It’s been a hot minute since anything posted on this site. That’s because life has gotten its hooks into us and we’ve let the important things — like poetry, fiction, artwork, writing about writing, personal essays, and general expression imagination magic — slip away. You can help us. How? You can submit your artwork and Read More ...
We invite you to share your creative expressions with us — poetry, fiction, creative nonfiction, critical essay, drawings, paintings, photographs — so that we can publish them here. Contact Dr. Laurie MacDiarmid via email. Artists may submit: Upload each submission separately. (With the exception of poetry: If you’re submitting more than one poem, create a Read More ...
Graphos, a creative space maintained by and for undergraduate artists, is spearheaded by students at St. Norbert College, a Catholic, Norbertine, liberal arts institution founded in 1898 on the banks of the Fox River, in De Pere, Wisconsin. Some form of Graphos has been in existence since 1990, staffed by students and faculty, serving the Read More ...
The first victim found still had her head; many of those who followed would not be so lucky. She was a shepherdess, tending her family’s flock on the rolling hills of the French countryside. One night, she failed to return home. When the other shepherds went out the next day, they found her with her throat ripped open.
It was tragic, but not wholly unexpected. Shepherds were at the mercy of the wilderness, and sometimes the wilderness wasn’t merciful. The villagers chalked the death up to a wolf attack, ignoring its uncharacteristic nature and the fact that her sheep were unharmed. The village was still on edge, but they attempted to return to their normal way of life.
Then another body was found. The head was discovered three days later. Shepherds combined their flocks and worked in pairs in an effort to protect themselves, but this only seemed to attract the wolf more. Eventually, one young boy managed to escape while his partner was being attacked, and his description of the monster spread like wildfire throughout the village.
“Its fur is darker than midnight, its teeth are sharper than a sword’s point, and its eyes are as bright as burning coals.” The story quickly spread to other villages and towns. Messenger after messenger was sent to Lord Nier, the lord of the afflicted land, pleading for help. Nier responded the same each time.
“Liars are not believed even when they speak the truth.” It was the popular phrase surrounding an incident that occurred decades ago. A young boy had played tricks on his fellow villagers, calling to them that there was a wolf attacking his sheep. One day, when a wolf did attack his flock, none of the other villagers would help him because they believed it was another trick. Lord Nier believed the recent attacks were the same – a simple lie woven together by the villagers for the sole purpose of fooling him and maiming his pride. He ordered his guards to turn away the messengers. When villagers brought the bodies of the victims to the castle, he locked himself in his throne room and refused to come out until they left. The villagers would leave in time, but they left the bodies at the gates to serve as proof and as a reminder.
The attacks continued unhindered, and it wasn’t long before those within the castle gates were affected. A servant girl joined the pile of bodies after she returned home to visit her family. The nephew of a guardsman was added the next week, and, the week after that, the guard himself. He had left the safety of the castle and its surrounding lands to try to avenge his sister’s son.
The guardsman was well-liked, and his death was not taken lightly by his fellow guards. Many of those who worked in the castle had grown up in the villages most affected, so Lord Nier’s refusal to give any credit to the murders had been bothering them just as much as those in the affected villages. Nier, meanwhile, dismissed the death of one of his best guards as another part of the plot to humiliate and deceive him. He took it upon himself to make an example of the young man, spreading slander about him to anyone so unfortunate as to listen. Patience for such antics dwindled quickly, but it wasn’t until three weeks and thirteen deaths later that the palace workers finally reached their breaking point. They met one night after Lord Nier was asleep; the cooks opened their kitchen to the maids, gardeners, servants, messengers, hunters, and guards, and together they devised a plan. Three days later, after all the preparations had been made, all the staff knew their parts, and all potential obstacles were eliminated, the plan was put into motion.
When Lord Nier awoke, a servant boy brought him his clothes, the red of which had been used to disguise drops of blood from the beast’s victims. While the cook distracted Nier with a breakfast feast, the messenger brought the guards guns from the head hunter, and clippings of wolfsbane from the gardener. A maid collected the guardsmen once the cook was sure that the sleeping drug in Lord Nier’s food had taken full effect, and soon they were on their way to the rolling hills of the countryside.
The cook’s drug had worked excellently, with Lord Nier waking only after his arms and legs had been bound. The guards were waiting on the hillside, guns in hand, eyes scanning the valley below. They ignored Nier’s cries just as he had ignored the villager’s pleas. When the beast appeared, drawn by the blood of its past victims, they pushed aside the primal fear that overtook them and forced their shaking hands to take aim. They waited until the beast’s teeth were thoroughly buried in Lord Nier’s neck before they fired. The beast, unlike Nier, did not go quickly, but it went nonetheless.
“The leader who ignores his people lives on the edge of their mercy.”
Sarah is a freshman majoring in Business Administration at St. Norbert College. She enjoys a variety of styles and mediums across her writing and art. She currently works in the Writing Center on campus in addition to running her own small business selling her artwork. In her free time, she enjoys reading and writing, sewing, knitting, and spending time outside with family and friends hiking, biking, and kayaking.
