"If you want to go ahead to the workroom, I'll catch up to you," offered Katja the next morning. "I was just going to stop by the kitchen..."

She let her words trail off, uncertain what to say and feeling bad for mentioning food around Wolf. It seemed being bound to the necklace kept him functioning perfectly fine without the need for food or water, but Katja didn't like rubbing in that she was able to do something he couldn't.

Wolf glanced up at her. "I appreciate you being considerate, but you still need to eat. As I've told you before, it doesn't bother me."

Katja nodded and directed their path towards the kitchen. Thankfully, only Tante Frieda was there, and she pointed towards a tray of cinnamon rolls, fresh from the oven and recently iced.

"Help yourself," she said with a smile, which Katja returned as best she could while also trying to keep her face turned away to avoid showing her scar. She placed two rolls on a plate and was about to thank her aunt and leave when Tante Frieda gestured towards Wolf.

"It's not every day we see something like that in the castle," she grinned. "Look how well-behaved he is! I think he deserves a treat, too."

Katja's heart began to beat faster as she watched Tante Frieda disappear around a corner, only to emerge with a large cookie in her hand.

"It's only oatmeal, no raisins or chocolate," she said, extending a hand and offering it to Wolf.

Katja had no idea how Wolf would react, but she desperately hoped he remembered not to speak out loud. To her relief, Wolf gently took the cookie between his teeth and gave a few enthusiastic wags of his tail.

"Well, would you look at that!" marveled Tante Frieda. "I know some Hexen who could learn a thing or two about manners from you."

She reached out and patted Wolf's head, which, to his credit, he tolerated wonderfully.

"Thank you for the food," interjected Katja, "but we better be going."

Tante Frieda waved goodbye before heading towards the sink, and Katja hurried to her workroom, Wolf at her side. Once in the room, Wolf immediately spat the cookie into the trash can, making Katja wince.

"I'm so sorry!" she said. "I had no idea Tante Frieda would do that. From now on, I'll tell anyone who tries to feed you you're on a very strict diet."

"Thank you," said Wolf. "That was very nice of her, though."

"It was," Katja agreed, even as she wondered again about the peculiarities of Wolf being bound to the necklace...how did he remain healthy without the need for food or water? Was everything inside of him in some sort of suspended animation, frozen in time the moment he was bound to the jewelry?

She tried to remember if she'd heard a heartbeat when she'd held him and cried, but she hadn't been paying close enough attention to know for sure. Did that also mean Wolf wouldn't age like a normal person?

Obviously she hadn't known him long enough to expect him to be changing any time soon, but she certainly wouldn't want to spend eternity exactly as she was now, and she wondered if he felt the same. It seemed too personal to mention, though, so she focused on eating the cinnamon rolls.

She'd just licked the last bit of icing from her fingers when a knock rang out. Wolf turned towards it, ears pointed upwards, and as Katja unbolted the heavy wooden door, she was surprised to see Tante Maedra standing there.

She'd never interacted with the woman much, even though she had been one of the two Hexen who'd last seen Katja's mother and agreed to take in her daughter. Something about Tante Maedra had always intimidated Katja, and even now she folded in on herself ever so slightly.

Tante Maedra's eyes flickered toward where Wolf was sprawled by the work table, but other than a slight raising of her eyebrows, her otherwise impassive expression never changed.

"Good morning, Katja," she said politely. "I'm sorry if I'm interrupting, but I broke something on my jewelry box and was hoping you could fix it, whenever you have a chance, of course."

Katja took the proffered wooden box and carefully raised the lid. Where there should have been music rising from the metal workings encased below a pane of glass, there was only silence, the tiny gears still and unmoving.

"There's a few things in line before it," explained Katja, "but I should be able to finish it by tomorrow, unless you need it sooner."

"Tomorrow is fine," assured Tante Maedra. The corners of her mouth turned upwards in what for her was a rare display of a smile. "Have you given any thought to how you'll be celebrating your birthday this year? It's going to be here before you know it."

Katja shook her head as a lump of lead the size of the jewelry box settled in her stomach. "I haven't really thought about it," she said quietly, hoping that ended the conversation before it could go further.

Thankfully, Tante Maedra was either perceptive or had someplace else to be, because she gave a brisk nod and told Katja to have a Helferin deliver the jewelry box to her room whenever it was finished.

Katja closed the door slowly, feeling as if the sun had been shining brightly only to be eclipsed behind fast-moving rain clouds. Would she never be able to escape the pain of her past?

Yet again, she felt the strong urge to leave the Hexen, to venture deep into the Schwarzwald, and start a new life surrounded by trees and animals who would never ask her questions about anything.

Her reverie was broken by Wolf loudly clearing his throat, and when she turned towards him, she was surprised to see him staring reproachfully at her.

"What?" she asked, placing the jewelry box on the work table.

"I didn't know you had a birthday coming up!" chided Wolf. "Were you planning on saying anything?"

Katja shrugged, her gaze drifting to the window, where rain was falling heavily outside. "It's not for a few more months," she said. "Tante Maedra just never knows what else to say to me."

"Birthdays are marvelous occasions and meant to be celebrated!" replied Wolf. "This is important!"

"Yes, but most people know when their actual birthday is," Katja snapped more sharply than she'd intended.

Wolf cocked his head to one side, his amber eyes fixed directly on her, asking silent questions she'd brought on herself.

Sighing irritably, Katja crossed her arms over her chest as thunder rumbled in the distance.

"My mother didn't say anything about my birthday before she died. Tante Maedra and Tante Gerta had to guess at how old I was. There was no way of knowing for sure, so they just picked a day and said that was my birthday." She shook her head. "I know they did it to help me fit in and feel normal, but it's just another reminder I'm anything but normal."

Pushing down the rising mixture of sadness and anger that pressed against her ribcage, Katja picked up the picture frame she'd started working on the day before and lost herself in her work, listening as the metal's song became clearer and stronger as she repaired it. She sensed Wolf studying her from his position on the floor, but he remained quiet.

After a while, Katja's curiosity got the better of her.

"Were birthday celebrations important in your family?" she couldn't keep from asking.

"Yes," replied Wolf so promptly, it was clear he'd just been waiting for her to speak.

Usually he avoided conversations about his past, but every now and then he surprised Katja with his willingness to talk about it. "You didn't have to do chores on your birthday; other family members did them for you. You also got to eat off my mother's best china, the set she got when she and my father married; she only used it for special occasions."

He sat up, clearly warming up to his story. "You still had to go to school, of course, but my mother would fix whatever meal you wanted for dinner. She'd also make whatever you wanted for dessert...I always had chocolate cake with cream and cherries."

Katja gazed at him, momentarily forgetting she was listening to a wolf.

"And then," Wolf continued, "after dinner, you opened presents. There usually weren't very many, but they were always incredibly special. A drawing, perhaps, or a pretty stone someone had found. Sometimes we received clothes, but I never really cared about those. I always wanted books."

He made a noise that might have been a laugh, but it was difficult to tell, what with him being in wolf-form. "One year I told my family I was going to write a book of my own, and instead of laughing at me, they saved any empty piece of paper they could find. My parents took the empty pages to a book binder, who bound them into a book with a real front and back cover, page after page just waiting to be filled with my writing."

His voice broke, and Katja's chest tightened. What an incredible family Wolf had been lucky enough to have!

"Your family must have loved you very much," she said, the words straining a little around the lump in her throat.

Wolf nodded morosely, all his earlier enthusiasm gone. "That was the last birthday present I received," he said quietly, his furry shoulders drooping as he lowered his gaze to the floor. "My father died shortly afterwards, and the rest of my family not long after him."

"I'm so sorry," Katja whispered.

Wolf nodded but continued staring at the floor, lost in his own thoughts.

"My birthday is June 30th," Katja offered, wanting to give Wolf something after all he'd shared with her. "Tante Gerta and Tante Maedra are usually the only ones who remember, although sometimes my other aunts surprise me. I used to get toys, but as I got older, they started giving me more practical things—things I could use to decorate my room or for my metalworking."

She thought back not only to her aunts' birthday gifts, but to all the other things members of the Hexen had given her over the years.

She'd always assumed it had been out of a sense of obligation, given that she was an orphan, but was it possible it was more than that? She'd never considered such an option before and suddenly felt bad for failing to do so.

"Do you think..." she hesitated, not entirely sure what she was trying to say; she did know, though, that Wolf would tell her what he truly thought and not just what she wanted to hear. "Do you think it's possible for people to care about each other but not be like how your family was, where everyone knew they cared for each other?"

"Yes," Wolf said without hesitation. "In fact, I think that's much more common than how my family was."

He gazed directly at her. "If there's one thing I know after more than two hundred years in that necklace, it's that you should never hesitate to tell someone you care about them. People will say, oh, it's never too late, but sometimes, it is too late, and you can't go back and there's nothing you can do about it except live with the guilt."

Katja drew a deep inhale and nodded. She almost walked over and petted Wolf's head, but then, remembering he wasn't actually a wolf, she stayed where she was and instead, offered him a smile.

"Thank you," she said. "Even though I'm sorry for what happened to you, I'm glad I met you, Wolf."

Wolf walked over and bumped Katja's leg with his black and silver head. "I've told you before, don't feel sorry for me. But I'm glad to have met you, as well."

Katja turned her focus to the items on her work table, and Wolf retreated to a corner, where he laid down with his chin on his front paws and watched Katja work.

After a moment, he said, "I'm not sure how difficult it is to come by paper now, but if there's any way to set aside some blank pieces, I'd certainly be grateful. It might be nice to have a place where I can write down my thoughts."

He used a hind leg to scratch at an ear, and Katja couldn't tell if his half-closed eyes were from embarrassment about wanting to keep a journal or to do with scratching an itch.

"It's much easier to come by blank parchment now than it was two hundred years ago," she assured Wolf. "I'll go to the supplies cupboard after work; they usually have some empty books in there, but if not, I can always request one the next time someone goes shopping."

"It won't be a big expense?" worried Wolf.

Katja shook her head. "Everyone is allowed to take things from the communal supply cupboard. It makes sense I'd want a journal to use as some sort of ledger to keep track of what items I'm repairing and who they belong to. It's no trouble at all."

"Thank you," replied Wolf, letting out a relieved sigh.

Katja smiled at him, glad to be faced with at least one problem she was capable of solving.

(Artwork by Deleece Cook from Unsplash)