Four Months Earlier
“Anna.” I hear a lyrical voice whisper my name but it’s so dark that I couldn't see anything or anyone.
“Annabelle.” says the voice again sounding deep and raspy.
The room was dark and as the walls began to close in on me. A burning orange light shined under the door as I looked up. No I thought, Not again! My door was flung open as a cloud of smoke engulfed the room. I froze, unable to move as I grasped absently at my throat.
“Help,” I strained, “Somebody help.”
The flames licked my floor, inching closer and closer to me as I saw a shadow hovering near the door, “Help!” I said straining my voice to go louder.
“It’s a dream Anna, wake up.” says the voice coming from the guy who was now standing at my door. The flames licked past him still making its way to me, like he wasn't standing there.
I shook my head, this couldn’t be a dream, everything felt so real. The heat of the air suffocating me, this wasn’t a dream, I was really going to burn. Closing my eyes I tried to focus on my room. My midnight blue curtains, the dangling stars that hung from my ceiling, my cold and comfortable bed set, the smell of berries.
“Anna wake up!” He yelled with so much bass in his voice, I jumped as if the he was standing next to me.
My eyes shot open as I took in a deep breath and sigh, It was just a dream.
Sitting up in the bed I glanced around double checking my room to see nothing was there. I pushed my sweat drenched hair out of my face as I looked out my window. The smoke in my chest seemed to calm and there was only a faint scent of something burning in my hair. The moon was just about to reach its highest point as I glanced at my clock, “11:50pm.” I read.
Groaning I rolled out of the bed, slipped into my slippers that were covered in hearts, and went downstairs.
“Annabelle?” called mom as I made my way downstairs.
“Hmm.” I hummed, stepping off the last step, making my way into the kitchen.
“I thought that you were going to sleep in, it’s almost midnight.”
Rubbing my eyes I say, “I know.” I grabbed the dog bowl, and steak from the fridge, I placed them in the normal spot on the floor off to the side of the counter, as I took a seat.
“How did you sleep?” asked mom as she pours me a glass of lemonade.
“It was okay. I kept having dreams about that creepy girl from the grudge crawling through my T.V asking me to wash her hair.” I lied as I take the glass and have a drink.
She laughs, “Annabelle maybe you should stay away from the scary movies for a while.”
“Kind of hard to do, since I have no choice, but to sit and watch television since you banned me for going to the library this week.”
“You got 10 books last week and finished them within 5 days, I think I’m doing you and your brain a favor.”
“Yeah because ‘killing us’ of boredom is actually doing something right.”
Looking outside the window mom stares at the full moon, obviously not listening to what I just said, as she was lost in thought. As if looking to the moon would answer her question she shakes her head as she turns to me.
“You know,” she says as she sips her coffee, “I still don’t understand why he still comes here on the night of the full moon.”
“Maybe because I’m still the only one in town dumb enough to take in a wolf, every other full moon.”
Shaking her head she stares out the window and says, “Still why does he come back? I thought that after we left for vacation 4 months ago that, that would have been the last time we saw him, but there he was, sitting outside under the old oak tree, waiting for you, like always. I mean where does he go the rest of the days throughout the month?”
I shrugged, “Beats me, Danny and I once tried following him, one morning that he was leaving, but he ran to fast for us since we were on foot.”
She sighs, “I just find it odd. You know, most parents would’ve been very skeptic when their daughter decided to bring home a wounded wolf. Your father almost had a heart attack the night you walked in carrying that huge thing in your arms.”
“Some jerk hit him while he was crossing the road. What would you have expected me to do? Leave him there?”
Mom shakes her head, “No, but you should have let us call the animal control to come pick him up.”
“I wasn’t letting him go with them, you know how they treat wolves down there and I wasn’t about to let him get ‘put to sleep’ due to some asshat.”
“Annabelle,” mom sighs, “You’re language.”
I laughed, “Asshat is not a bad word.”
“Then what exactly is it?”
Thumbing my finger against the cold marble countertop I say, “It’s a figure of speech.”
She looks at me and shakes her head as the clock strikes midnight. Howling’s sounded off like always. It was always a mixture or dogs, coyotes, and from what I could tell, wolves. Perks of living practically in the wildness.
“Guess he’s here.” my mom says as she drinks the rest of her coffee, sitting the cup into the sink.
Standing there in her Pink SpongeBob themed scrubs, she combs her fingers through her long dark curls, pulling them all back into a ponytail.
“Daniel is going to be late coming in, he went out with Marcus, and Dad is working another late shift down at the station so will you be okay for a few hours until Daniel gets here?”
I nodded, “Of course mom, I’m not five.”
Smiling she walks to me, kissing me on my cheek as she says, “Call me if you need something. I’ll be here by the time that you get out of school from orientation.”
“Right,” I groan, “I do start school this week.”
Looking at me suspiciously she asks, “I thought you were excited to start your new school?”
“Mom it’s a private school. A school that enforces school uniforms, not that exciting. I’m actually going to miss public school.”
“Aw honey,” Mom walks back to me, draping an arm over my shoulder as she says, “Your father got the promotion of a lifetime. Not often does a deputy’s get a raise to be the sheriff in less than a few years, and considering what happened with your nightmares,” she paused as if watching her words, “We figured that it was time for a change it’s not like we don’t have the money now.”
“Mom I told you I’m fine, I haven’t had the fire nightmares in over 2 years.” A lie.
”Are you sure?” she ask.
“I’m positive.” Not really.
”You know if you ever start getting them again you can always tell me right?”
I nodded, “Yes mom I know.” Glancing at the clock I say, “Doesn’t your shift start at 12:30?”
Mom nods, “Yes I know, I need to get going.” Grabbing her keys, lunch container, and her purse she opens the door and kneels.
“Now you take care of my little girl tonight? Okay?” she says rubbing the dark haired wolf behind his ears. The wolf nods, like he actually understood her, pants, than licks her cheek, as she pat’s him on his head.
“Honey, don’t forget to tell Daniel to take out the trash when he gets in please, and do the dishes.”
“Dishes, and trash, I got it. Have a nice shift.”
She smiles, “It’s the full moon, I doubt anything tonight is going to be nice.” She winks as she waves, ‘Bye’ again. Climbing into her Honda CVR she pulls out of the driveway and drives down the street.
Walking in, I closed the door behind my wolf as I say, “Well wolfy it looks like it’s just you and me tonight, bud.”
The wolf jumps up on me, paws landing on my shoulder as he licks my face. I laugh as I pat him on the back, “Alright, down boy, down.”
Though the wolf only comes mid-thigh to me, when he stood on his back legs, he towers a good few inches over me, making me regret the fact that I was only 5’9. Falling back down on all fours I say, “Come on I have to do the dishes.”
Following me into the kitchen I rinse and place the dishes into the dishwasher. Walking towards the stairs I stop as I turned around facing wolfy, “Dinner’s is in the usual spot so I’m going to take a shower.”
Wolfy barks as he turns and heads back towards the kitchen. That’s one smart wolf I tell ya.
Stepping in the shower I let the water run over me as I try to wash out the images of the fire out of my head. It’s been 3 years now and I thought I was over the nightmares, but as the years went on, the dreams stopped feeling like dreams, and started to feel like reality. With each dream they became more vivid, where sometimes I would wake up sweating as if I could feel the heat of the fire, or sometimes I would wake up coughing as if the smoke was still filling my lungs. Mom and dad grew worried, but they figure it was just something caused from stressed. But after I woke up after I dosed off in class one day they knew something was wrong when my teacher told them that I woke up screaming and smelling like I just walked out of a burning building. Once word got around that the newly hired Sheriffs daughter was having ‘episodes’ that were somehow connected to the towns fires and animal attacks, my parents thought that it was time for a vacation.
I didn’t and ‘doctors’ didn’t understand why I was having the dreams, or waking up with smoke in my lungs, nobody knew. And with reasons unexpected and with our small town watching me, it made my family decide that it was time for a move during the middle of my sophomore year. They thought the change would help ease things better, then having to stay living in the school where I was known as that crazy girl, who took in a stray wolf, who would wake up screaming her head off from vivid dreams of being burned. I wanted a new start; I just didn’t want to move or switch school to get that new start.
Climbing out of the shower I wrapped my towel around myself as I made my way to my room. Walking in, there sprawled out on my bed was my wolf. It had been 2 years since I first met wolfy. 2 years since I first cared for him for a few days when he sprained his leg after getting hit one night. Walking to my dresser I pulled out my pajamas as I turn and looked at wolfy over my shoulder.
“Okay out. I have to get dressed.” I say.
Wolfy looks at me, tongue out as he barks, standing he hops off my bed and walks into my walk-in closet. Quickly changing into my shorts, and a tank top I walked over to my bed and patted down on it.
“All done.” I say.
Bouncing out of my closet, wolfy jumps and lands on my bed with a huge thump, that made me bounce a few times.
“Hey take it easy there.”
Wolfy barks as he lays his head on my lap looking at the TV. Flicking through the channels I stopped on Twilight New Moon, making wolfy whimper.
“Awe come on, you know I love to see Jacob shirtless. It makes the movie that much interesting.”
Wolfy whimpers again as I cave in and decided to turn on some rerun to the show ‘F.R.I.E.N.D.S’ Wolfy laid there watching the TV as I ran my hand over his head. His fur was a shiny coat of dark brown, and his eyes where shiny moonlight color with a faint hint of bright green around the iris. It was only nights during the full moon when I actually saw wolfy. He was there at night and by in the morning he was gone, with the exception of the time he was injured at and I kept him for a few days. At first I was sad, but eventually I grew out of it, remembering that wolves weren’t pets they were wild species and keeping one locked up against their nature was something that wasn’t right.
“So wolfy.” I say as I lean back against my head board, wolfy turned his head onto my stomach watching me.
“The dreams started up again.” I started.
Even though Wolfy wasn’t a human and I’m pretty sure he had no clue what I was talking about, he listened carefully and patiently as I vented to him, which made him even more awesome.
“It was the same as always, the room burning, flames engulfing the room making it smoky and hard to breath,” pausing I say, “And he was there again.”
I never knew who the strange guy was. After I took in wolfy my dreams change taking a new twist on things. Before it was just me screaming my lungs out for help until someone woke me, but when Wolfy started coming around my dreams were invaded by a breath taking guy. He looked about my age and he had dark unruly curls that cascaded around his head. I never found out his name, but for some reason I felt drawn to him, in a sense that I didn’t understand.
Shifting on the bed I say, “Mom says I should tell her, but with the whole thing that happened before, with the nightmares, and the depression and what not. I think that telling them will only make them worry again and I’d rather not have them trailing me like a two year old in the grocery store. If you catch my drift.”
Wolfy barked his response as I smiled. As the night went on, I slid down into my bed, letting wolfy nuzzle his head into my side, only withdrawing his head once to lick the old healing scars that was once present a few months back. I petted Wolfy as I closed my eyes, “Night boy.” I say. Wolfy raises his head and licks me on the cheek as he lays back down, closing his eyes, drifting back to sleep.