Solace & Solicitude // Paul Lahote

five

Days passed without seeing the wolf again. Days passed with no human contact. The night with the Sam, Emily, and the boys made her deeply miss having someone, even the superficial conversations she used to have in school back in Georgia.

"Those days are long over," Indie thought to herself.

The storm had pushed on for days, meaning she couldn't take her calming walks to the beach or take her notebook out to the forest to write or draw.

It was days like these that she wished she had a TV in the little cabin. Days like these made her over think.

Where was her mother, she wondered. She hadn't seen her in years, it was as if she fell off the face of the earth after her father had died. It was as if she was dead to Indie too.

"It wasn't too much of a loss," Indie reasoned in her mind. After all, she hadn't been mother material when she was around. Hence the reason Indie was always being sent to live anywhere except with her own parents. She had missed her father, truly, but years after his death, she realized he was just a pawn in her mother's game. It had only been her, she had been her parents one mistake. The people that offered her the most guidance had been her grandparents, but they were too old to care for her at the time, leaving her to be moved between her parents and her extended family in Georgia. Even now, Indie couldn't decide the lesser of two evils.

Indie's mind spiraled farther and farther out of bounds when she decided to get up and take a walk, as it was only sprinkling outside.

Putting on her boots and heavy raincoat, she slipped her phone in her pocket just in case. It wasn't like she had a surplus of numbers to call if something happened to her though. Indie sighed wistfully into the thin air that was so quiet she could hear her own breath.

Outside, the trees were greener than normal, as if the rain had replenished all their color. She noticed some trees were down due to the storm and squirrels chased each other over the logs on the ground as if they were new toys. The birds were chirping loudly, drawing her out of the recesses of her mind. She breathed deeply, thankful for the distraction that nature offered. She had always felt one with the trees, the bugs, and the animals. As a child, she spent hours upon hours venturing through these same forests. In the eyes of a child, fallen trees were bridges and squirrels were friends, leaves were bedding, and dirt was floor. She was older now, no longer seeing things with the eyes of a child, but she still found the forest tranquil.

She was broken out of her reverie when a figure whooshed passed her. Startled, she looked around her, spinning 360 multiple times trying to find the figure. Slowly, where she was standing, she tilted her eyes up, and she was met with startling red irises and pale white skin. Before she could back away, it jumped from the limb, standing in front of her.

It was a woman. A woman with strikingly beautiful red curls tumbling to her shoulders, inhumanly perfect skin with high cheekbones and cat-like eyes. She frightened Indie as Indie attempted to take slow steps backwards.

The woman looked at her for a minute, turning her head as if trying to figure her out. She sniffed the air for a moment.

"You don't smell great, my love. But that look in your eye, you would be perfect for what I have planned," the red-haired woman threw a broad smile her way before slowly stalking toward Indie.

Indie took the first option presented in her head: run.

She ran as if the devil was on her heels.

"You can run, my love, but you can't hide," the woman chanted in a taunting voice, "ready or not, here I come."

Indie's heart felt like it was pounding out of her chest. She felt like she couldn't breathe as fear seemed to be wrapping itself around her lungs, constricting them.

Before her eyes, the woman appeared again in front of Indie's path.

"Found you," she whispered.

Just as her teeth were ready to meet Indie's skin, a black wolf came from behind her and a smaller brownish-gray one followed it. To her surprise, her wolf followed the other two. She recognized its dark silver fur the second she laid eyes on it. Relief crowded her heart, this wolf had been in her home, hopefully it wouldn't hurt her.

In a single second, the red-haired woman had disappeared from her sight and so had the first two wolves. The third, her wolf, stood in front of her. The hard look in its eyes made her feel disappointed in herself. She looked down quickly, as if she should feel guilty for something. At the last second, it licked the side of her face and nudged her in the direction of where she came from, her home. It quickly followed the rest, leaving her in the forest by herself. Taking a shaky breath, she rushed home as fast as her feet could take her.

She slammed the door behind her, sliding down it and into the floor as if her legs could no longer withstand her weight anymore. She burried her face in her hands, letting the quiet atmosphere of the cabin swallow her sobs.