Within the Sapphire Forest

Chapter 2

A mass of fur and blood laid at the edge of my porch. If it wasn’t for the shallow movement of what I assumed was it’s chest, I would have thought the poor thing was dead. 

I jumped into action, running to the kitchen to grab bindings and cotton pads and clean water. My arms were overflowing with supplies as I returned to the porch. I pushed the creature as gently as possible, hoping to get it to lie flat on its left side so I could see the massive injuries on its right side. When it was flat out instead of in a crazy heap on the porch I noticed several things very quickly. First, it was a white wolf, so soaked in blood, its fur was stained. Second, its injuries were extreme. There were bites taken out of its hips and back as large as my head, gashes in its neck that scared me to death for the wolf, and its front right leg sat at a weird angle, leading to the idea that its leg was broken. The third and final thing I noticed at my first glance was that “it” was actually a “he.”

I focused on the injury in his neck first, worried that he would bleed out before I could handle any of his other injuries. I placed my hands over his neck trying to gauge just how bad his bleeding was. I closed my eyes and focused on his energy flow. It looked like the injury on his neck barely missed his one vein, or maybe an artery. Fact was I didn’t actually know. I just knew there were two that sat very close together, based on the flow of energy. While it barely missed one of the flows, I could feel the weak spot on the other where it flowed a little faster each second.

Shit! This is not gonna be an easy fix, wolfie, I thought as I prepared some cotton pads with my healing salve. 

It was a special mixture of yarrow, witch hazel, and geranium among a bunch of other healing herbs. 

I pressed the now soaked cotton pad into the wolf’s neck and focused on pushing my energy into him. What he really needed was food and water to bring his energy level back up to heal properly, but considering he didn’t even flinch when I touched him, he probably wasn’t eating any time soon, so I was giving him some of my energy. 

The transfer of energy was easy, too easy. That’s what made me weary. I added another handful of clean pads to my little stack to put more pressure on his neck since the blood started to soak through the first handful. While I applied pressure, I sent little bursts of energy to his core, trying to get a feel for what kind of energy came back to me. I was shocked to discover the faint signal of a werewolf. 

I almost dropped the gauze, but I forced myself to keep a steady hand on his neck.

Why is there is f*****g werewolf on my property? Where the hell did he even come from? I know there’s a small gray wolf pack that wanders just outside my territory, but werewolves don’t live around here.

I decided to focus on healing him, and not on what he was. I considered it my duty to heal anything that landed at my feet, and damn if that wolf didn’t do it. Though, werewolves were easier to heal the gray wolves, since they were also magical. They accepted magical energies easier than wolves.

So I kept pouring energy into him and pressing down on his neck to try to stop the bleeding. After another minute or two, the bleeding in his neck stopped, but he was still bleeding from the other wounds so I wrapped the bandages around his neck to hold the cotton pads in place before getting to work on the bite wounds. They were deep and in some bad places, but thankfully, they were a lot easier to work with. I pushed a bunch of gauze onto the wounds and used clothing bindings to hold everything in place.

My next objective was to focus on his leg. I focused my power on seeing his bones next and sure enough, his leg, the equivalent of one of his forearm bones in human form, was snapped clean in half. Good news, it was already starting to heal. Bad news, however, it started to heal improperly. One side of the bone healed to the opposite side, leaving it jagged, and tearing up the muscles in his leg.

“I’m so sorry, wolfie, but this is going to hurt. I swear to you I wouldn’t do this unless I absolutely had to, and I do.”

He didn’t move, mostly likely unconscious but I felt I had to say it.

I placed my hands directly over the break and poured energy into my hands. I only had one clean shot to do this, or I would permanently f**k up his leg. I hated fixing bones, but if I couldn’t fix it, I’d have to cut it off and I think he would kill me and start a whole damn war with witches if I did that.

So, I poured as much energy as I could into my hands, then, I pushed it all straight through his leg with the force of a bullet, jolting the guy awake. He still didn’t have the energy to move, but his bright sapphire blue eyes glared daggers at me.

“Hey, I’m so sorry. I’m trying to fix you up, but this leg and your neck are pretty bad. The next part’s going to be really bad, so bear with me.”

He didn’t react in any way so I started the awful process of pushing his bones back in alignment. As soon as I started pushing, though, wolfie seemed to get some of his strength as he turned his head and bit my arm. There wasn’t much force behind it, but his teeth were sharp as hell and dug into my arm. I bit the side of my cheek to keep from crying out in pain. Instead I kept pushing the bones with all my might. The wolf growled and tried to bite down even harder, but he didn’t have the strength for it. 

Finally, I managed to get the bones back in place. I placed some straight boards on either side of his leg and wrapped them in place, hoping it would keep his leg straight until it healed completely. With his leg set, exhaustion overcame him and he detached from my arm to lay back down.

“Okay, I need to roll you over to check for wounds on your other side. I’m sorry if this hurts,” I warned him.

As gently as possible, I grabbed fur on his back, away from most of his injuries, and gently pulled it toward me. He whined and growled as I slowly moved him, but I managed to roll him completely over. His left side had a couple of shallower gashes and some smaller bite wounds, so they were all fairly easy to cover and wrap. With most of his injuries taken care of, my only worry left was getting him safely in the house.

I ran inside and grabbed some spare sheets. They were all stained in one way or another from all the creatures I’d helped over the years. It was too expensive to buy new sheets every time, so I ended up just washing all the sheets three times over with bleach to super disinfect them.

I dragged the sheet outside and laid it next to him. Then, I whistled for Manny, who came running. He knew the drill well enough that I didn’t even need to coax him. He gently picked up Wolfie’s rump with his mouth, while I gently picked up his chest. Wolfie growled and whined as we moved him onto the sheet, but settled once we had him laid down on his left side on the sheet.

Manny and I each grabbed two corners, him with his mouth, careful not to jostle the passenger too much. We lifted the sheet and carried the wolf into the cottage where we laid him on the living room floor, away from my spilled soup. Wolfie closed his eyes and drifted off to sleep.

I scratched Manny behind his ears, thankful for his help. Manny made his way back outside, while I focused on cleaning up a bit. I grabbed towels and warm water to clean up the soup mess, and finally let my mind wonder about my new guest.

The closest werewolf pack I knew of from my home was over a hundred miles away. I worked in Cody, Wyoming, which was some thirty or so miles from home, big enough to have stores, restaurants, and museums, but not too big. It was a place that Melissa and I could both find something to love about it. The werewolf pack was just south of Jackson, but they often traveled to Cody for one reason or another. Hell, maybe they enjoyed traveling that far just to harass me.

So, is this wolf from the Wyoming Mountains Pack or a different pack? Or, could he be a lone wolf? The questions raced through my mind as I finished cleaning the soup and worked on cleaning the mess that the pixies left behind in their fight for food, even though I left them plenty to eat. I left the dirty dishes in the sink for Brownie to clean up if he felt like it, and finally took a moment to care for myself.

My arm was bleeding something fierce, but the bite wounds were mostly shallow. I poured some hydrogen peroxide over the wound to disinfect it, clenching my teeth and the stinging pain. Afterwards, I stripped down in my bathroom and jumped into a burning hot shower to wash away the day. Negative energy had a way of clinging to things and transferring to anyone who touched it. This also applied to people-to-people interactions, or creature-to-creature in this case, and I had no intention of carrying the kind of baggage that wolf got into around my house.

“Negative energy, I banish thee. As I will it, so mote it be,” I chanted as I scrubbed my body with my cleansing wash. 

After about twenty minutes of scrubbing every inch of my body, I focused on actually cleaning myself. I stepped out of the shower raw and exhausted, but certain I was in the clear. I threw on sweat pants and a tank top and hurried back out to the living room to check on my newest patient. He was breathing much easier and sleeping peacefully. 

I grabbed a pillow and blanket and made myself comfortable on the couch, preparing for a long night of watching Wolfie sleep. 

I never slept the first night with a new patient, my nerves wouldn’t allow it. I was so afraid that something would go wrong and I wouldn’t be able to help because I was asleep. So, I grabbed a book to read and kept a watchful eye on the wolf. Every time my eyes grew heavy and began to droop, I stood up and cleaned something, even if it didn’t need cleaning. It was better than just fighting off the sleep.

When cleaning wasn’t enough anymore to keep me on my feet, I started to cook. The boiling heat from the browning hamburger was almost enough to do the job, but as my eyes began drooping again, I made a pot of coffee. I added a bit of turmeric, cayenne pepper, and honey to really boost the energizing effects of the coffee. It took a minute to kick in, but once it did, I was bouncing off the walls. I poured enchilada sauce over my meat, pulled my tortillas I’d been saving out of the cupboard and started the process of filling the tortillas with the meat, rolling them up and placing them in a baking pan. I poured more sauce over the rolled up tortillas, dumped cheese all over it, and placed the baking pan in the oven to bake. I cleaned up the mess while the enchiladas cooked, and planted myself on the couch to wait.

When the enchiladas finished cooking, I took them out of the stove, made myself a plate, and settled back on the couch  to eat.

The wolf whimpered quietly, freezing my fork in its path to my mouth. I groaned inwardly and set my uneaten food to the side to kneel down and check on the wolf. His eyes were still closed, but he was panting hard and twitching uncontrollably. I realized whatever he went through was likely still haunting him, and my heart broke. This poor guy went through something awful, something I couldn’t even imagine in my safe, sheltered life.

I started petting him. It was the only thing at the time that I could think of doing. I didn’t have the dream walker gift like others in the coven, so I couldn’t see what he was dreaming, and I couldn’t help. I just sent out comforting energy through my hands and prayed it helped.

After an hour of sitting on the floor with him, Wolfie settled again, drifting back into a calming, deep sleep.

“You’re going to be a handful, aren’t you?” I whispered to him.

As I expected, he didn’t answer, and I picked myself up off the ground to finally eat my cold stew.

Light slowly creeped through the window of the cottage, causing me to spring into action to prepare breakfast for everyone, the same process as dinner. Everyone in the cabin steered clear of me, all of them sensing my poor mood. I tried my best to lighten the mood by smiling at all of them, but it must have been an awful sight, because one of the fairies took off to hide behind King Titus. 

They finished eating, so I shooed them outside and cleaned up the mess. 

A low growl caught my attention, and I turned to find glowing sapphire blue eyes glaring daggers at me. Wolfie struggled on his feet, refusing to put any weight at all on his injured leg, looking as though he was seconds away from falling to the floor.

I was terrified of him anyway. Anything with that much rage in its eyes was by far the most dangerous creature in the area. I stood frozen in place as he growled and barked ferociously at me, not sure what to do. Running was useless, he was blocking the door. If I tried to stand my ground, he might have seen it as a challenge and attacked me. I contemplated using my magic, but I really wanted to help him, not hurt him.

Submission seemed the best option. I slowly sunk to ground, pausing every time he growled louder or barked at me. After what felt like forever, after my muscles burned from the strain, I finally found myself kneeling on the ground, my head lowered to look at the floor, and not in the eyes of the angry animal. 

I didn’t move an inch as he limped slowly towards me, still growling, but much softer. I had a feeling he was much more afraid than he was angry and he was just trying to figure out where he was, who I was. He reached me and started cautiously sniffing my head, my face, my arms that rested on my knees. He circled me to sniff my back, and returned to my front to face me. 

I sat there a while as I waited for him to do anything, but he just stood there, so I lifted my head slowly to see what he was doing.

He met my gaze steadily, his anger and rage gone, but fear and pain much more evident. He had to know I was a witch by that point, the smell must have been everywhere, and he must have been afraid of what that meant for him.

“Hi,” I whispered quietly, earning a glare. I didn’t let it stop me, but I did lower my head a bit more.

“My name is Evianna Woods. I’m a healer and I found you last night unconscious on my porch. I mean you know harm and I only wish to help you. I’m the only witch here, so you don’t have to worry about that. I have other creatures that I care for, fairies and pixies and such, but nothing dangerous. I promise, if you stay, I will give you the best care I can.”

I looked up again into his fearful eyes, praying he would stay. Slowly, he limped back to the sheet and settled on the floor, closing his eyes, and falling back asleep.

I finished cleaning up quietly, and then leaned down to inspect Wolfie’s wounds. Werewolf healing was incredible, as all his wounds, with the exception of his leg, were nearly completely healed. Since his wounds were doing so well, and he seemed to have the energy to get up and walk around, I wasn’t as worried about him, and I allowed myself to drift off to sleep.