Werewolf fairytales

A good uncle

*Theo*

I am never at a loss for an answer. Well, rarely.

“What am I going to do?” Gabriel demands again. His hair is standing on end, and under his eyes are dark circles that look like bruises. “The baby cries, and then she cries, and…” He turns away abruptly, but not before I see the gleam of something that looks like tears.

“Aw, hell, Gabe,” I say, reaching out and pulling my brother into my arms. “Your son is going to make it. You named him after me, and that alone will give him the balls to push on through.”

No one ever used my actual first name Jonas, but I am proud they named their little boy with it.

“He’s suffering,” Gabriel says flatly. “He pulls up his legs and he cries so desperately that it would make you ill to hear it.”

I know. I keep breaking off my duties to dash up the stairs, to walk past the nursery, silently begging, praying that I won’t hear my namesake crying in that desperate, pain-filled wail. “How is Ella?”

“Ella is Ella,” Gabriel says wearily. “She holds him, and she walks, then she cries, but she keeps walking. I can’t get her to sleep properly, and I’m sure it’s affecting her milk. And yet she will not allow him to be nursed by anyone else, not after the time when he cried all day after we tried a wet nurse. She’s convinced that because the poor she-wolf reeked of garlic, her milk didn’t agree with the baby.”

“What does the new nursemaid say about it?”

“I just sent her away,” Gabriel says.

I make a mental note. I’ll have to find the she-wolf and pay her a week’s wages.

“I was decent about it,” Gabriel says, wearily running a hand through his hair. “I know it’s not her fault. But she kept shaking her head, and she had such a sad look about her… I couldn’t stand it. Besides, Ella won’t put Jonas down anyway, not unless she gives him to me. I should go back up there.” Instead, he slumps into a chair.

“I’ll go,” I say. “I’m the boy’s uncle. You’ll have to force Ella to give him up. I’ll walk him while the two of you nap for a couple of hours. Tell her that. I will walk up and down in the portrait gallery.”

Gabriel looks up, his eyes heavy. “She’ll never accept it.”

I pull him to his feet. “Assert yourself, Gabe. Remember, you’re the master of the house, the paterfamilias, king of the castle, and all the rest of that rubbish. Grab your son, hand him to me, and take your poor mate off to get some proper sleep. You’d better go to your old chambers up in the tower because she won’t be able to hear Jonas cry from there.”

When I let go of his arm, Gabriel actually totters.

“How long has it been since you slept?” I demand, taking hold of his arm again and hauling him along the corridor.

“Exactly how old is Jonas? I’ve lost track.”

“Not even a fortnight. You need to get yourself and Ella to sleep,” I say, pushing him through the nursery door. A moment later, I am holding my nephew.

“I’ll sleep for one hour, then I’ll be back,” my sister-in-law states. She is a beautiful she-wolf, but just at the moment she resembles one of those weird sisters in the Shakespeare play. I can’t remember which play it was, but there were three of them in the production I’d seen, and Ella would have fit right in. Her eyes are red, her face drawn, and grief and fear vibrate in the air around her. “He just had some milk… at least I think he did.”

“More than an hour,” Gabriel says firmly, pulling her toward the door.

She manages to stop her husband in the doorway. “Don’t let anyone else touch him,” she tells me in a threatening tone.

I nod.

“And whatever you do, if that doctor comes, don’t let him give the baby anything. I’m certain his dose made Jonas sicker, and he wanted to try opium. I know that’s a bad idea.”

“I already forbade him entrance to the castle,” her husband says, managing to get Ella into the hallway.

As the sound of their footsteps recedes, I look down at the baby, and Jonas looks back at me. Then Jonas opens his mouth so wide that I can view his interesting lack of teeth and screams until his face turns red.

My ears hurt. But something hurts in my chest too. Jonas looks thinner now than he did when he was born. His eyes are sunken, and there seems to be a little less fire in his cry. He looks like a wizened old man, as if he’d lived an entire life in a week or two.

I swear under my breath and set off down the corridor, then down a flight and into the portrait gallery. After I have walked for five minutes, Jonas settles down some. He turns his face against my chest and sobs more quietly. He curls his finger around mine rather than flailing it in the air.

“Just don’t die,” I find myself whispering. “Please don’t die.”

Jonas gives an exhausted sob.

I walk for another half hour or so, up the portrait gallery, out into the corridor, around the bend, back down the corridor, back into the portrait gallery… at last, Jonas sleeps.

Sometime later, footsteps sound in the stone corridor behind me. “Mr. Theodon, oh, Mr. Theodon,” pants one of the servants, as I turn toward him. “My apologies, Mr. Theodon, but Mrs. Apple says that the first of the new nursemaids has arrived, and she’d like you to be there for the interview.”

“How can that be?” I whisper. “I sent off to Manchester only yesterday.”

The servants has just realized what… or rather who… I hold in my arms. He starts walking backwards on his toes. “Don’t know,” he whispers back. “Shall I tell her you are unavailable?”

I look down at Jonas. The baby is turned against my chest, a fold of my shirt clutched in one tiny hand. “I can’t stop walking,” I say. “Send the she-wolf up here. Mrs. Apple can see her first, then I will.”