened would not wound you so much. I also know Mary means more to you than ‘just some girl you know.’”

I scowl at her and turn myself away. “She is not my girlfriend.” I look out over the hills and grass, watching it go up the base of the mountains which became rocky and jagged. I pull my knees up and rest my head upon them. “Just tell me what I have to do so I can get all of this behind me?”

Demeter stands up and nudges me. “Can I show you something?”

I lift my head and glare at her. “Like what?”

She nods her head then begins heading in a direction. “Follow me, that’s all you have to do, Bo.”

I look up and see her standing before a path which the sheep have already begun to follow. I stand up and scoff. “I don’t have time for this. Where are they going?” I follow after the sheep with Demeter following along beside me. The path is old, I hadn’t thought much about it. Since it leads along a rocky path, I’ve never taken my sheep along it. The path twists around rocks and under cliffs. Eventually things become lush and earthy with thick patches of moist moss. The path fades, coming upon just a sea of moss and mushrooms. At the back, under a beam of light, there is a small shack of a house. Along the side there is a big fence where three pigs are snorting and watching us.

I frown as the sheep spread out, sniffing the moss and nibbling at the mushrooms. “What is this?” I gasp in alarm as one of the sheep is engulfed in a cloud of spores and grows twice its normal size.

“Get out of here!” A voice shouts from the house. Someone comes out the door, shooing away a sheep from the porch. “Get out of here!” The man stops cold. “Bo?”

I stare in alarm. My body flashes between cold and hot. My heart races then slows to a dead stop. My stomach knots up and churns, causing my knees to go weak. Tears flood to my eyes and I almost want to scream. Instead, my voice comes out weak and chopped. “Henry?”

He steps off the porch with a strange look upon his face. His body is shaggy and he looks extremely thin. His long muzzle has hints of white to it. Before he vanished, he had not shifted completely into the wolf yet. He had been a jigsaw puzzle of human and wolf.

“You shouldn’t be here,” he breathes.

Demeter nudges her head against my legs and I move forward. “Why are you?”

“Look at me,” he snarls. “I’m the big bad wolf.”

“Yeah, I see that!” I snap at him. “But how?”

“He has been chosen by a brother to mine,” Demeter replies. “Someone very much like me, but more in tune to blood and mayhem.”

Henry’s lips curl as he looks at Demeter. “Why is that thing talking?”

“Henry,” I stand before Demeter and extend out my arms. “How long have you been here? Why haven’t you come home?”

His eyes flick up to mine again. “What good would it do? Dad would try to kill me. Mom would hate me. The whole town would want to see me hanging from my neck over a pyre. Think, Bo! Why would I ever want to go back there? To die?”

“Then why stay so close?” Demeter asks calmly.

Henry points to her and snaps his jaws. “Seriously, what the fuck is that?”

“I honestly don’t know, Henry!” I snap. “She just showed up one day. But she’s right! Why remain so close to home? Why not try to run north or towards the Tulgey Wood?”

He stiffens and turns when the pigs start snorting and squealing. “What would be the point? I just found myself here. The mushrooms calmed my nerves, they made the change less painful, less-” His hand hovers around his head before he drops it. “I couldn’t go anywhere looking like this, so I just remained here.”

Demeter lifts her chin. “Sometimes the tether to home is quite short.”

“I don’t like you! Talking black sheep, dad was right! Black sheep and goats can’t be trusted.” I stomp over to his pigs, pulling a rope that allows slop to pour down from a hatch on the side of the house.

I chase after him, my feet sinking into the moss so I have to trudge up slowly. “This isn’t about Demeter, Henry. Braun came back and he bit Mary!”

Henry turns and scowls at me. “What?”

I nearly fall over but I catch myself on the fence. “Braun is back and he’s some giant sheep monster.” I pull myself up as Henry just glares at me. “He bit Mary and now she’s changing too. I need your help!”

“I thought-” His brows furrow deep and he scoffs. “I don’t know what I can do. Obviously nothing worked to save me.”

I smack his arm like I used to when I was pissed at him. “Braun is wild, you’re not. What did you do to stop that?”

He motions around himself. “The mushrooms here. I came here after I was chased from home. There was nothing to eat, so I started to eat the mushrooms that were here. They did something, leveled me out, but they made this change permanent.”

“Permanent?”

He nods. “That’s why I stayed in the barn most nights.” He turns to look down at his three pigs. “I would shift at night, sometimes gradually, sometimes all at once. But I always changed back in the morning.”

“So maybe Braun does too,” I murmur.

“Maybe,” he grumbles. “But I don’t know the long term effects of this curse.”

I look around. “So which mushrooms?”

“Any and all? I just ate to eat.” He says. “If you need them for Mary, take what you want. They grow back overnight.”

“Perhaps that’s the key then,” Demeter murmurs thoughtfully.

Henry just glares at Demeter. “Perhaps. But why would you want to help Mary? I thought you hated her?”

I fold my arms around myself and frown. “I don’t want her to suffer. I’m bitter but I’m not cruel, Henry.”

Henry goes and sits down on a log before his house. “Well, I told you all I could. Take the mushrooms, take your sheep, both talking and not, and go on home.”

“Can I come back?” I ask him.

Henry rubs the back of his neck. “It’s best you don’t, Bo. Go back to thinking I’m dead. Go home. Your sheep should return to normal by morning. If not, blue is small, red is big.”

I look down and nod. “If it means anything, Henry, I am glad to see you.”

He grunts his reply, not giving me anything more than that. Demeter nudges my hand, urging me that it was time for us to go. My sheep are roaming around, changing sizes depending on what mushrooms they eat. I whistle and they come to me, some bigger or smaller than they were before. I leave the mossy valley where my brother lives and lead the sheep back home.

Once I’m home, I get back to preparing Demeter’s wool to turn into yarn. I stay there silently as she watches me. “You’re angry with me.”

“I am not angry, I am just thinking,” I mumble. My hands work faster and faster on the wool. “My brother is alive, that’s good. That’s fine.”

Demeter approaches me and stands beside me. “What do you want, Bo?”

“What do you mean?”

Demeter rests at my feet. “Out of life. What is it you’d like? You were going to marry once before. Is that something you still wish for?”

“Does it matter?”

“Of course it does.”

The comb gets stuck in the wool and rips from my hands. It falls to the ground and Demeter sniffs at it. I sigh heavily as I stoop down to pick it up. “I don’t know,” I grumble under my breath. “I’ve never known. Even when I was engaged to Braun, I didn’t know. I’ve never had a chance to know.” The faster and harder I comb the wool, the more it begins to shine like gold. “My whole life is ripped to shreds!”

“Then spin it back together,” Demeter says gently.

I rub the tears from my eyes. “My life isn’t fibers of wool.”

Demeter lays her head against the side of my leg. “Perhaps it is. When was the last time you felt sure of something? Or that life was going in a direction you felt you could live with?”

I sniffle and rub my eyes. “I’m not sure. I just remember as a kid I would have been happy with anything as long as I had Mary as my friend.”

Demeter lifts her eyes to me. “Is that when it went off the rails?”

“Maybe,” I murmur thoughtfully.

Demeter yawns and her mouth splits open into that horrifying maw. “Mary is your girlfriend for a reason, Bo.”

“Stop saying that! Mary is just a girl, who used to be a friend, but now is just someone who exists in my life.” I scoff, gathering up the wool now that it has finally been carded, I have to start the roving process. I like this part as I can focus solely on it and nothing else around me. Once this is over, I will start the spinning, and make bolts of yarn to sell. Hopefully, this will sell well because of the deep black color.

I must have fallen asleep as I wake up with my head on the table. I've messed up some of the roving strips, but I’m too tired to focus. I look up to see Demeter is standing on her hind legs again, and looking down at me. I rub my eyes and sigh heavily.

“I never fall asleep like this,” I murmur. “Are you putting some sort of spell on me?”

“It is not a spell. Your brother was a wild thought in your mind, roaming around and causing those nightmares of uncertainty. Now that you know where he is, he is no longer in your mind.” She stretches out her arm and points a finger to the center of my forehead. “Your sleep is yours now. Although I am surprised you don’t dream about your-”

“She’s not my girlfriend!” I growl sleepily. I gently push her hand away. “You said it was your brother that did that to Henry.”

“Yes,” she breathes. She folds her hands together and turns her head away. “The Wolf in Sheep’s Clothing. He had once created an army of wolves to do his bidding. I thought he would have slumbered too, after the Court of Chess, but apparently, he does not sleep long.”

I look up at her sorrowfully. “Is there a way to change Henry back? Braun too?”

Demeter bows her head. “I’m sorry, Bo, but the effects of my brother’s curse have no cure. Your brother will be a wolf till the day he dies.”

I sigh heavily. “Can you do the same? If you bite me, will I turn into a sheep?”

Demeter chuckles. “Is that something you would want?”

I glare up at her, brow pinched. “Did you bite Braun?”

“Not me, but perhaps one of my children.” Demeter says thoughtfully. “It is possible it is descended from me. But I have not been close enough to someone to bite them until you.”

I stare slack jawed up at her.

“Oh, don’t go blaming me,” she huffs. She snaps her hands onto her hips. “This Miror army sending in these creatures seems to be the one to blame.”

I stand up and point sharply at her. “If it is your fault, then maybe you have a way of curing Mary and Braun!”

Demeter rolls her eyes. “I told you! There isn’t. And it isn’t entirely my fault. I didn’t go around biting people unless they deserved it.”

“Well, apparently, those who deserved it didn’t quite follow your strict moral code!” I plop back down in the chair. “Some fairy godmother you turned out to be.”

There’s a knock at the barn door and Demeter shifts back into a black sheep. I stand up and go to the barn door. “I’ll be inside in a second, Dad.”

“No, it’s me,” Mary’s strained voice cries. “Please, let me in!”