The Black Wolf's Mark (4 page)

Chapter 10

Zidane walks slowly by the florist and the dense bush is as high as the thickness of his dark top boots. But that doesn’t hinder him from following the path ahead and going beside that green place.

Later on, he reaches a lawn with some flowers of several different colors. He stops before a mirage he didn’t expect to see, not there, in the middle of the jungle.

His sight goes slowly from the shoeless feet, a long black skirt, and also a familiar face whose eyes are closed and her long black hair is scattered over the grass.

He walks five more steps towards her and the young woman opens her eyes, however, she remains lying on the ground with her arms open from side to side.

Her blindness impedes her from seeing who is approaching, but it doesn’t impede her from feeling his unmistakable presence.

“I know you are here.” She says looking at the sky so completely blue, even though she cannot see it.

“It impresses me how you’re able to walk up to here
−”

“Without being able to see.”

She completes the boy’s words, however, he shuts up and she continues talking.

“I know the road well.”

Zidane sits down beside the young woman’s body and she immediately sits up too and they gaze in the same direction, that is, in front.

“There is a female fragrance on your body,” she
says innocently.

However, Zidane wrinkles up his brows, bites his lips and scratches his nape after the shameful comment of the young witch.

“Answer me one thing,” he says after that.

She continues looking in front, waiting to hear the boy’s question.

“By any chance have you had a vision about me last night or today?”

She senses the young man’s embarrassment through his voice.

“No, I haven’t. I slept the entire night.”

She answers honestly and he breathes a sigh of relief.

“That is very good.”  He murmurs in a low voice.

“Who is she? Your sweetheart?”  She persists.

Zidane glances at the profiled face of the girl and his head shakes negatively.

“No, she is just –.”

“A female dancer,” she finishes.

“How do you know?” he asks surprised.

“Norton loves going out with female dancers and they have this same smell.”

Zidane smiles delicately and looks up at the blue sky and says,
“Your wisdom impresses me.”

“I find that my wisdom rewards my physical defi
ciency.”

“Perhaps your blindness makes you a special person.”

“When I was a child, I had difficulty understanding this − I found it is not correct that I cannot see people, nature, the sun, the moon, the stars and everything that is beautiful in this world.

“You don’t see with the
human eyes
, but you see with the
eyes of the soul
and this is surprising.”

He holds her chin and makes her gaze in the direction of his face and she feels his breath against her face.

“Gazing into your eyes, sometimes I feel as if you can really see me,” he says gazing into the white eyes of the blind girl.

She quickly pulls his hand from her chin and she turns her face to the other side and adds,
“Please, never touch me again.”

“Why?”

She has embarrassed him again.

“Your energy doesn’t make me feel good.”

“Why?” He insists not convinced by her weak answer.

“I feel shivers – shudders,” she confesses.

He smiles knowingly, already understanding the reactions of Amarilis’s body.

“Okay
,” he agrees. “I’ll touch you no more.”

They remain a long time in silence and a butterfly flies in their direction and Amarilis holds the butterfly with her hands and that impresses Zidane even more.

“How did you catch this butterfly?”

“I could feel the movements of its wings.”

Zidane opens his eyes wide. “That’s impressive!”

“
What does she look like?” Amarilis asks him while she passes her fingers lightly over the butterfly’s wings.

“She is black with white with yellow spots.”

Amarilis smiles and frees the butterfly that flies away and then the witch turns to her left where Zidane is seated and she has a vision of the engraving on his back.

“You have a mark on your back.”

Zidane stares at her face frightened and he asks her, “How do you know that?”

“I
just saw it now.”

He immediately grabs her arms and says, “If you are able to see my mark you are  also  able to see my face.”

The girl shakes her head quickly and Zidane frees her arms at the same time as he remembers his promise.

“Excuse me! I won’t touch you again.”

Amarilis rises to her feet and she takes a leap when she has another vision of a black wolf rising up in her direction.

“There is a beast within you!” She declares and walks in a hurry through the forest and leaves Zidane behind in a confused state.

Chapter 11

Springtime Festival

The village is in festival mode again during the night. People are celebrating the arrival of the flower season and women adorn the village with flowers that were harvested at the woodland.

Men are drinking and women are dancing all around the bonfire. Every woman holds a flower and place them in their own hair.

Norton and his friend Zidane are accompanied by two female dancers that they met some time ago.  Zidane walks beside the woman while her arm is interlaced with his and she looks quite happy at his side, the complete opposite of him. He looks distant and thoughtful. Nothing here amuses him, not the food, the drink or the people around him.

He stops walking when he glances in the other direction and sees Amarilis in the middle of all these people. She is by herself while her aunt is helping some women to put more food over an enormous wooden table in the fresh air.

“Wait a moment!” Zidane orders his female companion.

He walks to a flower arrangement that women made to decorate the place and he picks out a red flower. Then he walks in the opposite direction to his female companion.

Amarilis looks at the ground when she feels that someone approaches her.

“All women have a flower in their hair and so I brought a flower for you to put in your hair too.”

She smiles at the ground trying to imagine the flower that is in Zidane’s hand.

“What does the flower look like?” she asks him.

“The flower is red like an apple.”

“Apples are red?” she queries.

“Some of them,” he answers and puts the flower on her dark hair, above her ear.  She touches the flower with her fingers and feels the delicacy of its petals.

“Thanks
.”

“You look beautiful
!” He exclaims gazing at the gracious face of the blind girl. She feels he is observing her and automatically her hands catch the long skirt of her black dress.

“I need to go − someone is waiting for me.” His voice sounds melancholic. “Take care!”

Amarilis lowers her head, feeling a slight bitterness at the young man’s retreat.

“You too
,” she says after some time but Zidane doesn’t hear her saying that because he is well ahead going back in the direction of the female dancer.

“What have you gone to do to that witch?” the female dancer asks him as soon as he arrives at her side again.

“I went to put a flower in her hair − after all, she was the only woman that was with no flower in her hair.”

“She is blind and wouldn’t be able to see that anyway!” she says injured.

“She is blind but has feelings, has a heart.”

“I can’t believe you waste your precious time with that blind witch! She does not even deserve to have come to the world!”

Zidane gazes seriously at her face and he says between his teeth, “Get another male companion for yourself to spend the rest of the feast with because I feel like being  alone.”

He walks in front and leaves the woman behind. She looks at his back and shouts at him, “Keeps company with that blind witch!”

“That is not a bad idea!” He says in a loud voice while still walking forward.

“You and she deserve each other!” She retorts in anger and Zidane smiles to himself upon hearing those words.

“Two imbeciles!” she murmurs between her teeth and walks to the other side of the village.

***

Amarilis is standing with her face against the hangar wall. Someone approaches behind her and leans his hand against the wall and another hand passes lightly over the hand of the young woman that is rested on the wall too. She turns immediately as soon as she senses the stranger’s presence.

Her face confronts the boy’s face and that always provokes the same shudders.

Zidane holds the young woman’s arms and leans her against the wall and Amarilis is immobilized before his potent body.

“Please Amarilis, ask me for anything in this world but don’t ask me to stay away from you.”

His nose touches the young woman’s hair and he inhales her scent with pleasure.

“And don’t ask me to never touch you again.”

His voice trembles at her ragged breathing. She feels her lungs get more and more narrow when he is so close to her.

He passes his hand lightly over her black dress, a little below her breasts and asks her gazing into her eyes, “Aren’t they good
? − the shudders I provoke in you?”

She says nothing because there is no time for that as Zidane loses his control and kisses her on her lips, dominating her as if she was a savage animal.

Zidane awakes from his thoughts when he gazes through the bonfire.
He is seated on the ground holding a red wine mug. His glance reaches people round him and he makes innumerable grimaces and squeezes his eyes several times since his mind is expelling the enormous wine doses in his blood.

Some seconds later, he decides to rise and holds his wine mug that is almost empty. And his twisted steps take him in another direction.

He throws his wine mug to his left as soon as he stops facing a person. Zidane’s hands hold Amarilis’s face with excitement, bringing her face next to his.

“What
are you doing?” She asks thunderstruck at the unexpected closeness of the tipsy boy.

“You smell like booze!”

“It’s not right what you are doing to me. I don’t want to do harm to you − I’ll never do harm to you,” he insists.

“You’re drunk
!”

“I am−” his nose leans against hers and their breathing melds into one.

The female dancer observes them from far-off and she can see that Zidane is almost kissing the witch’s lips.

Immediately, she runs up to a tall strong man and whispers something in his ea
r.  The man glances over at Zidane and Amarilis.

“I am−”

Zidane tries to say something to Amarilis again however, in that same moment a hand comes upon his shoulder with a strong grip and removes him from Amarilis.

When Zidane turns to the tall strong ma
n, he receives a violent blow to his nose.

“You miserable....
! I’ll show you who is idle here!”

And the boy receives another blow to his face and he falls down on his knees.

Amarilis looks frightened, already feeling Zidane is wounded.

Norton and a crowd of people run to see the tumult.

“What’s happening here?” Norton asks with irritation.

“This guy attacked me suddenly,” Zidane says trying to stand up and rubs the blood in the corner of his mouth.

The tall man takes off his shirt and throws it down at his side and the female dancer smiles to herself.  She is in high spirits knowing that she is the cause of a dispute between Zidane and the strong man.

“Come boy! Our business isn’t finished yet!”

The shirtless man yells while he moves his fingers in the direction of Zidane challenging him to a duel.

Zidane looks at his friend and Norton shakes his head for he doesn’t like the idea of a fight against this giant man.

Zidane doesn’t pay attention to his friend’s advice. He rises himself up to his full height and also tears off his dark shirt from his body and throws it out to his left.  Amarilis catches his shirt while it’s still in the air.

A white haired old man sees the engraving on the boy’s back and then he points towards it and bellows in a loud voice, “THIS YOUTH CARRIES THE BLACK WOLF’S MARK!”

The crowd gasps upon hearing this.

“HAHA AHAHHAHA!”

Everyone shuts up at the old man’s order. 

Zidane glances at everyone there and he sees that their faces look at him in shock. He also stares at his friend Norton, and subsequently to Amarilis who hugs his shirt and utters nervously, “FIRE! WOLF! DANGER!”

When Zidane glances round him he sees that the men are holding wooden pieces and torches with flames.

“CAPTURE HIM! THIS BOY CANNOT STAY ALIVE!

“LET’S
KILL HIM!”

A man bawls at everyone and they attack in the direction of Zidane and Norton cries out to his friend desperately, “FLEE −ZIDANE!”

Zidane stares desperately at his friend and after that he stares at Amarilis among the people. She is agitated saying, “FIRE! −WOLF!”

And Zidane runs to the other side and the people run after him, holding wood pieces and torches in flames. Som
e of them throw wood pieces against the boy, stones and also torches with flames.

Zidane runs to the forest and they run after him.

The young boy leaps on an enormous rock and he crosses over a little puddle. He steps on a snake, but he continues running. However, he glances back all the time and compares the distance between him and the people after him.

They look like they are moving more and more near him. Then Zidane continues running and his heart is beating faster as the seconds go by.

But he has no time for a rest as this can cost him his life.

Finally he arrives at the road’s end, and then he stops before a precipice and turns his head and glances back and sees men approaching him. Rest is not an option now.  The only alternative is leaping down that precipice and facing the dark frozen water of the river.

When the people approach the abyss, they stare down and see Zidane’s body going in the direction of the river’s water.  However, no man has the courage to go after the boy and one of them says in an elevated voice, “HE WON’T SURVIVE FOR A LONG TIME! ALL THE PEOPLE THAT LEAPED IN THIS ABYSS DIDN’T COME OUT OF IT WITH THEIR LIVES.”

The people throw out their wood pieces into the river and they begin to commemorate with squeals the boy’s supposed death.