Total pages in book: 76
Estimated words: 71314 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 357(@200wpm)___ 285(@250wpm)___ 238(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 71314 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 357(@200wpm)___ 285(@250wpm)___ 238(@300wpm)
And now there’s something wrong with me.
In the dark of the forested night, I hear new sounds of civilization. I hear people talking, laughing, some of them are singing. I assume I’ve looped around back to the house somehow.
But I haven’t.
I don’t find a large, manicured lawn in the clearing. Instead, I find a rough opening and a circle of trees and a fire burning in the middle of a group of people.
I’ve found some other campers. I hope they’re nice. I’m starting to get very, very hungry. So I go toward the fire, but not all at once. First, I make out what’s going on over there. I know how it all works. You can’t just trust people. You have to be smart. You have to look before you leap.
I hang back in the bushes. The fire is blowing toward me, bringing smoke and embers and I suppose, their scent. I can smell a certain amount of people smells. Alcohol. People always smell like alcohol. And then there’s other smells too. Like dogs, maybe. I would like to pet a dog. I would like to talk to some people who aren’t my family, people who look at me with sad faces and tell me what a trooper I am.
I watch dark silhouettes of very tall people walking around the fire. They’re much more active than most people are at things like these. Usually adults sit down and talk about the game, or the lawn, or the merger. I don’t think these people are into lawns or games or mergers. Their voices are rougher.
There’s a man standing between me and the fire. He’s tall, he looks strong, and he has long hair. He throws back his head and howls, making a sound like a wolf. The sound sends a feeling of something like horror through me because it’s not a sound that should come from a man.
And then, suddenly, it’s not a man. He shrinks down where he is standing and his head becomes shaped like a wolf. As does the rest of him.
I shrink back through the trees, covering my mouth in case I make a noise and attract these people’s attention. I watch them from a distance, and in watching, I forget about everything. I forget about the death of my parents. I forget about the pain and the heavy weight that seems to constantly form in my throat and slide down to a never-ending pit in my belly. I am instantly and irrevocably obsessed.
This is something that means something. The rest of the world has been trying to get me to get back to normal as quickly as possible. They don’t want me mired in grief. It’s not convenient for a girl to refuse her schooling and not eat and not talk to a single one of the parade of counselors, each of whom puts on a sadder and more empathetic face than the last.
I’ve just found something that isn’t normal. Something that doesn’t demand normality from me either. I feel weirder and stranger just for having seen it. I know instantly that I will not be believed, and in this moment, I am glad for it. It is as if having been through terrible loss and strange fate has opened my eyes and allowed me to see other strange things.
This is magic, but it is happening right in front of me. This is real.
I see another man turn in front of the fire, throw back his head in a howl, and then simply melt into an animal right before my eyes. Again and again the ritual is done and the people turn into creatures.
I want more than anything to be like them. I want to escape pain and thought. I want to be a wolf in the woods, with other wolves. I want to be part of a family so big I could never lose it. I can sense their bonds, hear them in the way they talk to one another and interact with one another, and see them in the body language.
I get brave.
I walk toward the fire.
I am drawn to it, like a moth to the proverbial flame. I want to be closer to the heat. I want to be part of the light. I want to howl with them. I want my pain as a human to be able to be transformed.
I walk into the circle of the light. I walk right into the pack of wild wolves, of people and of animals and I stand there, looking at them.
“Hello,” I say, my voice shaking a little from timidity. “I’m Calista Hart. I’m…”
They’re looking at me, but they’re not smiling like me, or like people usually do when I enter their presence. I’ve had a lifetime of being greeted in every place I’ve ever been like a conquering hero. I’ve been the center of attention. I’ve been Leonard and Miranda’s little princess.