Chapter Six: My Trials and a Girl Named Lacy
So I was sentenced to a couple of trials. No biggie…right? That’s the way I wished I thought. In fact, I was freaked out to the bone. The council went on, after Payton and I had crawled back to our seats, but I didn’t pay any further attention.
How could someone be so cruel to torture a fourteen-year-old boy into two stupid tests? I didn’t even know what they were! Oh man, I was totally freaked. I wish that Ashton or someone would jump out and say, “You just got Punk’d!”
It never happened.
After the Council was over, Payton grabbed me by my arm and took me in total silence to my room. The Council Hall was quiet a bit away from our rooms, and so I just wanted to stop and start yelling at him and saying stuff like, “What? Why didn’t you stand up for me?”
I never said anything. I only continued to walk until we reached my room. When I saw it, Payton opened the door and shut it, with both of us inside.
He locked it and turned around, his face fear stricken.
My chin started to tremble, and I knew that I was inches away from tears. I was going to die. I was going to die.
Payton reached out his arm and put it on my shoulder, but I brushed it off, and tears rolled down my cheek.
“Landon, I…I don’t know what to say,” Payton said, and folded his arms across his chest.
I looked down at the floor, feeling cold and sad and everything else that you can feel if you were me. Believe me. I felt it all.
“I want you to say what the heck I have to do. What are these trials?” I said, fumbling with my words. I knew that soon I would be bawling my head off, muttering, “I am going to die!”
“Well, Landon, every werewolf has to prove himself, but they usually allow a year until the trails. There are hundreds of different types, and they usually only select the same trails on special occasions. I don’t know why Wolfgang thinks that you should be tried with the most difficult one.”
If it were possible, my heart sank lower than it had before. I squeaked out, “The most difficult ones?”
“Landon, I’m so sorry. A werewolf usually never gets trailed with the Valley of Darkness unless they are to prove themselves when they are older. Oh, Landon, I don’t know what Wolfgang was thinking. You are just a boy!” Payton said, and he played with his hands. His blue eyes seemed to soften as he said, “Landon, I will do whatever it takes for you to succeed, even if it calls for me to sacrifice my life.”
Well, that’s a big commitment. I thanked Payton and said, “Thanks. Can I just spend some time alone? I just need to like sleep or something. This is confusing.”
He looked into my eyes, and I saw all of the grief and sorrow that Wolfgang had set upon him. This was harder on Payton then it was on me. Was that because I didn’t know what the Valley of Darkness called for?
As soon as he left, I took off my clothes and huddled in the bed that the rooms offered. It was scratchy and uncomfortable, but a bed is a bed. I could deal with it, because I have dealt with worse.
I didn’t get as much as a wink of sleep. Instead, I threw my clothes back on and opened the door. The hallways were quiet, but I could hear noises coming from the Dining Hall. I looked at my wrist for my watch, but I realized that I never wore one. I laughed and thought about how stupid I was.
After thinking about the Trials, I figured that they couldn’t possibly be that difficult, could they? Nah, they were probably just like spending the night up in the mountains or something. It couldn’t be that hard.
And then I saw her.
She was looking at me, and I stared right back at her. I finally got to see her up close! She had a very round head, and her hair was pure black. She had black eyeliner on her eyes and she wore the same clothes that I did. She wasn’t very tall at all, and just a tiny bit chubby.
Her long black eyelashes seemed to call my name, and so I slowly walked up to her and smiled. She just looked at me, and then I saw the corner of her mouth twitch until it became a smile.
I stopped and stood in front of her. She had to be at least sixteen, if not more. This girl was the first she wolf I had ever seen, and it amazed me.
“Hi,” I said, and pulled on my fingers. She laughed and grabbed a strand of hair and curled it in her fingers.
“Hey. What’s up?” she said. Her voice was high, and just how I thought it would sound. When she talked, I could see her white teeth, and it was really sharp. I thought that it would be funny if she was chewing something and bit herself, but didn’t say anything about it.
This she wolf had not voted for me in the Council, and I was really glad for it. She and Payton had been like the only two that hadn’t voted.
“So,” I said, trying to keep my voice calm. I suddenly felt something that I hadn’t in a long time. I knew it was because it had been like half a month since I had last seen a woman.
She looked up at me with big brown eyes, and my heart melted. I knew that she was the one. She was the one that I was to be with.
“So,” she said, exactly like me. “I’m Lacy. How are you?”
She laughed and looked at me. I stared at her, not realizing that she had asked a question. When I had just looked at her for a few moments, she looked down at her shoe and I was put out of my trance.
“Oh, sorry. Hi, Lacy. I’m Landon.”
She burst out laughing and showed me her sharp teeth. My knees started to buckle, and it reminded me of when I had asked Courtney out. Oh, wow. That was a long time ago.
“So, how long have you been here?” Lacy asked, still twirling her long black hair.
I shook myself out of another trance and said, “Uh, just today. I think…I can’t tell what time it is anymore.”
She laughed at my not really funny joke and said, “Yeah. I’ve been here since like June.”
I widened my eyes in surprise. “Wow! You’ve been a werewolf that long?”
Oh my gosh. How dumb could I be, asking a girl a question like that? It must be hard on her!
“Yeah, I have. I get used to it though. Being a werewolf sucks though. It does have its up and downs, but there aren’t much. Like silver.”
Lacy laughed and said, “Do you know that silver doesn’t really hurt us?”
I nodded my head. “Payton told me that sometime, but I can’t remember.”
She smiled and flipped her hair back, and I laughed. She said, “Ugh! It always gets in my way!”
There was an awkward silence and then I said, “Hey, thanks. I mean, like for the Council and the Trails and stuff. You know, for not voting. It means a lot to me.”
Lacy grinned and then suddenly frowned. “The Trails…I wonder what they will be like. I get trailed next June.”
“What are trials normally like? I mean, Payton said that Wolfgang chose the hardest ones,” I replied.
Tracy nodded, any sign of humor gone. This must be a really important subject, because no werewolves thought that it was funny.
“Yeah. I don’t know what he was talking about. You are just like…how old?”
“Fourteen.”
“Yeah. I mean, a fourteen year old can’t do the Valley of Darkness. Wolfgang himself could barely complete it!”
Well, that complicates things a bit. If Wolfgang could barely do it, then how could I?
“What are normal trials like?” I asked again, and she sighed.
“They are usually just like meant to torment our souls until we are a complete werewolf. The trails just try and like transform us completely so we have no human side of us left.”
I nodded and shivered. It was suddenly cold…or was that just me?
Suddenly, I heard a voice call, “Landon! We need to get ready!”
I turned around and saw Payton, his face pale white, and his eyes heavy, as if he needed sleep.
“We need to train for the trails!”
I quickly turned back to Lacy and she pointed towards Payton, “Go with him. You need to do your best. I’ll be there when you are set through the Trails.”
I nodded and felt sad. She was my first friend ever since I had become a werewolf. I couldn’t leave her!
“Lacy, can we meet some other time. I mean like after I train or whatever?” She smiled and nodded.
“Yeah. Can you meet back here? There are some things that I want to show you.”
I nodded with a grin on my face. She pulled her black hair out of her eyes and smiled back. She was so incredibly beautiful.
“So, how do I train?” I asked Payton after I had left Lacy. He took a deep breath.
“The Valley of Darkness is one of the –”
“Most challenging ones, I know. You and Lacy have both told me,” I said, and sighed.
“Well, yes. I am glad that she has befriended you. I am sure that you will need her by the end of the Trails. After me, there is no one else that you can go to.” Payton said, and I could hear the sadness in his voice.
“What do you mean?”
“I told you. I am willing to sacrifice my life so that you will succeed in the Trails. No matter what, you will succeed. I promise.”
I shivered again, but it wasn’t out of fear. It was because I knew now that I could finally rely myself upon Payton. He was my teacher, and now my friend.
“Landon, there is something you have to know right now.” Payton said, just before we entered a room that I don’t believe I have ever been in.
I looked at him and said, “What?”
He frowned at looked at his shoe. “You know Vampires? The
blood-sucking guys? Yeah, well that is where the problem lies.”
I looked at him like he was crazy. “What do you mean,” I said, very slowly.
“Yes, well, they are part of this Trial. The Valley of Darkness is one of the many trials that require killing. Landon, you have to kill a Vampire.”
I suddenly thought about Ronda and Payton tearing her throat out. My stomach lurched.
“Why? What do we have against them?” I asked, trying not to hurl from that memory.
“You wrote it all in your essay, remember. Vampires are our mortal enemies. They want peace, and we need to cause chaos and havoc. That is our job. The Valley of Darkness requires you to murder a Vampire while in werewolf form, and also,” Payton said, but paused, “you have to kill a human.”
“No! No way will I ever kill a human! I still am human! I will never murder one of my own!” I said, and backed away from Payton as if he were a rabid wolf, and when you come to think of it, he probably was.
“Landon, you have no choice. The Trials are meant for us to become one with our inner beast,” Payton said, pleading with me, but I shook my head.
“No! You can’t force me!”
“Landon, it’s either kill a human and a Vampire or be killed.”
Well, that changed my perspective. Not a whole lot, but a little. I weighed the odds, and still favoring the not killing the human deal.
“Why? I mean, what does it prove? Why do I have to do these Trails?”
Payton sighed and looked at the ground. “Let’s go in here for a minuet and talk. There is a lot you have to understand.”
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