by Lilly Wilder
“Mom never told me…”
“She didn’t know. He wouldn’t have told her. I’m sure he intended to, but the Hunters got to him,” Jack said, leaning against the table with his arms folded across his chest and he looked somber.
“What beef do they have with you?” I asked.
“They’re just jealous. They think they’re stronger, so they want to take us out. They’re younger, arrogant, and they think they’re deserving of the purer bloodline. They’d stop at nothing to get you. That’s why I had to keep you like that, so they couldn’t get to you.”
“You could have told me,” I pouted.
“Would you have believed me? I can see it in your eyes that you barely believe it now. Even after you’ve seen things for yourself, you still struggle. What use would it have been for me to tell you all of this?”
I had nothing to say to that. A cold shiver ran down my spine as I thought on his words and about the other world that existed between these packs, a world that had been hidden from me. I was the first to admit that there was much about the world I didn’t know, but this was almost too much to believe. Yet what alternative did I have? I had seen them shift with my own eyes, and everything they said made sense. When I looked at the picture of my father I saw myself in his eyes. I could almost feel a spiritual connection to him…but how could I open my heart and mind to this when it seemed so alien and distant?
“Where do we go from here?” I asked softly.
“We’ll keep you safe. Matt has a plan. Something to help you understand properly. Try not to hit him around the head this time. I’m sure it was an accident before,” Jack snapped as he marched out of the room. Matt came in swiftly after him and looked reserved. Pangs of guilt stabbed at my heart, even though I felt justified in what I did. But Matt had been the only one to be kind to me.
“Have you come to terms with everything Jack told you?” Matt asked.
“Not quite. It’s a lot to take in. Matt I’m…I’m sorry about before. Surely you can understand why I did what I did? It wasn’t personal. I just needed to try. What you’ve done to me is wrong, even if what Jack said is right and that you were doing this to protect me. You should have told me all of this from the beginning.”
“Jack said it wouldn’t have made any difference. He said that with patience you would come around, and we’re used to trusting his judgment around here. I thought we should tell you and I hoped that you’d be patient enough to understand. I guess I kind of hoped that being here would spark something inside you considering you’re Jake’s daughter, but I think that was too much to hope for. I’ve come up with something that might help you though.”
“What is it?” I asked curiously, kind of intrigued to know how I might be able to learn more about my past and understand everything that was being told to me from a trusted source, without having to just take Jack’s word on everything. While he clearly believed what he was saying I didn’t know how I could trust him, given everything that had happened so far. How could I give him my trust when he had taken me from my life without any concern for my wishes? And he didn’t trust me enough to tell me the truth…maybe he was correct in that respect considering that I still couldn’t comprehend the truth of the matter even though I had seen it with my own eyes.
My word…the image of the beasts turning into men made me wonder if I had always been crazy. It was so unreal, and yet I had seen it with my own eyes. I had heard their growls turn into words. I had seen the fur recede into their bodies and be left with flesh. I had witnessed the magic swirling around them, a deep part of this world that I had never been aware of before. How was anyone supposed to understand this kind of thing? I struggled to know where to turn from here. I needed some kind of guidance. I clearly couldn’t escape, and even if I did escape I had no idea how I would be able to leave this behind. How could I go through life when knowing that these secrets were held in the world? No, I had to stay here and try to figure this out. If there was a mystery to the world, then I was going to get to the bottom of it and, in doing so, maybe I would unravel the mystery of my father as well.
“Actually it’s something that I was going to explain to you before you hit me,” Matt said. There was an undercurrent of tension to his voice.
“I’m sorry about that, I…” I stammered out again.
“You have to understand Trish; there are people here who aren’t against you. I know it might not seem like it, but there are those of us who genuinely care.”
“Like Buck?” I challenged. Matt smiled.
“Buck is Buck,” he said. “I mean people like me. I never wanted to hurt you like this and I wish we could have been straight with you from the beginning, but surely you can understand why we had to do what we did. I want you to try and think of things from our perspective, and maybe this will help with that.” He pulled out a dark liquid. It was as though he had distilled the essence of night and poured it into a glass. I instantly shuddered and reeled back at the sight of it, some instinctive part of me told me that it wasn’t right. From the look on Matt’s face I could tell that was an accurate assumption.
“What is this?” I asked, with caution in my voice.
“This is the product of the rare plant I found before you left. It’s known as the Styx plant, because it bridges this world and the next.”
“When you say the next…” I almost couldn’t dare to imagine what he meant.
“Trish, it’s important that you start to believe in a world beyond your own. When spirits die they go to another realm. This plant allows your mind to float up and talk with spirits that have departed this world. Don’t ask me how it works; I only know that it does. I have spoken with my own mother thanks to this plant. With this you can speak to your mother and your father, if they are willing. It might help you understand us a little more, and come to terms with your place in this world.”
He held out the glass. The liquid was thick and looked like oil. Even if I believed that this was possible I wasn’t sure I wanted to speak to my mother again…but how could I pass up the opportunity? There was conflict in my mind and when I didn’t take it Matt left it on the table. The liquid sat there, but it had a hold on me. Whispers coiled around the back of my mind and tempted me, told me to take the chance because it was the only one I might get at understanding all of this.
Then the door opened and Matt was called out by Buck. The large wolf stood there, filling up the doorway. Matt glared.
“Leave us alone Buck,” Matt said.
“Jack wants to speak to you. I’ll watch the girl,” he said.
I scowled. “My name is Trish,” I said.
“Take the drink Trish, it’ll be okay, I promise,” Matt said before he left. There was an earnest look in his eyes and I was inclined to trust him. He didn’t seem to hold my earlier actions against me and he was still the only one who had been open and honest with me from the beginning, the only one who had actually expressed concern for me. I offered him a smile and then he tore himself away.
Buck grinned, but it was without humor and his eyes were narrowed. He was the one I’d had the least interaction with, and I wasn’t too upset about that. While Jack seemed strange and elusive, rough and intriguing, and Matt was kind and compassionate, Buck was just strong and powerful. There was no measure of mercy he wanted to give anyone and he hadn’t expressed anything other than disdain for me. He shut the door behind him and stared at me.
“What do you want?” I asked.
“Nothing much. Just making sure that you’re not going to try anything stupid again,” he growled. His voice was low, rumbling like thunder.
“It almost worked. It would have worked, if I had known you were wolves and you could track me easily,” I pouted.
Buck grinned. “I don’t think so. You had no idea where you were going. If the Hunters hadn’t found you, then another animal would have. There are dangerous creatures out there. It’s not a place meant for someone like you.”
“Like me? What do you mean by that? A woman?”
“A human,” he said pointedly. I hushed after that and brushed the hair away from my face with a flick of the wrist. I folded my arms across my chest and regarded him coolly.
“And what would you suggest I do? Do you think I should just meekly accept what is happening? That doesn’t seem likely if I have the blood of the wolf inside me, does it? Frankly I don’t know what you want from me. If my bloodline is as strong as you say then surely you’d expect me to exhibit some strong characteristics, but you seem to just want me to hide away and accept everything that you tell me.”
“Jack does,” Buck shrugged. “He wants to protect you, and I’m pretty sure you can see why, where the Hunters are concerned. We got lucky that we took them by surprise today. But now they know for sure you’re here they’re likely to try again. We have to be prepared for them to try and take you. That’s why I’m here, to make sure that nobody gets to you. And yes, if I were you I’d believe what we’re telling you because we know more about this than you. You’re clueless.”
His words stung, mostly because they were accurate.
“Well that’s not what Jack thinks,” I said haughtily.
“No, well, Jack has his own ideas about things. I’m just doing what I can to hold the pack together. Time will tell if he’s right about you.” Something about the way he said it made my skin crawl.
“And what if he’s not? Will I be allowed to go back to my old life?”
“That’s for Jack to decide,” Buck said. I can’t say I was encouraged by his response. I pursed my lips as my gaze fell onto the cup Matt had left behind.
“Have you ever tried that?” I asked. Buck arched an eyebrow.
“It’s a waste of time. I’ve said everything I want to say to people, and they’ve done the same for me. There’s no sense in looking back, only looking forward. That’s where Jack has gone wrong,” he snarled. I got the impression that by leading him down this path I could get him to say more than he intended. I kept my voice low and calm so that I wouldn’t alert him to the fact I was trying to tease information out of him. Buck was a strong man and wore his emotions on his sleeve, but he clearly didn’t have the best idea of what he should and should not tell me.
“What do you mean?”
“Jack got this whole idea by speaking with his father. He wants to make the pack what it once was, strong and powerful with a lot of members. He wants to bring some glory days back and make this place a community again. But sometimes you can’t fight the tide of the world. This was always going to happen. I’m just amazed that it took this long. The Wolves have always been an endangered species, ever since the beginning. We can’t change the way nature works, we can only try to do the best with what we’ve got. Jack is fighting a losing battle, not that he listens to me. You can try it, if you want. It might make you see sense. I wouldn’t know either way.”
“I see. Well, it’s nice to know you’re so loyal to him.”
“I’m not loyal to him. I’m loyal to the pack. It’s the only thing that matters. Jack is the leader. That is his place. Unless he endangers the safety of the pack I shall obey his wishes. It could turn out that he’s right.” Buck walked to the table and peered at the liquid. “Maybe if you take this you might get a better idea of what’s happening too. After all, I am just the muscle.”
I wasn’t sure about that. Buck seemed much more than that, but I wasn’t going to try and get inside his mind. Instead, there was something else I wondered, although I didn’t know if Buck was the right person to ask.
“What’s it like, to be a wolf?”
Buck frowned. “It’s better than you’ll ever know. Now it’s time for you to get back to your room. You’ve been out here long enough and I don’t want to babysit you the whole time,” he said, and opened the door. I didn’t move. Buck came over and grabbed me by the arm, dragging me out. He brought the glass with him and handed it to me as he placed me back in the room. He slammed the door and locked it from the outside. I was imprisoned once again. My attempt to escape had been futile, but at least I now knew why they wanted me, even if I couldn’t quite wrap my head around it.
I sat on the bed and drew my legs into my chest as I rocked back and forth, trying to decide if any of this actually made sense, or if I had lost my mind and this was all conjured by my psyche to distract me from the horror of my captivity. The three wolves had saved me, but did they actually care about me or did they just want me for what I could give them? They had great respect for my father, but aside from Matt they only really saw me as an object to be used, not a person with my own desires. I had to get through to them somehow and I had to gain a better understanding of what this all meant.
The only way to do that seemed to be through the Styx that Matt had given me.
The idea of taking this drug to transform my mind was frightening, but if it was the only way to gain some clarity then I saw no choice. As strange as it seemed, I was terrified that it might actually work and I could meet my father. I had spent my entire life waiting for this opportunity and now it had been given to me in the most unexpected circumstance.
Chapter Nine
My hands trembled as I reached out to the glass. I wasn’t sure what awaited me, or if it would even work. Part of me thought it impossible, but then, hadn’t I seen the impossible already? I had been thrust into a strange world where things weren’t as they seemed and where miracles happened. If werewolves existed then there were no limits on what else could be true. My mind was a wreck, as I found the prospect of believing in all these things daunting. I would have much rather continued living in ignorance. I didn’t know what the ramifications were for all of this, and now my idea of escaping and living off the glory of my story did not seem feasible. Who would believe any of this had happened to me?
I barely believed it myself.
But if I accepted that werewolves were true – and I pretty much had to, considering I had seen it happen with my own eyes; as much as I tried to explain it away as a hallucination or a drug there was no solution that made as much sense as the obvious truth – then why couldn’t this drug be true too? I didn’t think that Matt would lie to me; he had no reason to and no benefit to gain, unless this drug did something else and he wanted me to take it under false pretenses. It may well have been poison and they started to believe that I was more trouble than I was worth, but if they wanted to get rid of me there were easier ways. They could have just torn me apart with their claws. And if it was poison then, so what? I wouldn’t have to live with this situation any longer. I wouldn’t have to go through any more pain.
And I might actually get a connection with my parents.
That was the real truth of the matter. It filled me with fear and anticipation in equal measure. What would I even say to my father if I had the opportunity? I’d always imagined the conversation before; me in tears demanding an explanation of what happened, him protesting innocence, blaming it on Mom, before we finally found some common ground. Up until now it had always been a distant dream, a vague fantasy that likely wouldn’t happen. It was one of those things that was easier to think about when the chances of it happening were slim. But it was an opportunity that I couldn’t refuse.
I clasped the glass and brought it to my face. The midnight liquid swirled. I breathed in its scent, but to my surprise it was odorless. I closed my eyes as I brought the glass to my lips and gulped the liquid down. It was thick and viscous as it slithered down my throat. For a few moments afterwards nothing happened, but then the world around me began to shimmer. I dropped the glass and heard it shatter, but it was as though it happened far away. The shadows in the room became larger, looming figures that guarded the realm beyond the physical and the intangible. The sunlight that poured in through the narrow window dwindled until it was just a distant star in the sky, and then it winked out completely.
*
I was in a strange land, a la
nd of shadow and mist and mystery. It was dark and shrouded, but I could see. The air around me shimmered with dark clouds that churned and, as I looked into the distance, black fog stretched out. As these clouds moved and danced around, there came an opening, and through this I saw the moon. It sparkled for an instant and then seemed to stretch out, coming at me through the aperture. The ground around me glowed and a wolf appeared. Its fur was the whitest white and its eyes were radiant gold. Fear struck me, but that feeling dissipated instantly as the wolf nudged my hand and started to walk past me, asking me to follow it. A tranquil feeling came over me and I followed its path.
The ground was hard like stone, but there was a layer of liquid above it that reflected all the churning morass of the fog around me. The world seemed to be without end. I was filled with the distinct feeling that I shouldn’t be there. My flesh looked paler than usual. It was cast in a deathly pallor. This was a place that the sun did not touch. There was no plant life and no animals, apart from the wolf. It was devoid of anything other than the fog.
I can’t say for certain how long I walked behind the wolf. There was no sense of the passage of time and the scenery didn’t change around me so we might as well have been walking on the spot for all I knew. The wolf never looked back at me, just kept plodding forward, leaving footsteps upon the watery surface that disappeared as soon as he lifted his foot.
Eventually we came to a point where we stopped. The wolf tilted his head to the side and looked up. It howled, the purest howl there had ever been. The noise rose through the air and filled this world. It was deep and alluring, and I never thought I would describe a wolf’s howl in that manner, but it was true. It was a thing of beauty and as the sonorous sound spread around me I believed in what Jack had been saying about magic. The wolf’s song struck a chord in my heart and I was at peace.
As I marveled at the way the wolf inhabited this world, my gaze shifted to the swirling fog, which seemed to be shifting into a different form. I remembered why I had come on this quest and thought of Mom. The fog shifted and morphed and then a part of it came forward, separating itself from the mass. It took on a new shape and just as the men had shifted from wolves into men, this abstract fog shaped itself into a human, into the form of my mother. It wasn’t quite perfect; the form moved oddly and there was only the barest hint of her expression, but there was no doubting that it was my mother.
