When Anne finished speaking I sat back. My shoulders and lower back burned despite the comfortable chair. Apparently I’d leant forward for a pretty significant chunk of time. She really was a good storyteller. Despite the gaps and jumps through time, inconsistencies, and blind alleys there was a thread that stayed throughout. Protection. It was just not 100% clear what exactly they protected and from what.
I rubbed my back absentmindedly, and closed my eyes for a moment, to try and think of what the hell I was supposed to say now. Even after speaking for hours though, it was Anne who broke the silence.
“Thank you”, she said.
“For what?”
“For listening fully. It’s easy to just allow sound to pass over you. Most do by the end of the first hour or so. It takes practice to enter the trancelike state you need to remember the Foundations, and you seemed to find your way there on your own.”
“There is no way I can remember all that. However I listen.”
Anne stood, and wordlessly indicated I should follow her. Again, I did without a pause beyond that caused by my protesting hip joints after that amount of time immobilized. I didn’t hear them whinging about it after I’d be a cabin for a whole night, but I guess they weren’t there. We left the office and started to walk towards town.
“Anne, I live a pretty long way away. Should we get like an Uber or something?”
“Mikdash, my poor boy. We have no need to walk. I am going to teach you how to fly like an eagle.”
I couldn’t contain my excitement. “What. The. FUCK! Are you serious!”
She laughed a high shrill laugh. It would be grating if it wasn’t so exquisitely musical. If anything I was more surprised by this sudden unprecedented display of humor than I was by the revelation.
“No. No, of course I’m not serious. I’ve got a Volvo parked out behind the office. I just thought you could do with a walk. I certainly do.”
“That’s a bit of dick move, dude”, I said, forgetting I was talking to a 900-year-old seer. Fortunately, she laughed that delicate laugh again. In the quiet of the evening, the sustain on the last note was like a ringing bell.
“Yes. I suppose it was”, she said with a smile. “Is there anything you want to ask?”
“Yeah. How can our people be that old, and turn into modern buildings? I was a cabin, sure, but with lights and heating and stuff. What do you turn into?”
“You never really turned into a cabin. You turn into a sanctuary. Your being is a pure place of safety. Outside even time itself. The rest is just a skin or a glamour. It makes sense based on your surroundings. If you were in a Norse settlement, you might be a longhouse. If you were here, you might be a plain storage locker. If you were in the hills of Japan, a Pagoda. Do you get the idea? We think that once we may have taken the form of caves. I normally choose to be somewhere beautiful before a change. Appropriate setting, obviously.”
“So, the rats and stuff?”
“No, never inside you. They will have been more confused than you probably to find themselves suddenly dumped on the ground when you changed back. But then, of course, you’d have to try and act natural as I keep talking and don’t frown at me or anything, OK?”
Anne smiled and laughed a completely different laugh, as she took my arm in hers like we were a couple on a stroll. The hairs on the back of my arms stood up as she subtly started to guide me as we walked.
“I didn’t think about the possibility they were watching us”, she continued. “We are going to keep walking, and just loop back to the office.”
I pulled out my phone and made a show of checking the time. “Who is watching us?”, I chuckled to Anne, trying to play along. “Do I need to call the cops?”
“No, the police will not be of help here. I wouldn’t drag a poor defenseless human out to deal with a Wolf. It would be as bad as killing the man myself.”
We turned left down a side street casually, beginning to loop back. “A Wolf? Like a Werewolf? But the full moon has already passed? What are you worried about?”
“The Wolves can change at will except at the full moon. Then it is unavoidable. But the rest of the time it is a choice.”
I glanced back over my shoulder and saw just a few figures. A local drunk, a couple of college looking kids, and an old lady. “There’s no wolf there, Anne. What are we running from?”
“Did you see the lady?”
“She was like 80! I mean, I know that’s young to you, but I’m pretty sure we can take her.” I laughed, for real this time. “She doesn’t look anything like a wolf.”
“She wouldn’t. Unless I was especially scared of wolves. And I am not. I have killed many of their kind. Their wolf form is pointless against me. They, like us, shape their external image to fit. The core of their being is still the same. They take the form that brings fear to their pray. We don’t know why. They could kill quickly, but they choose not to. In the old world the howl, the sight of the wolf did that, and the Wolf moniker stuck. But they are no more wolves than you are a log cabin.”
I walked in silence for a moment. “You are scared of 80-year-old women?”
Anne whirled on me. “YOU DON’T KNOW ANYTHING ABOUT ME!”
I held my hands up. “Is this helping us get away?
The Architect straightened her hair. “Possibly. Yes. No-one would be stupid enough to do this in sight of a wolf, so it does help sell the story we’ve not seen it. Now, come. Or this theory lesson might end up getting very bloodily practical.”
