Again, we wait in silence until our beverages arrive. It’s sweet tea, surprisingly sweet. “We need the energy boost from the sugar,” Liam tells me when he notices my curious gaze. “And I think you could use an energy boost, too.”
“So, itisbad,” I conclude.
“Yes,” Elden answers. “Listen, Gwen. I don’t know how to tell you, but I couldn’t reach out to her wolf.”
“Neither could I,” Liam says, his voice trailing off.
“What are you not telling me?” I ask quietly.
“The reason why we couldn’t reach it,” Elden says, “is because thereisno wolf.”
“But…but she always had one! I saw her shift before she left the pack!”
“Yes, that’s what makes it so bad,” Liam says. “Remember how easy it was to reach your wolf spirit, despite it being different than usual ones?”
I nod, biting on my lips as slowly realization settles in. She has lost her wolf, Marina has lost her wolf! “How can that happen? How can someone lose their wolf spirit?”
“It’s impossible to lose it,” Elden explains. “If anything, a wolf spirit can be buried to heal, it can retreat to deal with trauma, but it never disappears fully. It doesn’t just happen, unless the wolf spirit dies.”
My mouth drops open in horror. “That can happen?!”
“It’s very rare,” Liam mutters. “The council in Paris can do it as a punishment for heinous crimes, but they only do it in the worst cases, and even then, the whole council has to agree with it. It happens very, very rarely. In the last ten years, they only did it once.” There is a hint of bitterness in his voice. It seems like there is a story behind this, but I have more urgent things to ask.
“But Faye does feel a bond?” I blurt out. “Right? She always wants to be with her mother!”
“Gwen,” Elden says quietly, taking my hand into his and holding it like I am one of his children. “Faye went through something deeply traumatic. We don’t know what it is, we don’t even know if she was directly involved, but if her mother’s wolf was killed, then something terrible had to happen, and chances are high that Faye has seen some of it.”
“The mind does peculiar things for us when we are in danger,” Liam adds. “Some people forget traumatic pasts in their childhood because their brains prevent them from remembering. It’s a coping mechanism.”
Elden nods. “I can only guess now, but I believe Faye doesn’t feel a bond. It’s impossible as her mother’s wolf has passed on. If anything, there is only a hint of it remaining. Instead, Faye might instinctively cling to her mother and pretend everything is fine, because it’s her mind’s way of protecting her. It’s the only way she can cope with it.”
Liam rubs his face in exhaustion. “The poor child,” he mutters. “We must do something for her. If at one point the coping mechanism doesn’t work anymore, it will make her spiral.”
“What does all of this mean?” I say quietly. “What does it mean for Marina not to have her wolf spirit anymore?”
Elden massages his temples.
“Please be honest with me. I promise, I can handle it.”
“She can’t survive,” he says. “It’s impossible. She made it a year or longer in this state, but she is deteriorating, as we have heard today. It’s the first sign. She will die, Gwen, sooner rather than later.”
It feels like someone just punched me in my stomach. My blood runs cold, and my stomach seems to churn, making me feel sick. “Can we prevent it?” I ask, my voice shaky even to my own ears.
“We can prolong it for a while,” Liam says, surprisingly evasively. “She will soon need to be in the infirmary, then I guess we could try and keep her alive for a couple of more months.”
I let his words sink in while trying to hear what he is truly saying. “We should let her go,” I say quietly. “Is that what you are implying?”
“Marina died already,” Elden tells me. “This is literally just her shell. Her wolf spirit died, her mind completely shut off, she can only go through the motions because it’s a very old routine she has learned. She can’t feel anyone’s presence, she has no bonds to anyone anymore, she doesn’t feel the warmth of her child’stouch, she doesn’t even hear her voice. Maybe she did at the beginning, but then started to fade more and more.”
My lips quiver. “I don’t want her to suffer. I never wanted her to… Why did no one help her?”
“That’s the most urgent question right now,” Elden says, his eyes dark in anger. “What happened to her is inhuman beyond words. We’ll get to the bottom of this and catch whoever did it.”
“She was full of life,” I mutter. “She was always smiling and always had a friendly word for everyone. This is not fair. I…how am I going to tell Faye? Should I even tell her?”
“You don’t need to tell her alone,” Elden says quietly. “However, while I am not a therapist, I think it would be important to prepare Faye, so that she can say her goodbye properly. She needs to know her mother is ill and won’t recover.” He pauses. “I was a child, a couple of years older than Faye, when my mom committed suicide. Nothing prepared me for it. Instinctively, I knew how ill she was, but no one prepared me for it, no one explained anything. For years, I felt responsible, like I should have done more to help her or save her. The best we can do for Faye is take her seriously, talk to her and make sure she knows her feelings are valid, and that she is allowed to feel angry, sad and scared.”
I clench my hands into fists to will down my boiling emotions. “I think I understand it a bit better now,” I say, thankful that he shared something so private with me. “I… I want her to receive help.”
