Book Five, Chapter 94: A Wolf’s Howl

I had pulled every thread. I knocked on every door.

It had all led me here to a field glowing beautiful and blue under the full moon with monsters approaching from the darkness.

We had guns. We had bullets, all left here for our final stand, for our last moments, our last chance to save each other.

Riley said we needed a showdown, and now we had one.

Were we ready?

Was I?

The wolves howled. I could feel the sounds in my chest they were so loud. The blue jars and bottles hanging from the trees were doing their job all around us. The wolves wouldn’t go near them.

There was one wide opening that the remaining pack members could walk through to reach us, and in the center of it all was the largest wolf, the pack leader. On the red wallpaper, she was called Serena, but I knew this was Sarah.

My character knew who this was, and I believed her.

Suddenly, the howling changed. It became more… frantic, confused.

The wolves started acting weird. They weren’t closing in for an attack; no, they were panicking. Some ran in circles, others scratched at each other, and others howled a pained, lonely cry.

Many ran away into the forest.

“What’s happening?” I asked. These wolves were not close enough to the rolling silver for that to be the culprit.

“Riley,” Andrew answered.

We were On-Screen. His answers were limited.

“The necklace,” I said. “He got to the necklace. Is that what’s doing this?”

We watched as more wolves ran to the woods while others ran toward the manor.

“He awoke the original,” Andrew said. “That crazy son of a bitch. Perhaps he was right about all of this. The wolves are connected by magic. The rolling silver… has a magical function beyond our understanding. He told me he thought that Clara was alive in some way, that her curse remained. Perhaps he was right. Perhaps the power that gives the pack leader control has been diminished.”

He was trying to explain what was happening to the audience in case Riley hadn’t been able to. The sleeping wolf, the original, had awoken to claim her pack again.

We had no idea how that would turn out when she arrived, but it seemed to be helping now. Sarah was losing wolves rapidly.

“The wolves are conflicted,” I said. “They feel another power.”

Riley might have had a better way to put it. I was trying. I delivered the line with awe and amazement. That was the best I could do.

“The remaining wolves appear loyal to the pack leader,” Andrew said as he watched those that remained. “When we use advanced rolling silver, many get disconnected from the pack. What if, instead of disconnecting the individual wolves, we use it on her?”

“Disconnect her?” I asked.

“If they are linked to her and their loyalty really is the result of some magical connection, then disconnecting her should be far more potent than attaching the other wolves individually. I wish I understood this phenomenon better; I really do, but given what we know, it is our best line of attack. Disconnect the pack, and in the chaos, take out the pack leader.”

I watched as more wolves fled, as more ran to the manor, called by some unseen force.

We would never have a better shot than this. Andrew had to be the one to state the plan. He was high Savvy, after all.

“You get the pack leader’s attention; I will look for an opening to get one of these rolling silver jars near her,” he said.

That was a plan. The trouble was we couldn’t just attack. We needed the villain to have a scene with me for the finale. We had yet to speak to each other. It was time.

Andrew moved away, closer to the stores of weapons we had left her near one of the blue trees.

As if waiting her turn, the pack leader, Serena, approached; several of her guard wolves trailed behind her, including Antoine. He was one of them now. I had to ignore that. My character wouldn’t know it was him.

She slowly began to transform back into a human. She was beautiful. Carousel was sure to show that.

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“What do you want from me, Sarah?” I asked, my voice trembling despite my best efforts.

She chuckled softly, almost playfully, as though my question amused her.

“Sarah,” she said, shaking her head. “Sarah is just one of my names. A mask I wear for convenience. My real name… the one that I was born with, the one I can still bear to hear, is Serena.” Her eyes lit with excitement. “But even that is just one of many. I’ve had names in every tongue, in every place I’ve wandered. None of them mean anything. Only Clara’s name means anything to me.”

I quietly repeated Clara’s name like I was taking in a magical spell.

Clara, whose fate led to all of this.

“Clara, mine but taken from me,” Serena said, her voice softening. For a moment, she seemed far away, lost in a memory. “She was my light. My love. My beginning and my end. She was everything to me. And then… she was gone.” She looked at me then, her expression almost fragile. “Do you know what it’s like to lose someone like that? To feel their absence like a gaping wound in your chest that never heals for decades, centuries?”

Her words hung in the air, and I didn’t know how to respond. I didn’t know if she even wanted me to.

“She gave me this curse, you know,” Serena continued, her voice quiet and steady. “With a kiss. I thought it was a sign, a gift. That we were bound by something greater, something eternal. But I was wrong. She was taken from me, and I felt her go. The connection between us frayed and snapped like a thread torn by a dull knife. I knew she was dead. I felt it.” Her jaw tightened, and her tone shifted, sharp with barely contained anger. “And yet… something remained. A ghost of her soul. A piece that never left. It… clings.”

“Clings to what?” I asked, the question barely more than a whisper. I was afraid of the answer.

“To you,” she said, her voice cold and pointed. “To girls like you. It isn’t natural. It’s a cruel, twisted joke. Clara should be free, but instead, her soul is bound, scattered, like shards of glass lodged in the world. And every so often, one of those shards finds its way back here, just as you have always found your way back here.”

I took a step back, but her gaze pinned me in place.

“I tried everything,” Serena said, her tone shifting to something more distant like she was reciting a painful story. “I spent decades searching for answers, chasing whispers across continents, begging soothsayers and sorcerers to tell me how to put her soul back together. They all told me the same thing: ‘The shard must be freed. The host must die.’”

Her words sank in, cold and heavy. My breath caught in my throat. “So… so you killed them?”

She nodded slowly, her eyes heavy with guilt. “I or mine did. Every one of them. I told myself it was mercy. I told myself Clara would be whole again. That her undying body was still cursed, still capable of life. But she never revealed herself to me. The shard, or whatever it was, would disappear, only to resurface years later in someone else. And I would begin all over again.”

I stared at her, horrified. “And now you think killing me will work?”

Her voice snapped, desperate and raw. “No! Don’t you understand? I don’t want to kill you. That’s why this time is different. With you… I see another way. You don’t have to die. Not yet. Not ever, perhaps.”

She stepped closer, and I froze. There was something in her voice—pleading, yet unrelenting.

“I can feel Clara’s soul near you,” she said, her tone softening again. “I’ve felt it since the day we crossed paths. It’s in your shadow, in the air around you. You’re a prison for her. An abomination.”

I flinched, and she seemed to notice. Her expression softened slightly, and she exhaled. “It isn’t your fault. You didn’t choose this. But Clara doesn’t belong to you, Kimberly. She doesn’t belong anywhere but here. With me. As she was meant to be.”

“What are you going to do to me?” I asked, my voice shaking.

Her gaze locked onto mine, sharp and unwavering. “I’m going to free her. But not by killing you. Not this time. Killing you would be another failure, another wasted chance. This time, I’m going to give you what Clara gave me—a gift. Though it won’t be with a kiss. I’m going to curse you, Kimberly. Into one of us. Into a wolf. The curse will bind you to the pack, to me. And through that bond, Clara’s soul might be able to reconnect to her, as we are connected to her.”

My chest tightened as her words sank in. I shook my head, a tear slipping down my cheek. “You think that will bring her back?”

Her expression flickered with something close to pain. “You don’t understand what this curse is. It’s more than power. More than pain. It’s connection. It’s eternity. I’ve spent years gathering a pack strong enough to bear this burden, wolves who won’t falter, who will stand with me no matter what it takes. And with you, with Clara’s soul alive in you, we may finally see my life’s work complete.”

She turned away, her shoulders slumping slightly as her voice dropped to a near-whisper. “I know how it sounds. I know it’s madness. But what else am I supposed to do? Run? Hide? I’ve tried that, Kimberly. For over a century, I’ve tried. And every time, I end up here. Back in Carousel. Back where it started. Where Clara’s heart stopped beating. Where mine should have stopped, too. The wolf in me told me to rest, to stay in the shadows, but now I know that won’t work. It never has.”

Her words hummed in the air, heavy and final. When she looked back at me, there was no malice in her gaze—only desperation. “I won’t lose her again. Not this time. You’re the key, Kimberly. Whether you like it or not, you’re part of this. And I’ll do whatever it takes to make sure Clara regains the life that was taken from her. I’ll reconnect her to the curse through you. Already, I can feel her waking in the distance. Tonight is the night.”

I stared at her, my heart pounding. “You don’t have to do this.”

Her voice softened, a sad, almost apologetic note creeping in. “Don’t you see? I don’t have a choice. If you live long enough, you start to realize that some decisions are inevitable. I can’t put this off any longer.”

Her tone dropped, her eyes hardening. “This isn’t just about you. It never was.”

Riley had said she would have some emotional justification for chasing me, that this villain wouldn’t just be pure evil. She would have some reason for all she had done. He said Carousel could take it in a dozen different directions so her motivation would fit the story that had come before.

It took all of my self-control not to just shoot at her. It wouldn’t work, I knew, but I was afraid, and I didn’t want to die just so the villain could monologue, but that’s how it worked. We were here to tell a story.

As I stared at Serena, I saw truth in her eyes. She was so desperate she would do anything. Carousel might have given her some lines to speak, but that didn’t mean that parts weren’t true.

After all, so many in Carousel were here out of pure desperation.

I felt her sorrow. I felt her mourning. I felt that she just wanted this to be over.

Soon, it would be.

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