He then taught us how to make glue with flour and water and got us to cut the different coloured sheets of paper into thin strips. Together, we all sat and made ream after ream of paper chains.

Once they were complete, we hung them from the ceiling and decorated our home. I looked at them, and although they looked colorful and bright, they weren’t as spectacular as the candles we lit during Candlemas in the caves. In fact, Christmas was different from all the Candlemases we had spent in the caves. My father would hang glass lanterns, lamps, and display the most beautifully carved waxed candles, until every room in the cave shone a brilliant warm glow. If we were really lucky, he would bring chocolate back from the world on the other side of the forest, slowly melt it by the heat from the candles, and let us dip our fingers into it and then lick them clean. For some reason, he called our chocolate-covered fingers ‘Chocolate-Do-Dads!’

As we sat in a circle on the floor and made our paper chains, I asked my mother if we would be having any ‘Chocolate-Do-Dads’ this year. On hearing this, mother glared at me as all subjects relating to my father were banned.

Smiling and bemused, Father Paul turned to me and asked, “What on earth are chocolate-do-dads?”

Ignoring my mother, I explained what they were and how my father would sometimes bring chocolate home during Candlemas.

“Humans have something very similar,”

he smiled back at me. “They hang chocolate wrapped in brightly coloured foil from their Christmas trees. They call them chocolate novelties.”

“Chocolate novelties?” I gasped in wonder.

Seeing the look of amazement on my face, Father Paul laughed and said, “That’s right, young man, chocolate novelties!”

I liked the sound of these ‘Chocolate novelties’, and thought that perhaps some of the changes happening around me weren’t so bad after all. That Christmas did bring with it another change for me. I began to feel I was being left out by my mother, as if I was no longer a part of my family.

It was Christmas Eve and our mother informed us she was taking us all into the local town, as she needed to buy some things before the shops closed for Christmas. In the weeks building up to Christmas, I had loved visiting the shops and looking in wonder at all the displays in the windows. The whole of the High Street had been brightly decorated and a huge Christmas tree had been put in place. As it towered over me, I looked up at all the twinkling lights, and began to wonder if Christmas wasn’t as beautiful as Candlemas after all. I felt a buzz of excitement as I watched the human’s dash from one shop to another, buying presents for their family and friends.

We had arrived in town early and the shops had only just opened. The High Street was already busy with the last minute shoppers. My mother took us straight to a store, where at the back, there was a small café. She found an empty table and me and my brother and sisters perched on the chairs as she went off to the counter.

Mother returned within a short time with a glass of milk. She placed it on the table in front of me and said, “Jack, you’ll have to wait here while me and your brother and sisters go shopping.”

At first I thought she was joking, and said, “Really?”

She gathered the other children around her and began to move away from the table. I felt scared, as I was still only nine years of age and had never been left on my own before – not in this new world.

“Don’t leave me,” I said.

Mother must have sensed my dread and said, “Don’t be so ridiculous, we won’t be long.

Just make sure you don’t go off with any strangers!” Then leaning close, her eyes bright, she smiled and whispered, “Don’t go off with any humans.”

With that, they turned and left and I sat staring into my glass of milk. They were gone for the rest of the day and I just sat there. Every now and then, the waitress would come over and ask me if I was okay. I simply informed her I was waiting for my mother and that she would be back soon. I remember feeling hurt at being left on my own and feeling left out. As I sat there, and one hour rolled into another, I began to justify my mother’s actions. I wondered if she hadn’t really done this so she could secretly buy some of those chocolate novelties that Father Paul had told me about.

Not possessing a watch, I didn’t know how much time had passed. I didn’t have the courage to leave the café, as I wasn’t sure of my way home. So I waited and waited. In the end, the store began to empty. Again the waitress approached me and asked where my mother was.

I explained again that she had told me to wait until she came back. The kind lady explained the shop was closing, and if my mother didn’t arrive soon, they would have to contact the police. To hear her say this filled me with fear. What if the police were to come? What would I say? What would I tell them?

The waitress took me by the hand and escorted me to the front of the shop. The store was now closed and the last remaining members of staff were getting ready to go home for Christmas. I remember some of the lights being switched off and the shop being thrown into semi-darkness. I continued to stand with the waitress by the large glass door. I began to scan the last remaining shoppers on the High Street for any sign of my family. I tried to fight it, but by this time I had convinced myself that I would never see any of them again. The police would discover that I was a Lycanthrope – then what would happen?

My lips began to tremble and pucker as I started to cry. It was then I heard the sound of knocking on the glass door, and I looked up to see my family standing outside.

A huge wave of relief washed over me.

The waitress who had taken care of me opened up the shop door. My mother apologised to the woman, explaining that they had been delayed. I took hold of my mother’s hand and gripped it tight for fear of being separated again. Once outside, I rubbed the tears from my eyes with the back of my free hand.

“Why are you crying?” my mother asked.

“I thought you weren’t coming back for me.”

“Don’t be so stupid!” she replied.

That was that. No further explanation.

The comforting thoughts that I had conjured up of my mother buying me secret chocolate novelties had also been a waste of time, as I couldn’t see one shopping bag between them.

So our first Christmas in our new home came and went. We heard nothing from our father, and Mother seemed delighted by that.

“He must’ve forgotten all about you…

see? Time for you to forget all about him,” she told me with a smile.

Chapter Nine

Kiera

I didn’t want to cry for Jack Seth. I didn’t want to shed one single tear. He didn’t deserve it, but I couldn’t help but feel the sting of tears in the corners of my eyes as he told me about how his mother had left him alone in that café. To hear his story reminded me he had been a child once. He hadn’t always been a monster. I just couldn’t get the image of that small boy sitting alone on Christmas Eve, hoping that his mum had left him alone to go and buy him some chocolate. How could she have done that, and what was the point of it? I wondered.

I looked at Jack as he sat before me. He sat forward on the chair, his arms crossed over his knees, head hung low. I didn’t want to feel sorry for him – I didn’t want to know his hurt and pain. I had to hate him if I was going to get out of this alive and save my father and Potter. To rid my mind of that little boy sitting alone, I looked past Jack and at my father again. As I lifted my head, I noticed it was harder for me to do so. My neck was stiffening, as was the flesh that covered my face and body. I twisted my wrists a little faster in their chains.

To see my father slumped forward in his chair helped push those pictures of Jack as a boy from my mind. He wasn’t that little boy anymore.

Whatever had happened to make him change had nothing to do with what was happening now – what was taking place in this room. I had to hold onto that thought, but it was hard.

Suddenly, Jack stood up. He looked down at me. I looked back up at him. He pulled the baseball cap low over his brow as if trying to hide his eyes. I stared through the shadow covering his face, but he turned away. He crossed the room to my father, pulled his head back, and looked into his face. My father cried out deliriously as the wound in his stomach opened. It looked black and wet in the light from the lamp. That was what it took to rid my mind of those images of Jack as a boy.

As if reading my mind, Jack looked back at me and said, “Ready to choose yet, Kiera?”

“You won’t make me choose,” I whispered.

Jack released my father’s hair from his fist, dropping his head back into place. He came across the room. Instead of sitting back on his chair, he stood before me and said, “I’d make your choice soon, you look as if you are cracking up.”

“I’d rather be a dead statue than choose between my father and Potter,” I said.

“We’ll see,” he sighed, reaching out and dragging a finger down my cheek. His broken nail made a scratching sound against my hardening flesh. He held his finger up in the light of the lamp and blew the dust away that had gathered there. It seesawed in the shaft of lamplight, like a cloud of dust moats.

“Time is running out,” he said, heading towards the window. “Before long, you won’t be able to open that pretty little mouth of yours to make a choice.”

With his back to me, I twisted my hardening wrists against the chains, that little pile of dust growing ever bigger on the floor beneath my chair. “You know, you don’t always have to be a monster,” I said.

As he stared thoughtfully out of the window at the falling snow, he said, “My curse will never be lifted now, you chose that for me down in The Hollows.”

“Did I?” I asked him.

“What’s that s’posed to mean?” he said without looking back at me.

“Did you let the monster out to protect your mother, brother, and sisters from your father?” I said softly.

“No,” he whispered, his breath clouding over the dirty windowpane.