The Lost Princess Returns

Chapter Three

It has been a week since I had that lifelike dream in the bath. My mum is still weird about it, and I have no idea why; I think she is hiding something from me. Even Caleb has picked up on the nervousness within our home and, to put it bluntly, he is just dumb and never notices anything, or maybe that is just me being biased, since he is my brother.

A few hours later, it was dinner time. I can smell mum’s delicious cooking from upstairs. Before I could even get up to run down to the kitchen, I heard Mum yell out to Caleb and me to go down to eat. Next thing you know, both Caleb and I are running to get fed. We both reach the top of the stairs and are basically fighting for who gets down the stairs first, and, like normal, Caleb pushes me out of the way, but this time, I lose my balance and fall onto my backside.

“Oh, for God’s sake, Caleb. You must always be so rough.” I complained to the big brute. He just looks back at me and laughs.

“At least I will be the first one eating”, he says back amusingly.

I simply just let out the biggest groan of annoyance and got back up on my feet and walked down to the kitchen. The closer I get, the better the smell in the kitchen gets. I swear, mum should have opened her own restaurant or café. Her cooking skills are out of this world.

“Oh, my goodness, Mum. This smells like heaven” I squeak in excitement, but Mum kind of shows me a half smile and doesn’t respond. Why is she being like this towards me? I am so sick of it. It’s like she wants nothing to do with me since I explained my dreams to her.

“What, Mum? Why are you treating me like I’m an alien now? You have been treating me so terribly for the past week! Talk to me, please!” I half yelled at her. I feel horrible for raising my voice at her, but how she is acting now is really taking a toll on me.

I hear Mum sigh and she comes over and grabs me by the hands.

“I’m sorry for being so distant and seemingly cruel, but there is a reason for the dreams you are having. I unfortunately, am not the best person to explain them to you. We need to get in contact with your father’s father, he knows what is going on.” Mum whispers to me.

“Grandpa! Really? Dad’s parents have never wanted anything to do with us. Why would grandpa know anything about my dreams?!” I hissed as I pulled my hands away from mum’s. I cannot stand my dad’s parents, not once have they wanted to get to know me. I don’t even know if it is the same thing for Caleb, but I have met them once in my life and they were disgustingly cruel and obnoxious. Their whole attitude left a bitter taste in my mouth.

“Gwen, please, just trust me with this one, okay? I promise you that you will understand all of this soon.” Mum replied sadly.

The look on her face did make me feel remorseful for yelling at her. I suppose I can hear my grandpa out.

“Fine, I will listen to what he says, Mum.” Defeatedly, I whispered.

After that, Mum and I join Caleb at the dining table and devour our meal. However, we sat in silence. The thought of having to see my grandpa is really eating at my mind. I just can’t stand him, but I am going to do this for mum, and it would always be good to know what is with my dreams.

After dinner, I sat down in the lounge room for a little while, watching some movie drama with Mum. I have no idea what it's about or who is in it. It’s a reasonably aged movie, like, back in the 50’s. Even though I had no clue what was going on, I still sat down and watched it with Mum. At the end, I said goodnight to mum and headed off to the bathroom, brushed my teeth and my hair and went to my room and got ready for bed. Maybe sleep may be kind tonight.

I am in the forest again, but it looks so different. The greens and bright colours now look faded and somewhat necrotic. Something is wrong. There is an ominous feeling to the forest now. I feel uneasy. Even the scents have changed, it smells like death and rotting flesh.

In the distance, I could hear the howling of wolves. I wonder if one of the howls belongs to the wolf from my previous dream. I started walking around the dense, soaked forest, looking at my surroundings. It isn’t long until I start to feel as though I am being watched, but I don’t feel like I need to run away. I keep walking. I start to hear footsteps behind me; I stop and turn around and I am faced with icy blue eyes. He is here, he is watching me again, but he doesn’t look the same. He looks rugged, dirty and has patches of fur missing. Instantly, my heart breaks for him. I take a step towards him, and he starts to cower. The more I look at him, I see that his strength is fading. He starts to sway and eventually collapses hard on the ground. I gasped and ran as fast as I could to him. I knelt beside him and carefully placed my hand on his shoulder. Softly, I heard him growl in warning at me, but I gently ran my hand down his leg and then placed it up at his neck.

“Shhhh. It’s okay, I am not going to hurt you.” I whispered tremulously.

After talking to the beautifully scared beast, I could see his body physically relax. I got more comfortable by his side, I crossed my legs and next thing, the beast lay his head in my lap. I sat there shocked for a moment but, I then placed my hand on the top of his head and started to slowly pet him. I have no idea how long we sat like that for, but it wasn’t long before it was ruined.

The wolf suddenly started to sniff at the air and quickly, but struggled, to get to his feet. He looked as if he was now in defensive mode. He focused his attention to behind me, he started to snarl at whatever it was that I couldn’t see.

My vision started to get blurry.

*Knock, knock*

Those icy blue eyes, full of torment.

*Knock, knock*

My eyes started to open. Instantly, I felt frustrated.

*Knock, knock*

“Ughhh, what?!” I yelled at the door.

My door starts to open and Mum walks in.

“Gwen, you will be late for school. You have slept through your alarms”, she exclaimed.

Panicked, I jumped out of bed, rubbed my eyes and started rushing around to get ready for school.

“Thank you, Mum. I will be down in a few minutes for something quick to eat. Is Caleb still home?” I asked. All she did was nod at me and left the room.