Chapter 90: La Loba

"Have any of you every heard the story of La Loba?" Charlotte asked.

"La Loba… Spanish for 'She-Wolf'?" Sylvia asked. Charlotte nodded.

"Yes, but this is a story from Pueblo folklore. La Loba, or Bone Woman as she is also called, was said to be a wild, mysterious woman who lived alone in the desert. She collected bones and kept them in her cave. She collected the things most in danger of being lost to the world," Charlotte paused and got a faraway look in her eyes.

"The veil between life and death is ever so thin. Most don't realize that they are twin movements. So much of our world relies on the assumption of binaries that are not true. And what I mean is that they are not permanent. Binaries may exist, but there is a movement, a fluidity between them. Their permanence is an illusion. Dark and Light. Good and Bad. Lycan and Alyko. Life and Death. To assume two poles are distinct entities, are separate, are poised at odds… is to make grave mistakes," Charlotte sighed regretfully.

"La Loba is said to be a woman who saw this. Saw the Veiled, saw the More, that many of us don't see. In the Veiled—that which is concealed to our eyes—everything that exists is always in motion… down to the tiniest part—in all of the universe. Though I do not see it," Charlotte looked deeply at August, "this is what my sister and mother explained to me. Perhaps you have seen what I am describing." August nodded without responding to it.

Charlotte continued. "So La Loba would collect these bones—these traces of things—and once she had collected every bone of a creature, she would arrange it and build a large fire. She would sit by this fire and catch a melody on the wind, and that melody would turn into a song spoken from her own lips. A song for the creature whose bones were before her."

"La Loba would sing this song that was especially for that particular bone creature before her. It may be a crow or a wolf or a deer or a snake. Whatever it was, she sang. And the wind that came into her lungs and out of her mouth would pick up the heat of the fire and the dirt from the earth and the moisture from the night dew and with all of these things breathe the creature back into being. Its body would take form, its fur or feathers, hair or scales would come back, and eventually the breath would return to its lungs." Charlotte, who had been using her hands to simulate the movement of air and the coming into being of the creature, paused and looked at each of the three women in turn.

"It is quite a story, isn't it?" Charlotte asked, her poised hands returning now to her lap. All three nodded. "The creature would run or fly or slither off into the desert and find its place again amongst the living. But there was one night—a full moon, as the story goes—that our La Loba breathed life into her favorite creature: a wolf. It was not the first time she had done this for a wolf, but it was the first time she had done it on a full moon." Charlotte's eyes sparkled as the tender, wrinkled skin of her hand pointed to the women in the room.

"The body of the wolf became furred, as it always would, and its tail fluffed out behind it, shaggy and strong, and it started breathing. It rose," both of Charlotte's arms rose as if she was lifting the creature from the earth herself, "and it scampered off away from the fire. But this time, it is said that a beam of moonlight shone down upon that beautiful wolf that La Loba had sung into being, and as the wolf was running away, she transformed into a woman. The woman who was also a wolf now ran laughing straight for the horizon. That, my dears, is where the Pueblo story ends, but it is where the lycan story begins."

There was silence as the three women stared at Charlotte with her silver crown of hair twisted out around her. She looked regal and wise—like someone chosen to pass down an oral history not trusted to most. And Charlotte's gaze met them, unwavering.

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Greta was the first to break the silence. "So, the first lycan was… a woman?"

Charlotte nodded. "Not only that, dear one. The first lycan was created from an alyko, if we are to use that term."

"How… how can that… be?" Greta stumbled over her words.

"It's hard to rearrange your thoughts to accommodate it, isn't it?" Charlotte nodded. "The very name of alyko is derived from being without a wolf… as if lycans were first and alyko are…" Charlotte threw her hands up in the air as if she was at a loss for the word, "a what?… a mistake. A defect." She chuckled then. "Can you imagine? A defect? When, in reality, they are more similar to La Loba who sang the first lycan into being."

August, Sylvia, and Greta were all stunned. "So, so who did the first lycan mate with? How were the rest… propagated?" Sylvia asked.

"A human of course," Charlotte shrugged, as if it were obvious. "Though was it a mate like we think of now? With the mate pull and the mark? We cannot know. Only that La Loba created her with the help of that full moon… with the help of the Moon Goddess."

"So lycans are, genetically speaking, really a combination of human, lycan, and… and whatever La Loba was? Was she human?" Greta asked.

"I suppose lycans today are a combination of those three, yes. And I do not know what La Loba was genetically," Charlotte shrugged again. "But this is the story. She had these abilities. Surely there is a better name or label for her than alyko, but I have never heard one posited. I simply do not know. She is La Loba," Charlotte emphasized the name, as if it should speak for itself.

"And that, dear August, precious future Luna of ours," Charlotte took August's hands again and patted them between her own, "that is why I say, do not worry about a label. Witch… pfff," she scoffed, dismissing it, "what a silly thing. You are not that. You are all of us. This pandemic, despite the devastation it has reigned on many, it has brought you, dear one, to us. All it has done is accentuate that which you truly are."

And Charlotte's eyes became deeper then. "Do not fret, child. You are amongst family. You are here for a purpose. And you are welcome amongst the lycans, for you illuminate that which is hidden and has been hidden for far too long. That is why I give you three this story today.. It is time."

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