Once Upon A Time Read Online Free PDF Page A

Pack
summer picnic, but this is the story behind it. This is why the
Beta of the Cŵn Annwn will always be wearing a Star of David
necklace, because it is in memory of a young Jewish girl called
Eliana, and the woman that she became.
    Up until the
summer of 1944, Hungary itself was allied to the Nazi regime of
Germany. In theory, it meant that the Jewish population was safe
from the depredations that became known as the 'Final Solution'.
Only, they were not. Perhaps they might not all have been shipped
to Auschwitz, but a fair few did have that fate. The ‘easier’
option of the labour camps was also a destination, but the result
was still the same: families were torn apart, parents lost their
children and children who should have been protected and loved,
instead found themselves alone and forced to fend for themselves.
The very fact that the deportations occurred, that families were
torn apart was the reason why Gavril had decided that, as a
Pack, we could not stand on the side-lines.
    As Cŵn Annwn
we had abilities open to us which made us different. After all, the
geas placed on us by our Goddess requires us to carry out her work,
and that means the harvesting of those who would do evil. To do so,
we must be able to travel quickly. We must be stronger both
physically and mentally than those we seek to bring to justice. We
are not just killers though. For all the killers, there are
victims, and sometimes it is the victims whom we must bring to
their rest. But the thing is, we can't save them all. We have to
take into account that sometimes, even with the abilities granted
to us by our Goddess, we might not be able to save them all. But
what we can do is that we can try.
    The ones whom
Gavril thought we stood the best chance of saving were the
children. He called them the hope of the future. They were indeed
that. They were the hope that from the nightmare of war, some good
might come of it. Some might find a way to forgive and for their
spirits to thrive. It was a dream; it might be said, but it was a
dream that as Cŵn Annwn, we had a chance to ensure became a
reality. However, to do so, we had to save as many of those
children as possible.
    The majority
of our own version of an Underground Railroad was handled by the
daughter of Gavril and Aaleahya, Ekaterina, and the young male whom
in retrospect was probably her bonded Mate. They had been together
as children, and perhaps in a more peaceful time, they might have
become Mates in truth, but that was not to be their fate. When
Gavril had first proposed the scheme, he had known that Kat would
insist on playing a major role, and to give Kat her due, she was a
combination of her sire’s fairness and her mother’s passion to help
others. It could be said that she could have taken no other
path.
    Gavril had
enlisted the help of an old friend of his, a Catholic priest, whose
first introduction to the Cŵn Annwn had been his attempt to baptise
the daughter of the local landowner, who had shown her displeasure
at the cold water by ‘flashing’ from his arms back to her mother’s
arms. Aaleahya and Gavril had laughed at Kat’s actions, and had
taken time to explain to the young priest that he was not crazy.
Over time, Gavril and the priest became close friends, with the
priest proving to be one of those individuals who could appreciate
that other faiths and belief systems existed in this world. They
had passed many an evening over a glass of wine, discussing the
finer points of philosophy. The priest’s very open-mindedness was
the reason why Gavril approached him about setting up the routes to
help the children find safety away from the war.
    The priest had
directed Gavril to another friend of his, a Rabbi. Like the priest,
the rabbi was not a young man anymore, but he could see the dangers
to his congregation, and was not intending to turn down the
assistance of an individual who might save even a small number of
those who looked to him for guidance. The problem was