deuteronomy

Addison · March 14, 2019, 10:55 PM

Yet thou shalt see the land before thee;
but thou shalt not go thither unto the land which I give the children of Israel.
Deuteronomy 32:52

In another world, as far-flung from this animal kingdom as one can imagine, there are tales of a trio of siblings who led the children of Israel out of slavery in Egypt and toward the Promised Land. The land of their fathers, and their fathers before them. But Moses, Aaron, and Miriam—and the rest of that generation of Israelites—sinned, and sinned grievously, and were thus punished grievously. For the children of Israel would reach the Promised Land. . .but they would not be allowed to enter it. All would perish, and their children would inherit Canaan.

Addison has not seen Grayson or Harrison in some time. She has occupied herself in following Iliksis's scent, for she harbors an intense fascination for the rake that perhaps she will never be able to explain. She traveled farther than she ever has before, winding snakelike up the coast, a dog on the hunt. Even the pungency of the sea lions could not mask his tell-tale musk smell—and that of another. A woman.

So he turned down Addison's body (freely offered!) and hunts for flesh elsewhere. So be it, then.

She has had little time to wallow in her disappointment since. She has had messages from the witches. They have entered her dreams like tiny spiders, infiltrating each and every corner of reverie until she is consumed by their magic. They have messages for her, many messages. Missions that only she can fulfill.

Rut with the coyotes! Spill your blood along the lily-white shore! Scream our song atop a mountain!

And as silly as these missions may sound to a stranger, she is completely and utterly committed. Why would she not be? The witches have given her life back. She will dance on their puppet strings; she will open her mouth and chant their hexes without any care to what the words mean. In releasing herself from the Odolf men, she has given herself over completely to yet another entity. She is under the guise of autonomy—but even the guise of it is much preferred to what she has endured, in this life.

Oh, they have her hunt! They have her scout, and barter, and fuck! Imagine Grayson Odolf sending her on a scouting mission—pah! It is unimaginable. She is free, she is free, she is Well & Truly Free!

She stands on a glacier that matches her eyes, looking down upon the polished-ice surface, the way the moon ripples and bounces off the expanse. It is cold, but not as it has been. Spring is coming, and with it, the quickening of her womb. For she carries the seed of the damned coyote within her womb, and the witches love her for it. They will be princes of darkness, they whisper in her ear, and queens of the night.

She is the progenitor of an everlasting dynasty, just as they had foretold.

A dense, impenetrable fog begins to roll through the area, cloaking her, cloaking everything. The evening grows even blacker as the moon is obscured; the stars never had a chance. Thunder out of nowhere begins to rumble across the sky, and a distant clap of lightning, the singe of ozone in the air, suggests an impending spring storm—though no rain comes. The wind lifts, the thunder rolls, the fog continues to swirl around her like the long-gone ghosts of dancers. Addison is overcome and sits hard on her haunches, for once filled with some measure of true fear.

The Odolf—yes, Odolf, as she has always been and will always be—has forsaken her family, her duty, her God. She has sought only her own pleasure and liberation and failed to keep in mind her place in the world. And just as Miriam was not allowed to enter the Promised Land, so, too, will Addison will be prohibited from inheriting the world of her father. Her faults will bring her to premature ruin.

Be strong and of a good courage, fear not, nor be afraid. . .
for the LORD thy God, he it is that doth go with thee; he will not fail thee, nor forsake thee.
Deuteronomy 31:6

But for all these faults, she is still a child of God. She, on the whole, has lived a dutiful life as a strong but reserved woman. For every vice, there are two virtues; two good deeds for every sin. And mercy is not in short supply in the Kingdom of Heaven. She will be punished in the short-term for her iniquities, but will be rewarded with eternal life in the next dimension—whether that be through a spiritual paradise or reincarnation into another body, lupine or otherwise. Nothing is known except that Addison has been forgiven.

Still—forgiveness does not supersede the punishment.

A bolt of lightning sends the ice only paces from her into blinding fire, and she gives a start, eyes wide as moons. Her delicate paws scrabble against the ice, a scream caught in perpetual silence within her throat, and she slips with nothing to hold onto. The girl tumbles into cold, empty air, hitting the side of the glacier at intervals with muffled, meaty thuds.

It lasts a lifetime, and yet, it is over in less than a blink of an eye. One sharp crack and Addison lays near the bottom of the glacier in a pool of snowmelt, her neck bent at an impossible angle, her pale gaze staring sightlessly ahead.

So easily was the woman of virtue swayed by evil that it is worrisome. Weaker souls than she must succumb to demons on a daily basis! It is sad to see such a life end so soon, a flame blown out well before it can truly glow. We call this a tragedy—yet it happens more often than not, so often that we have adages describing the loss of young souls. Is it really a bizarre, isolated tragedy, or simply a gut-wrenching manner in which our world functions—to grind away at those who keep their heads down, and guillotine the ones who don't?

Perhaps Grayson and Harrison will rise above the fates of Moses and Aaron, and lead their wolves into the land of milk and honey, where they can impose their draconian, patriarchal laws upon the denizens there. For that, they will be lucky.

But even if Addison's body is not so lucky, especially as the winter thaws. . .her winged soul will be blissfully unaware.

. . .yet [her] eyes were not weak not [her] strength gone.
Deuteronomy 34:7