Beautiful Souls

by Mullanix, Sarah

  “That’s not the right way,” the voice said disapprovingly. “Come with me, follow me, and I will show you. This way meant for you…you’re destiny.”

  I was shocked and unbelievably torn. There was never any doubt in my mind that Leo was and always would be the ‘right way’ for me, whether it be simply friendship or otherwise.

  This newly proposed option had been presented unexpectedly, and it caused me to momentarily consider what else may be out there. I wanted to go the other way, even if it was only to briefly glance additional possibilities.

  I hesitated. Would choosing the other path cause me to lose Leo, or could I have both? Losing Leo was not an option; therefore, choosing an option that didn’t include him wasn’t anything to consider at all.

  Just as I pondered the different scenarios that were playing out in my dream, I heard a low roar in the distance. The intensity of the roar increased, as the unknown source grew more near. Menacing clouds rolled in across the ever darkening sky.

  I searched for the image again, but found nothing. Leo’s smile faded, as he too looked for the figure to accompany the deafening noise.

  The roar slowly turned into a growl, as the unknown sound was now upon us, and I could feel an incredible tension fill the surrounding air. Leo shook with fury. Fists balled, he pushed me aside with such an unbelievably strong force, it knocked me off balance. As I stumbled back, I looked up. A blurry, ferocious creature bolted out from somewhere in the foggy distance and lunged toward him full force.

  I screamed for Leo to watch out, as I turned to take cover. I recovered seconds later and ran, but he didn’t. Leo hunched over, shook violently, then sprang up in a rush of furry and rage as a snarling and incomprehensible, yet an unmistakable, growl came from his throat.

  I bolted back down the same dirt path in the opposite direction that I had originally come from before, sprinting away from the horrific sight and sounds that took place behind me.

  How could it be true? How could Leo --- my Leo --- be a vicious animal? He had transformed into a mountain lion right before my eyes, in my direct sight, and there was no denying it.

  I twisted in my bed, flopping my arms and legs, trying to escape the terrifying sight in my dream.

  The attacking coyote was lying helplessly on the ground as I slowed from my sprint and turned, double checking to see if I had been followed. Just as I had done the night before, I ran for my life back toward the safety of my home.

  Suddenly I paused, seconds later coming to a full stop. I was overcome with thoughts that filled every corner of my mind, and those thoughts halted me in my tracks. An immediate revelation and feeling of security rushed through me, and sudden realization hit me. Leo would never hurt me, he’s not a vicious animal --- he’s no monster.

  I turned slowly, once again, to see the mountain lion standing over his lifeless attacker. I looked on, and the lion stepped forward. It drew closer, and as it did I could see myself in its pleading eyes, pleading for understanding and acceptance.

  The mountain lion shook again, just as Leo had before, and in the blink of an eye it was --- he was --- Leo again. I stood staring at the unbelievable transformation of lion to human, and I saw nothing except my savior and protector standing before me.

  I woke understandably startled. I sat up stiffly in my bed, my eyes wide from the epiphany that was my dream. An overwhelming feeling amazement filled my body as I came to grips with the truth revealed to me as I slept. Could Leo have really been the figure I had seen out by the woods last night?

  My mind slipped back to the timing of when Leo had come running across the field to save me, and also later when I found the tuft of fur on his sweatshirt. The fact that he was admittedly hiding something from me almost had me convinced. But could things like this actually exist in our world?

  The timing of when the lion jumped in front of me just in the knick of time to protect me from the attacking coyote, the look in his eyes before he slipped back into the woods, the fact the Leo appeared as I dashed from the trees --- it was all true. My dream was true.

  Leo was --- is --- the mountain lion, but what did that mean? A shape-shifter, maybe? I didn’t know. Did that stuff even exist? Obviously some, if not all, of the stories I grew up believing to be fiction had shards of truth to them, I now realized.

  I wasn’t a believer, I never had been. Even as a child, I knew that all of the fairy tales were just that --- fairy tales. The supernatural world was simply something we all watched on TV and in the movies for a brief escape from our ordinary mundane lives. I wasn’t supposed to be real.

  I wanted to close my eyes and go back to sleep, to pretend that this was all just a silly dream and not something so prophetic. How could I ever deal with this, and how was I ever going to be able to confront Leo with my realization? What if I was wrong --- even though I knew I wasn’t. This was just so hard to accept. If it was anyone other than Leo, I never would have even entertained the idea that something like this was possible, but I couldn’t ignore the fact that my realization tied every loose end together. All the strangeness and things I’ve thought and seen over the past week were completely explained by my dream being reality. The more I thought about it all, the easier it became to believe rather than not. It was easier having an explanation --- even if that explanation was implausible --- than to be left wondering about a bunch of things that didn’t make any sense.

  I now knew his secret. Had this been what he was hiding from me last night when he told me “it’s not the right time“? It had to be, but why did he mention our parents? My parents, oh God. I didn’t know how to keep this type of thing from them. I was the type of person that had a very readable face, in which every emotion came shining through. Surely they’d be able to tell if I was keeping a secret as heavy as this one.

  I reluctantly climbed out of bed and headed over to the bathroom. A few minutes in a nice warm shower would give me time to think before having to face my parents --- and Leo.

  The hot steaming shower was a nice attempt at distraction, but failed miserably as thoughts of Leo and images of the lion rushed through my head, keeping me wondering about one particular point --- why was Leo pushing our relationship? Why would he want to embark on something that would clearly be a mental distraction, in addition to a complication of our friendship, when he had already been dealing with such a --- I didn’t even know what to call it.

  I turned off the shower, dried off, dressed, fidgeted with my wet hair, played with a few different shades of eye-shadow --- anything to delay this day that was promising to be problematic. Butterflies bounced off the walls of my stomach repetitively, causing me to feel nauseous. I wanted to crawl back into my bed and forget everything I now knew to be true.

  I knew what was coming when my dad finally called upstairs for me. He wanted me to go out to the woods with him and show him the exact place where the coyote had initiated its attack and, in turn, had succumbed to an unknown force that I still had not spoken a single word about to anyone. I met my dad downstairs five minutes later, then we headed out back across the field toward the woods.

  “So, are you still shaken up a little from yesterday?” he asked. It was obvious that something had been causing me to remain quiet, even more than usual, and my dad, along with everyone else, could always read my emotions written all over my face. Right now, he read nervousness and trepidation. He probably assumed these feelings were caused by retracing my steps back to the original spot of the attack and seeing the dead animal that had attempted to end me. But these feelings were, in actuality, caused by something else altogether that I was not going to consider discussing with my dad.

  “A little,” I responded honestly about being shaken up, but it wasn’t from the events of yesterday.

  “Don’t be nervous, Bec,” he said calmly. “I’ve got my gun, and this is what I do for a living, you know?”

  “Yeah, I know.”

  “So, where exactly were you when you came into the woods yesterday?�
� he asked, refocusing on the task at hand.

  “Um, it was right about there,” I pointed to the single pine that sat along the front row of trees beginning the entrance to my path into the woods.

  “You sure?”

  “Yep,” there wasn’t a doubt in my mind.

  I had always entered the woods from that exact point, merely out of habit. I loved to brush the palm of my hand against the fur of the thirty-foot pine that I passed by every single time I visited back there.

  We walked side by side as we approached the mass of trees, then I stepped ahead of him to take the lead. After a few more steps, we were within yards of the rock that I had first found so peaceful and serene. My dad and I both scanned the dirt and pine-covered forest floor for any signs of what may still remain of the coyote.

  I suddenly heard the familiar buzz in my ears, rapidly becoming the decibel of a blow horn. I knew what would come next, so I leaned my shoulder against the nearest tree and wrapped my arms around its trunk. I braced myself for the inevitable visions sure to ensue.

  Flashing images filled my mind again, and as they slowed, becoming more clear, I saw the distinct outline of an animal. The vision sharpened even more, and I knew that it was the coyote from yesterday. The coyote limped, paused to lick its wounds every few paces, then continued down a path that led to an old, white, Victorian house sitting deep in woods.

  The house was totally unfamiliar to me, and I watched closely as the coyote slowly climbed the wide stairs leading up to the wrap-around porch. It approached the door to the old house, then shook violently, just as I had seen Leo do in my dream. The coyote was transforming into its human form.

  “Becca!” my vision blurred. “Becca!” I felt a bump on my shoulder.

  I tried desperately to hold on to the image, dying to know who was behind the shaking and injured coyote, but it was too far gone. My dad noticed that I had braced myself against the tree, and brought me out of my trance at the worst possible moment.

  “Yeah, Dad,” I answered, blinking back my regular eyesight.

  “Hey, you alright?”

  “Just a little dizzy, that’s all. I looked around too fast, or something,” I tried to cover my strange behavior.

  “You sure? This seems to be happening a lot lately, huh?” he pried.

  “I’m fine now, really. I don’t think the coyote is here anymore though.”

  “Me neither. I don’t even see any dried blood. You sure this was the spot?”

  “Positive.”

  “Well, I guess that one will live to die another day, huh Bec?” my dad asked with a slight chuckle, as he raised his shotgun with one hand and swung it over his shoulder. He put his free arm around me and led me out of the woods back toward our house.

  The rest of the day passed painfully slow. I tried to stay out of my parents way, so they wouldn’t sense my apprehension and distance. I was completely overcome with anguish about how to approach this subject with Leo. How was any girl supposed to tell her best friend --- and boyfriend --- she knew his secret. Especially a secret like this one. How would I tell him I knew what he was capable of becoming --- an animal.

  I couldn’t take it anymore, not for one more second. This knowledge had built up inside of me, wrenching my insides till they had become knots of stress and anxiety, and now it had to end. I wasn’t going to torture myself with keeping what I knew bottled up and to myself for one more moment; after all, I wasn’t the one that was hiding anything.

  I marched myself out the back door, not even caring at this point if my parents saw me leave. I was only focused on confronting Leo.

  I headed quickly and confidently across the country road, almost at a run. I couldn’t wait to get this out of me. The realization that Leo was whatever he was, was eating me alive. Not being able to talk about it, share it, only think about it, was too much. I desperately needed to get it out of my mind and out of my system.

  It hadn’t taken me more than a minute to reach Leo’s front porch and ring his doorbell. I waited about a second and a half before I rang the bell a second time, then immediately a third.

  I was overly anxious, not fully aware of my actions by this point, and I just wanted Leo to know that I knew. That was all. I wanted so desperately to get this moment over with. I didn’t know how this was going to affect our relationship, and although I cared deeply with every ounce of my being, I knew I couldn’t take that into consideration. This had to be done if I were to keep my sanity.

  The door cracked open, and I took a deep breath.

  “Hi, Becca. Isn’t this a nice surprise?” Leo smiled, but it didn’t reach very far, actually revealing that my visit wasn’t much of a surprise to him at all. He had been expecting me. He stepped out onto the porch, looking back inside momentarily, then quietly closing the front door behind him.

  The words didn’t come as easily as I had planned. Our entire conversation had played out in my mind as I darted to his house, but now that I was face to face with Leo and staring into his kind, loving, and safe eyes, I just stood staring. I thought back to the mountain lion looking at me with this same pleading stare, pleading for understanding.

  “Becca? Didn’t you come over here for a particular reason?” he asked, and I was certain that he already knew exactly what I was here to say. He was going to make me say it. Leo stepped closer to me, and I closed my eyes. I couldn’t bear to see the hurt in his eyes if this went badly. I felt so certain, but what if I was wrong?

  “What are you?” I whispered. I didn’t want to open my eyes. I didn’t want anything about our relationship to change, and I knew when I finally opened my eyes again, everything would be forever different.

  I felt Leo’s rough skin and gentle touch as he took my hand and placed it in his. “I didn’t want to tell you like this.”

  “What are you?” I asked again, my eyes still shut.

  I heard Leo take a long, deep breath, then he spoke the words carefully, as if a bomb sat on each letter, “I’m a Warlock.”

  My eyes shot open. This wasn’t the answer I had expected. I just glared at him, uncomprehending. I looked him over completely, trying to understand where wizardry and magic --- from what I assumed he meant by Warlock --- came in to what I already knew --- that Leo could change into an animal.

  “You’re wh…um, what?” I stuttered, totally confused, baffled, and barely able to speak one simple word in its entirety.

  Leo took my other hand, and he held both of them closely as he repeated, “I’m a Warlock, Becca.”

  “B, But,” I stuttered.

  “I know,” Leo said simply. “It’s hard to wrap your head around it. It took me a while myself when I first found out.”

  “No, I mean…I saw, well, I dreamed…”

  “What? What did you see, Becca?” Leo asked calmly, as if he already knew the answer.

  “I saw you…transform.”

  “Oh,” Leo said solemnly, more understanding now of why I was in such a distressed state of mind. “Yeah, well, that’s all part of what I’m capable of doing.”

  “You mean there’s more?” I asked, not knowing if my mind could contain anymore supernatural news right now.

  “Yes, actually, there’s a lot more.”

  “Oh,” I paused. “I need to sit,” I said, as I dropped my head feeling almost total exhaustion. Apparently, attempting to wrap my brain around so much information so fast had depleted me of the energy I needed to simply hold myself upright.

  Leo walked over to me and helped onto the old blue porch swing, hanging on his front porch for as long as I could remember. Leo sat beside me and turned to give me his total, undivided attention. “It’s a lot to take in, I know.”

  I looked up into those pools of deep, blue gorgeousness, and instantly knew that this wasn’t going to affect our relationship the slightest bit. I wouldn’t let it. And, if this couldn’t break us apart, then nothing could. If it had been anyone else, I wouldn’t have believed a word of any of it, but this was Leo. Th
at fact made all the difference in the world.

  “When did you first know?” I asked curiously.

  “I found out last year, a couple months after my birthday.”

  “How’d you find out? How’d you know what you…?”

  “How’d I know that I could change?” he completed the question for me.

  “Yeah.”

  “Well, the changing, you know the transforming part, that was pretty self-explanatory. I just didn’t know why it was happening to me, and I had to learn how to control it. Remember that week last year that I was out of school with the swine flu? Well, that was really me learning to control my new…let’s call ‘em gifts.”

  “So, your parents? They know?” I was shocked.

  “Yeah, they know. They’re the ones who told me and helped me learn my capabilities. It’s kind of a family legacy, and it’s hereditary.” That last bit of information caught me by total surprise. “They’re…?”

  “Yes…they used to be, anyway. But once it’s been passed on to the next generation…to me…they lose their powers. Well, most of their powers anyhow. It’s kinda like a balancing system for the supernatural world.”

  “Wow,” I said somberly.

  “I know.”

  “Why does it…um, happen to you?” I asked, wondering why it had to be him. Why did this have to happen to my Leo? Did it completely take him over when the change happened? I had so many questions and concerns running through my mind.

  “I change when there’s a threat,” he answered simply.

  “What kind of threat?”

  “There are others out there, Becca. They’re not all like me, either. Some of them are bad. They want to get rid of Warlocks and Witches, like me and my parents, who stand in their way. We try to use our powers to help and better the things that we can. Some only want to use their capabilities for selfishness.”

  “How many others are there?” I asked stunned.

  “Hundreds…thousands…I don’t really know.”

  “Was the coyote…?” he cut me off, already knowing where my question was leading.