Gosick Episode Six, "The Gray Wolves Summon Their Brethren"--Review

We open with Avril and Kujo in town on an outing. She has learned all of the stories concerning the school and has a love of fairytales. She tells Kujo about a story involving a gray wolf that knows human speech, and says that it lives in the botanical garden above the library. She further claims that the gray wolf is attracted to shiny objects. Kujo states that the only "Gray Wolf" he knows is actually attracted to candy.

Avril drags Kujo off to find something suitably shiny and meet up with a magician who accidentally kills a pigeon instead of having it fly out of his hat. (Then he grabs Kujo's textbooks and turns them into a turban.) Then they come across a nun who is selling odds and ends, including a Dresden china plate. There's an explosion from a music box followed by more pigeons, and the plate disappears.

Kujo takes the turban to Victorique, who is eating candy and making a mess. He immediately starts trying to clean up and scolds her a little. (Victorique however does not care about such silly details.) Kujo decides to entertain her with the story of the theft, and she immediately solves the case with many complaints of boredom. Victorique is very demanding. Kujo tells her to put on the turban. Grevil shows up just as she puts on the turban, and stares at her in shock, calling her Cordelia Gallo. She takes the turban off and tells Grevil that it's her, which causes Grevil to be upset. Neither Grevil nor Victorique will tell Kujo who this Cordelia Gallo is.

Victorique explains to Kujo and Grevil who the thief was and how the crime was accomplished. Kujo is a bit surprised later on when it turns out that the thief somehow managed to escape. He also discovers an advertisement in the paper. The advertisement states that the "descendants of the Gray Wolves" are invited to the Village of the Gray Wolves for the Summer Solstice Festival. Curious about this, he takes the newspaper up to Victorique.

Victorique becomes very excited by this advertisement and to get up, then she trips over Kujo and belly flops on the floor. She is definitely not happy about tripping like that and Kujo teases her about being so sensitive and a cry baby. This makes Victorique extremely angry with him, and after having an argument with him, she tells him she wants nothing to do with him. Kujo stalks off in a huff.

Later that night he sees that Victorique is apparently trying to leave the school. I would say that she was trying sneak away, but it is difficult to sneak when you are dragging along a trunk that is almost bigger than you are. Kujo tries to stop her, but she is not speaking to him. He can see that her face is extremely swollen, and he assumes it is because of a toothache, and that she wants to go to the dentist. He decides to help her, but it turns out that she's buying a train ticket to Horovitz, and from there, to the Village of the Gray Wolves.

Then the nun turns up, and turns out to also be going to Horovitz and the Village of Gray Wolves (she claims to be from the town itself, which will turn out to be an important clue later). They stay the night in Horovitz, and they learn about charming folk traditions that involve nailing dead birds to doorways to keep away the wolves (especially the Gray Wolves from the village). The innkeeper describes the people from that particular insular village and as he ticks off each descriptor, he suddenly realizes that Victorique fits all of them perfectly and the innkeeper backs away, looking alarmed.

That night Kujo hears a wolf howling, and heads out into the hallway, where he finds Victorique who is still half asleep. When she wakes up all of the way she starts throwing things at him, but he eventually talks her into explaining what's going on and why she wants to go to the Village of the Gray Wolves. She tells him that she wants to prove someone's innocence--her mother, Cordelia Gallo. Victorique's mother had been exiled from the village because of a crime, and she had ended up becoming a dancer. Cordelia had drawn the attention of Victorique's father the Marquis de Blois, who decided that he wanted to incorporate Gray Wolf Village DNA into his family lineage. (At least, that's what Victorique is implying.) Unfortunately, the Marquis found out about Cordelia's crime, threw Cordelia out of the house, and locked up Victorique.

Kujo and Victorique sit in silence for a moment then Victorique giggles. Kujo asks what's so funny and Victorique says him. Then she gets revenge for Kujo's earlier teasing and then forgives him.

The next day, Victorique, Kujo, the nun and three other people go up to where the village is in a carriage. The three others are Alan, Derek and Raoul. The driver will not actually enter the village, which is actually a fairly big, heavily fortified town with the major entrance being a drawbridge over a ravine. Everyone heads over to the drawbridge, where they are stopped by a crowd of people on the other side. These people are very unhappy to see Victorique who they immediately recognize as being Cordelia Gallo's daughter. They advance with swords in hand, but they're stopped by the village elder who states that she's a descendant and has every right to be at the village for the festival, even if her mother is a murderer.

We end on that dramatic note.