When she was born her grandmother looked over her little pink body, dark framing eyelashes and yellow eyes and declared that her name should be Loa. Her old and fragile voice crackled in a rough Swedish, whereas her father, completely Finnish with no sole drop of the Swedish language in him, merely grunted like a dog ready to bark. Loa’s mother struggled in giving birth long enough and then her body gave in and her soul escaped in a trickle of smoke nobody else could see than the infant Loa.
Loa was raised on a farm out in the deep Finnish woods, with mighty pine and deceiving spruce enclosing the landscape, and a lake at the edge of the fields. The farmer spoke seldom to his daughter, he mainly managed sheep and cows, and crops. A girl in the house was not something he could manage, so their communication lessened until it almost only consisted by body language, comprehended by nodding or shrugging.
The house was old, red painted with white corners. Inside rested the large black stove where usually a fire crackled, bread in the making. Their television set was old, black and white and seldom used. Indeed technology was something Loa learned to fear as electricity was like the lightning in the thunderstorm and she feared the storms, hiding under the kitchen table with the dogs.
At school she found herself an outsider, but not because she was different. She faded into the background and spoke very little. Her hair was dirty blond, soft as fur, and her eyes yellow and gleaming. She had dark and long eyelashes, making her one of the prettiest girls in school, and attractive in her father’s friends’ eyes. Her skin was pure and strong and would endure falls without as much as a cut on her knee. Over her back were dark, big freckles that emerged over her shoulders on a hot summer day like growing clusters of parasites.
Loa sat on the floor fiddling with a kitten. Her father was out in the fields with the other farmers, the Scandinavian cowboys, discussing moonshine and cattle.
She heard them talk about a lynx out in the woods, a male. She could hear them far across the fields; something she had been taught in school was a matter of empty distances and the speed of sound. But she could hear them as clearly as if she would be sitting nearby with the kitten biting into her fingers. They worried about the sheep, grazing at night with a predator near, but her father corrected them, saying that a lynx will not attack livestock as long as the woods have enough deer and hares. Certainly it would move along soon; lynxes were traveling animals.
Loa grew worried over the cats on the farm; she had heard that lynxes tended to go for domestic pets. The dogs went into a barking frenzy as her grandmother came back to the yard.
In the winter her grandmother fell ill and would not recover because her age would not allow it. She was placed in a hospital, where Loa insisted her father to drive her to every day.
“I will not live through this winter, grandchild,” she said in her country Swedish. Loa’s father merely grunted.
“But you must not cry, Loa dear. I will travel to another place where my heart will be at rest and from there I shall be watching you. But I don’t want to leave this world without having you know a thing or two. Your father knows very little of children and you must not hold that against him. He is a working man, with blistered and rough hands and his heart in the fields. You are not like him Loa, your heart beats in the woods. It has been fourteen years since you blessed our lives, but you are still a child. Before I leave this world I advice you not yield for your father’s friends, they are a bunch of dirty old men. There is a man for you somewhere, Loa, and his heart; it too beats in the woods. You will be entering womanhood soon, and things will begin to change. I can already see your breasts peaking under your shirt.”
Loa shifted in her seat, embarrassed by her grandmother’s remark. She carefully turned her head in her father’s direction and was glad to see the old man’s face occupied in the latest gossip magazine, reading about a local politician’s extravaganza with some younger women.
“Womanhood will prove to be a difficult thing, my dear. Your body will begin to change. You will experience hair growth. You will experience the change of your moods and interest. And there shall be a monthly visitor, which will frighten you at first, but you will soon grow accustomed to it. But by this change the world will begin to notice you, they will smell your fertility. Be careful with what you give away, Loa dear. You might want it back. And keep away from those dirty men by the fields. Keep your heart in the woods.”
The following week, when Loa was dressed and ready to go see her grandmother her father simply shrugged.
“Why not?” she asked, frustrated.
“Grandmother died yesterday.”
“No, she didn’t.”
“Yes, she did. They rang from the hospital.” Her father helped himself to a biscuit to have with his coffee. Loa wandered outside, weeping like a child. She patted snowballs in her hands and threw them at the house. The balls banged against the wall until she could hear her father growl from inside. She ran and hid in the hay loft, trembling of hate and drowning in her grief.
The funeral was dark and cold. The snow under her heels was soft as mush, water slowly sipping into her shoes. She didn’t mind the cold. As the casket was lowered into that dark pit in the midst of snow and flowers, she dried her tears bravely.
Afterwards her father cut her a piece of chocolate cake at the reception. Her grandmother had few friends, all of which had turned up at the event to salute the old woman. But they found Loa peculiar and spoke very little with her. Her yellow eyes were abnormal, they said among each other. When she looks at you it feels as if the devil is staring right into your soul.
It was a new moon when the change arrived. Loa felt confused and distressed but calmed herself as she remembered her grandmother’s words. Out there in the woods was another heart beating, waiting for her. She stood by the hay barn looking out at the black distance. Her fingers ached as the nails started to grow. Her shoulders caved in and she fell onto her knees where the transformation prospered. Her clothes ripped, and she pulled them off because she felt them closing in on her territory, straining her of freedom. It was midwinter but she wasn’t cold. Her thick fur brushed the cold away. She pressed her claws back into the paws; there was very little pain all in all. She smelled things, rats and hares in the woods. Her ears stood up, the little tufts of fur channelling the sounds around her. One paw at a time, she made her way to the woods.
She hunted for birds, and her body was slender and strong. She caught something, a hare white in the snow, and ate it slowly with not a fear in the world. By the next morning she found a comfortable shadow to lie in, the sun felt blistering on her skin.
She hunted the woods for more nights, her bigger front paws making marks in the clear snow, her back paws shifting. She stayed away from the farm, knowing there were cats and dogs around. She didn’t want to tempt herself with flesh that would make her loathe herself if she ate it.
One evening she could feel another transformation. The fur grew thinner and she found it hard to stand on her four legs. She moved closer to the farm and stopped by the barn, now waiting.
She woke the next morning, naked in the snow, freezing. She ran back to the house. It was still early and her father would be feeding the cattle now. She could slip into the house nude, unnoticed.
“So it suits you to return now, does it?” he asked. His daughter had been missing for four days. He didn’t think much of it. She was a teenager and probably had a gang she could set hell lose with. There was probably a boy involved. Hopefully she wouldn’t come home with a child in the belly. If she did the kid would be her problem. Not his.
Loa sat in the chair, in pyjamas, warming her fingers by the stove. She said nothing and smiled into the flames.
People were noticing her. Especially boys. Her father’s friends gave her long looks on their visits. As they would get drunk after a night in the sauna they often approached her, wanting to touch and cuddle. But Loa knew her ways around the woods and could keep away. At school the boys made efforts to talk to her, and the girls started nasty rumours about her, which spread like the plague. This kept some of the boys at bay; they were in an age where reputation was gold and embarrassment death. Loa didn’t care, and her rebellious attitude gave her nothing but grief. But at the next new moon she walked out to the barn and undressed in the cold night. She slowly transformed again, fur upon skin, claws over nails, and her posture sinking. But as she transformed she didn’t whimper like the first time. She purred.
Her father was complaining about a lynx moving too close to his barn. If a lynx was approaching society it could only mean they were low on wild animals to feed upon or that they carried a disease. Loa thought how sad it was for the lynx to approach humans when dying as if wanting a touch, a speck of love before the eternal dark. Her father looked at her with silent dispute and forbid her to touch the lynx should it approach. Probably mad. Probably needs to get shot. This was a warning enough for Loa. By the next new moon she transformed inside the forest, and kept away from the farm at all times.
In March the nights were becoming very hot in lynx’s fur. She halted in the soft snow at the discovery of a new scent. She could hear something deeper in the woods, a short shout which repeated. It was like a moan, or a bark of sorts, repeating in a rhythm over the lake. It came as a heartbeat channelling through the tufts on her ears. She smiled, her bright yellow eyes blinking. She followed the scent eagerly and stopped at the sight of a man, a male, in front of her. Instantly her instincts raged, and she cowered letting a low growl rise from her throat. The male snickered, larger than she, and jumped on her and they rolled in the snow, biting each other. Her claws dug into his sides and he responded in a deep bite in her neck. The pain throbbed and she halted, whimpering. The male let go and began licking the wound. She then responded in licking his fur, matting it with her big tongue. He purred and pushed his head against her jaw, a scent transferring from his fur to hers and inside she could feel her heart jump a pace.
She and the male hunted deer together, which they feasted on in the falling evening. There after they mated, heated in animal instinct and love.
She felt strange, sitting in the house. Her stomach had had some kind of bad reaction to their dinner, she could only sit and hold it. As the month passed she knew she was expecting cubs. April came with showers and snow, and she transformed only to find her lover’s scent to have faded and him to be gone. But inside, somewhere between her growing babies she knew that he would return come next March.
Her father noticed in May how his daughter’s belly had grown and shook his head. He followed her with his eyes as she caressed the swollen stomach lovingly. There was a strange gleam in her eyes, feline. He associated this feminine attribute with evil, he began hauntingly eye every man and boy he met to see if there was a glimmer of guilt inside them. Her daughter certainly was no dog. Who the hell had disgraced her? Was it his friends and co-workers? Or someone from that gang she possibly hung out with? But the phone had never rung for her, not even teachers worrying of her increasing absence. The teachers of her school fully understood the female issues which arrived every month. They understood that it might give too much discomfort for a girl of her age to be in school. They never questioned her belly.
Loa walked out in the woods in June, at the new moon. It was still cold though summer had stubbornly melted all of the snow and planted green on the trees. Her stomach ached badly, and as her body took to the usual transforming she wept. Her stomach was heavy, and she circled the area to see it was safe. She found a place behind a large rock in the hillside and lay down. She was frightened, and wished for her lover to be present.
She gave birth to two cubs in the night, and she licked them clean. They suckled at her teats for the next four days, until she transformed back to human form. She sat, famished for she had had very little to eat, and the cubs kept suckling at her breasts. She made them a small nest of clothes, and brought more each day to cover them. At nights she made a small fire, eating chocolate with her cubs eating at her breasts.
Her father noticed the belly had gone, and was glad. Maybe his daughter had only gained weight? But his eyes still stayed suspiciously on her large breasts, and he kept wondering where the child was all days.
As the cubs wanted more on their menu than milk, Loa brought them raw meat. At the new moon she took them hunting, but found it difficult. The two little mouths were difficult to please, and always, always wept for more!
As a young mother she did all she could but when the woods emptied of most animals, she had no choice but to steer her eyes to the livestock. A sheep here or there would probably not matter. Though her grip was limited in her state, she knew how to open the gates. She hunted sheep for her cubs first for the convenience and then out of laziness.
But her father would not let this behavior pass. There was lack of meat in the pantry, and his sheep was reducing, once a month, almost by the clock. He scratched his chin as he looked in the wet soil for prints, and saw the lynx’s paw marks clearly. At first he thought it to be a dog’s, but then focused and noticed the claws had been pushed back into the paw. No dog print could show that.
Loa knew school was starting again soon. She would have to figure out a plan how to support her younglings and pass her education without arising suspicions. She stared out of the kitchen window in a hollow gaze, tasting blood from her gums. When was the last time she had brushed her teeth?
She saw her father walk across the field towards the house. She rose in a panic. The dog next to him gave a satisfied slobber. It wasn’t carrying anything. Her father didn’t have anything slung over his shoulder. But still she knew.
She ran out of the house, pass him, into the woods. He took little noticed. She forced through moist moss that would eat her shoes, and sharp twigs blinding her eyes in angry whisks. Loa stopped as she saw her babies on the ground, not breathing. They were away from the rock’s protective shadow, the rascals had wanted to go out and play.
She fell onto her knees in a despairing cry, which frightened the birds out of the trees. She sobbed and screamed and hugged her children close, the blood soiling her shirt. Their soft fur still penetrated some heat, but their small bodies were limp.
Loa didn’t notice her transformation happening. It was day and the moon had not been near a new moon in the night. But she changed in despair and grief, clenching her babies to her chest. When she rose onto four feet she gave the cubs a loving push and turned her head to the farm. There was nothing but fury in her now.
She leaped across the wooden paths, determined, smelling her cubs’ blood on her father’s fingers. He stood by the barn. The other farmers weren’t around. Loa didn’t know why. The dog barked at her when she came running. If her father had carried a gun she would have been shot. But he was without weapons and stood in shock as the lynx rushed towards him, looking strangely familiar. The dog did its efforts to protect him, but Loa’s claws needed only to scratch it once across the eyes and the dog fell back in fear, whimpering. Her father struggled to flee but Loa jumped him, tearing at his throat, taking his beatings. Her grip was strong and blood gushed over her teeth, and it tasted like poison. She was disgusted but held her grip steady. Soon his fingers stopped ripping her fur, falling limp to the ground. Loa, drenched in blood, ran across the fields back into the woods where she vanished.
***
There was this young band traveling, heading for Russia and then down across Europe. It would be their chance to break lose from the Northern charts, and try their luck south. Their van was packed with instruments, which served as hiding places for several drugs and drug related items in case the police should peak into the back.
They, of course, had to pick up this lonely girl in the road. She was wearing some kind of dreadful excuse for a t-shirt. They would fool around with her, maybe scare her, and in the future make a song about her. The girl looked up at them distantly, her yellow eyes estranged. She saw the young rockers with dyed black hair, tattoos and piercing in the van and didn’t think much about it before jumping in. As she did they noticed that the dirty large t-shirt was the only thing she was wearing. And she reeked of mud, crap and something strange, something like blood. She laid down to rest, and all they could do was stare.
“Is there anything we can get you?” one of them asked, handsome and pale, thinking she could probably do with vodka.
“Strawberries...” she mumbled before falling asleep, “Organic.”
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