Within the Sapphire Forest

Chapter 4

Kalarn was jam packed with all kinds of creatures, centaurs, leprechauns, other witches, and I even spotted a Naga through the crowd. 

Kalarn was a dimension away from the human world, overlapping tentatively in an old mall complex that humans no longer used. Sometimes, if they visited, they could feel the supernatural energy buzzing just outside the human plane and document it as a ghost. Except, humans can’t see or feel ghosts. Any who think they can are either fakes, or have a trace amount of supernatural magic to them.

I wandered through Kalarn, looking for a certain vender. She was a selkie named Prata. She was one of two sea specialists in Kalarn, but she was a little pricier since she was willing to collect items that Jared, a shapeshifter, wouldn’t go near. Sunken ships were specialties of hers, guarded by kappas and krakens and goddess only knows what else.

Prata’s stand had moved to the opposite end of the mall in a large open lobby feature, where human malls usually parked an ATV or car or something and had a drawing for it. She had a decent number of customers waiting for her attention so they could buy something they fancied. I waited patiently for my turn, thinking back to earlier that morning.

A cold nose had awoken me, again, and I had jumped into action to prepare meals for the day. The fact that Wolfie was an earlier riser than myself  was surprising, to say the least, but he was looking much healthier, I didn’t need to bandage most of his wounds after I checked them. The only still distinct injury was on his neck, and his still-not-healing-properly leg. I seasoned his food with some medicinal herbs and a quiet healing chant, hoping it would help. After I cleaned up, I announced that I had errands to run and he needed to stay in the cabin.

He whined and yowled, trying to go with me, but I made him stay.

“We had a deal. So long as you are staying here, you will do as I say, and right now, I absolutely need you to stay here and rest.”

He humphed as he plopped back down on his sheet and I hurried out the door and on my way.

Someone calling my name brought me back to the stand, where Prata was standing in front of me, her arms crossed and her eyebrow raised in concern.

“You alright, ducky?” she questioned, her British accent that she denied having tinted with a hint of amusement.

“Yeah, I’m good, just lost in thought. How are you?” I asked her, walking up to her stand.

Her chocolate colored hand raked through her copper hair and she winced at the question.

“To be honest with you, it’s getting tough here. The building owner is increasing everyone’s rent, which is putting me in a difficult position. I can either increase my own prices to keep up, and drive away what few customers I have, or I can stick with it and pray everything works out.”

I empathized with her, my face probably showing so since she turned to me and said, “Ah, but that’s nothing for you to worry about. What do you need from me today? More kelp I suspect, maybe some eel tails or jellyfish jam?”

“I came for more kelp and whatever else I might need for an injured mermaid,” I told her.

“I’ll ring you up for the kelp and throw in some whale blubber on the house, since you are one of my best customers,” she exclaimed, grabbing jars off her shelves and placing them in the bag. “Do you think this is enough kelp?”

“Perfect. If I need anymore, I’ll come back in another week.”

I paid her in silver orbs, her favorite night diving snack when stupid men weren’t available, and turned to walk away. I paused before I could though, and turned quickly back to her.

“Have you ever thought about opening your own store.” She froze in what she was doing to listen. “I think it would be a good move for you, you could buy a cheap house or build a shack closer to the sea and have more space to store all of your goods. It might even help you lower your prices and increase your customer base.” She gave me a look like she was about to argue, but I held up a hand and said, “Just think about it. If you decide to do it, let me know. You know where to find me.”

I turned and walked back through the building, keeping an eye out for anything new or useful that I didn’t have. Most vendors dealt in trades, rather than money, so it was sometimes difficult to prepare myself for a trip to Kelarn unless I knew exactly who I planned on visiting.

A group near the exit caught my eye, and at first I didn’t understand why. Upon closer inspection, and I mean I had to walk closer to them to see them better. I realized they were werewolves, but not just any run of the mill werewolves, no these were the jackass that enjoyed terrorizing me at work.

I dropped my head lower, trying to blend in with the crowd around me, which wasn’t all that hard since I was fairly short, standing five feet two inches tall, compared to the six feet and taller individuals who swarmed around me.

I passed them without trouble, but stopped when I heard yelling behind me. I turned, fearfully, to see them grab a witch by his clothes and scream obscenities in his face. He didn’t seem to know them, and he shook violently. Then I caught a strand of what they were actually yelling: “Where is…” The noise from all the shoppers between us cut off the end of the question. 

They let him go and stormed further into the crowd. Knowing they weren’t going to seriously hurt anyone inside, or turn and chase me down, I felt better about leaving Kalarn and returning home.

As soon as I got home, about mid-afternoon, I went straight to the well and pulled the bucket up. I opened the jars and placed them in the bucket and slowly lowered them down to the waiting mermaid. She sang her joy and thanks up to me upon discovering the whale blubber, making my heart soar at the thought of how happy she was.

I trudged back into the house, my spirits falling again the farther away I was from the well. My thoughts returned to the angry, arrogant werewolves at the market, and wondered what they were searching for.

I walked inside, accidentally disturbing Wolfie, and slumped down onto the couch.

“It’s been a day,” I sighed as I tried to relax into the cushions. “I seriously think members of your species are some of the most inconsiderate assholes I’ve ever seen.” Wolfie growled at my comment, but it didn’t stop me from ranting. “I mean, some werewolves are almost constantly at my work, harassing me, throwing things, making my life harder, and I was functioning with the idea that I only had to deal with them at work. Apparently that was the wrong f*****g idea because I almost ran into them today at the market. They were pissing all over some poor guy who didn’t have the strength or know how to defend himself.”

I growled in frustration as I sprung to my feet and started cleaning again, no longer able to sit still. 

Wolfie’s torn gaze followed me through the house. I suspected that he, like any other werewolf, wanted to defend his own kind, but something inside of him kept him from doing so. I ignored the feeling of betrayal that started to bubble up inside me.

I shouldn’t feel betrayed. He’s a damn werewolf, for goddess’s sake. I should take it as a compliment that he had to consider it at all.

I scrubbed the bathroom, bleaching every inch of it, putting my brush, comb, hair ties, hair clips, bobby pins, perfumes, lotions, hairsprays, and other products that I had strewn all over the counters. I had a cabinet behind the mirror that I could store some of my products, and a drawer under the sink for some other things. The under the sink cabinet was for everything else. Unfortunately, a lot of times, when I pulled something out of a drawer, I rarely put it back until I cleaned.

Once I was finished with the bathroom, I moved into my bedroom, where I picked up all my dirty clothes and moved them to the washer, made my bed, put away the clean clothes still in my laundry bag, picked some of my project up of the ground and put them back in their drawers in the closet. I dusted, swept, and moved into the spare room.

Jewel was a little pack rat. She picked up anything and everything that glimmered in the sun and dragged it back in after dinner. Cleaning up after her was always a little dangerous, since I had to pick up glass shards, wires, old coins, and worst of all, bugs. Shiny black beetles that scurried across the floor toward me. I squealed as I slammed the door shut and took a deep breath. I loathed insects. The sight of them made me feel like they were on me, crawling over my skin in my hair, biting me, scratching me with their creepy little legs. 

I heard wolfie whine behind me and I turned to see his concerned eye trained on me.

“I’m fine,” I tried to say in a steady voice, but it came out high and pitchy. “I just hate bugs. I mean loathe them. They’re creepy and crawly, and- and… I can’t stand them.” 

I sank to the ground, trying to figure out how I was going to handle a mass of fugly little crawlers. 

Wolfie started growling and nudged the door with his nose. I didn’t understand what he wanted until he hopped closer, almost slamming his face in the door.

“You want to go in there?” I squealed, to which he nodded. “But-but… there’s glass, and wires. You could-you could hurt yourself in there.”

He kept nudging the door, getting more and more insistent.

“Fine, but don’t come crying to me when you cut your paw open.”

He gave me a very exasperated sigh, and I swear I thought I saw him roll his eyes at me.

I opened the door carefully, and he pushed his way through. I closed the door behind him and waited to find out what happened. I heard a lot of growling, some things crashed around, some growling, and I thought I heard teeth snapping. It took a while, but eventually it quieted down in the room. The door shook a little and I took that to mean he was finished with whatever he decided to do in there.

I opened it and limped out casually, licking his lips.

“You didn’t eat them, did you?” I asked, disgust filling my stomach.

He nodded, refusing to meet my gaze, and my stomach twisted.

“That’s disgusting,” I choked out, nearly losing the contents of my stomach.

He nodded again and hopped back to the living room. I peeked into the room and saw the little pile of shiny objects Jewel kept was scattered around the room. I started thinking it might be better to just let her outside. She and Manny seemed to get along pretty well, so she would be safe outside and my house would be safe from her packrat habits.

I sighed and grabbed my broom to sweep up the mess. I moved carefully through the room, making sure the path before me was clear of any object before stepping further into the room. Eventually, I managed to sweep it all into a pile. I ran to grab a garbage can from the kitchen so I wouldn’t have to struggle with carrying the full dustpan through the house.

I laid on the floor after putting my cleaning s**t away, finally exhausted. Wolfie limped over to me and rested his head on my arm. It still made my skin crawl at the thought of him eating the bugs, but I was grateful that he would be so willing to help me that he ate bugs.

“I’m so tired now, I think I could sleep for hours,” I sighed as I stared at the ceiling.

Wolfie didn’t react to my words, but he also didn’t move off my arm, which was comforting in a way. I knew I was letting my emotions get the better of me, but I wanted to forget for even a moment that I was anything other than a girl cuddling with a big, lovable boy. Okay, so my dream guy was a wolf that couldn’t talk back and would probably leave as soon as he was healed, but I didn’t dwell on that.

Wolfie sighed and heaved himself to his feet. He nudged me with his head, bringing me back to the real world.

“It’s time to feed them, isn’t it?” I asked, pushing myself into a sitting position.

He nodded almost sadly and I slowly got to my feet.

“Well, let’s get to it then. No use in waiting around for the inevitable, right?”

Wolfie chose to follow me around as I prepped dinner. He seemed very interested in how I managed everything. The only action I changed was feeding Jewel outside. She couldn’t understand me when I told her she wasn’t staying in the house that night, but she understood when I sent her safe and loving vibes. I told Manny, who did seem to understand me, that he was to look out for her until she figured out where she was sleeping. Then I dropped a couple fish to Syline and dragged my exhausted ass back inside to eat leftover enchiladas. 

Wolfie sat by side, or, rather, my feet, as I slowly munched away at my food, barely registering it as sustenance. I just couldn’t shake the awful exhaustion that seemed to settle over me.

It suddenly dawned on me what might be the problem. I quickly unwrapped the bandage around my arm, the one that covered the bite marks the werewolf had given me. It was an awful sight, the skin around the bites was red and itchy, swelling painfully. A disgusting yellow-green puss was oozing from several of the wounds, and the smell was turning toxic. 

I’d completely forgotten that werewolf bites were life threatening to most other creatures. Not to other werewolves, since they had territorial disputes and such often, but couldn’t afford to constantly kill each other off, but to a witch like me, it was really bad. To make matters worse, I’d swam in a river probably infested with other contaminants, and didn’t disinfect the bandage or wound when I got out.

“Oh, s**t!” I yelled, jumping to my feet. 

Wolfie followed me to the bathroom as I dug through my cabinets for my equipment. First up was a stained towel. I soaked it with my hydrogen peroxide and carefully, but firmly, dug the cloth into my oozing wounds. The infection shouldn’t have gotten too far, so I should’ve been able to dig most of the infection out. The process was excruciating, pain shooting up to my shoulder and covering my vision in black spots. 

I screamed. I let out a blood curdling sound that dropped Wolfie to his stomach and sent silence descending on the other room, but I didn’t stop. I had to keep digging, had to get the infection out before it got any worse. Wolfie whined and nudged my leg, but I couldn’t stop my progress. It burned and ached. It sent chills down my spine and fire through my veins but I needed to keep digging to clean the wounds. If I felt I was finished with one, I didn’t take a break, I just kept going. I knew if I hesitated for even a second, I wouldn’t be able to finish, and the infection would only spread.

Finally, with sweat dripping from my face, soaking through my clothes, I was certain I’d removed everything I could. I poured the hydrogen peroxide straight into the wounds. I let out another screaming, gripping the sink for dear life. I washed it out with warm water and soap, and applied the same healing mixture to my arm that I’d used on Wolfie just a few days earlier. I was able to press clean gauze to the wounds and wrap a bandage around it.

Completely drained of all energy, I sunk to the floor and curled into a ball. I heard barking coming from the living room, and I realized Wolfie was no longer by my side.

I forced myself slowly to my feet and staggered to the living room to see the werewolf directing traffic. He was pushing pixies back into their holes, and scaring fairies into the rafters. Once everyone was settled in their homes, he turned and limped toward me. Once he reached me, he began insistently nudging me towards my room.

“I get it, bedtime for everyone,” I muttered as I struggled to my bed.

I didn’t even think as I stripped out of my clothes. Wolfie turned so fast, he was a white and red blur on the floor. I didn’t see what happened at first, and I was worried for his leg.

“Hey,” I snapped, causing him to jump, “if you re-break that leg, I’ll cut it off and beat you with it.”

He froze, I’m sure shocked by my tone, but I couldn’t muster the energy to care. I staggered to the closet and grabbed a random t-shirt, forcing it over my head. I slowly walked back to the bed and curled up under the blankets.

“Okay, I’m decent,” I mumbled, my vision blurring in my exhausted state. The light switched off, and I realized Wolfie must have reached up and taken care of it for me. I heard him limp closer to me, then a soft plop sounded next to me from the floor. I finally drifted into a deep sleep, dreaming of blue eyes.