Chapter 19: grief and bitterness

They took a smaller faster boat to get around the giant reservoir to the island dock of the temple. As Esther watched the water flying past and looked to the melt cliffs beyond, she wondered what she could say to her sister and thought about what had happened.

During the drive, Ren had done his best to explain what happened. After Eliazar had called with the first news that some had survived the massacre, Del demanded the go immediately to offer the survivors sanctuary and protection. The Delphi and her group were ambushed on the road near Grand Falls as they traveled to New Wemyss. A mixed team of wolves and humans had tried to carjack them, the Oracle’s SUV had rolled. She wasn’t wearing a seatbelt and been knocked unconscious. While the warriors fought, Luca had pulled a human off a motorcycle. Put Del on in front of him and driven away as they shot at them, shielding her with his own body. Del suffered only severe bruising to her hands and a bump on the head, but the bullets were silver cast and the further they drove from the danger, the closer Luca came to death. He made it back to Rivière-du-Loup before he collapsed.

Leon and the extra warriors from Montreal had been delayed two hours by some bad fuel put into their vehicles. An accident that now seemed contrived to rob the Delphi of half her protection. They found them by the river, Luca was dead in Del’s arms. She was singing prayers over him. When Leon said her name, she collapsed. They took them back to the Moon’s Gate and called Eliazar. Esther was put on the first plane to Quebec City; their grandfather sent her because her twin needed her, because he didn’t know what she had done to her sister. No one knew Essie had tried to seduce Del’s mate, only that they had fought again.

Leon was on the dock waiting, she ignored him as she jumped from the boat. Essie’s wolf ran up the steps from the dock before the boat was completely stopped, howling for her sister. She forced her skin over her fur before she opened the door. Del was laying in the bedroom closet, Luca’s clothes around her like a nest. She looked up at her sister with eyes that looked as dead as the ones from Esther’s visions, then she reached up and slowly pulled the door shut in Esther’s face without speaking.

Essie put her forehead against the door, “Del, I am so sorry, I don’t know why I kissed Luca but I am so sorry. Please, please let me in. Please, forgive me.”

No sound came through the door.

“Listen, Del, I’m not leaving. You were right, you’ve tried and I was a bitch. I have been stupid and selfish and it’s time to stop. Nothing was your fault, it was all my fault, my choice. Nonna warned me and I didn’t listen. I let jealousy and regret poison us. Please,Del, please forgive me,” Essie begged.

A whimpering came from the closet but Del didn’t open the door, so Essie grabbed a set of sweats out of Del’s drawer and sat down on the floor next to the door to wait.

“I’ll stay out here forever but I’m not leaving. I am never leaving you again. I’ll be better, I’ll make things better, I promise.”

For a week, Del only left her den-closet to go to the bathroom. Twice, Essie had forced Del into a bath. Making her eat every few bites every few hours. Del would sit in the closet with Luca's clothes and Essie in the doorway. What Del told her about the last year shocked Essie. Del had known since the summer before that she would lose Luca, but she chose to love him anyway. To become fully mated to him only a few weeks ago, knowing she would send his ashes away with his brothers. Del had also known the Goddess would not call her home with him. Essie could barely hide the pain she felt for her sister. Her vibrant, dutiful twin was just an empty shell and Essie wondered how the Goddess could do something this cruel to one as faithful as Del. If the Delphi couldn’t earn a blessing or happiness, who could?!?

Essie had forced Del to travel with Leon and Louis back to their home of Dolbeau to place Luca’s ashes with his parents and sisters. They had dressed as each other, and called each other by the other’s name. Leading many to believe Luca had been the Delphi’s sister’s mate and not hers. Only Ketsu, Leon, and Louis knew the truth. The broken shewolf, in black jeans and black quilted silk jacket over an AC/DC tee-shirt was the true Delphi, and not the serene she-wolf in a pale hood, boots, and flowing dress. Truthfully, since Luca’s death, they didn’t look identical at all. Delilah was so gaunt with grief, she looked like a corpse. The old Oracle Murine insisted Del not even be allowed into the scrying rooms or fear she would lose herself in the Tides. But Essie knew the truth, the Moon had closed the gate of the Tides to her sister. Delilah wasn’t even an oracle anymore.

Nearly one hundred ranked wolves of the Moon's faithful gathered to honor not just Luca but all the fallen of the Delphi's protection detail. As the fake Delphi, Esther spoke of her sister’s mate and his courage saving her. She thanked the Greater Montreal pack for their service and sacrifice, and for their devotion to the Moon Goddess in these troubling times. From the back of the crowd, a scarred wolf with silver blonde hair watched with curiosity. The Twin Oracles had survived. One was the Delphi, and the other, her protector. He watched them pretend to be each other. His warriors had been so close to snatching her, they had not counted on the fight to the death they faced, or that the Protectors could fight as well as the Wemyss wolves had. And Lothaire had not counted on the resourcefulness of the true Delphi’s mate to spirit her away to a place where he knew only his brother would find her after his death.

Lothaire needed to arrange for his nephew to ‘meet’ her as soon as possible, while she was weak. The Delphi would give Charlemagne beautiful pups, and her sister would make a nice addition to their breeders. He ran his tongue over his teeth in disgust for a moment. The curse of the Benjmin’s last Luna still held. No true mates in Des Rues could bear pups together without the aid of the witches, and many of those pups were too weak to survive their first year. Strong pups only came from the breeders and they were given to the sire’s mates to raise. It was a secret that was not known beyond the borders of Des Rues, but a secret that could destroy them. Forced breeding had been illegal in the werewolf world for two centuries.

The other secret was that Charlemagne had a year older half-brother, Helios, who was raised by a group of sun-worshiping wolves and witches. Having not been raised in the worship of the Goddess, the young Charlemagne was easily falling sway to his charismatic brother and his devotion to the warlike Sun god of his mother’s coven. Lothaire scowled to himself. His brother’s philandering past had caught up to them in a very big and very bad way. Someone nudged him, the crowd was dispersing, the memorial was over. He craned his neck to see where the Delphi and the fake Delphi had gone but couldn’t find them. The twins had slipped away unnoticed again.

A youthful, possibly Asian wolf jostled against Lothaire in the crowd. “Sure is a shame about Luca, did you know him?”

Lothaire shook his head, then answered, “Non, I knew his father. Lupierre was a great warrior. I wanted to be here in his honor.”

“That’s cool, dude. I’m going to meet Leon and Lou at the house, they are having a gathering. Do you want to tag along?”

Lothaire shook his head, again, getting suspicious at the young wolf’s friendly behavior toward a wolf not of his pack. “His sons did not know me, but perhaps you will be at the memorial dinner tonight, oui? Excuse', I see another old friend.”

“Uh yah, sure. See ya at the dinner.”

As Lothaire made his way back to his car, he noticed at least three wolves watching him, besides the young one. He would not be able to snatch the Delphi and her sister from here and as soon as they returned to either of the temples, they would be out of reach. He needed a spy in the temples, something he had failed to manage for decades. Something he needed to manage soon.

Essie shivered as she looked out at the barren frozen lake. She hated the bitterness of winter in the far northern climes, it was only freaking September! Late September but still! Hundreds of miles south the trees were just putting on their earliest fall colors and only in the highest altitudes but here the lake had already started to freeze. Del walked around like a ghost, only eating when Essie or Murine actually put food in her hand or mouth. She refused to return to the Eye of the Goddess, preferring the harsh isolation of the Moon’s Gate. Everyday Del ran the trail along the top of the cliffs. Ketsu reported that everyday she slid to a stop just at the edge of the highest one. When confronted Del admitted to Essie that she wanted to jump but she couldn’t, the Goddess had not called her home yet.

Delilah blamed herself for Luca’s death. Her guilt made her bitter. If she hadn’t insisted they continue on to Wemyss instead of waiting for Leon and the others, perhaps she would have had him for a while longer. If she had just rejected him and sent him away a year before, then he would still be alive. If she had done a thousand things differently... ‘If’ was no guarantee Luca would have survived at all.

“He died saving you, so you could save us all,” Essie constantly reminded her. Forcing Del to accept his sacrifice and her duty over and over. As their grandfather had, when they had lost their father and pack.

Essie thought back to the Memorial as she stirred cream and sugar and cocoa on the stove, to the wolf her wolf had singled out. Essie was pretending to be the Delphi, carrying herself the way her sister normally did. In the crowd, near the back she had seen an older male, handsome, scarred, very Richard Gere, and yet terrifyingly familiar. She couldn’t remember when she had seen him before, but it had to be in a vision because she knew for certain she had never met him in skin. She finished the words of the speech she had drafted with Murine, and then rushed Del away to safety. Essie did not miss his slight smirk when she repeated that Luca had died to save the Delphi and would be honored by the Moon. He had not noticed that she had noticed the way he was watching her sister, that she knew that he knew that the one wearing Essie’s favorite pair of jeans was the true Delphi. Afterward, she had sent Ketsu to ‘bump’ into him and he gotten a story about how the wolf had known Luca’s father.

As Del lay curled in a ball on Luca’s childhood room, Essie and Ketsu talked to Leon about the wolf, and showed him a sketch Essie had made. Though she wasn’t as skilled as Del, Leon immediately recognized the wolf, not as his father’s friend, but as his enemy and murderer. It was Lothaire Des Rues, brother of Alpha Charles Des Rues. The Des Rues knew they were both alive and knew that the Delphi,and not her wanderer sister, had lost her mate. They knew Delilah was vulnerable and would not be able to walk the Tides. Leon’s bitterness toward the wolf was surprising to her, he was such a mellow wolf normally, but Luca wasn’t the first family member he had lost to the brown furs. Essie didn’t have the heart to tell him that Luca wouldn’t be the last or that Del had been drawing this wolf for years. Her attempt to help her sister grieve had exposed the ruse that had kept them safe since they were 12.

Sighing, Essie poured hot chocolate into a mug, dropped a robe over her arm and waited to open the door to the kitchen. In this windchill, Del only ran in her wolf. She watched her sister’s wolf burst from the treeline and make straight for the base of the temple, coming toward the kitchen door rather than climbing the steps to the main entrance. Essie saw other wolves stirring, making their way through the cold to the communal dining hall and wished Del would consent to eat there. She watched her sister’s wolf stopping for a moment to knowledge those who called out to her. Obviously inviting her to join them, but she couldn’t bear to be around others in places where she had spent time with Luca. It had barely been four months. Essie shrugged away her need to be with other wolves. There was a scratch of claw against wood drawing Essie back from her thoughts, so she opened the door for her twin, just as old Murine hobbled into the kitchen.

“Chil’, why must you run through the forest like the northern wind every morn? Freezing your fur won’t numb your soul.” The bitter cold made Murine’s arthritis act up, but the stubborn old shewolf won’t go south for the winter. Her attitude was that if a wolf was going to make the trek the the Gate in the winter then there would be an oracle here for them to speak with.

Del just shrugged as she tied her robe and took the cup from her sister. Murine huffed and held out a piece of paper, the twins immediately recognize Mamó’s ancient script.

“The Oracle Tiene says that they are settled and safe and do not need sanctuary at this time. The warrior pup is working as a human, and they are hiding in plain sight. She is worried because he keeps going after rogues and those who attacked their pack. She says revenge has become a dark stone in his soul. She plans to spend the winter teaching them the deeper ways of the Goddess,” Murine sound approving but then she sighs, “I wish they would come here, I could use some of Mealle’s good liniment creams.”

Essie sighs, “At least, they were spared.”

Del sets down her mug with a hard thump, before walking out.

“ergghhhh,” Essie can’t hide her frustration, as she picks up the mug to wash it. “How long is she going to be like this?”

“Be patient with your sister, chil’, she only lost him a heartbeat ago,” Murine said as she shifted her shawl around her shoulders. “Some wolves never get over it, some wolves lay down and grieve themselves to the Fields. Delilah is strong, she will get through this, but never think that she will get over it. Grief is funny stuff, a lot funnier than all the fancy doctors and healers in the world will ever figure out. It is the darkest, stormiest night, and the fleeting shadow of a cloud over the sun on a beautiful day, like the wind it comes and goes when it will, and no one knows its reasons. No two souls walk the same trail when it comes to grief, they can only hope that someone will walk beside them for a time.” Murine sat quietly in her chair as Essie finished making breakfast and thinking about their very different futures.

“Murine, what if I don’t want to suffer any more grief, what if I don’t want to go through it with my mate? I’d rather be alone forever than struggle and hurt like Del is now.”

“Then you are denying yourself a love like no other, and the memories of a joy will be a balm to all of life’s bitterness. A mate’s love can make your greatest dreams and desires seem at hand, they are the greatest gift and comfort the Moon gives us. Those moments are what sweeten the bitterness of grief.” Murine spoke almost wistfully, and Essie knew she was remembering her mate.

Essie frowned, swallowing several times. She sat a plate in front of Murine, and picked up Del’s to take to her. Quietly asking, “But what if my mate is a monster, a nightmare who will never love me? What if I know that I will never have happiness?”

She doesn’t wait for an answer, instead she went to force feed her suffering, soul-sick sister. If love hurt this much to have had and lost, then how much more was it going to hurt to be forever denied it? To have it replaced with cruelty and torture. Essie didn’t want her mate, ever... and Del only wanted hers back. If love was the sweetness to grief’s bitterness, what were they to do without it? How could they have hope and not despair. Essie didn’t want to be contemplating questions like these when she was barely 19, she didn’t want to contemplate them when she was 90!

The day before the Winter Solstice, Esther dressed in Del’s gown and stood in Del’s place when a petitioner came to the Moon’s Gate. They did not know how the wolf had know the Delphi was there and all he said was that he had heard a rumor. When the young commented on how tired she looked, she simply said her sister was mate-lost and thanked him for his concern. His question was simple and she passed it off to Murine, the Gate’s resident Oracle, who handled it easily. He wanted to know if he should follow his father’s path or his own. The answer was simple, he had to chose between two paths.

A narrow, rocky path to a mountain peak, or a wide, well-worn path lead through a valley for a time wolves walked both paths. The valley wolves happy and at a peace, as the mountain wolves struggling to climb. Later, when the Moon rose above the valley, it burned. Then the Moon rose above the mountain, hanging over the end to the rocky path at the top of the peak, as if waiting for Her children who had suffered. Their struggles would lead to their reward, while those who would take the easy way would know the bitterness of the Moon’s wrath.

The wolf had left disturbed and unhappy. He was the next alpha of a small mountain pack and worried for their future. His father had made many decisions out of ease and convenience, rather that what was honorable like his grandfather. Seeking alliances with those whose motives the young wolf did not trust, rather than building the strength of his own pack.

Winter seemed to go on forever. Some days Del went for a run, some days she just sat in the window and stared out at the snow. Some nights Ketsu and Essie, carried her half-frozen carcass in from hours of howling her grief. Spring was coming to the southern climes of the Eye, but winter held on bitterly at the Gate.

One evening, Essie went to take Del her dinner. She was surprised to find her wolf on her bed, twitching and trembling in the throes of a vision. It was the first one Delilah had since Luca died in her arms and the Moon had closed the path behind him. Del had described it as standing on two sides of a glass wall. Her and her wolf on one side and he and his on the other. They had held their hands up to each other, palm to palm, then he had turned and walked away as she had beaten on it till her hands were bloody. Tentatively, Essie painfully pushed through the sibling link to see where her sister was on the Tides and pulled back quickly. All she could see was the full moon over the ocean, waves dancing in the moonlight in every direction had made her feel dizzy and she didn’t want to get lost.

For two days, either Essie and Murine stayed with Del, on the morning of the third day.

Her wolf whispered, ‘Comhnayll, Stop!’

The scene had changed, she was following a golden wolf through a frosted landscape. She was pushing through her pain and bitterness, to help another save the thing she had lost. His mate.