I really like to reach into the history of my Musimagium world, so please enjoy this short story set in the Ozarks around 1917. I write short stories for my Muse Happens group who get to read them early and for free. I hope you enjoy Hiram, and I feel like we’ll have more stories with him in the future.
Excerpt
On the floor by the door, Remus whined as the howl of the local red wolf pack rose into the trees. Family. The thought skirted Hiram’s mind, and he nodded before taking another sip of the moonshine.
“They ain’t your family no more,” he said. “But it still hurts. I know.”
Hurt like the dull throb of his thumb, the nail black and threatening to peel from where he’d missed the nail he’d been hammering because he’d been thinking about the letter that had come nearly a week ago now. Hurt like the reminder he wasn’t wanted. The increased lanterns he saw coming from the direction of Gemini Lacus, headquarters to Armis, the Musimagium’s law enforcement arm, told him something not very good was going to happen. He still read the dits and dahs like he had during the great war, the cadence of morse code somewhat soothing, even as they talked about the schisms happening in the Musimagium. People like him weren’t welcome. Not fancy enough. Not cultured enough. Damn prohibitionists doing more than trying to outlaw the drink. They really didn’t like people who didn’t meekly follow the rules, people like him who asked too many questions. Even tonight, with the burn of moonshine in his veins and the howl of wolves making Remus itchy to go out and run with the pack that had refused him, the sound of those same dits and dahs coming from the receiver didn’t soothe him either.
Not wanted. The foreman at Gemini Lacus had said as much the last time he’d been by to repair their radio transceivers. Not a lot of call for the skills he’d learned during the Great War down in the Ozarks, but they’d needed him where the agents listened to the radio signals and tried to ferret out those who were using magic to harm. But the official letter that his contract had ended put a stop to that. Someone else would fix their radios now, someone a bit more cultured, someone not bonded to a three-legged wolf.
A grin turned Hiram’s lips, and he took his third and final sip for the night, before putting the cork back in the bottle and setting it on the table beside him. Remus whined again. The thunder, and the howls, were getting louder.
Family. This time the images sent to his mind were a flash of red fur darting between spindle-trunked oak trees, the scent of loam with a hint of warm sunshine he associated with rabbits, filling his nostrils. Remus rose onto his three good legs, the paw of his right front not quite long enough to support his weight. He went to the door and nosed it once, twice, then sat, tail thumping gently against the cabin’s wooden floorboards.
“You know you can’t run with them. Can’t keep up and you smell too much like me.” He held out his arm, the sleeve rolled up to reveal forearms tanned from the sun and thick with graying black hair, as if to let Remus smell him and remember where he belonged.
Remus sniffed and his tail thumped a little faster.
“Okay, boy. But don’t go far and come right back.” A crack of lightning and rumble of thunder nearly drowned out his words and for a moment Remus hunched down. But he had the door opened and the red wolf darted out without hardly making a sound.
He stepped onto the porch that looked off to the east and toward the road. From the ridge he could barely see it through rows upon rows of trees, but he thought about Remus, saw the trunks flashing past as he raced down hill, tongue lolling out of his mouth, and sheer joy in the movement. Electricity crackled in the air. Any other wild creature would be holed up in its den, but not Remus. It’d been on a night like this when he’d found the pup, his paw caught in a bear trap someone set and forgot about. The pup had been weak, and he hadn’t thought it’d survive. But Remus had.
Hiram’s leg twinged with the change in weather. He reached down to rub his thigh, then stopped, hand hovering mid-air when the image of the grey and red pelt flashed through Remus’ vision. His wolf had stopped, hunkered low in some blackberry vines, ignoring the thorns in the hopes of not being seen. The bigger wolf looked like a cross between a gray and a red, and when he sat and howled even the rumble of thunder stopped to listen. Shivers ran down his spine. The Moko Pack.
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