Celestial Heartbeat (Book One) COMPLETE

Chapter Thirty Five - Meloncholy Christmas

There is officially only a few chapters left! The next one from Ren's perspective is going to be super short, I apologize in advance, but it will go up very soon. :)

As per usual, I was alone for most of Christmas.

Mum volunteered to take the night shift down at the hospital, leading into Boxing Day morning just as she did most years and in the wake of that news I elected to do nothing. Vi offered to have me around at her house, but there wasn't much worse than spending Christmas with Mrs. Reed, whose ideals were stuck in the 20th century. I used to brave it when I was younger, but lately I couldn't think of a worse way to spend Christmas. Instead I wrapped up warm and curled up on the couch, watching all of the god awful Christmas movies that play on TV every Christmas.

Ren had left pretty early in the morning, even before he had become human for the day, so that he could dart home, able to brave the cold in his thick fur. I was happy that he was spending time with his family, even if that meant spending time without me. I took a deep breath watching the on-screen couple interacting with each other, the man was moving in with the woman just a few days before Christmas and together they had vowed to have the best Christmas house on the street. It was ridiculous. Ridiculous, yet it still got to me.

Because deep down I knew... even though my mind rejected it and my body detested it, I knew what Ren thought I was still in denial about.

In a few days' time, Ren was going to be a wolf.

He would be a wolf and there wasn't enough power in me to stop that. I knew that.

Unless I died for him. As the curse went, a Delaney had to sacrifice themselves for the sake of the Chevalier's. I was the only Delaney around that would even consider it. I was the last hope that they had.

I'd scoured Le Livre des Lunes to the best of my abilities. Day and night I'd sat, studying that stupid book for any sign of a reversal spell, for any sign of something to help Ren and the rest of his family. But the truth of the matter was that even the most practiced casters probably couldn't reverse the curse. That meant that for a beginner like me, it was downright impossible. I had no casters to help me look for an answer and the last time that I had blindly trusted a caster to help me out, the whole Rebecca ordeal had happened. It wasn't safe.

I shook my head and burrowed myself further under the blankets.

The only option was my sacrifice.

But I couldn't do that. I'd already told Chris that. It just wasn't in me to be able to sacrifice my life for them. I had things I wanted to do before I died. Even more than that, I was afraid to die.

My heart beat wildly as my chest seemed to close in around it, growing tighter and tighter.  And even though a couple moving in together was one of the least sad things that I had ever encountered in a movie, I cried.

I cried and cried until I fell asleep, all the while praying for a miracle.

**

I was running along a page, a piece of thin white paper. When I looked at my hands my edges were sketchy grey lines and with every step that I took a splash of water colors spread from my footprints. I could see a lake in the distance, glittering under the light of the moon and surrounded by a hundreds of fireflies prancing happily together, just like the scene from my father's story book. As I got closer I could see Ren, too. The small ginger wolf jumped up, playfully snapping his mouth at the fireflies, catching them in his mouth before letting them go again in a small cluster.

"Ren!" I yelped, running at full speed for him.

When I reached the lake Ren ran circles around my legs, wagging his tail and barking. As he ran, I swirled with him, laughing as we danced to a rhythm of our own. My laughing soon faded though, as the faster we twirled, the less it looked like Ren. His fur grew darker, his body bigger and more rigid. His teeth overgrew his jaw and his eyes turned red.