Chapter 7
1316 Words
#Harper
I didn’t fall asleep so much as black out.
One minute, I was staring at the ceiling of Moira’s cottage. Clawed was purring right next to my head, making biscuits with his fat ginger paws on my pillow, and I was listening to the forest hum. The next second, I was somewhere else entirely.
Not metaphorically. Not dreamland weirdness where your imagination goes to play.
Like.. actually somewhere else.
I was standing in a clearing I didn’t recognise. Moonlight spilled over everything like silver paint, turning the grass pale and the trees bone-white.
The air was cold, but I wasn’t shivering. My breath didn’t fog. My feet were bare, which would’ve been fine if the ground didn’t feel… alive.
Seriously. Like it was breathing. Slow and steady under my soles. I could feel the vibrations running up my legs.
A voice drifted through the trees.. it was soft and it was.. signing.
I turned, squinting through the dark shadows and in the reflection of the full moon I could see that omeone was dancing in the middle of the clearing. Barefoot, too, her hair a sheet of dark waves down her back.
She looked about my age, maybe a bit older, wearing a long dress that fluttered around her like mist. I couldn't see her face. But I didn’t need to.
I knew who she was.
“Mum?” I said. My voice echoed wrong here, like the air didn’t know how to carry it. I am not sure if I could hear the volume.
She didn’t stop dancing. Just moved like the wind was part of her, like the forest itself bent to her rhythm.
I took a step forward. “Mum!”
This time she paused. Tilted her head, listening.
And then she turned.
It was her.
Not how I remembered from the hospital. Not even from my last recital, when she wore a sweater two sizes too big and clapped like I’d just invented ballet. No, this version of her was brighter, her eyes glowing faint gold and her skin kissed with moonlight.
Not human. Not exactly.
I took another step, and suddenly I was six years old again, standing backstage in my little pink tutu, crying because I’d dropped my ribbon and couldn’t tie it back.
“Mummy,” I whispered.
She smiled. Sad and proud and something else I didn’t understand. “Harper.”
My chest cracked wide open.
She reached out a hand. “You’ve come far.”
“I didn’t choose to,” I said. “You and Dad—”
Her expression didn’t change. “I know.”
“I don’t understand any of this.” My voice rose. “Wolves? Magic? Why didn’t you tell me?”
“Because I was trying to keep you safe.”
That again.
“That worked out great,” I muttered.
Her smile faltered.
The wind shifted.
The trees behind her rustled, and something stepped out. Tall. Hulking. A wolf... but wrong. Wrong, like a shadow drawn by someone who’d never seen one.
Its eyes glowed red.
I stumbled back. “What the hell is that?”
My mum didn’t move. Didn’t flinch.
She looked straight at the creature and said, “She’s not ready.”
“Then you shouldn’t have brought her,” the creature replied.
Its voice was deep. Male. Distorted, like static wrapped around thunder.
I tried to step between them, but my legs felt like stone.
“I didn’t bring her,” she said calmly. “She crossed the threshold on her own.”
“She carries your blood.”
“She carries more than that.”
The thing snarled, and it echoed inside my bones.
“This forest won’t protect her.”
“It already has,” she said.
And then the creature lunged.
I screamed.
I woke up gasping.
The blanket was tangled around my legs like it was trying to strangle me, and I was sweating like I’d run a marathon in a sauna.
The room was still dark, but lighter than before... early dawn, maybe. I sat up, shoving the quilt off me.
Clawed jumped off the bed and looked at me like I had offended him or something...
I stared at the window and the trees were still.
The forest looked calm.
I found Moira in the kitchen, already dressed, already brewing something in a mug that smelled like moss and dirt.
She turned before I said anything. “You saw her.”
It wasn’t a question.
I nodded slowly. “Was that real?”
“As real as it needed to be.”
“Cool, thanks for the cryptic fortune cookie,” I muttered, sinking into a chair. “Anything else you want to casually reveal while I have a stress-induced heart attack?”
She slid the mug toward me. “Drink.”
I sniffed it. “Is this going to make me hallucinate again? Because I just had a full-on magical episode, and I’m not exactly craving round two.”
“It’s just grounding tea,” she said. “You’re safe.”
I stared into the mug like it owed me answers.
“That was her, wasn’t it?” I asked. “My mum. She was… different.”
“She was herself,” Moira said quietly. “The version she couldn’t be with your father.”
“Because he didn’t know?”
“Because he couldn’t live in this world the way she did.”
I didn’t speak for a moment. The memory of her voice, the way she’d said my name like it was precious, stuck in my throat.
“What was the thing in the dream?” I finally asked. “The… shadow wolf.”
Moira’s jaw tightened.
“They’re older,” she said carefully. "Not part of any pack. Not born of the moon the way Rowan’s people are.”
“Then what are they?”
“Remnants,” she said.
“Of what? "Bad vibes?” I muttered.
“Of what magic becomes when it’s twisted. They linger in the spaces between, especially when power begins to stir.”
“Power,” I echoed. “You mean me?”
“You’ve always had it,” she said. "But now the forest knows. The pack feels it. So do others.”
I pressed the heel of my hand to my head. “Why does it feel like everything’s suddenly watching me?”
“Because it is.”
I must have scoffed or something because Moira gave me a patient look. “That was not just a dream. That was memory, echo, warning. The forest speaks to those who carry its blood.”
“Again with the blood,” I muttered as I rolled my eyes. “Seriously....Great. Wonderful. Exactly what a grieving teenager with a sarcasm addiction needs.”
Moira smiled faintly. “Your mother was the same.”
That knocked the wind out of me more than the dream.
After breakfast, which I barely touched, I wandered outside.
The sun was still climbing. The forest looked almost innocent in daylight. Birds chirped. Leaves swayed. A fox darted past the clearing like it had somewhere urgent to be.
But something in me had shifted.
It wasn’t just that the dream felt real. It was that I felt different.
Not like I had superpowers or anything, more like my skin was buzzing slightly. Like my cells were listening to something I couldn’t hear.
I crouched near the stream behind the cottage, trailing my fingers through the water. It was icy cold. Sharp. Alive.
For a second, I swear the ripples responded to me.
Moved with me.
Then they were normal again.
I stood quickly and backed away.
I didn’t know what that dream meant. I didn’t know who, or what, was watching. But I knew one thing for sure:
I want no part of this witchy business.
- Writer
