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Industrial
Revolution had taken hold, and the new class of industrialists were
gaining ascendency. It was the start of a toxic time for soul
readers like us, when humans started … how would I describe it?
They started to not just want more, because that has been a feature
of humankind for generations. No, it was more that they ceased to
care that they wanted more, that showing envy was acceptable or at
least becoming more acceptable. Aspiration, they called it. Seeking
to better oneself, to rise above the station into which you were
born.
    When Gavril
suggested we come out to this new home in the Carpathians, Lili and
I, along with our age mates jumped at the chance. It was a chance
to be in a cleaner environment, both physically and mentally, and
that was something that was essential for us as soul readers. At
the time, I didn’t know that Lili was my Mate. That was yet to
come. We were but juveniles ourselves, children in the world of the
Cŵn Annwn, and there was still time for us to grow.
    The humans in
this world did not live an easy life. The Roma from whom Gavril’s
Mate had come were seen as little more that slaves by the local
landowners. They lived their lives bound to an estate, and were far
from being the free spirits of our homeland. As local landowners,
the Pack was expected to have similarly bound farm-workers on our
estates, but it would have been against everything that mattered to
us. How could we act as the soldiers of our Goddess if we were
doing the very thing for which she would punish the human souls we
harvested? So, we struck a compromise. To those around us, other
landowners, who held the same rank in the human world as Gavril
held, we held Roma slaves bound to our estates. But with us, they
had the chance to be free, at least where others might not see
them.
    This practice
was to prove invaluable to us in later years. I shall skip forward.
There is no need for me to prattle on about the Great War, the war
that was supposed to end all wars. Would that it did, because it
would mean that I would not be writing this letter to you, and I
would not be contemplating a course of action which would leave you
without parents, to be raised by Pack.
    …
    I had to stop
for a moment, because it hit me then what I was doing. I was
leaving you, my child, to be raised by Pack, rather than being
there for you, but I could not face my life without Lili at my
side. I could not face a life without your mother, my flower taken
from us both. And why? Why did Lili have to die? She died because
she was doing what she felt was necessary, when the world around us
descended once more into war. I wonder how history would be written
about this war. World War II: a war which should not have happened.
The Great War was supposed to end all that, but happen it did. The
reparations forced on the Germans at the end of the Great War sat
ill with many, and with the links between Romania and Germany as
they were, there was support here for the German people, and a view
that it was hardly surprising that the National Socialists came to
power. But, I move slightly ahead of myself, because I should tell
you more about your mother, about my Lili.
    Without her, I
would not have you, but now I am without her, and that is more than
I can bear. Call me coward if it makes it easier for you to
understand. It was like a thunderclap. Lili went from being the
bubbly young female who had taken such pleasure in running with me
and our other age-mates to something so much more. She lost the
loose-limbed lack of co-ordination that is the bane of all young
females and became something else. How can I describe it in a way
that makes sense to you, my son? Her smile, her laugh. The light in
her eyes when she met my gaze. The smile. Yes, that was the thing
that everyone noticed, Lili’s smile. Then came the full moon when,
instead of running with our age-mates, I plucked up the courage to
ask her if she would run with just me, just the two of us. It was