Germany, 1897 High up on a mountain, far to the North, lies a castle; Drachenzahn. For as long as anyone can remember, Drachenzahn and its residents have watched over the quiet, snowy village of Berges, providing employment and safety. Drachenzahn, however, is hiding something... A Lamb Called Elke In the proverbial Winter of her youth, Elke Wolf is taken on as the latest maid to the esteemed Reimstadts of Drachenzahn, where she struggles with the harsh realities of life as a servant. It’s not all bad, though; the Reimstadts are throwing another of their exclusive monthly parties, and it just so happens that Elke and her family have been invited. But an outsider, visiting Berges on a whim, brings with her a grave portent; if Elke should attend, she and her kin will die. And a Wolf She Will Become The strings of fate are pulled and played and the only thing Elke can do is dance to the melody. Is she strong enough to shirk fate’s grand design and grow claws of her own? Can she cut the strings themselves and howl a new, blood-soaked melody? Only a Witch would truly know...
So the blurb reads for my latest work… A thing a long time in the making. Wolf, as I’ve taken to calling it since I first put digits to keys, represents a maturation of ideas and themes I’ve long held in me, as well as a distillation of ideas and motifs I fell in love with from other media – though with my own spin, of course. There’s a Witch too, because there’s always a Witch in anything I write… I just really like Witches!
The late Kentaro Miura’s Struggler archetype comes to mind; a character beset on all sides by strife, tragedy, pain, loss… yet out of sheer spite, sheer anger, refuses to give up. A universal concept I suppose; the struggle to achieve one’s dreams or goals, the struggle against adversity, the struggle to right a wrong.
While Violet remains my first born, Elke Wolf is now my baby. The day I’ll share her draws near, and I can’t wait for you to meet her, read her and (hopefully) root for her.
Auf Wiedersehen
AJ Carney 