Fox O' Nine Tales: Larissa Of Foxwood

Chapter Ten : A Captive of Foxwood Castle

A Fox O'Nine Tale

By R.W. Slavin

Book One: Larissa of Foxwood

Chapter Ten : A Captive of Foxwood Castle

Dr. Gwen Osgood ran and ran until she could run no more, and then, her heaving lungs aching, her trembling legs growing numb, she finally collapsed in a defeated heap upon the polished stone floor of the palatial hallway. Slowly she raised her weary head to see, once again, exactly what she feared she would once again see. She was indeed, once again, exactly where she was when she had begun her attempted "escape" hours before. She was again staring through the open doors into the elegant and sumptuously appointed suite of rooms in which she had found herself upon awakening - awakening after having lost consciousness during her nightmare horseback ride (abducted!) through a savage thunderstorm.

Have I somehow gone absolutely mad? wondered the frightened doctor, a strange question for an eminently well-trained and well-respected professor and child psychologist to be asking herself! How could it be possible that last night as I fell asleep I also managed to fall from the sky into a horror movie world where walking talking wolfmen in soldiers' uniforms ride stallions and bark orders at me! (In English!) And then to awake to find myself all alone in the most beautiful palace I have ever seen! And with fresh clothes (strange clothes) laid out for me, a breakfast of fine food awaiting me (the toast still warm!) and a bath in a beautiful gold-inlaid bathtub having been drawn for me (the water still warm!)! The doors to my "room" are not locked and there is no one to keep me here. And yet...

I am a prisoner and this is my prison cell! What madness has seized hold of my mind?! Is this a test or a trick or a joke? Or have I finally snapped?!

Rather than partake of the fine breakfast or the warm bath she had found awaiting her when she woke, Dr. Gwen had decided to "get" while the "getting" was good and make a run for it out the unlocked doors. And run she did. Hour after hour. Up and down the endless hallways and corridors, and up and down the winding staircases. But not once did she find a window to be pried open and jumped from, and not once did any of the hundreds of doors she flung open show her a way to the outdoors. All the opened doors only led to more elegant rooms and more polished flagstone or marble-floored hallways and arched corridors. And always - always! - she eventually found herself right back where she had started, right back in front of the open doors of "her room."

Here she was again, alone, a captive prisoner in a mockingly beautiful jail with no locks or keys.

Alone? The sound of a footstep, of a booted step, just behind her, made her heart suddenly race. She desperately didn't want to turn and look. But an even deeper even more desperate desire for self-preservation forced her to slowly turn her head in the direction of the heavy booted footstep.

It was him. The wolfman in his leather soldier's uniform. The stallion-riding walking talking werewolf with the blazing blue eyes and the booming voice that could be heard over the sound of pounding horses' hooves and the loudest crashes of rolling thunder.

The great wolf slowly stooped to offer Dr. Gwen his hand. But she hesitated, his hand being as much a clawed wolfen paw as it was a "hand." And it was dark-fur-covered and black-nailed and enormous, looking as if it could easily lop off her head with the most half-hearted swipe. But when she looked up into his eyes, so luminous and so human-like (but bigger), she felt her racing heart and her racing mind calm, just a bit, and she put her hand in his. She was too exhausted to resist as he carefully lifted her up off the floor. She marveled at how gently and how effortlessly he elevated her and cradled her in his massively muscled arms. He carried her back into the "living room" of her elegant jail suite and set her down upon the intricately stitched and luxuriously overstuffed divan as carefully as if he were replacing a baby bluebird fallen from its nest. He then picked up a simple but sturdy-looking hardwood chair and set in down squarely in front of her. He sat down slowly facing her and casually crossed his legs, as if he were, with this languorous gesture, trying to set her state of mind at ease. If so, any such intent was doomed to failure, lost in the intensity of the great wolf's gaze as his eyes locked on to hers. Dr. Gwen sat on her hands, lest the wolf see them trembling.