You can't grow up in my lifetime not knowing about the supernatural. Werewolves, vampires, and witches are talked about as normally as the weather. The myths of those supernatural "creatures" were regarded as facts. Only an idiot in our little village wouldn't know that witches loved using children as ingredients because they added extra power (the power of pure innocence was very rare, and there for very powerful), vampires can live forever unless a stake is driven into their heart, and all werewolves are male. Such were the tales told throughout the village.
I happened to be more of a skeptic than most. Almost everyone I knew (save for a very select few that I kept very close) believed in those creatures. I thought they were all idiots; a population of crazies. Ironically, those crazies would soon become the only people I trusted; and then I would come to realize that I had been terribly mistaken about...well, almost everything I once thought and believed in. Either way, I believed what I believed then, and nothing else can be done about it now.
I was born in 1748. I don't know the exact date of my birth; I was abandoned in the countryside around Gévaudan by my parents. Luckily for me, I was found by local farmer and was adopted by him. I knew him only as Father, though in reality he was quite older and could have been my grandfather. I loved him dearly, and regarded him with great admiration. He never thought to beat me, and never raised his voice. He believed as I did, or rather I believed as he. He thought that the supernatural was just a silly tale; I agreed. As far is farmers went in those days, he was fairly educated and tried his best to drill into my head how important knowledge was. He believed more in science than anything else. He taught me how to read and write (as well as to think about what I'm reading, and use my head to distinguish the truth from the fiction), which was a rare education for a simple farmer's daughter like me. How he learned how to read and write, I never did figure it out. Most commoners were illiterate, but for those who weren't, reading was more of a fad than a tool for gaining knowledge. I tried not to brag about my literacy too much, and I held a special annoyance to those who flaunted it. My best friend happened to be one of those people, she came from the wealthiest family in Gévaudan (which isn’t saying much considering we were all on the lower class scale) and had managed to get an education through tutors. She never tired of showing off her knowledge and mocking those who didn’t know what she did. Sometimes I think the only reason we were friends is because I happened to be the only one close to her level.
As I mentioned previously, I grew up and lived in Gévaudan, which happened to be a small village in France. The people of Gévaudan (including myself) usually were born and died there. Hardly anyone had the “absurd” desire to explore anywhere else. Gévaudan was safe…at least it was until I turned sixteen.
It was the summer 1764 when my life changed dramatically. Like I said earlier, it was my sixteenth year. That year was already odd. It was a leap year, which of course, made everyone in the village weary. They kept saying “something bad will happen. It’s not right to have a year with an extra day. This year will be a terrible one”. My father and I scoffed at them and declared them lunatics in private. Saying that to ones face could get you into trouble.
Anyway, I was sixteen years old. Ever since January, I had been feeling weird. Every night I woke up in the darkness, feeling like I should be outside in the forest with all the other creatures. I’d force myself to lay back down and close my eyes, even though every part of me wanted to bolt out of bed and run barefoot through the forests of Gévaudan like all the animals. I would force my mind to work on numbers until I fell back asleep. When I woke up in the morning, I’d laugh it off, as if it was some kind of strange dream. I thought it had to be; no one dared to go into the forests at night. That’s when the wolves roamed. Though they left us alone during the day, we weren’t quite sure what would happen in the pitch black of night.
Not only did I wake up every night with the urge to run through the darkened forests, every time I saw a rabbit I wanted to chase it. For no reason! I just wanted to run after that rabbit and grab hold of it. It wouldn’t have done me any good, but I wanted to catch a rabbit. And I kept thinking my nails were too short. I wanted them to grow longer. I barely trimmed them like I used to, and whenever I did, I felt like it was so wrong. If you think all that was weird, I also developed a craving for meat; because we were poor we usually just ate bread or some fruits that we picked while exploring the forests. Meat was just for occasions, and I hadn’t ever eaten much of it. The only meat I’d really eaten was rabbit or chicken. Now, every time I went to milk our cow, I had the odd desire to kill her and eat her, although I knew she’d be more profitable to keep alive.
I was confused and didn’t know what was happening. I just chalked it up to growing older or maybe to my overactive imagination. Maybe I’d just been craving meat, so my mind twisted it and made it into this whole weird thing.
I was afraid to tell anyone about my urges. Those I kept close like my father, and my best friend, Chantelle, would probably deem me as insane as the rest of them. At least that’s what I thought would happen. Chantelle already thought I was a little off my rocker because I liked to be by myself or because I enjoyed nature. She was almost the opposite. She loved being surrounded by a bunch of people and she hated anything dirty, which included nature. Sometimes she mocked me for it, she say something like “You’d make it big one day, if you weren’t such a loner”. In a way I agreed with her. I’d never make it as one of those big shots in Paris if I kept my anti-social rules, but I just wished that she’d be more supportive.
My dream was to one day move away from Gévaudan, and to Paris. All the important people lived in Paris, and I wanted to be one of them. I was smart and a quick-learner, but it wasn’t just what I knew, but who I knew as well…and I had no idea how to make friends of those rich and important people, but I was determined to make it. I always told myself I would. I wasn’t going to be a nobody, I wanted people to know my name, and Gévaudan just wasn’t the place to do that.
As I was making my plans to free myself of this annoying village, a creature was beginning to stalk the forests of Gévaudan. It was a creature sometimes whispered about in myths and legends, but soon we, the people of Gévaudan, would find out find out the hard way that legends can transform into reality.
