The Turmoil of The Moon Goddess (#3)

Chapter 5- Lilianna

** 58 days after Anna wakes up **

It has been eight weeks since I came to live here, and it’s been an adjustment for us all.  I want to get back to school... but I’m too old now so I have my own little schedule that I follow.

I have decided to learn to cook and bake, and I read and do lessons in the afternoon. I help at Daphne’s shop but spend time hiding from everyone when I am there. Daphne has taught me to measure and sew and I practise my skill by making my baby doll some dresses. After Ody and Red Wolf she is my favourite friend.

They tell me Katy wants to visit again. She is the one who has a big belly because she is having pups. She talks to me like she knows everything about me, but it must be the other me because I do not remember her. Or her husband for that matter. He scares me senseless; he is so big, and his voice is very deep. Red wolf likes them so I will give them the benefit of the doubt for now, and I do like to touch Katy’s belly when her pups kick. However, I do not like it when she cries all the time. And she cries an awful lot!

Katy asks if I would like to go to her house next time, I could stay, and she would look after me for a bit. I do not answer instead I use red wolf as a shield, too much, too soon and its actually Mr Alex that saves me. He tells her she is moving too fast; can’t she see how scared Anna is? That is me- Anna, everyone calls me Anna now.

Mr Alex gets down to my level and lowers his voice “Anna sweetheart please listen to me for a minute.”

He asked so nice that I obey “is it ok if we still visit you here? I know you don’t remember us yet; you and Katy were best friends like sisters, and she loves you and misses you, I will tell her to calm down, do we have a deal please Anna?”

I’ve seen adults give oaths before, they place their hands over their hearts, men sometimes do a funny handshake by holding each other’s elbows. I place my hand over my heart and wait for him to do the same and in a small voice I say promise. Alex says thank you and I can see that he talks for his mate because he loves her and wants to help her get what she wants. Maybe Mr Alex isn't so bad after all.

He has nice eyes when he smiles, I almost feel like I know them but when a memory comes it is like trying to catch smoke in a fishing net.

Daphne told me that Alpha Andrew had arranged all my therapy and treatments to aid my recovery which I am embarrassed about. I do not remember him and I hate that he feels obligated to help me. The fact that spends so much money and time trying to help me makes me feel bad for still being unable to remember him. It makes me feel under pressure to remember because he will no doubt want to see the return on his investment. When will he realise that he has backed the wrong horse?

Thanks to Alpha Andrew's extensive influence and resources I now have mental health checks, physiotherapy,  an eye doctor and a neurologist. As part of my mental health support I have been getting grief counselling to help process the loss of my parents and I'm going to start talking therapy to deal with post traumatic stress disorder once the grief counselling finishes. Alongside that I have been having Reminisce  Therapy where I talk about the past, look at photos and listen to music to try and jog memories. 

In my reminisce therapy session today, I see a lady called Janice, she is trying to figure out what I do remember, and then she hopes to find a way to help me remember what I’ve forgotten. I feel really tired after these sessions, I always need to have an afternoon nap after my reminisce session, Daphne says it is because I’m having to use a lot of mental power. 

Today Janice made me look through photographs of myself from being a baby, Daphne has a massive collection of baby, toddler and child photographs of me and I start off as a pink, squishy baby, changing into a chunky toddler with curly ringlets in my hair, as a small child I am impeccably dressed and ladylike and it’s lovely to see my parents faces smiling down at me.

The final picture of the three of us is at the summer fete. I’m taller than I was in the other photos. My hair is a tidy brown Bob and  I look a lot like my mother. There are braces on my teeth, and my breasts look like buds under my hello kitty t-shirt. 

Janice asks if I remember that day and I do, like it was yesterday, my father won a teddy bear for me, and we had hot dogs and candy floss.

She asked me to compare myself in this photograph to myself today. My hair is longer now, and my face looks thinner, my teeth are white and straight, the braces are gone. 

My homework is to look at my body in a mirror after my shower which sounds a tad perverse, but Janice says there is nothing more natural than the female form and that maybe seeing how my body has changed might help me understand that time has passed.

That evening I have a shower, I shut my curtains tight and lock my bedroom door and with my ceiling light on I stand in front of my full-length mirror. First I look at the photograph of 11-year-old me and then I take off my robe and look at myself now. I put the robe straight back on, I do not feel comfortable looking at this body, I don’t recognise it and I feel like I’m spying on someone else.  

I try again, I owe it to myself, to Andrew who is paying for this therapy and my therapist who has spent time coming up with these exercises to help me. 

I look at my feet and my calf’s, there is some soft dark hair growing on my legs now. I look at my frame, I look taller, my collarbone looks more pronounced now.  The most obvious change is my breasts, back when I was 11 years old they little more than swollen bee stings, but now I have large breasts, with large n*****s and areole, they are heavy and high, quite pert for their size. That is a mark of obvious difference. 

I nip in at the waist, not a lot but enough to give an hourglass silhouette, my hip bones are pronounced I do not think I even had hips when I was 11 years old. There is no mistaking that I have a woman’s body now. There are soft dark curls at the junction between my legs that definitely was not there before. I can’t bear to look at it, it’s like falling asleep a child and waking up a woman, it’s hard to process and seems completely unfair. 

I remember falling off my bike around springtime- cutting my knee and despite having healed the scar was still red and angry but when I look now it has faded to a silvery mark. The only other difference is the horrible scar on my rib cage. I get dressed into my pyjamas and then I cry myself to sleep while Ody cuddles into me.

Red wolf must come in my room during the night he sleeps over my feet, keeping them warm but I have tummy ache and want to go to pee, so I must move him without waking him.

As I sit down on the toilet and see bright red blood; I think I must be dreaming... What is happening? I must have shouted out in horror because red wolf comes to the door whining to come in, but I tell him to get Daphne, tell her I think I am dying; I am bleeding!

Afterwards I am calmer but still embarrassed and upset. I am not dying, Daphne explained that I have my moon blood and it is normal, all girls get moon blood, and it is to show their bodies are ready to have babies with their mates. 

I am horrified by the barbaric process. Daphne tells me I was 14 when I got my first moon blood and that usually a she wolf would see her moon blood once every lunar cycle, but mine had been irregular since my accident. 

Daphne holds me while I cry and rage at the whole universe. Why is everything so jumbled and foreign and painful? Daphne gives me pads to wear and after some pain killers and a hot water bottle the tummy ache subsides. I eventually fall asleep and Ody and Red Wolf stays near me, licking my face when I cry. I cuddle my baby doll extra tight.

The next day I am woken up by deliveries. Deliveries of presents for me. When I ask Daphne what is happening, she says Alpha Andrew sent them to me because he knew I had been upset and he wanted to cheer me up. At first I am embarrassed and angry, is nothing sacred? Who told him? And why did they have to tell him? And why did he think spending more money on me was going to help me? I don't feel like a person anymore I'm just their little token that they move about and covertly discuss, not worthy of my own privacy or opinion.

Then I open the presents. Alpha Andrew not only knows me, he loves me. The things he sends me to me are by no means extravagant or expensive, well not some of them anyway. However I can see the love and care that has gone into every present, he got me a brownie box! And a bunch of white flowers that seem awfully familiar and make me feel emotional. 

Then recipe books come and all the equipment that I could ever need to do all the cooking and baking I've been dying to do for a few weeks. Maybe Alpha Andrew knows me better than I give him credit for. He certainly knows me better than I know myself right now.