Memoirs of a She Wolf

Capitulum IV

The experience frightens me. There are six of them, figures peering from the woods, and they watched me. I can't know why but I suddenly am not able to move. I'm eager to run but I can't. The sweat drips from me as I'm sure that I will die, alone out here in the secret location that I've been drawn to. 

"Salve!" said a voice, male and kind. "Pulchra puella! You maiden of the stone urbs. Venus of Pompeii!" 

A man steps from behind an evergreen cork oak tree, dressed in a blue sleeveless chilton. I'm astonished now, to see that he is followed by a group of young people, two girls and four boys. All looked to be so fit and healthy. They look at me as though I were on display, like a mural, but they also smiled at me. Something unnerved me. Their eyes were not human at all. I was scared of them. But the first man was nice and he assured me they were friends. They all introduced themselves to me. They were named Marcius, Linus, Felix, Rufus, Mila and Lucia.   

"Nice meeting a city maiden like you, Aradia," said that first man, who said he was Marcius. 

"Yes, etiam," I uttered, feeling quite strange in their presence. "I welcome amicitia friendship dearly, gratias." 

My formal pleasantness didn't stop me feeling nervous of them all. Then I realised why. The other five disappeared, but what was there where they stood, were wolves! Marcius held me and spoke words of comfort, but I wasn't listening to him. I saw the wolves bound away into the trees. I collapse on my knees and cried. 

"Paenitet! So sorry Aradia! We can't help it. You must understand, because you're the lupine woman, who comes here at moonlight. We see you, and expected you here today."

"I've never come here!" I sobbed. "You're mistaken. I dream of being here."

His words scare me so much that I'm now terrified.

"I will leave now, but Aradia, you're welcome to return."

"No!"

"We can be found here most times, but we're sheltered in the big house, the Villa of Sacramentum, that owns much of the land."

That night I was thinking about it all. I was disturbed by what I had seen. It seemed scary. Not even the power of Vesuvius could take away the fear I still had. It was then I feel asleep and dreamt of the wolf reflection, up there in the outskirts, not far from that huge villa of mystery, where my strange encounter lives. And I saw them! In my dream, wolves, who were Marcius, Linus, Felix, Mina and Lucia. 

"We are all wolves, even you, Aradia," they whispered. "We have to get away from here. It's time to leave the vallis and go as far as Nuceria. Come with us!" This terrified me, and just as I woke up, there was a pounding on the walls of the house.