Catrina Billowson

Long ago, man lived in peace with the living creatures of the earth. Now we destroy everything we can touch, everything we can get our hands on. But about three weeks ago, a young man stumbled into the woods. He’d just come from his safe, warm home, his heart longing to go back, but he knew he couldn’t. He was running away, and knew that no one would look for him in the woods, not after the legends that had grown like trees from the eerie place.

It had gotten dark fast, and he felt fear bubble inside him. His sanity slowly began to betray him as the world around him grew blacker. He’d always been scared of his own shadow, and even more of the dark and what would lurk between the trees that rose from the soil beneath his feet, and shadows and darkness was what enveloped him, crushing his lungs. He had a vivid imagination and believed most of the things that people told him. He had nothing with him but a some money he stole from his house, and pieces of candy that were being crushed in his pocket and melting by the minute.

Suddenly, he heard a snap in the depths of the woods behind him.

He turned to the blank darkness. He could hear the locusts and the crickets, and could see a few dots of light.

Fireflies, he thought.

But his mind suggested otherwise as he imagined someone—or something bigger than he was tracking him down. And the random snappings of twigs only made his heart find a temporary resting spot in his throat. All was silent for a breath.

Then, a tree fell, just a few feet away from where he was standing.

He jumped back, his heart speeding up.

Whatever was out there—it was near.

He looked up and swept his eyes over the enshrouded branches, not making out a single outline of animals. But what could have the force to topple a tree? Certainly not a bird or squirrel.

But his eyes did pass over one thing—yellow glowing eyes… or so he thought it was. He told himself he was seeing things, for when he looked directly at it, they seemed to disappear into the darkness. But once his peripherals caught a glimpse, they shone like stars.

Fear overpowered him; he took off into the woods, almost tripping over the uprooted trees.

He looked back for a second, and saw a large—beast was the best word he could describe it with—chasing after him on all fours.

Gaining on him.

He cried out for help and kept running, tripping over a fallen log that was running perpendicular to him. He face-planted into the soggy soil below, dirt filling his mouth. He spat it out and quickly turned over. The beast leaped over the log with an elephantine amount of grace, and landed with a large thud onto the wet ground right above the young man, trapping him. It leaned over him hungrily.

He felt the beast’s breath pressing its way into his pores, and watched it glowing, piercing eyes lock onto his. Its saliva dripped onto his cheek, tugging at his gag reflex. He put his right arm up just as the large beast reared back his wolf-like head, and it bit down on his arm. The boy cried out in pain.

He heard a snarl and watched as a girl shoved the beast off of his body, soaring over him, clicks echoing through the woods.

Someone had heard him. It wasn’t anyone the young man knew, but it wasn’t human either. He didn’t get a good look at her, but knew it was a young woman, almost his age by the sound of her velvet voice. They seemed to be arguing in English, a language he knew better than his family probably did, but he still couldn’t make out the words.

The boy didn’t care, he realized. He needed to get out of there. He stood up, holding his arm, and ran. He kept going until he came to the edge of the woods and collapsed in front of a large ivory house, trimmed with gold. A gasp escaped from him at this serendipitous moment—but he only stood still for a second. He hobbled up to the large wooden door, realizing he’d sprained his ankle, and knocked on the door with his left hand.

A tall man in a black tuxedo answered the door. He had white, slicked back hair and dark, grey eyes, and wore two gloves that looked whiter than white. He had loose, old ivory skin, almost matching the mansion. The downturn of the corners of his mouth softened as he noticed the wound on the young man’s arm and his eyes grew wide with wonder.

‘Who’s at the door, Burton?’ a bell-like voice came from the room by the doorway.

The young man saw a woman, no older than twenty-two step into view, fixing her earring. She had tan skin and brunet hair that fell into a dozen curls around her neck in layers. She wore an old red velvet dress that fell down to the floor. The boy fell in love immediately, but his hope was torn down when he saw the ring on her left han, as if he had a chance with her anyway. She was older than he was by a good amount of years.

The woman gasped and hurried him inside.

‘What happened to you?’

She gaped at the gushing wound as she helped her butler, Burton, sit him down at a large wooden table with a large crystal chandelier overhead.

‘A large creature—’ he winced from the pain of the wound, ‘came down and tried to eat me. It looked like a wolf, from what I could see, but it also looked like a man.’ He grunted as he moved in the chair. ‘Someone saved me though. I don’t really know. I couldn’t see that well in the forest.’

The woman nodded towards the butler. “I’ll go get the first-aid kit.’

She disappeared behind the wall as Burton studied the wound on the young man’s arm.

He lifted it up to get closer, but put it down slowly and carefully when the boy grunted from the pain.

It was a large wound. There was a few chunks torn off but it wasn’t like it couldn’t be healed.

The woman returned with a kit. She had cloth wrapped around her hand.

‘I’m going to try and stitch it up,’ she told him.

He nodded. How he hated needles.

She tried to make conversation as she was sewing up his wound, but only a few grunts and one-syllable answers came out of him. The pain was intense. He’d never had a high tolerance for it, anyway.

‘Why were you in the woods?’ she asked him, curious.

‘I was—’ he cringed from the needle piercing through his skin, ‘running away.’

She looked at him, confused. ‘Why were you running away?’

He stopped as she finished stitching up. She started to clean the needle with a cloth when he finally responded.

‘I don’t know, really. I guess I wanted a whole new life… one that I had my own rules, no one could tell me what and what not to do.’ He shrugged, wincing as his nerves ignite. ‘I think I was just fed up with my life. My dad died, my mom died, my sister went missing, and my brother’s always gone and never home to watch me. He didn’t come home last night, and I’d been planning this for weeks now. So I thought that would be my chance. If I would’ve known that there was a deadly creature out there I would have never…’ he trailed off, lost in thought.

‘Well, I’d bet you that your brother’s out looking for you about now if he got home alright.’

‘Knowing him, he probably wouldn’t.’ The boy sighed. ‘He’s always gone. I never know where he is, and it’s like I have to fend for myself.’

‘Do you know where your brother goes at night?’ The butler asked.

‘No. he usually trails off into the woods, and then I don’t hear from him for the rest of the night. I can’t sleep without him in there, so I stay up all night. I usually fall asleep on the sofa in the morning when he does get home.’

‘When does he get back home?’ the woman asked him, more intrigued into his story as if it were a good novel.

‘I don’t know really. The latest he got home was about seven in the morning.’ He shrugged.

She nodded, as if confirming something she’d had in her mind. ‘Burton, show this young man his room to stay in for the night, then check up on his wound in the morning. Make sure it doesn’t look too… strange,’ she said in a haunting tone.

The boy was confused, but did not say a word, for he did not want to get kicked back out into the midnight moonlight.

The butler showed him to a guest room on the other side of the ivory house and let him fall to sleep in the large, soft feather bed.

The boy dreamed of the girl that saved him. He did not see her face, but he woke up several times in the night, hearing her voice. It was somewhere in the house. It was somewhere... but he kept passing out and falling deeper into sleep before. Whoever she was, she made it into his heart without knowing it. He heard the clicks and he heard her voice over and over and over in her dreams.

Who was she? Why was she in the woods at the same time as I was? Was she running away too? The boy wondered every time he woke up. Why did she save me?

The young man wanted answers, but hoped that one day, he would get them.

❦

The next morning, his arm was painfully stiff.

He looked at his right arm, and he noticed the wound looked like it’d gotten longer then the night before. Even the edges seemed more serrated… he couldn’t explain it, even if he wanted to, but it looked like there was grey fur poking out from under the stitches. But perhaps it was lint from the clothes and sheets he’d slept in.

He just looked at it wide-eyed before standing from the bed slowly, and quickly headed out the door to the long, thick hallway. He ran into Burton and fell onto his backside.

‘You’re scar, sir?’ he said eerily.

‘Yes,’ the boy pulled himself up with his left arm, and his tired legs. ‘It has… fur in it?’

Burton grabbed his arm vigorously and pulled it up to his eyes to get a better look. The young man cried out.

‘Come with me,’ he told the boy.

The boy obediently followed him to the woman’s room. The Butler knocked three times, then burst through her doors, and the woman stood up quickly, finished dressing for the day.

‘Miss Holly, there’s something you must see.’

She immediately got up and crossed the room in a flash. She grabbed his arm too, but more gentle than Burton had. She looked at the wound, wide-eyed.

Holly stared at the young man with such pity that the boy asked, clueless, ‘What?’

‘There’s something you should know about this wound.’ She pulled him over to the loveseat at the foot of her bed and they sat down, the butler standing at the end of the large canopy.

’Your wound is very common here in this forest, but few make it out alive from attacks like that one.

‘What happened to me?’ he asked her, catching on quicker than he’d expected himself to.

She took a deep breath. ’There is a long line of people and tribes that have suffered what you are about to. But with your wound healing quickly, and it being bandaged and cared for the night before the full moon, you most likely won’t have to go through the pain that they had to go through.

‘But you are now... a Werewolf.’

All was quiet for a few seconds. Then the young man burst out laughing. ‘You’re kidding, right?’

Holly’s features grew serious, and she got that pity look in her eyes again. ‘I wish I was. I sure wish I was.’

He stopped laughing. ‘So… all the stories…? They’re… real?’ He spat the words, ignoring the pain as he took his arm back.

She looked at the butler and the both nodded.

‘I’m going over to the states to visit some family. Maybe you can come, and Burton can teach you our ways.’

‘Our ways? You mean…?’

She nodded, smiling slightly. ‘There is a lot of space in the states, and people are too distracted there to notice something like that about you.’

‘Sounds shallow,’ the boy quipped, teetering on the idea of leaving his home. But wasn’t he trying to do in the first place?

‘Okay. I’m in.’