I had to get out. Despite the openness of the monastery, its walls were oppressive to me now. I grabbed my notebook and a pen, strapped on a body cam and went for a walk. On the way out I remembered to take a bottle of water and a few cereal bars in case I was out for a long time. One of the others could chat to the live-streamers. It wasn’t as if I would be badly missed.
Out there in the forest, I could be myself, without fear of being called a virgin, or worrying that every word I spoke and every thing I did sounded or appeared crazy, or being ridiculed for not being like them, oozing with confidence and self-possession. The mere thought that one of those people could have taken my medication was more than troubling to me, it was abhorrent. My crutch, the one thing keeping me together, had been stolen from me. Without those pills I was a different person. You could barely even call me a person; I was a shivering lump of paranoia who moved from catatonia to reckless impulsivity at the drop of a hat.
And the voice. The terrible voice that had plagued me during my weakest moments, could come back at any time.
I climbed and climbed, using every muscle in my body to distract my mind from spiralling into the first burgeoning of paranoia. Even though I knew the drug was still in my system, I couldn’t stay calm. Nathan had stolen them, I was sure of it, but what if he’d had help? What if it was Irene? What if it was Dan? He was quiet, and often quiet people are the last ones you suspect, but the worst of the lot. Maybe it was even Jules. What if they all had a secret vendetta against me?
I realised I was already in the throes of paranoia, and I stopped walking and began to laugh. It was this place, it had to be. I’d been on edge since arriving, probably because of Alexandru’s story. I just needed to relax.
Further up the mountainside, I stared down at Sfântul Mihail taking in the steeple of the tower, the tall church walls and the sharp gables. The imposing size of the place made me think of the story I told about the nuns. Out here I could imagine it all happening. Those minor details, the names, the events, they’d come to me in the moment. I’d been inspired by Alexandru, that’s true, but there’d also been this sense of puzzle pieces clicking into place as I’d been talking. It’d been instinctual, like a lot of my writing is.
With this great vantage point, I sat and began jotting down ideas in my notebook, still working on Maya’s origin story where she comes into her healing powers. I’d decided not to make her a sexy assassin or a tortured mage, those characters had been written so many times before. I’d wanted her to contribute to good. A character who makes a difference because they care.
But I had no time to explore these themes before a thin howl echoed around the mountain. The call prompted a jolt of electricity to work its way through my body, and I gasped. I put the pen inside my notebook and stood, squinting into the distance. It sounded again, and I realised that it was coming from up the mountainside. I rotated my body in the direction of the howl, the wind whipping sharp strands of hair into my eyes.
The pained, eerie call struck a chord with my emotions, which perhaps was because of the stolen medication. The animal was in obvious distress and a deep sadness spread down from my heart to my stomach. Could I walk away and leave it out here in pain? But I was no expert, and there was a chance the distressing cry came from a wolf. They were rare, but still existed in the Carpathians, I knew that much. If I hurried down to the monastery, perhaps I could get Irene to call some sort of local animal control, if one existed. How long would it take for them to come? Were there rangers in this area? I remembered what she’d said about the telephone service. We’d probably have to send an email, which could take even longer, meanwhile, this animal had been hurt.
As another wounded howl echoed around the forest, my feet made the decision for me. I started walking up the hill, following the direction of the animal’s call. I zigzagged my way through clusters of silver birches, their amber leaves almost touching across the divide. Even my presence among them made the drops of amber fall. If I hadn’t had an urgent task, I would have stayed there for hours taking hundreds of photographs. But I didn’t, I rushed through them to where the landscape opened into farmland.
There was a barbed-wire fence separating the forest from a flock of sheep. My eyes were drawn to the dead sheep first, the blood so vivid against the white wool, and then I saw what was lying next to it. A wolf. Bent and broken among the grass, its tongue lolling from its mouth, a pool of blood around its throat. My stomach lurched but I held down the water and cereal bars. It’d been dead for a while. So where did the howl come from?
I allowed my gaze to trail left until I saw the animal caught in the wire fence. Another wolf, but this one slightly over half the size of the dead one. It had to be the dead wolf’s pup, but it wasn’t tiny. It was the size of a Labrador, but skinnier. Its neck was caught in the wire and it was growling and struggling to get out. I took a few steps towards it before stopping to suck in a deep breath. How was I going to get this wolf out of the wire without endangering my life?
“It’s okay,” I said, as I approached. “I won’t hurt you.”
I was in so far over my head, and yet I couldn’t bear to turn back. I’d heard the desperation in its cries, the stringy loneliness echoing through the mountains.
When I was around four feet away from the wolf I tried to assess the situation. Its head was caught in the lower section of the wire, probably from trying to force its way underneath the fence to get near the sheep. Perhaps there’d been a hole here, but the farmer had replaced it to keep the wolves out. I crouched down and saw that a section of the wire had broken and pierced the wolf’s flesh.
The wolf couldn’t stay still, it wriggled and whined and snapped its jaws. A trail of bloody saliva dropped from its teeth.
“We’re going to have to work together here,” I said. “You need to not eat me, okay?”
I reached into my rucksack and pulled out the selfie stick Irene had given us. Perhaps I could use it to nudge back those broken pieces of wire and allow the wolf to get free. It was risky. I wished the wolf was on the other side of the fence, but I had to hope it would rather run away to safety than eat me. If I could get it free, it’d at least stop it from injuring itself further, and then I could make sure Irene told the appropriate authorities so they could keep track of it. I couldn’t be sure, but I figured wolves are an endangered species and there had to be an organisation in Romania that checked up on the population in the mountains.
“I’m coming close. Don’t panic.” I kept talking to soothe myself as well as the wolf. Perhaps the sound of my voice would stop it from killing me. “I’m going to use this against the wire, here, okay?” A snarl rolled from the wolf’s mouth as I pressed the plastic selfie stick against the wire. It was hard to get purchase as the wolf carried on squirming and growling, but I had a steady hand, somehow, and the selfie stick was sturdy enough to move the wire millimetre by millimetre.
Once the sharp piece of wire was no longer digging in the wolf’s neck, it didn’t growl with quite as much gusto. I moved around to the right side of the animal and worked on the other broken pieces of wire, bending them away from the wolf’s flesh, gradually making the hole in the fence bigger and bigger. Once I saw that it was large enough for the animal to free its head, I retracted the stick and moved away, close to the birch trees, far from its sharp teeth.