“I’m not saying this to shock you,” Bill-E begins. “I wouldn’t say it to anyone else. But you were honest enough to tell me about the demons, so I think–”
“Just say it!” I snap.
“OK.” Bill-E takes a deep, relaxing breath. “I think those people in the book were shape-changers. I think lycanthropy runs in our family, and has done for hundreds, maybe thousands, of years. I think your uncle — my father — has it.
“I think Dervish is a werewolf.”
A THEORY
→ “You’re crazy.”
Storming down the stairs to the main hall. Bill-E hurrying to catch up.
“It makes sense,” he insists, darting ahead of me, blocking my path. “The bite marks. The way the animals were ripped up the middle. Why he collects the carcasses and incinerates them — getting rid of evidence.”
“Crazy!” I snort again, and shove past him. “A while ago you told me Dervish was your father — now you reckon he’s a werewolf!”
“What’s one got to do with the other?” Bill-E says. “Werewolves are normal people except around the time of a full moon.”
“You’re barking mad!” I shout, throwing open the front doors, stepping out into welcome sunlight. “This is the twenty-first century. The police have cameras everywhere. DNA testing. All the rest. A werewolf wouldn’t last a week in today’s world.”
“It would if it had human cunning,” Bill-E disagrees. “Hear me out, will you? I’ve been working this through in my head for the last few months. I’ve got most of it figured.”
I stop reluctantly. A large part of me wants to keep on walking and not listen to another word of Bill-E’s madness. But a small part is fascinated and wants to hear more.
“Go on,” I grunt. “But if you start on about silver bullets or–”
“You think I want to kill him?” Bill-E snaps. “He’s my father!”
Bill-E strolls as he outlines his theory. I wander along beside him.
“In movies you become a werewolf if another werewolf bites you. But I don’t think dozens of people from one family would get bitten, one after another, over so many centuries. It must be passed on by genes, from parents to children. The unlucky ones are born to become werewolves. So I imagine they start to change pretty early, when they’re kids or teenagers. Dervish is in his forties. If he is a werewolf, I think he’s been living with this for decades.
“Werewolves can’t be wild killers,” he continues. “If they were, Dervish would have killed loads of people here. I’ve checked old newspapers in the library — nobody nearby has been killed by a savage beast any time recently.”
“Maybe he roams further afield to do his killing,” I insert wryly.
“I thought of that,” Bill-E says earnestly. “But I’ve kept a close eye on him these past few months, and I haven’t seen him spending nights away around full moon time. Besides, we’ve seen some of his local kills — the butchered animals. If he hunts and kills animals this close to home, there’s no reason he shouldn’t hunt and kill humans here too. But Dervish isn’t a killer. If I thought there was even a slim chance that he was, I wouldn’t be talking to you — I’d be telling the police.”
“You’d turn in your own father?” I sneer.
“I’d have to if he was killing,” Bill-E says softly. “Murderers can’t be allowed to roam freely.”
We’re getting near to the sheds. A large sheet of corrugated iron lies on the ground between the sheds and the mansion. We head for it simply because there’s nowhere better to go. This used to be a small orchard. There are several smooth tree stumps close by. Bill-E sits on one and I sit on another. I tap the corrugated iron with my foot, considering the ‘evidence’.
“So you think Dervish is a werewolf with a conscience. He kills animals but not people.”
“Is that so hard to believe?” Bill-E asks. “You accept demons are real — why not werewolves?”
“I accept demons because I’ve seen them,” I answer stiffly. “And I’m sure they’re demons twenty-four hours a day, corrupt and evil all the time. If you asked me to believe that people can turn into savage beasts — physically transform into wolf-like creatures — maybe I could. But I don’t believe an ordinary human can change into a hairy, yellow-eyed, fanged werewolf overnight, then resume his ordinary shape the next day.”
“I never said he transformed,” Bill-E notes swiftly. “I think it’s more a mental condition than a physical one.”
“What about those creatures in the book?”
“Maybe it works different ways in different people,” he suggests. “Some get it bad and change completely. Others, like Dervish, are able to control it.”
“Degrees of werewolfism,” I chortle. “This gets crazier every time you open your mouth.”
“OK,” Bill-E huffs, getting up, shoulders slumping. “Have it your own way. I thought I was doing you a favour, but if you’re going to mock me, I’ll just–”
“How do you reckon you were doing me a favour?” I interrupt.
“I don’t live here,” Bill-E says, turning to depart. “Come the next full moon, I’ll be tucked up in bed, in the Vale, safe with Gran and Grandad. You’ll be out here by yourself… alone in the house… with Dervish.”
→ Hours later. Trying to laugh it off. Craziness. Utter lunacy. I shouldn’t even be considering it.
And yet…
In a world beset by demons, why shouldn’t werewolves exist too? And I can’t think why Dervish should be searching the forest for dead animals and burning them secretly. And some of the faces in the book definitely match those in the hall of portraits.
Then again, I’ve only Bill-E’s word that the book is about werewolves. Dervish has a weird sense of humour. He might have been kidding Bill-E about the book. Maybe he even stuck in the photos and drawings himself. That makes more sense than Bill-E’s werewolf theories. Much more logical.
And yet…
→ Dervish arrives back just before sunset. I greet him as he enters. “Go anywhere special?”
“Just for a drive,” he replies, slicking down his grey hair at the sides of his head.
“Where’s Meera?” I ask.
“Off touring the countryside. She’s basing herself here for the next week or so, but she’ll be popping in and out a lot. Where’s Billy?”
“He went home.”
“Oh?” Dervish pauses on his way to the bathroom. “I thought he was going to watch TV.”
“He had other things to do,” I lie.
Dervish continues on to the bathroom. My eyes follow him automatically, studying his face, the set of his jaw, the crown of his head, searching for abnormalities.
→ Night. Heavy clouds. Only brief glimpses of the three-quarters full moon.
Watching TV with Dervish — a documentary about some Indian woman that he knows. All about using people’s natural body energies to cure diseases. Y-A-W-N!
A game of chess afterwards. Dervish appears distracted (or am I imagining it?). Plays loosely, less aggressive than usual. He beats me, but I take a couple of his major pieces and make him work hard for his victory.