Call of the Goddess

The Witches in the Mist

“So, how do we know how far up the road to go until we go off-roading in search of spilled coffee?” Dalton asks me. I’m sure he’s still uncertain about my insistence that we stop by the place marked by the coffee stain in the atlas before heading to the mountain, but, to his credit, he has not questioned my decision out-loud.

“Check your compass,” I say, though I’m not sure where that came from. It was almost as if an outside force had taken control of my mouth for a moment, but, now that I’ve said it, I’m suddenly sure that it’s the right thing to do. Dalton hesitates. We haven’t really talked about what happened at the send-off ceremony, except for Dalton’s apology on Elsie’s behalf while we were being escorted out of town. Me lacking a compass of my own has proved to be a touchy subject between us, mostly because of my own reaction, but I can’t let my anger toward Elsie affect the mission. “I won’t tell Elsie you showed it to an Omega, I just need to see it.”

Dalton pulls the compass out of his bag and shows it to me. It’s beautifully designed with ornate shapes carved into its brass frame and glittering stones representing the night sky set into its face. A red needle points to the ‘N’ for north, showing us nothing we don’t already know. We’re following the north road after all. “How is this supposed to tell us where to turn? Doesn’t it just show us which way we’re already going?” Dalton asks.

“You’ve got to trust me, Dalton. It will help us, just keep an eye on it.” Dalton shrugs. I wonder how many seemingly-crazy things I can say before he loses faith in me completely. If he ever had any faith in me to begin with, that is.

The sun is still high in the sky, but the road we’re following is nothing more than a thin path cut through thick woods. Tall trees on either side keep us in dark shadows as we walk. It would be so much faster if we could transform into our wolf forms, but we are unable to do so during the day. Besides, I’m not looking forward to shifting with Dalton. Shifting not only requires removal of clothing, but it brings with it the dreaded mind-link that I have very little experience with. Although you have control over what thoughts you send to your fellow wolves, you can’t really tell lies during a mind link. You can try, but the other wolves around you will instantly know you’re lying. And you can feel each others’ emotions as well, I’m told, and there’s nothing you can do to hide that. The lack of privacy of the whole thing is almost unbearable to think about, despite the fact that I really should have bigger things to worry about.

“Woah!” Dalton says suddenly. He’s looking down at the compass in disbelief. I look too, and even I’m surprised, despite having been the one who insisted the compass would guide us. The red arrow is no longer pointing north, but to the west, into the trees where there was no path.

“I guess that’s our cue,” I say with a shrug.

“How did you know it would do that?”

“Honestly? I don’t know. I just… did. Must have been Aluna guiding me, I guess.”

Dalton nods. “You know… I’ve never really felt any of the goddesses speaking to me before. At least, I’ve never been sure if I have. I guess I don’t really know what to listen for.”

“This is such a cliche, but bear with me, it’s cliche for a reason. I think it’s about listening to your gut, even when it’s telling you something your brain can’t make sense of.”

“I guess I have trouble doing that, believing in things that don’t make sense. I’ve been thinking you were completely crazy all morning, no offense, but now I see this compass going crazy with my own eyes and… You were right, I guess. The goddess wants us to check out this little brown smudge.”

“Maybe that’s why Aluna brought me to lead you? Because I actually listen when she sends me on seemingly crazy side quests?” I suggest.

“Could be. But I think I’m ready to stop asking ‘why’ and just accept that, whatever her reason, Aluna wants you here.”

“Thanks, Dalton.” His sentiments make me feel better for some reason, more confident. Truth be told, even I was starting to worry that I’d gone crazy. We dramatically step off the path together and head toward the unexpected first stop of our adventure, having no idea of what we would find when we got there.

It’s quite a bit harder to walk through the woods where there’s no path, it turns out. There’s a thick layer of leaves on the ground, which hide obstacles such as rocks and tree roots which trip me up multiple times. You occasionally encounter trees that are really close together, forcing you to carefully duck and weave your way between them, and then there are some plants with thorns that your clothing will sometimes get caught on momentarily. This is so much easier when you have your wolf’s instincts to guide you.

I take a step forward and my foot catches air as the terrain unexpectedly slopes downward. I scream as I lose my balance before Dalton quickly catches me, and I hold onto him tightly. I stare into his eyes for a moment, and I’m suddenly transformed back into the timid girl from school who could hardly walk straight or carry a desk. It’s hard to believe that it was only yesterday that I was so intimidated by him.

“We’ll go down together,” Dalton says. I just nod. He holds my hand as we go down the hill and doesn’t let go until the ground flattens out again. So far we haven’t seen anything but a bunch of trees, but the compass continues to point us westward, so we continue on.

Eventually, the sun begins to set, lighting up the evening sky with bright oranges and yellows. It becomes even harder to see in the already-shaded woods. Soon we’ll be able to shift, a thought which continues to make my stomach flutter. I only hope we reach the mark on the map before then. It didn’t seem so far from the path when I was looking at it this morning.

The air around us suddenly gets very cold, and we’re surrounded by a thick, white mist. I can barely see 3 feet in front of me. Dalton grabs my hand. “Stay close,” he says. I gladly follow orders. We continue forward more slowly now, taking extra care to avoid any obstacles in our path. After a short while, we reach a small clearing. The fog looms in thick curtains on all sides, but the clearing itself is completely free of mist. We stand in the center and look around. It isn’t long before I realize I’ve completely forgotten which direction we’ve come from. The red arrow spins on dalton’s compass as if we’ve entered some dimension where direction is meaningless.

A high-pitched cackle fills the air and my heart sinks with dread. I’ve never seen a witch, I was thankfully on lockdown with my classmates when they entered pack territory yesterday, but no other creature I’ve ever heard of has a laugh like this. Could this all be a trap? Was it the goddess Aluna who led us here, or was it the witches’ dark magic summoning us to where they could get rid of us before our journey has even really begun? Suddenly I’m not so sure. I wrap my arms around Dalton, burying my face into his chest. If I have led us both to our deaths, he must hate me. Surely now he regrets the moment he ever decided to trust a stupid little Omega like me. But if he’s feeling these things, he doesn’t show it. He wraps his arms around me and runs a soothing hand through my hair.

“It’s not real, Sutton. It’s okay,” Dalton says in a soothing voice. I look into the mist and am shocked to see that Dalton is right. I see the image of the witches, tall, pale, skinny men and women in long, loose, black clothing, cackling away, their voices echoing through the woods. But the image is flat, as if the fog is a screen and the witches are being projected onto it. I pull away from Dalton, suddenly embarrassed, and turn slowly, taking in the scene around me. The fog is showing an image of witches gathered in a group beneath the moonlight, a crackling orange fire in the center. I admittedly know very little about witch culture, as our kind tend to avoid them, but they seem to be performing some sort of ritual. Powders are being sprinkled into the flames. Strange shapes begin to form in the smoke as it floats toward the sky. Then, all at once, the cackling stops and the witches grow still.

“What are you doing here?” one woman asks without turning around. My heart skips a beat. Is she talking to us? Truth be told, I have no idea what I’m doing here, and I certainly don’t want to have anything to do with any witches. Except for the Great Witch at the top of Mount Killingtague, of course. But no, they aren’t speaking to us. A huge dark brown wolf comes into the picture. He’s even bigger than Dalton’s wolf form, and as he comes into view, I see he has distinctive black markings on his back. I know that wolf.

“Alpha Jarod,” Dalton says in a voice that indicates he’s a shocked as I feel. Everyone knows that part of the agreement between the wolves and the witches of this area is that we don’t enter each others’ territories. That’s what made the witches’ presence on our land such a shock. Nobody had ever violated the terms of this agreement, going back over a hundred years. At least, that’s what we all thought. What could our Alpha be doing that was important enough to break the treaty?

Alpha Jarod transforms into his human form. I’m thankful that a bush blocks my view of his lower half as he stands there confidently, his bare skin glowing in the firelight. “In the name of our goddesses, I’ve come to claim your territory for the Starborne Pack,” he announces. I can’t believe what I’m hearing.

The witches cackle, not taking him seriously at all. “Why would we hand it over to you?” a man asks.

“So that I don’t have to take it by force.” This declaration is met with even more cackling.

“One wolf against our coven?” the woman from before asks.

“Your coven against my pack,” Alpha Jarod replies. “You’ll be more than outnumbered, you can’t win.”

“Maybe so, but the loss of life would be great. On both sides.”

“I’m willing to pay the price.”

“Your wolves won’t be so eager. Not for a cause such as this. Why should expanded territory be so important?”

“Important to me? I go down in history as the Alpha who expanded the pack territory beyond anything anyone could have imagined, securing my place as the most powerful Alpha in the region. Important to my pack? They’ll be absolutely livid when they hear all about how this very coven has been sneaking into pack territory and murdering our own.”

“We’ve done nothing of the kind,” the man insists.

“Well it will be your word against mine, won’t it?”

“You would kill your own people and blame us?” the woman asks, clearly shocked.

“Power is not granted to the weak, but seized by the strong,” Alpha Jarod says coolly. 

“Get out of here!” The man says, his previously cam voice now dripping with booming anger. “You will suffer for your insolence! Our kind has left you lot alone, but you have broken our treaty here today, coming on our land, trying to scare us with your threats. Your pack will suffer for this. You will all be reminded of our power!”

Alpha Jarod simply smirks. “We will see about that. Think on what I’ve said. Do let me know if you change your minds.” And with that, he shifts back into his wolf form and runs off through the forrest. The mist dissolves, the sounds of the crackling fire fades, and Dalton and I are left standing under the light of the moon.

“It wasn’t a random attack,” I say, my voice barely above a whisper. “The curse is about revenge.”

“He would never do that,” Dalton says, his brow furrowed in confusion. “Alpha Jarod has been like family to me, he wouldn’t do this to his pack. It’s a trick, it has to be.”

“Nobody has any reason to trick us,” I point out, keeping my voice gentle. I don’t know Alpha Jarod personally, but I too never would have expected this from him. For Dalton, who grew up so close to the Alpha and Elsie, being the one who is supposed to replace him when the time comes, this must be especially difficult to take in. I shudder at the thought of what our trusted leader is apparently willing to do to gain more power. Break a treaty with a coven of witches who can do us harm, kill his own pack members, blame it on the witches in order to convince us to fight for him. I had no idea he was so cold. None of us did.

“I just… don’t understand,” Dalton says. He keeps glancing at the edge of the clearing, as if waiting for part 2 of the scene we just watched to unfold, proving that it wasn’t what it looked like. I place a hand on his broad shoulder, partially expecting him to shrug it off, but he doesn’t.

“He worked so hard to gain our trust, so he could exploit it later. He betrayed us all. You don’t understand because you would never be like him. You’re going to be an Alpha who wants what’s best for the pack.”

Dalton sighs. “I could never betray my pack like this. We will break this curse, and deal with him later.”

“And figure out how to repair the treaty so this doesn’t happen again,” I add.

“Yeah, sure we’ll add that to the to-do list. Anything else you want to add? Curing world hunger perhaps?” Dalton teases. I smile.

“If the compass points us toward a giant food tower I’ll consider it.”