Chapter I
Things have changed, and they have changed fast. When I was a kid I remember my mother always talking about the future with hope, kindness and expectation, as if it owned everyone a great promise of unending happiness, and I suppose that for some it did, but not for us, and not for a very long time.
We weren’t important, I knew that, it was a certainty so present that never created many ripples in my mind, like we don’t question why the sun rises in the morning or sets at dawn, it is just how it is, how it has always been. And I thought that this so called unimportance was going to keep us safe during the silent war, I was wrong of course, but I didn’t know that back them.
______
I remember the first whispers that something was wrong, but at fourteen I didn’t care all that much, besides in a werewolf led world things escalate pretty quickly, and there was always a problem. Order and hierarchy are part of our nature as much as chaos and violence, so it wasn’t a surprise whenever there was a new fight, be it because of power, greed or love, but this time it was different.
There was something in the air, an unspoken fear, as if everyone was just holding their breaths waiting for the other shoe to drop and for a long time, it was what we did, ignored all the red flags and continued with our lives as if all the signs were not pointing to a cataclysmic event that would change everything, and become my demise.
“ She lost another one”. I heard Aunt Irene say, in a whisper looking carefully to both sides to ensure that no one was listening to her, as if what she was saying was terribly forbidden. She was our neighbor, lived just next door in a tiny little house on a piece of land her husband won as a gift for fighting on the Alpha’s king side.
Aunt Irene was pretty, at almost 38 she was still youthful, funny and adventurous, but today she wasn’t any of that, she was tired, sad and afraid. As she sat on my mother’s small wooden kitchen table, holding a chipped mug with tea between her fingers, she was nothing like her usual self. Her usual pretty long blond hair was wrapped up in loose bun, her blue eyes were not shining, but deep and hollow, she kept them firmly staring at the bottom of the mug, as if she could get whatever answers she was looking for in there.
“ It’s the third time, and she is not the only one. It’s been happening all around, in all the villages”. She told my mom, who seemed very contemplative up to that point, as if she didn’t know what to say to make it better.
That scared me more than whatever Irene was saying. My mother always had a positive thing to say, she was good with words and often gave herself the responsibility of making people feel better with her wise sayings. Which was funny because she seemed so young, not like someone who possessed long years of experience and could talk endlessly about it, mom wasn’t like that at all, she was very much young, only four years Colleen junior, but it is not about age. She was lively, humorous and energetic, but when mom spoke she made you pause, the way she said things was filled with enlightenment as if she knew something that you were not privy of.
She was the rock of our house, her name was Lucinda, but she hated it, so dad always made sure to call her my beautiful Lucy, every morning for as long as I could remember he would walk into the kitchen in the morning, abruptly pull mom away from whatever she was doing, which usually generated some surprise gasps from her and even some scolds, and then he would give her a peck on the lips and say “Good morning, my beautiful Lucy”. It was cute how mom melted at that, so pure and sweet, something that I truly wish to have with someone, an I thought I would get with my mate.
Sitting down at the table next to Aunt Irene, mom started to say. “This isn’t going to last, whatever it is, it will get better”. She said, without her usual confidence and sincerity, her hands fumbling with the front part of her long dark green dress. Our neighbor shook her head. “I don't think so Lu, not this time, I ….” She paused, and then looked my other deep in her eyes “I think it has reached the palace”.
