consumes everything about me that is real and good and
—his clothes are still gone and he cannot remember how to stay human. He tries to fix his mind on it, on what it means to feel present in his own skin. He tries to remember words, to snatch at prayers; he clutches the altar as though Eucharistic stone will bind his skin in place, but the only holy water in this chapel is the rain seeping in, washing away the sacraments and ritual. There are birds nesting in the walls, mice curled up in the corners, and—
a wolf in front of the altar, shuddering and violent
with the effort of trying not to become
—it has the air of an abandoned thing, that cloying desolation that chokes the surrendered, leaving behind—
despair –that’s it that’s the taste
in the back of my mouth –is a little like bloodlust
and a little like rage.
full of emptiness. made of loss
—nothing to hold him, nothing to keep him real, and in the end—
I slip out of my skin one last time
leave the man crumpled by the altar
invisible and unremarked except to ghosts
but I know he’s there I saw him fall
and I am just wolf and I cannot undo the shattering of my bones
and I cannot repair the sundering of my flesh
I am just wolf even if I remember being something else
—it feels like grief, being wolf – it is so much like grief, so much like loss, so much like kneeling abandoned beside the body of something destroyed—
I am just wolf just grief just wolf just grief
all lost
27
You
Bisclavret is missing.
At first you think nothing of it. It’s not uncommon for him to be gone for a short while, though few tales ever reach you of his time errant and you’re still unsure where it is that he travels. Your concern grows as the days stretch into a week and then further, but still you keep it to yourself. No doubt he has told his friends where he has gone and why.
He should have told you too, of course. It is unlike him to neglect such a courtesy. But he will have had his reasons, and you try to put it from your mind. It’s only when the other knights comment on his absence that you realise there may be some genuine cause for concern.
‘He hasn’t been seen in days,’ says one.
‘Longer than that,’ says another. ‘My wife sent word to his, but she had little news to offer, except that his steward has recalled his cousin to act in his stead. Bisclavret is away from home. Nobody knows when he left or where he went, and nobody knows when he is coming back.’
‘Oh, hisstewardrecalled the cousin, did he,’ says your red-haired knight, sharp-tongued and inclined to rumour. ‘That’s not entirely the tale I heard.’
‘What did you hear?’ you ask, and they turn to you in surprise:normally you refrain from contributing to their discussions until your input is requested.
‘It’s small-minded tattle,’ says your knight in green. ‘Pay it no mind, my lord.’
