The Wolf's Song

Ghosts Creeping at Night

Michael

Finally, Diana’s body gave way to sleep, and for a few hours, the quiet echo of our breaths was all that was heard inside the room. Outside, glimpses of a faint rain were present. Even in the dream states, I stayed awake, for I was not, nor had I ever been a man to need much sleep, but it was part of my nature, or rather ours; we shapeshifters hardly need sleep, for we could keep for long hours, and even for days, if necessary, on watch. We ate in greater quantities, of course, but that was only because our bodies consumed fuel faster than that of humans.

But even when in a state of unconsciousness, my body did not reach the deep levels of sleep that she got. I would have to be extremely injured, or sick, to need to sleep like this.

Because of this, it was easy for me to perceive everything around me, and although the human ear couldn’t perceive it, the house harmonized the sounds of nature very easily.

Behind the tempered glass, I could easily hear the clamor of the rain and the sound of the crashing of the river water as it met the rocks in its path; I could hear the rustle of the wind, and the sound of a rabbit’s paws sinking into the earth as it flew from a fox giving chase.

And I could hear her: the sound of her soft, piping laughter, and her voice, calling out to me in the middle of the night, rising from the memories of what once was.

“Michael,” her voice said. Anna’s voice.

Immediately, my eyes opened and I looked around the room, but everything remained quiet. Diana slept, lying on my chest, her arms wrapped around my torso. Her breathing was rhythmic and calm; the windows were tinted by the steam, created by the difference in temperature between the inside and the outside of my home, while behind it, the rain resounded against the windows, creating confused echoes in the middle of the night.

“Michael.” Her voice came again, and I could swear it was her. It was the same voice I remembered from my humanity. A fine, delicate voice, silver and windy.

Slowly, I stood up, while trying not to wake Diana, whom I left hugging the pillows for just a moment, before putting on my pants and crossing the room, my eyes fixed on the distance; but behind the fogged windows I saw nothing else, but the rain and the paths of the wet earth it created over the forest.

My eyes wandered, lost in the distance, in the pines that resounded in the wind, and among the rocks that remained untouched in the distance, like silent lookouts...

“Michael.”

Her voice flew across the distance, and then my face turned, and I finally saw her: she was standing on the other side of the river, in a white dress that left her pale legs bare, and with damp, platinum-blonde hair falling over her face and down to her waist.

She stared at me, a smile curving her thin, pale pink lips, and I lost the rhythm of my breathing.

“It’s... impossible...” I whispered.

Unable to help myself, I moved, leaving the room silently and in a hurry. I crossed the hallway and, without reaching the stairs, I pushed myself over the banister, jumping over it to the second floor. The carpet swallowed the sound of my fall as I hurried out of the house.

I opened the sliding doors leading to the back of the house, into the woods, and looked at her, lost in the distance. The sound of her mocking laughter crossed the space, and then she broke into a run. Her small, fragile figure was lost in the middle of the forest.

But I was faster than her, even in my human form, or at least, that was what I told myself. My body got the rain in a matter of seconds, crossing space in the blink of an eye. I ran across the rocks that pierced the river with ease, my feet sinking into the mud and dirt as, with as much speed as my body allowed, I traversed the distance, reaching the spot where she was in a matter of a blink of an eye.

But Anna was no longer there. Her laughter, however, bubbled up in the distance, from somewhere in the forest...

“Michael,” she repeated again, and I started to run through the trees, leaving the forest behind me, with the vision of the house lost somewhere in the distance. My breath drew clouds of mist in the air, and my body rushed, with my senses attentive and wide awake, searching, perceiving.

I perceived all the scents that surrounded me: rain, mud, wet earth, pine branches, wild animals, and much more.

I saw even without the need for moonlight: The high branches of the forest, which hide the sky, the earth at my feet, the cracks in the bark of the trees...

I felt everything: The presence of the ants on the ground, the cold water on my skin too hot for human temperature, the animals running in my presence, recognizing the hunter in me and putting distance between their bodies and mine...

“Michael?”

I turned around helplessly, feeling on guard, I met the huge body of Francis, who, in his wolf form, looked at me curiously. He took a few steps in my direction, and as he did so, he changed shape, his body losing fur and size, his skin becoming hairless and, at the same time, his gaze remained unchanging.

“Michael, what’s going on, what are you doing here?” he asked, frightened, with an evident sign of alarm in his voice.

Without answering, I looked in all directions, wandering in the distance, but her voice, the voice of my memories, had disappeared...

“Michael, are you all right?” Francis walked up to me, placed a hand on my shoulder and my eyes finally got him.

“I thought... I thought I heard it…” I vaguely affirmed, lost in my memories, thinking that maybe I dreamt it.

“Wh... What did you think you heard?” Francis asked kindly and cautiously.

“Anna,” I answered dryly.

He was silent for a moment, processing my words.

“Anna... You mean...?”

“Yes,” I answered dryly, regaining control of myself. “At first, I thought it was a dream, but I know what I saw, what I heard. I heard her laughing and calling my name, and then, looking into the distance of the forest, I saw her. It was her face; she has not aged a day.”

Francis then frowned and sniffed the air, just as I myself had done before, but Anna’s scent, or even that of another wolf other than us, did not taint the air.

“I don’t sense her scent,” Francis stated, slightly confused.

“Neither do I,” I affirmed, “but I know what I saw. It was her.”

He nodded then, trying to string together an explanation in his head.

“If you’re sure it was her, I can look around the area. Robert and I will look for her no problem.”

“I’m coming with you,” I affirmed, but he denied it.

“No. Diana’s at your house, isn’t she? And you still haven’t told her about, well, us. How do you think she’ll feel if she wakes up in the middle of the night and discovers you’re not at home?” he asked patiently, as I bit the inside of my cheek until I tasted blood in my mouth. “Go stay with her,” Francis then said. “Stay with Diana for now. If Anna is in the forest, Robert and I will find her.”

I slowly nodded, and as he patted my back, Francis started to run. Three steps behind me his body changed, and the imposing wolf took his place as he hurried through the forest.

I then started to make my way back home, and when I arrived, I made sure to strip off my clothes and go straight into the shower. I couldn’t let Diana get me like this, freezing cold and muddy. “What would she think then? I’ve been a fool to chase ghosts in the middle of the night, without thinking of the consequences.”

But even when the warm water managed to calm me down, my thoughts still revolved around the vision I had had. Anna, alive and in the middle of the forest; her face lucid, with no years found on her skin and with the sly smile I knew in my youth drawn on her lips.

It must be the memories, I told myself, a figment of my imagination, because of having been talking about her to Diana; but, if so... “How come I can’t get this bad feeling out of my body?”