I was not small or large, corporeal or ethereal. I just…was. I did not question this. There was no need to. Nothing mattered to me other than I existed.
After some time, maybe a lot or maybe not so much, I felt I was not alone. Something was coming, and it was not something I could deny or ignore. Its existence was much more than my own.
It was alive, and I was not, at least not yet.
Then I remembered something else. I had thought all this before.
Déjà vu smacked me. Had it been a dream? Had I made a decision and chosen to come back? To live again on Earth with those I’d left behind?
I could sense some things now. Such as the absolute and mind-consuming pain! So much pain!
Make it stop! Take it away! Get it off me!
There was more to me than the thoughts. There was now a body, or so I believed. I could feel again, and I was an inferno of withering pain! It felt as if someone had touched me with fire, on the inside. My veins boiled, and the flames burned their way through my body. As it did, I could feel that part of my body again. My first sensation was that I had hands and feet, because that is where the pain ravaged the most.
Oh make it stop! No more! Stop it! I beg of you!
Was I burning alive?
Then the real pain set it. My neck seemed to be a gaping hole. I was sure if I was able to look, I would see things that no one should--blood and bone. The skin stretched, painfully, and began to weave itself back together. I could feel burning needles as my skin closed up and healed.
Just let me die!
My silent cries fell on deaf ears. No one would save me from this agony.
My chest closed the same way, and my skin knitted itself back together. As if invisible hands were doctoring me up, my insides found the places they were meant to be and my stomach formed again, united in the way it had been created.
How is this possible?
I could not see or hear yet, only feel. It was the worst pain I’d ever felt. I wanted to die again.
I changed my mind! Take me back! No more!
Whatever had spoken to me before, though, was no longer with me. That or I was incapable of hearing it. I was alone, once more, in here. That knowledge hurt more than the fire that made its way through my body, bringing me to life again. Every lick of that flame instantly gave me the ability to feel with that part of myself.
Whatever madness this was, meant that someone or something had not given up on me. They had not walked away and left me to die. What they had done to save me was the question.
Unable to move, all I could do was scream silently at the anguish and turmoil I was in. I could not escape it. Submerged in living flames, knitting my broken body back together, I screamed until the pain and fire began to fade.
Decades had passed, I was sure. My body would be blackened to a crisp and I would be a monster. One thing was for sure, I could not go back to my family. I would only scare my little sisters. I would be dead to them, to my mother, to my Granny.
I could feel distinct shades of pain now. Some places hurt more than others. I could feel pressure on my back, so I knew that I was lying prone somewhere.
One by one, memories danced through my mind, so that I relived the torment of my past and the moments that I would give anything to have back.
The she-wolf had not killed me after all. She had done something much worse to me. She’d taken my life, given it back, taken my family, and had given me a moment with my creator only to take it away. Well I’d chosen, blindly I might add, to come back. It was one of the most uninformed decisions I’d ever made. Would I make the same one again?
Still, that bitch had hurt me more than anyone ever had. I would never forget it. Desperately, I wanted to do to her what she’d done to me. My burning vengeance would someday come to pass, of this I was sure.
My senses were returning slowly. I could now feel pressure, and I could sense I was not alone. Whoever it was, they were not in here with me, and they were out there where I could not be.
Finally, I could hear. I still could not communicate with them and let them know I was alive. At this moment it was all I wanted to do.
Two people were talking… about me.
“It’s too late, Abel! It didn’t work!”
My father was talking to the man I’d pulled from the river. When had my father arrived? Would he save me?
“I refuse to believe that!”
“Believe it or not, but she is gone. Throw her back in the river. Let her be at peace!”
No, my father had abandoned me, like always. I was nothing to him.
Part Three
Georgia, Overcome
No matter how loud I screamed inside, they would not hear me. They would toss me back in the river with the gators and I would die all over again. The horror of that was beyond comprehension.
If you are listening, please stop this!
It had told me it could hear me, but could not interfere. I was the only one who could save me, and I was paralyzed. I would not survive this a second time.
I think Abel, I wasn’t sure who, carried me in his arms. Based on the sounds, I assumed they had stopped at the dock.
“Just give me a sign! Something! Wake up, Angel!” Abel cried out, calling for me.
I still could not see. My muscles were cramping up now, the pain almost as agonizing as the fire. It seemed my body was one massive cramp. My body was not stiff, but it was locking up. To the outside it was as if I was dead and decomposing. I felt as if I’d been exposed to a nuke. Radiation was burning away my skin, only reversed, and leaving no ash behind. On a deep and purely instinctual level, I knew that my body was changing.
Into what, I had no idea. All I knew was that I was alive and was about to drown all over again. My second chance at life would be wasted.
“Your father needs to open his eyes, to see!”
My Pa had abandoned me like he had his other daughters.
“I’m so sorry, Angel. I waited too long to come to you, to bring you home, to tell you how I felt.”
What is he talking about?
“Forgive me, my love,” he whispered, kissing me on my lifeless lips.
That was when he threw me into the river, before I could question his actions. My body was airborne, and then I was in the water. It felt so good--until I started sinking. The inky water crept up over my skin until it reached my face. My body rolled, tried to float, then began to sink again. The water rose up above my mouth and nose, and then just as the darkness faded and I could make out fuzzy shapes, I could no longer see.
Panicking, I tried to thrash, to swim, to scream. I tried everything to keep from drowning.
It grew darker as I sunk to the bottom of the river a second time. It was still night. I was still in my torn leathers, and I could feel the dried blood on my skin.
Bubbles escaped and floated to the surface. Couldn’t they see them?
Nothing I could do but let the water flood my lungs. The pressure, the terror that enveloped me, was more than I could stand.
I screamed once more and my jaw unlocked. My voice cracked, but my scream left me and went nowhere. The water buffered it.
If I could scream, I could swim. I had no time left. It was now or never. With every ounce of my being I fought to move my arms and legs. At first there was nothing; the pain from the cramps was more than I could bear.
It was getting so dark, and it was not due to my surroundings. I was not getting enough oxygen to my brain.
Slowly, ever so slowly, my arms and legs moved. More screams tore from my lips. If I ever made it out of here I was going to kill them.
My feet sunk into the sludge at the bottom of the river. I was never going to make it out! I would drown all over again.
Screaming still, I fought like mad to swim. I refused to die here, in the darkness.
That’s when my body started changing. One by one bones fractured, my spine arched backwards at an impossible angle, another scream tore free, and my fist
ed hands formed claws. I could hear as each of my bones broke. It was one of the most horrendous sounds I’d ever heard, and I would never forget it. My deformed body altered, until there was nothing left of me but a bone-filled bag of fur. I could tell I was no longer in a human body. I was on all fours, sort of, and my face felt wrong.
I could not worry about that now. I had to swim! If I didn’t breathe soon, I was a goner.
I pushed limbs that were not my own, learned to move limbs that did not belong to me, so that I could reach the surface. It seemed so far away.
Just as I was becoming too weak to move anymore, I felt the cool night air on my face. I could see the trees, and they looked wicked and foreboding.
Screaming, I struggled to stay afloat--except I did not scream.
An enraged howl rang out into the night. Panicking, I nearly went under again. Fighting the river that was choking me, I paddled until I felt the muddy riverbank underneath my feet. Again I screamed, and again a spine-tingling howl broke the silence of the night.
Finally out of the water, I crept towards the fading voices in the distance.
My body burned, ached, and tried to give out on me. Still, I crawled. Still, I struggled to get as far from the vile water as I could. Covered in muck, I slipped and fell over and over again. I choked on whimpers, on the tears, and the dirt in my throat. The dirt was everywhere.
“Get Daryl! Run!” Abel cried when he saw me struggling towards him. He reached me just as I gave up. I could not move another muscle.
“I’m so sorry, so sorry, Angel!”
My body shook, my muscles cramped, and I could not speak. A whine left my lips. I was whimpering like a baby.
“It’s okay, I got you, just relax.” He scooped me up and I looked into his eyes. That is when I noticed I was not human, but a wolf.
Panicking, I thrashed about madly, causing him to nearly drop me.
“Shh, it’s okay. I will explain everything. Just let me get you home,” he whispered, his voice cracking. He was obviously upset, yet he was no more than a stranger to me.
Exhausted, I gave up as darkness released me from the mind-numbing nightmare of this endless night.
Part Four
Georgia, Truths
“She’s coming to, Daryl.”Abel’s voice startled me.
I jerked up and stared into the ice-blue eyes staring back at me.
That is when I noticed I was completely nude. I jerked the covers over my chest. Abel averted his eyes and my Pa rolled his. Even in the gloom, I could see we were inside Abel’s little wooden lean-to that was built into the hill.
“Since you are alive, girl, I have to tend to the chaos you created outside,” my father told me coldly.
“They are starving,” I managed to say, before he walked out the makeshift door.
He turned back around, scowling, and looked at me as if I had spoken in another language.
“Ma and the girls are starving.”
“How? I sent them food just last week,” he replied.
“We never got it. Grandpa died two weeks ago. Bobo has not been seen in three or more weeks. I don’t know how long I’ve been… like this.”
“Two days,” Abel whispered, interrupting my father, who had opened his mouth to answer me.
“I sent Bobo to your Granny’s with food. I will skin that boy alive,” Pa said, leaving me alone with the stranger who could not stop looking at me.
In that moment I fully realized that I was human again. I nearly jumped out of the bed. My muscles ached, but I was alive. Not a wolf and not drowning.
“I’ve had the most horrifying dream!” I cried, sitting up and nearly losing my covers again.
“About that…,” Abel started to say.
“What?” I asked him nervously, giving him a dark look full of fear.
“Drink this and I will try to explain,” he replied, handing me a cup.
It was nasty, but I was so thirsty I didn’t care, and I wanted the briny taste and dirt of that river out of my mouth.
“While I was changing, you left. The wolf that came into the camp, the one I’d lost, was Harley. She is kind of protective of me. Long story short, she is very jealous. Your pa has been trying to get Harley and me to mate for awhile.”
Giving him a look as though he was crazy, I finished the herbal tea. I enjoyed a good story by a fire, knowing it was only that, a well-told story. I just kept telling myself that.
“You do remember being a wolf, right?”
At first, no I could not. I thought he’d lost his mind. It had been a dream, right?
Then it clicked. Flashbacks knocked me off-guard, and I remembered every agonizing detail. A scream began to build inside of me.
“No!” I cried, struggling to stand, tangled in the sheet. The darkness of the room and the makeshift pallet were not making things easy.
Abel was at my side instantly, covering my body again. My modesty had flown the coop when I realized my life was never going to be the same.
“Shh, no, listen. I will explain everything. Do not get upset and scream. The others will come and investigate. They will check on me, and that would be bad.”
Giving up, the panic receded, and I listened to his voice as he pulled me into his arms. His leather and burnt-woodsy smell pacified me for some reason. I relaxed against him and allowed him to continue.
“Let me finish before you get upset again. Harley is like me, like you, a wolf. Your father bit me years ago and started this pack. Many times he thought about changing you himself, but I managed to give you more time. Harley was afraid that he would make you my mate. She knew I didn’t want her. Your father was just protecting us, keeping the pack alive, by enforcing the weakest-member law. Our numbers have dwindled over the last several years. His mate and latest brood of pups died, leaving him angry and hell-bent on saving us.
“A few days ago, Harley lost her head and attacked you. In her defense, she is almost always in wolf form and was not thinking clearly. She has lost a part of her humanity, and instinct takes over.
“When I realized what she’d done, I tried to stop her. It was too late. I pulled you from the river and did everything I could. As pack master, your father gave the order. He did not think you would survive the change. I disagreed, but he ordered me to throw you back in, so the gators could destroy the evidence, your body.”
It took a moment for it all to sink in. I had been used, attacked, dead, drowned, changed, and nearly drowned again. I could not begin to accept it all. Hate for my Pa boiled beneath my skin.
“I had to clean you up because the others rarely leave the wolf form. I’m their human translator, for lack of a better word.”
Abel was just as distressed as I was, and I remembered his words when he thought I was dead. Words that haunted me and made me feel odd.
“You did not take her for a mate because…,” I started.
“I am in love with you,” he finished. The look on his face told a story of untold love and loss. One I was not sure I wanted to hear.
Trembling, I tried to move away from him, to leave this place and find my family.
“I understand if you are weary of me. I am a stranger to you, but let me help you through this change and understand,” he whispered, holding me to him. I was too weak to struggle.
Exhausted, I gave in. My dignity and modesty flew out the door. There was nothing else for me to do. In this moment I was alone and needed someone to show me the way. Could I trust him? Had his actions spoken clearer than any other’s?
“If you go out there now, the pack will destroy you, tear you limb from limb. The weakest of the pack must die--its law. Harley has already challenged you. Your pa allowed it. His pack is his whole world. You are just another member of it to him, the weak one.” His voice told me that he disagreed with this and found it just as disturbing as I did.
My heart broke, my anger flourished, and I finally saw my pa for who he really was. My hate, distorted by years of his strange behavior, grew a
nd left me feeling cold.
“I managed to get you some time before you have to accept the challenge or leave the pack.”
“Leaving sounds good,” I said harshly, and tried to pull away. “Just let me go, and I’ll sneak out the back and run back home.”
“You won’t be allowed to go home, for two reasons. One, you know the secret and cannot be trusted, and two, this is our territory.” He tilted my chin yup and gazed into my eyes. “But you should know, if you leave, I will go with you.”
Midnight Curse Page 2