A Wolf's Kiss

EPISODE 6: THE AWAKENING

THICK DARK HAIR sprouted from their skin, creeping along their arms and legs as if they were being pulled out from within. Their eyes, which were once a twilight shade, had transformed into glowing orbs of electric blue, and their pupils narrowed into sharp slits that gleamed in the dim light.

“Mommy, what’s happening?” Ashley whimpered, wiping the hair from her arms frantically, but it only grew thicker, longer, and coarser with each attempt.

Ashton went to the window to stare at his reflection, his breath fogged up the glass. “Why do my eyes look like this?” he asked, his voice quivering as he turned to his sister, then to his mother.

Dove opened her mouth to speak, but no words came out. A chill ran down her spine.

***

Dove Herveaux watched her kids play in the snow through the window with a cup of peppermint tea, her breath fogged up the glass. She could hear them pretending to be predators, they hadn’t stopped playing that way since they started showing their wolf sides.

It had been a week since they showed their first sign, it had been a week of fear and uncertainty because she didn’t know how to make sense of their situation. The glowing blue eyes, and the sudden bursts of hair sprouting from their tiny bodies, weren’t traits of normal six-year-olds anywhere.

She considered taking them to a doctor, but the thought of exposing her children to the scrutiny of scientists or the government, of her babies getting poked and prodded, filled her with dread. She couldn’t even bear the thought of them being treated like freak shows or experiments, the kind of attention that would bring into their lives. No, the hospital wasn’t an option.

Instead, Dove made the difficult decision to pull them out of school. Homeschooling seemed like such an impossible task, but it was a necessity. The transformations were unpredictable, she couldn’t have them in school, shifting in class, and she couldn’t risk them being discovered. So she chose to isolate them to protect them from the world that was terrified of unknown occurrences.

But the decision came with its own set of challenges. The loneliness she always felt weighed her down more now, being a single mother wasn’t an easy task. Piloting the entire thing alone without the support of a partner was very exhausting.

She applied for leave from work for the next two weeks to give herself the time to sort all her affairs. She also, didn’t want her kids to sense her fear or feel out of place, she wanted to maintain a sense of normalcy for them.

She missed when choosing a book to lose herself in was the hardest part of her life. It seemed like decades ago now. Her life now revolved around keeping her kids safe.

She sighed and turned away from the window. She needed to gather some textbooks to help with the homeschooling, but the library in Crowbolt was woefully outdated. It was filled with old books that were no longer in the curriculum, novels that were unheard of, or that had been popular when she was a child. She needed better resources to give her children the chance at a proper education.

That was why she decided to drive to Silverlake, despite the long drive through the snow. The public library there was far better stocked, and regularly updated with the newest books on the market. It was a small comfort, that she desperately needed.

She bundled herself and her kids up in their warmest coats and prepared to leave, she was eager to go to the library and then the bookstore. She knew the twins would want to buy comic books and storybooks.