The Interval of Love

Chapter Two

Chapter Two

There was a wooden bench under the tree, she sat down and remembered how the view was ten years ago, definitely no bench or the swing right across where she was sitting but it still has the impact it had on her ten years ago. She remembered crawling under the tree crying after listening to the heated argument between her parents the previous night. She knew there was something wrong, more than they let out last night. They had their differences, but never did they exchange words, at least not for that long. She sat there crying, feeling helpless because she couldn't help them. When she couldn't cry, she just sat and savored the environment.

"Hey" someone called out. She looked up and met the eyes of a teenage boy, probably between the ages of seventeen to eighteen. They were somewhat blue, just like the color of her favorite mug, and very visible, although behind the glasses he wore. He was light in complexion and wore his hair lower than most boys she had seen in Wolf Creek. His ears were small, and so were his nose and mouth. Well, his mouth was small and full. She could see a scar around his neck. It ran straight through his shirt, losing its visibility. She wandered where it stopped; his hands looked soft, like he had never used them for any hard work, definitely not for hunting or for anything besides holding books. She thought so because she could see he was wearing a uniform and his backpack was hung around his back, his tie knotted. She looked at his lips again, staring, not caring what he thought.

"Hello, I am Christopher," he said again, trying not to seem uneasy.

"Hi" she replied. She wasn't giving a stranger her name.

"You come here often?"

"No, first time"

"Me too" he smiled as relief flooded his face. That was a start.

"I school at King's College, just around the corner"

"Are you not meant to be at school?"

"Yeah, just having a rough day. I needed to clear my head, what about you?".

"There's a two-day break at my school" It had nothing to do with academics, just werewolf rituals demanding first-time transformers to rest after the night of the full moon.

"You must be glad"

She looked at him and although she should feel sorry for him for being sad, she just couldn't help but think he was being irresponsible, first for skipping school and now for thinking a break is something to be glad about. She knew she was being ridiculous. She just didn't care. This side of her was inherited from her mother.

"What about if I may ask" she wouldn't see him again, so there was no harm in prying and at the same time trying to keep the conversation away from herself.

"I lost my dad, a few years back”

"I'm sorry" she meant it. Now she felt silly for thinking as she did before.

"Thank you but all my family does is suffocate me, don't get me wrong I love them and all but I just need them to understand that they can't be him and I don't need their pity"

"Did you tell them?"

"Well there's no easy way to do that"

"I guess they're in pain too, most times adults don't like to admit it but they do feel pain too," she thought of how her mother sometimes kept things to herself and from her father to save him the stress of worry. Well, she could sometimes be surprising.

" I have never thought of it like that" This time around he was looking at her directly and she could see him well because he was now sitting on the grass.

"He is beautiful," she thought.

"Why are you here?"

"Just wandered here" she smiled; he smiled too, but it was a more puzzled than a satisfied smile.

"That's because.......?" He said, urging her to continue the sentence

"Well it's complicated, there are many gaps I can't fill and you won't understand I believe".

"Try me"

"Maybe another time," she said, simultaneously standing up to the dust of the dirt on her skirt, preparing to leave.

"Can I at least know your name?"

"Jane"

As she walked down the street, she could still feel his gaze on her, and for some reason she liked it. She liked everything from his boyish smile to the way he sat without slouching, and how he paused in every sentence as though he was rendering punctuations in his speech. Oh! He must be smart. She thought of home she couldn't wait to tell Julius about the wonderful boy Christopher whom she had just met and she thought of her parents, their reaction to the possibility of her having a human boyfriend, how rebellious would that be? Her mother would go nuts.

"Werewolves should mate with werewolves" she would say, well, she liked him and she wasn't about to deny that. Now all she had to do was find another vehicle going to Wolf Creek, just as she did when coming here.

****

Christopher's apartment was a two-bedroom flat, the sitting room big enough to host a hundred-person gathering. The couches were arranged in the form of a rectangle to take up a reasonable part of the six-hundred square feet apartment. His television set, which he rarely used unless Jane came over. He had a housekeeper who did most of the cleaning. He hardly ever had the time to clean. He remembered the first time Jane came to town from Wolf Creek. The housekeeper was out of town and he needed the place to be perfect. He had cleaned the whole house all by himself and went as far as getting curtains that he knew she would like. He liked when she was happy and not too stressed about things she couldn't control. That day he met her changed his life. He could tell she had been crying and was so glad she left the park that day smiling. He went home that day happy and anxious to see her.

"I would have asked to see her again," he thought. He wondered if he would see her again, he didn't know anything about her, so he could not ask around. He would not just go about asking for a Jane with green eyes. Then it hit him; he knew exactly what to do. He visited the park every day for the next week, hoping to see her. He would wait for at least thirty minutes each day before leaving. Each day he went out he would say to himself.

"Today is the day"

Well, his patience paid off, but not in the way he had expected. That morning he got up from bed, as he had done every morning for the past week. He didn't have to explain why he was always anxious to leave for school, but today was different because it was a Saturday. He took his bath and chose his favorite outfit, a checked long sleeve shirt, which he left unbuttoned to show off the white T-shirt underneath, a pair of blue jeans, and finally a pair of white sneakers. He knew to his sisters, that he was overdressed for a Saturday morning, but he didn't care, as long as he didn't have to explain himself.

"I'll be back as soon as I can".

This time he did not stay in the park. He just walked, past it, going out the past few days, and had taken his mind off his dad for a while; he had been so invested in seeing Jane that he seemed to have forgotten. He didn't find his family suffocating either; it seemed he just needed something or someone to distract him. He walked straight to the market. He had not visited there since his father's death. The place was crowded; he had been told that people came from all over on Saturdays, which was a day set aside for that particular market. He could see a few familiar faces but a lot of unfamiliar faces; then he saw someone like Jane just up ahead, he wasn't sure, but he tried following; it was hard moving through the crowd. Every trader trying to get your attention, people forcing their way through. A lot of people stepping on each other, even motorcycles trying to get by in a place so crowded. So ridiculously annoying, he kept following until he got to the main entrance, but she was getting into a vehicle with a man, he looked older, old enough to be her father. He stood unsure of what to do, should he call out her name? Should he wave? What would the man say? How would he react? Most importantly, what would be her reaction? He wondered if she would at least be happy to see him, did she think of him as he did her? Did she want to see him? For a moment his emotions came flooding; he felt stupid. At that moment the car drove past and he could see her; she saw him too, but she didn't react. For a few seconds that seemed like an eternity, she stuck her head through the window, then smiled. Yes, she smiled, and it wasn't casual or forced; it gave him all the answers he craved for. He smiled back, but he couldn't stop, so he started laughing, and yes, he was laughing all by himself at the entrance of the market.

*******

As they drove back to Wolf Creek, Jane could only recall his face and how he smiled when their eyes locked, it had sent chills down her spine and she could see the goosebumps on her hands but she couldn't stop smiling, her chin felt strained. Is this want it felt like to be wanted? Well, she hoped that was what she saw in his eyes. Being sixteen came with a lot of changes, she was now obligated to hunt with other members of the pack and was expected to participate in all rituals. She participated in all household activities ranging from cooking to sanitary endeavors, this was a basic life skill required for all werewolves and a new adjustment, most disagreed but the Alpha hierarchy decided it helped them fit into the outside world. Well, mostly because their activities revolved around the human community. They hunted mostly in groups and she wasn't necessarily with her parents. The drive seemed to last longer than usual she couldn't wait to write down her encounter in her journal.

"Dad, can I always go with you into Bellevue?"

" Yeah, that's all right "

She turned her head and kept looking at the trees as they drove past, some looked like palm trees but we were not palm trees, others had leaves that looked like pines, and almost all did not have fruits on them. She thought of how different Wolf Creek was from Bellevue, it was mostly quiet unless during the night when there were sounds of howling and sometimes children playing under the moonlight. The streets were bare and almost all houses were visible. Wolf Creek was like a close family of werewolves except they did marry each other. Their main culture being werewolf influenced until some years back there was no formal education, they were just taught basic survival skills and when you came of age you joined the pack to hunt. The wives and mothers mostly stayed home cooking, cleaning, and creating circles of friendship where they could discuss their problems, gossip, and seek advice. You could gossip with the group but you couldn't gossip or spread lies about anyone in the group if caught, you are penalized, asked to apologize publicly, and required to provide drinks that would serve your circle of friends. Jane thought it ridiculous at first when she was told, she had laughed.

The car came to a stop directly in front of their house, she got down to help her dad with the groceries the had gotten from the market, her mother would use it to prepare soups and stew that would last about a month until he went again to shop. She picked up the first nylon bag and carried it towards the house, she had to hold it with both hands because it was heavy and when she got to the door, she tried to open it without putting the bag on the ground.

" Drop the bag dear" her father called from behind, he had gotten into the car to park properly. After two attempts she dropped the bag, and open the door before turning to pick it up again this time, her mother was approaching from the backyard and she greeted her with a smile before walking to the kitchen to arrange the groceries. Her dad walled in with the other bag and her mother walked in right behind him. She was so eager to get to her room but she dared not leave the bags unattended, she looked up to see if she could sneak out of the kitchen but she met her mother's eyes, she could read them and as usual, they were saying

"You dare not" she started picking out the items one after the other, they would blend the tomatoes into a paste and cook all the soups which will be stored in the fridge until the time for use. Well, she could not get out of here now, she would just have to wait until they were done.

"Go to bed dear, tomorrow is going to be a long day"

It took them until evening to finish up and she was exhausted at the end of it. She went to her room and decided to take her bath before retiring for the night, she tried not to think about what her first hunt would be like. When she lay on her bed, she replayed Christopher's smile in her head again and again until she slept off, that would be her bedtime scene, his smile.

The next day she got up early to finish her chores on time and get some rest before her first hunt which was tonight, the first full moon after her transformation. She went about the house doing the dishes, cleaning the floors, and putting everything in place before she got her breakfast and by the time she was done, it was mid-morning, she went back to her room to rest. In the evening she got up to change, put on her clothes, and headed to the sitting room. Her parents were ready so they were to leave together, her mother looked at her and asked her to get her sweater she was not cold so there was no need but her mother insisted and, just like every other day it was frustrating. The streets of Wolf Creek were busy with families walking in groups towards the woods getting ready for the full moon. The houses were left with younger children and older family members who were too old to hunt. When they got to the edge of the village just by the forest the hunt commenced with a speech by an Alpha just two blocks from her house, he spoke about the essence of hunting together and the sense of unity it brought to the community, and how years of tradition should not be abandoned because of advancement the human world was introducing. She thought of how she admired individual packs, how they put their differences aside to work together to keep traditions alive, hunting was one of the most celebrated traditions, their nature was all it was about and they were allowed to explore it fully. One time they had to work together for almost twelve weeks expanding the community and clearing the trees to make more room. This was because the pack was growing with less room for the erection of houses.

As the moon came up, the pack was grouped into groups of ten to help cover a very large portion of the forest you are not allowed to hunt with your family so you could work with others while they transformed one after the other, the experience less painful and disturbing but she still felt like her bones would not regain their natural form. They walked slowly as wolves on one leg in front of the other with their head to the ground and using their noses to trace the scents while they move, they moved faster and although she was picking up the scents she could not help but wonder if they were just moving in circles since they were moving with their head down most of the time. They picked up their pace as the scent became closer just as she was about to lose hope there was a howl and when she looked up there was a group of Rabbits up ahead almost immediately they ran deep into the forest hunting down the Rabbit everyone trying to catch at least one. The wolf close to her was very close to his prey but while he was about to catch it, it would hop giving it more time until its death all these happened as fast as possible, and they chased their deep into the forest but just by the corner stood a Buffalo big and black it was fattened and the proper size for prey they halted ignoring the rabbits and approaching it with caution she was losing her patience, they would have stuck with the Rabbits as they were about to attack someone howled startling it to run, they immediately chased them stretching their legs as far as it could go trying to create less space between them and their prey. It ran but it was heavy so it did not run as fast as they did finally a wolf grabbed its leg with his teeth slowing it down. She ran not to chase the prey but because she felt free, she could see other members pouncing and using their teeth to devour the animal while it tried to run free she could see the blood on their teeth was red with its blood almost tempting to try. She diverted from her group and just kept running deeper into the forest, she felt free so she kept running. The forest was thicker and she could hardly hear any howling she had gone too far so she stopped she looked around but couldn't figure out where she was or where she came from, the trees all looked similar. Her heart increased its pace, she could feel her chest as if it was shrinking, closing up on her heart yes, this was fear. Her breath was faster she didn't know if she should shout or just cry and she was all wolf, she could not shout, she could howl. What if she had gone too close to Bellevue and the humans caught her? She should have just stayed with the pack. She thought of her parents and how she had been stubborn to them then she thought of Christopher how and she had not made any effort to see him after the day they had met. If she could get out of this situation she would definitely tho see him. They have been told as children that they should not go far into the forest, that the animals there were fierce and stronger moreover the humans could capture them and use them as food. She thought the stories were lies but being here at this moment felt horrible.

'Owooooo' was that a howl? She heard again and it drew closer the sound drew closer so did the stomping. Immediately a group of werewolves ran past her she had just run too fast. She stood there and thought

"I overreacted" When she got home she was exhausted that she just lay on her bed and passed out forgetting how scared she had been in the forest. The next morning came with its blessing she could feel relief the rest was needed and well deserved exactly how she liked her rests. Her daily routine kicked off with her regular house chores and her mother directing the affairs of the day as usual,