The House of the Wolf

18

18

She was not there.

Raoul looked around the crowded sitting room of the Dubois home. Honoré was holding a salon for his out-of-town houseguests and local friends: many voices talked at once, a pleasant sound like the steady rumour of flowing water. He was beginning to enjoy human society. The friends of Honoré Dubois were unfailingly kind and patient with him, and today his host had introduced him to a number of new people, including an elderly white-bearded gentleman who needed a wooden stick to walk: this turned out to be Bernard Lavallée, Honoré's farmer friend from the Île d'Orléans. But to his disappointment the Boisvert girl was conspicuously absent from this gathering. He had hoped to speak with her again, to ask her how she was adjusting to her new life and to offer her his help.

He turned back to Dubois and his friend.

"I feel like something of an oddity at these gatherings," said Monsieur Lavallée with a chuckle, "as I am just an ordinary human."

"But Monsieur, Josephine tells me you are far from ordinary," Raoul replied. "A sorcier, she called you. Is that true? Have you special powers that other humans have not?"

The old man smiled, grey eyes twinkling in his weatherworn old face. "It's true that I am descended from a noted sorcier who lived in the early days of our colony. His father married a native woman, and it's said that he inherited the supernatural powers of the Algonquin shamans. He could read the future, so the story goes, and whenever the supply ships were late coming upriver his neighbours would ask him to foretell their arrival date. Some say he could affect the weather too, raising up storms and fogs by making incantations over a magic cauldron. They even claim that he thwarted a British invasion that way! But I cannot vouch for the truth of those tales, and I have no such powers myself, hélas! Just the occasional premonition, and mine are not very precise."

"Still, strange accounts have been given me of this island of yours, Monsieur. Tales of witches and lutins, and the feu-follet – the will o' the wisp that shines in the night? Those cannot be real, surely?" said Raoul.

"What! You balk at the notion of sprites and witches – you, who are a loup garou?" said Lavallée, laughing. "There are some who say the feux follets were inspired by fireflies, and we do have a great many of those on the Île d'Orléans. But for my part, I like to think that the world is still full of mysteries we have not begun to grasp – in spite of men of science like René here." He nodded to Leblanc, who stood nearby.

"Even men of science do not claim to know everything," replied Leblanc, entering their group and conversation. "You should talk to people in the physics department at my university. Many think it may not even be possible to know everything about our universe. I don't understand my loup garou nature, but just because I have no explanation for it doesn't mean there isn't one. I simply haven't found it yet." He glanced at Dubois. "Is something wrong, my friend?"

Dubois was frowning as he gazed across the room. Raoul looked in the same direction, and saw Suzette and Hyacinthe Lafontaine seated on a couch together. For once their cousin Manon was not with them.

"I hope not," Dubois murmured in reply. "Will you excuse me a moment, gentlemen?"

He walked over to the Lafontaine girls. Raoul also excused himself and followed. "Is there still no word from your cousin?" Dubois inquired of them.

"Not yet," said Suzette. "She said yesterday that she'd meet us here, but she's taking an awfully long time. She's not answering her phone either."