Lonely Little Me

* Chapter 4 * — The Well —

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The Well —

Judy often wondered how she would die. If she would have her last breath alone in some sort of wooden house where she spent more then sixty years of her life, on a chair she sat during all that time. Or that she would actually fall in love and her soul mate would be by her side when she dies. Would she die in Owswell or elsewhere if she ever had the courage to leave. She always wondered.

Every time she would be curled up taking the beatings of the towns kids that ganged up on her she would wonder if it was the end for her “is this how I will die” she would always ask to no one in particular.

Often when she would starve so much from not eating for days and pass out in the end she would always wonder if this was how God had planned things for her and if she would wake up, and she always did.

But this time, she doubted she would. She was falling in a well after all, of unknown height but deep enough to kill someone, and nothing was suggesting she would be landing in water and in case she survived, how will she get out, the entrance was closed, she would just die of her injuries and rot there.

All that, went through her mind in an instant, she saw her life flash before her eyes. She has pictured her death a thousand times but none of them ended by her being pushed in a well she does not know whether it is dried up or not and by mysterious hands at that!

Imagining one’s death was quite strange at a young age, maybe when you get older it was more acceptable because you are nearing death every year but not when you are still a child! They don’t even quite grasp the concept quite well, but for Judy, it was quite different. Guess it must have been the fact that she got close to death quite often and a lot.

Her thoughts were stopped when she passed through what felt like a warm embrace then she felt herself drift away bidding her farewell to the world she tried so hard to survive.

She did not feel her body splashing in water and she was not wet, or crash on the ground nor did she hear the violent sound of it or is it that she could not feel it because it was so intense. Those were her first thoughts after waking up, most people would look around them and ask where they were, but you must have noticed already that Judy was not like most people and she was one of a kind!

But she had to say, death was pretty smooth compared to what others say, so nice and soft, though it did smell weird like...”Fur?” OK what’s going on here she asks more to herself while opening her eyes, standing on her arms and finally looking around. She came eye to eye with big grey eyes “woah!” Judy shouts as she falls backwards on her hands, startled.

“My apologies for scaring you. I had no intention of doing so” the thing said. Judy had a hard time processing what was happening at this very moment. For in her entire life, she had never seen a wolf this big, and the only wolf she’s seen so far was the one in picture books that’s how she was able to recognize it most of the time and she had to say, wolves were now a recurring and hot subject in the town now! And here she was, sitting in the paws of a big dark grey wolf, she started panicking.

After some thought she finally concluded “ I am dead and this is me in heaven, this is the only realistic explanation I can come up with. Yep! Definitely that” she convinced herself.

“what! First of all no, you’re not dead and secondly what makes you think you would go to heaven if you were to die?” the wolf asked while laughing “well that’s easy! I will be 18 soon and I have never kissed anyone before, lied nor killed and I read that you will go to heaven if I did none of those. And your paw is so soft I can only think of it as pure bliss in heaven” Judy continued. “thank you for the compliment. I am more interested in the kind of book you read but I assure you, you are still very much alive and have blood flowing in your body. That’s the hole you came from, I just caught you on time before you reached the ground. If I didn’t, then you have had a horrible death yes.” The furred animal explained showing the hole and putting her down at the same time. “Also, what is the link with you age?” he continued “Then... Thank you for saving me, I owe you my life. Oh! I said that so you can see that I have not lived much, that I am not yet an adult and that kids go directly to heaven if they die young. Word of Father George!”. The wolf just smiled, now, more interested in what her Father had been telling her then what she has been reading in her so-called picture books, it lied its head on its now crossed arms and lied there pondering.

The ginger head girl kept staring at the wolf so much and it disturbed him so much that he ended up asking “have you never seen a wolf in your life girl?” he was not used to being fixated on like the sort.

“no” was the girl’s answer, which did not convince the wolf because even though it was faint, he could sense some kind of aura on her that suggested otherwise. He could not put a finger on it but he was convinced she was not telling the truth. So much for her perfect score in no lies. Also she could not have made her way here if it was the case but he kept quiet, she must have had her reasons.

“So what are you?” she continued. “I am a werewolf, and my name is Clay Willows of the Full Moon Pack. And you are?”

“Judy Skats, what’s a werewolf ?” it would be an understatement to say Clay was stunned he never thought he would hear that in his life that is why he could not believe he was giving a class on supernatural creatures to a clueless human girl right now, she had absolutely no clue about the world around her but he could not blame her for from what she had explained to him she did not remember her parents and she never left her town.

Of course he knew their kind preferred the humans not knowing about their location because they would come hunting them down from fear but he knew the majority of them knew about their existence. The same goes for the other creatures. Even the human King knew of their existence, in fact, he knew so much that he sent his entire army at their pursuit. What saved them was them keeping their whereabouts secret from them and living in no ordinary places, away from ordinary eyes in hiding. So the only question is where did this girl come from?

“hello? Clay? You there?” the furred animal was so engrossed into his thoughts he didn’t hear Judy talking to him but now he was back to reality. “so your pack’s name is Full Moon, is that it?” “ yes, that is the way we present ourselves from where I come from” he added when she was still looking at him weirdly “oh I see, well then I guess it is alright if I say thisI am Judy Skats from Owswell town” she had joked before bursting out of laughter. Hence the wolf was not amused, one could only use that if they belonged to a pack, even rogues did not used it for it was a symbol of honour and pride, which rogues did not have. But how could he ruin the girl’s innocent fun on something even, he, had stopped using a long time ago.

“so you mean to tell me that you have a human form and that there are others like you, and witches, vampires and more exist as well? Wow” Judy had asked with excitement visible in her voice of all the wonders of the world. She had just realized that all the creatures in the picture books she used to read and wished existed were indeed real.

“So can you show me your human form please?” Judy asked with her biggest smile ever. “No, and what’s up with the “so” stop it”

Crossing her arms and clearly showing her pouting face she walked away from the wolf. It was her first ever friendship and she considered this their first ever argument already.

With a sigh showing resignation “I can not shift into my human form because of these chains, they prevent me with the magic in them”.

Having said that he was waiting for her reaction which did not wait long, but it had quite the opposite effect he was waiting for. Judy abruptly turned and started blushing which surprised Clay, once more because he was not expecting this and he did not know what was wrong with her.

For Judy, she felt ashamed, yes, ashamed, and the reason behind it was that since her arrival, it was the first time she had noticed the chains bidding her new found friend. Not only did she not notice that, but she went as far as to ask him to shift for her, ignoring his pain and to top it up, she had the nerve of getting mad. What kind of friend was she? She felt so ashamed. To atone to her mistakes she did the only thing she knew could bring back a little smile and comfort on Clay’s face “I am sorry, I did not realize that “she said fidgeting on her spot with her head looking at the ground.

Seeing this, the wolf burst out laughing, he had never met a girl like this and it was refreshing, she had a mind of her own. How could she think he would get mad at that! On the contrary, he was happy that someone worried about him and this only pushed him more into going on with what he had in mind.

“This is actually the reason why I brought you here” he ended up saying when he finally calmed down.

Observing the wolf with care, she was left perplexed, there were a million and one questions roaming around her mind, but the recurring one was “HE brought me here? “.

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