Wolf

Dedication

For my grandparents, whose happily-ever-after nourished the romantic within me, my mother, who strengthened my self-confidence and determination, and my brother, who kept the dreamer within me company no matter where I journeyed. Lastly, to all my friends for always being the light along the way and the readers who make the road worth traveling.

Chapter One

Dear Reader,

I pray this finds you open-minded, for I must right an injustice. Centuries have passed since I made my fateful venture into Lost Woods. I still remember most of those events as if they happened yesterday.

Time has a way of folding within itself. Perhaps some of you know this. Forgive me if verbiage of centuries past cedes with that of today. Stephan says it’s to be expected.

Stephan.

He’s why I’m writing this. Enough time has passed for our people to be safe, as long as I exercise caution and restraint. For his sake I shall keep names and locations vague. I pray you agree no precautions are too great for loved ones.

Forgive me. I have once again rambled on with my exuberance and failed to introduce myself.

I’m Hannah. You, dear readers, know me best as Little Red Riding Hood. I caution you, the tale I tell this evening isn’t for the meek, nor is it a child’s tale. But it must be told, and I beseech you to spread its truth for the sake of love and carry it in your heart.

Here is the true tale of my big bad wolf—Stephan.

I can still remember the first time I saw him. I was much younger then—a foolish girl wandering alone in the woods, who had disobeyed Gran yet again to wander off the beaten path. After all, who would want to remain on the road taken by all when there was an entire forest of thick pine to explore? It was my treasure, and I was the mighty pirate looking for my chest of wares.

Darkness had begun descending when I heard the first pained call—a howl more than a cry. Lonely and angry, it reverberated through the thick trees, bouncing off the bark with a rage my young, foolish self couldn’t fathom. Instead of fleeing, I ran toward him as if his voice resonated from within me. A compulsion to save him from whatever pain he endured overwhelmed my undeveloped senses. Surely I, the mighty pirate of Lost Woods, could do something. I was fearless, determined and a mighty eight years old.

I can still feel the thicket scraping my skin as I raced through an unexplored patch of my treasure chest. Dark, dank and eerily still, the woods seemed to warn me of the threat with its deathly silence, but I paid it no heed. I ran harder. Faster. Even the air choked me with its thinness as I raced upward, deeper into the trees than I’d been. Surely farther than anyone of my meager village had been. Oh what an adventure—one only for me.

Except for him. His pained cries thrummed within my ears, deafening me with his need and burdening me with a weight I was so unprepared to carry. Tears glistened in my eyes as my scrawny legs raced faster than ever. My feet pounded brutally into the soft earth. Mama’s wrath would be wrought on me for damaging my best shoes. My fingers throbbed, knowing they’d have to stitch whatever seams slipped from the treated leather skins. I bounded through the thicket and stilled when I saw him.

My heart ceased beating as I gazed in stunned awe at the shiny coat, glistening with moisture. A beam of moonlight splayed through the branches overhead, accentuating his magnificent pelt. I thought him a wolf like any other until I witnessed a shift. He howled his outrage as his body twisted and contorted before my naïve eyes. A young man lay before me, his leg mangled badly by a downed tree.

A sheen of sweat covered his brow as he looked at me, his eyes wide with fright or shock. I never found out which. It wasn’t like him to speak of emotions. Not even then.

I can still remember his prepubescent voice, deep yet still childlike—nothing like the pained howls which had beckoned me to his aid.

“Leave this place,” he growled.

I stepped forward. For some reason I wasn’t frightened by the anomaly he presented. I felt only his pain. His need. Sympathetic waves of discomfort pulsed through my exhausted limbs as I took another step toward him and extended my hand.

“I’m Hannah.”

Looking back at that moment, I admit my foolish naivety, and I certainly can’t explain why I thought a formal introduction was in order. He regarded me as if I was daft. In all honesty, I probably was. What other reason would I have been there?

“My compulsion wasn’t for you. It was for my kind. Leave this place before they…” He grimaced and bellowed as flesh gave way to the shiny pelt I’d been so enthralled by earlier.

I was close enough to touch him, to run my fingers across his front paw in a small measure of comfort, but I didn’t dare. Not when his gaze pinned me in place a mere two-hand distance from him. So close, yet held in place by an unseen power. It felt like he was restraining me, but he couldn’t have been.

A moment of fear raced through me, and then it was gone—both the fear and the sensation of not being able to move. I sat on the damp sod beside him as he shifted yet again to the charming boy with the soft golden eyes. I lifted my chin and mimicked the dithering look my gran had used on me for years. “You don’t scare me. You need me. I’m not leaving you, whoever you are—whatever you are.”

I glanced at the tree we both knew I was far too weak to move. I removed my favorite red cloak, the one my gran had given me two moons past, and folded it up. I placed and then gently ran my hand across his forehead. “They’ll be here soon. They’ll save you. I’ll keep you company until they do. What’s your name?”

His eyes closed and he growled. I could feel his skin shift beneath my fingers, as if he was fighting a natural instinct. “What makes you do that? What are you?”

“I won’t harm you.” His voice was soft. His breathing was labored as he opened his eyes. “I’m Stephan.”

“I know.” His skin was hot to the touch. “Why do you do it so often?”

“I can’t control it when I’m injured. I’m too weak.” Anger and pain punctuated his words. Surely boys of his kind were the same as those I knew, and my brother would never like admitting weakness. I admired the bravery he displayed in confessing his problem to me—a stranger. A girl. He relaxed into the soft pillow my cloak provided.

“You are far from weak. I heard you from a great distance. I will keep you company until they arrive.”

“Your kind can never know of mine. It is our code, and the code must be upheld. Leave this place. I don’t wish them to harm you.” His concern touched my young soul, strengthened its resolve to remain in the dark thicket of trees even as the biting cold breeze brushed across my flesh. I shivered. “Why are you not scared?”

“Gran taught us to embrace all creatures with respect and love. Only then will we get that love and respect back. Surely that includes you.” The wind bit into my flesh, and I shivered again. He closed his eyes. “Don’t fight your need to change. It doesn’t scare me. Rest and I will tell you about Gran and my village.”

His hand came up and pulled at an amulet dangling from his neck. Placing it in my hand, he spoke with determination. “Wear this at all times. It will keep you safe. Rest against me and I will keep you warm. Together we will make it through the night.”

And we did.

He shifted into the beautiful wolf with the thick, gorgeous fur my fingers longed to run through. But I dared not. I rested against his comforting warmth and began to speak about all the things that mattered to a girl of my tender years. My gran. My village. My meager existence in a small village nestled at the edge of a wood I shouldn’t have been in.

Hours ticked by, though it seemed like only moments. A sigh filled my ears, and I ran my hands down his skin. The fear etched on his face made me worry. Where were his people? Why had he been out so far from them?

“You are too like me, it seems, and ventured far from your people.”

“I must journey. It is my time. I will continue now.”

His words saddened me. “You are trapped.”

“It’s a soul journey.” His gaze captured mine. “Come with me.”

“How?”

He winced and reached for a bag on the other side of the tree. I moved and brought it to him. He removed two bottles. “Nalla gave me more than I needed. There’s enough for us both.”

“Who is Nalla?”

“She is one of my elders and is much like your gran. These are tonics she made from herbs.” He’d been listening. He’d heard the things I’d shared with him. No one aside from my mother and gran ever had.

“A tonic? My gran makes those sometimes.”

“Drink and we’ll journey.” He placed a bottle into my hand. My fingers grazed his, and I grew concerned at the chilled skin touching me. I wished for my gran or Nalla. Anyone who could take his pain away.

I drank. Perhaps only childish innocence can deem my actions naïve rather than foolish. Dizziness plagued me quickly, and I rested beside him, trusting Stephan to keep me safe. How could I place such trust in a boy I didn’t know? Yet, it felt right—as if I was destined to be there.

I floated in a dream of white, billowy clouds. My body thrummed with energy and my eyes worked to focus on the absence of all colors but white. “Stephan?”

“I’m here.” His voice was pained, distant.

“What do we do?” I moved toward him with my hands out in front of me.

“I don’t know.” I didn’t want to hear his fear in. I needed guidance, answers.

“Well, what is this place?” My eyes began to focus.

“A home for my soul. I’m supposed to build a home where my inner animal can safely come to grow and heal.”

A home all his own. Oh how I craved such a thing. Why couldn’t I be like him? I longed for a place all my own—somewhere I could be myself without retribution. If Stephan wasn’t going to build a place, then I would. I took a deep breath and stood.

“How do we build this home?”

He sighed. “Let us rest.”

“Rest?” I kneeled before his weary body and shook hard. “This was your idea, Stephan. Tell me, how do we build?”

“It requires focus, which means we must rest.” His words drifted as his eyes fluttered shut. I chewed on my lip and watched him. The journey had been hard on him, left him weak. It was the only sense I could make of the situation.

Focus. I took a deep breath and laughed. “We must add color. Lots of color. This place is too white. You need lots of reds, yellows and orange.”

“Bah. Those are the colors of a girl.”

I laughed as my mind painted the colors before me, creating a tapestry of hues that filled the area. “Perhaps, but at least I’m not resting. You shall need lots of flowers to fill the air with a beautiful aroma each morning.” Flowers began to grow, and my laughter echoed around us.

I taunted him as I continued to splash my colors around him, daring him to play his game with me. I longed for conversation, for anything beyond the still silence. My mind became brazen and filled the area with furniture. I tried to imagine what a boy such as he would need, but I knew nothing of boys. My brother paid little attention to me.

“What of your needs, Stephan? What would you want here?”

His grin awakened something within me. Pleasure. Shades of green, blue, brown and purple took control of the area, interspersing themselves with the light hues I’d spun. His laughter boomed and offered me hope that the friend I’d made would be all right.

We spent hours constructing his mighty fortress and dabbed it with welcoming colors and tokens of friendship and peace. He placated me at each turn, and soon we were both surrounded by the luxurious creation.

“This will be a fine home, Stephan.”

“Aye, it will.” He reclined on the bed and motioned for me to join him. I crawled to the area beside him and rested my weary head. “Were it not for you, my inner animal would never have found the strength to build it.”

“You would’ve built a dark and dreary home.”

“This is a grand private sanctuary for my soul.” His voice saddened me because I knew our play time was at an end. The cool air brushed across my skin as our newly constructed home disappeared and we were once again in the forest. I shivered and pressed against him. His arm wrapped around me. “You will always be welcome there, Hannah. Always. There and here, in my forest.”

I laughed. “This forest is not yours.”

“Perhaps not this evening, but one day it shall be.”

“It’s always good to dream.”

He and I were more alike than I realized back then. After all, he had to have strayed quite far himself for it to have taken so long for his kind to arrive. I could only assume they had when I awoke the next morning, wrapped snugly in my warm cloak and carefully placed at the very edge of the woods with a soft bed of earthen sod beneath me.

I would’ve declared it all to be a dream—a whimsical notion of a young girl—if it had not been for the amulet dangling at my bosom. He was real.

And somehow, even back then, I knew I was destined to meet him again.

Chapter Two

The stench of burning flesh mingled with the nauseating sweetness of freshly spilled blood. I awoke unprepared for such terror and destruction. It was my twentieth summer. Billows of thick, angry, blackened smoke rose in the air and filled my eyes and nostrils, coating my tongue with a vile taste which made the bile in my stomach rise.