Hounded

  TABLE OF CONTENTS

  CHAPTER ONE

  CHAPTER TWO

  Bonus Excerpt from A Month with Werewolves

  Text copyright 2012 by Marla Braziel

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without written permission of the author.

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  CHAPTER ONE

  ~

  I REMEMBER THE FIRST DAY I laid eyes on him. He was so small and vulnerable, nuzzled up against his mother’s stomach. We weren’t sure how long she’d been dead, but the cause was obvious. A gunshot wound through the neck. She must have gotten back to him just long enough to bleed out.

  At the time, I knew exactly how he felt. Only a week ago, I had been orphaned as well. My parents had both died when their carriage lost control on the way to church and rolled over on top of them. Had I not been so fussy about attending services that morning, I would have likely died with them.

  The tiny white pup whimpered against its mother, and my heart melted for it. I quickly looked at my aunt, who was staring down at the pitiful animal, gauging how angry my uncle would be if we brought it home.

  “He’s all alone Aunt Ophelia, like me. He’ll die if we don’t do something,” I said, practically pleading.

  I had known the woman for just a few days and had no idea what her sentiments were towards animals. The only ones my aunt and uncle owned were horses, egg laying hens, and a milk cow. All with a purpose.

  “Please Aunt Ophelia,” I begged. “I’ll train him to be a good watch dog.”

  She gave me a pained look. The answer was written right there, but then something changed. Aunt Ophelia’s hazel eyes softened, and she smiled. “Oh, all right,” she relented, and I nearly leaped for joy on the inside as I slid from my saddle to scoop him up into my arms.

  The poor thing was weak from fatigue, near the point of death. He opened his eyes to gaze up at me, still blue from having not matured past a few weeks. I held him to my chest, running my fingers through his fluffy white fur.

  “Your uncle is going to be so angry with me,” Aunt Ophelia said, but I wasn’t listening. I was too in love to listen. In a world of hurt, I finally had something to be happy about. “You’ll have to take care of him yourself. I want no part in looking after him.”

  “I will,” I whispered against the top of his head.

  “He looks like he’s not quite weaned yet. You’ll probably have to give him milk for a while until he can eat solid food.”

  I handed him up to her and remounted my horse before taking him back to hold him on the ride home. As expected, my uncle wasn’t very pleased to have another mouth to feed, but once my aunt told him that it was the first time she’d seem me smile since the funeral, he had no choice but to give in.

  “What are you going to name him?” my uncle asked while Aunt Ophelia served us stew for supper.

  “Fido.” I made an uncertain face. It wasn’t very original, but I had never been one to come up with silly names for pets.

  “Fido’s a good name.” He stabbed a piece of meat with his fork. “Now you make sure to keep Fido out of the way when I’m working around here, you understand?”

  “Yes, sir,” I replied timidly, hardly able to wait for the meal to be finished so I could go back out to the barn and tend to my new puppy’s needs.

  “What breed do you think he is?” Aunt Ophelia asked her husband as she slid into her place at the dinner table.

  “He looks like a wolf to me,” I said quickly, hopeful. It would be really cool to have a wolf as a pet, I thought.

  “Without seeing the mother, I wouldn’t be able to tell.”

  “I can show her to you,” I offered. “I remember where the body is.”

  “Well, he can’t be a wolf, because we don’t have wolves around here. Just bears and coyotes and mountain lions.”

  “It’s a good thing he’s not a wolf,” Aunt Ophelia said, “otherwise we wouldn’t be able to let you keep him. Wolves are wild, and they belong in the wild. He’s likely just a mutt.”

  While I was a bit disappointed, it still didn’t damper my mood. Straight after dinner, I went out to the barn to milk the cow and see if I could feed Fido. I held him in my arms while I dipped my finger into the milk and then let him suckle it off. It was absolutely adorable the way he hugged my hand with his tiny little paws.

  “You are all mine,” I whispered sweetly down to him, “and I will love you forever.”

  I started school the following Monday. It was a bit nerve-wracking going to a new school where I didn’t know anybody—had no friends. There wouldn’t be many to choose from either. The community was small. So small, in fact, that the church doubled over as a school and all grades were taught by the same teacher in the same classroom. It was worlds away from the school I had gone to in the city. If I had stayed in the city, I would have graduated from a class of over a hundred students. Here, I would graduate from a class of three.

  Aunt Ophelia walked me to the front of the classroom and introduced me to the teacher. I could feel all eyes upon me as we proceeded down the aisle. Most of the kids were simple country folk, wearing whatever rags their parents could afford. There was only a handful that showed signs of having wealthy parents. I immediately felt overdressed in my Sunday finest, a long burgundy dress with white lace accents.

  “Good morning, Mrs. Pots. This is Claire Quaker. She’ll be joining your class today,” Aunt Ophelia introduced me.

  “Good morning, Claire.” The teacher smiled at me courteously. She was a vision of perfection with kind blue eyes and beautiful blonde hair that was held up in a bun. “How old are you, Claire?”

  “Fifteen, ma’am,” I replied, trying to seem confident.

  Mrs. Pots turned her attention to my aunt. “Don’t worry, Mrs. Robinson, she’s in good hands.”

  “I know she is.” Aunt Ophelia smiled at the teacher before looking back at me. “Do you remember the way home?”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  “Alright then. Here’s your lunch.” She handed me a pail that had a sandwich and an apple wrapped up inside. “Have a good day, and I’ll see you when you get home tonight.” It looked like Aunt Ophelia thought to give me a hug, but then she reconsidered and simply left me in Mrs. Pots’ care instead.

  “Class,” Mrs. Pots called the class to attention. “We have a new student today. I’d like for everyone to welcome Claire Quaker. Say, ‘Good morning, Clair’.”

  “Good morning, Clair,” came the unenthusiastic response.

  “You can take a seat next to Mindy.” Mrs. Pots pointed to an empty spot next to the best dressed girl in the room.

  Mindy’s ear to ear grin spoke volumes about her first impression of me, and I knew we would likely be friends.

  I found the way that the class was taught to be rather confusing and unproductive. With students at all different levels, I felt like most of the day was wasted teaching me stuff that I had learned long ago. Even when Mrs. Pots got to the stuff that was related to my grade level, I felt underwhelmed by the coursework and material. I wasn’t sure if I was happy about it or upset. On one hand, the homework would be a breeze. But on the other hand, I didn’t really feel like I was benefiting from being there.

  During recess, Mindy invited me to come sit with her and the other well to do girls under a large shade tree. They gathered around me like I was about to tell them a wondrous story and bombarded me with questions about the big city. What did the women wear? Were t
he men handsome? Did I have a boyfriend whom I left back home? It all felt rather invasive, but I did my best to answer everything they threw at me.

  “Hi,” a scrawny girl with stringy blonde hair stood at the edge of the group to introduce herself, and the rest of the girls looked at her with as much distaste as a piece of garbage. “I’m Sara Smith. I heard your parents died in a carriage accident.”

  “Sara!” Mindy huffed incredulously at her, as if the girl had taken a stab at her parents instead of mine. “How inappropriate can you be, you little beast? Be off with you.”

  “It’s alright,” I quickly tried to calm the unmerited tempest. “It’s true. My parents did die in a carriage accident.” It took everything in me to keep my eyes from watering when I said it.

  “I just wanted to offer you my condolences, and to let you know that if you ever needed a friend—”

  “She’s got plenty of friends right here. She doesn’t need you,” Mindy cut her off.

  It bothered me how cruel Mindy was to the poor girl, but I didn’t dare stand up for her any further. It was obvious who was the boss of the school yard, and if I wanted to have a pleasant rest of my adolescence, it was best if I just kept my mouth shut.

  Sara walked away, seemingly unaffected by Mindy’s harshness. I had to admire her for not taking offense. If it had been me, I would have already been crying. I didn’t tolerate bullying very well. Then again, I had never had to.

  Before recess was over, our group was approached again, this time by a young man whom I was certain was the most handsome in all the land. His sapphire blue eyes gazed down at me with an intensity that about stopped my heart dead in my chest, and the way that the sun shone off his cropped blonde hair was absolutely mesmerizing.

  “Hi. I’m Thomas Uhrich. My father owns the bank in town,” he said proudly. I could tell that Thomas had money by the way he was dressed, in crisp gray slacks with a white button-down shirt and matching gray vest.

  “I’m Claire,” I replied stupidly.

  “I know. Mrs. Pots introduced you to us, remember?” His smile was infectious, perfect and white. I could tell all the other girls were as smitten with him as I was by the silence when he spoke, as if every word that came from him was a rare gem that shouldn’t be missed. “I just wanted to come introduce myself to you personally. Hopefully, we’ll be seeing a lot of each other.” And with that, Thomas walked away.

  “Isn’t he dreamy?” one of the girls said.

  “That’s the man I’m going to marry,” Mindy informed me.

  “Not if I get to him first,” another girl joked.

  “You tart!” Mindy’s anger flared once more, and I quickly realized that she was dead serious about marrying Thomas Uhrich. Any opposition would be destroyed. “He’s mine. Besides, you’re not well bred enough to marry such a man.” She stuck her nose up to the sun, fanning herself.

  That night at dinner, I thought about all the children I had seen without shoes and proper clothing. The community was a poor one indeed, with most families struggling just to make ends meet. It really made me appreciate where I came from.

  “Aunt Ophelia?” I said when we were all seated for dinner.

  “Yes, dear,” she replied, placing a cloth napkin over her lap.

  “I would like to donate some of my dresses and shoes to the girls from school. I have so many. More than I would ever need.”

  Both my aunt and uncle looked at me in surprise.

  “Those are all very fine dresses. We could sell them to the mercantile for a hefty sum,” my uncle suggested.

  “Some of those children don’t even have a decent shirt on their backs.” I avoided his eyes.

  “I’m sure that a lot of them weren’t wearing their Sundays best.”

  Aunt Ophelia cut in, “I think it’s a wonderful idea. My sister would be very proud of you.” She smiled warmly at me, and I looked up just in time to see the gleam in her large hazel eyes. “Pick out the ones that you don’t want after dinner, and I’ll help you take them to school tomorrow.”

  “We could really use that money,” my uncle grumbled.

  “These are her things and she can do with them what she wants,” Aunt Ophelia insisted, and I admired her sternness. She was obviously doing everything in her power to make sure that I was happy.

  The next morning, we loaded up as many dresses as I thought would cloth all the less privileged children and carried them in the wagon over to the school. Mrs. Pots was more than impressed, offering to make a speech of recognition to the entire class.

  “No,” I said quickly. “I want this donation to be completely anonymous.”

  “How very modest of you.” She gave me a charming smile.

  There wasn’t anything modest about it. I just didn’t want Mindy to find out that the donation had been from me. It was obvious that she thought the lower-class children were scum beneath her leather dress boots. While we had differing opinions, it wasn’t worth losing my new friends over.

  Before lunch, Mrs. Pots made an announcement about the dresses. I did my best to look just as shocked as everyone else, though I could tell that Mindy wasn’t falling for it. Morale was up for the rest of the day as the children waited anxiously for school to be over so that they could pick out their new clothing. I knew that my dresses wouldn’t fit all the children, since most of them were much younger than me, but at least they could use the material to make dresses of their own.

  “What a waste of good fabric,” Mindy huffed during recess. “Their mothers probably won’t do it justice.”

  I tried to ignore the topic as best I could, but no one seemed to want to let it go. Even Thomas Uhrich approached our group about it.

  “It was you, wasn’t it?” he looked down on me where I was seated. “Don’t be shy. It’s alright to admit it.”

  All eyes were on me, and I could feel my palms beginning to sweat. There seemed no way out of telling the truth.

  “They were just old things,” I replied quietly.

  “I could tell it was you.”

  “How?”

  “Because you have kind eyes.”

  This remark caught me off guard, and I felt my heart flutter in my chest as I watched him walk away. It was sinful for a boy to be so beautiful.

  “It looks like you’ve got a run for your money, Mindy,” one of the girls teased, and a tremor of fear replaced my swooning as I caught Mindy glaring hatefully at me. This was definitely going to be a problem.

  “You have nothing to worry about, Mindy,” I tried to reassure her. “He’s not my type.”

  “He better not be,” she snapped. “That’s my future husband you’re making googly eyes at.”

  Was I making googly eyes at Thomas? My face flushed in embarrassment at the thought.

  The next few weeks went by fairly smoothly. I settled into life in Woodsbury surprisingly well, and I was thankful for it. During the day, I would study hard, hang out with Mindy and the girls, and make eyes at Thomas Uhrich from a distance. And in the afternoon, I would come home and help around the house and tend to Fido. He seemed to be growing by leaps and bounds every day. It hadn’t taken long to wean him off cow’s milk, and soon he was following me around like a shadow.

  Then one day I noticed something different about Fido. His eyes had lost their hazy blue color and were now red as blood. At first, I stumbled away from him, fearing that he had become possessed. But when he trotted up to lick my hand as normal, I realized that he was alright. Still concerned, I scooped him up into my arms and carried him to my Aunt Ophelia. “I think there’s something wrong with Fido’s eyes?” I told her, looking at the pup with concern.

  “It looks like his eyes are bleeding.” She touched a hand to his tear duct, but he quickly jerked his head away in lieu of trying to lick her. “Hold him still.”

  I grasped Fido around the muzzle while she went to examine his eyes a bit closer. The entire thing was red, evil looking, and it didn’t appear to be bleeding at all.

 
“How odd?” she commented.

  “We should take him to the vet,” I suggested.

  “We can’t afford to take him to the vet.” She gave me a pained look. “Whatever it is, it will have to just clear up on its own.”

  But it didn’t clear up. Nor did it show signs that it ever would. While Fido’s eye discoloration disturbed us all for a while, we eventually grew used to it. Nothing about the hound himself had changed, just his eyes, so we figured that it couldn’t be anything too serious.

  Shortly after, Fido began trying to follow me to school, and I was forced to tie him up during the daytime. It broke my heart to hear him whimper and cry out as he watched me disappear into the distance, but I knew that I had to remain strong. School was no place for a dog.

  One day, we were sitting at recess as normal when one of the girls let out a blood-curdling scream. “Run! To the school house,” she cried out, and everyone listened, myself included.

  “What is it?” Mrs. Pots asked, her eyes wide in concern as she looked out into the school yard.

  Peaking out from the forest were a pair of glowing red eyes. Part of me thought it was Fido. Perhaps he had chewed through the rope and followed me to school anyway. But part of me wasn’t sure, and that part of me was frightened.

  “I’ll take care of it,” Thomas said, quickly pushing past us to make his way towards the woods.

  “Thomas, no!” Mrs. Pots called out to him, though she didn’t rush forward to try to stop him.

  We waited patiently for the beast to emerge. The closer that Thomas got to the tree line, the less certain he appeared. He stopped just short of it to pick up a rock and chuck it at the creature’s face. The animal moved into view, and I sighed in relief.

  “It’s a demon,” Thomas gasped.

  “Kill it!” Mindy shouted, fright apparent on her usually perfect face.

  “No!” I bounded down the stairs just when I saw Thomas pick up a sharp-looking stick. Fido growled at him as he brandished the stick. “Fido, no!” I yelled, pushing past Thomas to get between them.

  Fido’s ears flattened against his head in submission, and he took a step backwards. I fell to my knees and embraced him to show the rest of the class that he wasn’t dangerous.