The Lone Wolf

Chapter 15

Chapter 15

It was official.  School sucked.

I used to really like school.  I didn’t mind learning; actually I enjoyed learning new things.  Nerdy maybe, but true.   But now… well now all school did was stop me from the woods.  I wanted to let go, just be free for a few hours and run.

Sure, I shifted every night and ran perimeters around town, but that was business and I had to stay focused the whole time.  It was more stressful than it was freeing.

So as my teacher went on about random things I didn’t care about anymore, I sat staring out the window, pushing my hearing out as far as I could so I could hear all the animals interacting with each other.  For some reason, I found that much more entertaining than talking about what x equals.

I spent most of my days doing this now, and I had a feeling my grades were slipping.  Oh well.

I walked into the bathroom after 6th period, rubbing my forehead.  One bad part of trying to listen to animals in the woods was having the try and push out everything else that was going on in the school, which ended with me having a head ache. 

The door in the bathroom opened but I didn’t bother looking to see who it was.  At least, I didn’t until a familiar scent hit me.  “Hey Mel,” I said, my voice slightly miserable.

She didn’t speak, just walked up next to my and handed m an envelope.  I looked down, seeing m name hastily written on it.

“It’s a birthday invitation,” she said in a hard voice.  “But don’t get too excited, my dad made me invite you.  He thinks we just need to ‘talk it out’ and my party would be perfect.  But don’t feel obligated to come; it really wouldn’t be that much of a disappointment.”

With that she started walking out of the bathroom.  I opened up the invitation and read it over quickly.  Something caught my eye.

“Mel!” I yelled, hoping to get her attention before the left and I wouldn’t be able to get ahold of her again.  She stopped halfway out the door and slowly turned back towards me.  “This says your party is tonight.”

She gave me a fake smile.  “Oh does it?  Well, if you already have plans I understand.  After all this was kind of last minute warning.”

My throat tightened, making it impossible to speak for a moment.  She had specifically given it to me today, hoping I would already have plans and not be able to come.  But instead of crying like part of me wanted to, I got angry.

“Don’t worry, I’ll be there.”

She glared at me, then turned and left the bathroom.  This time I didn’t stop her.

What did I just get myself into?

***

I didn’t know what to get Mel for her birthday.  I could probably just show up with nothing, seeing as how she didn’t want me there anyways, but I think that would just make things worse.

So I walked all the way down, then all the way back on the main street of town where all the shops were located.  My mom had dropped me off over an hour ago and still none of the stores really stuck out.  And it was getting slowly closer to the time when I should be leaving for Mel’s house.

Then, across the road a small shop caught my attention.  In the window were colorful dream catchers, but that’s now what caught my eye.  There was a shelf with mini wood carvings of animals.  One in particular caught my eye.

I crossed the road quickly and walked inside the store.  The smell of incents hit me as the door closed.  It was weird, but just that smell seemed to calm my heart rate and sooth any nervousness about tonight.

“It’s wonderful isn’t it?”  A deep, rough voice said from somewhere near the back of the store.  “It relaxed you instantly.  I like to use it on particularly stressful days, although it’s nice to feel relaxed on any day, don’t you think?”

I finally spotted the man who was speaking as he came out from behind a rack of jewelry.  His skin was dark with wrinkles deep in his face.  But his bright blue eyes were burning with knowledge and a smile lit his face.

“Um,” I said, remembering he had asked me a question.  “It’s very nice.”  Wow, could I be more lame?

But the old man just gave a deep chuckle.  His eyes roamed over my body, but it wasn’t in a creepy old man pervert way.  When he looked back into my eyes, his own held a sort of wonder in them.

I swallowed, wondering if I should feel awkward.  He still hadn’t said anything else and I was just sort of standing here…

I let my eyes wander to the wolf carving that had first caught my attention.  The man noticed my interests.

“Ah, I should have known that was why you came in here,” he said, letting out another deep chuckle.

I wasn’t sure what was funny about that, or why he should have known that’s what I wanted, but I followed him to the front window where the wolf was.  He picked it up and handed it to me, that smile still on his face.

I took the wolf in my hands and it was heavier than I thought it would be.  I looked over it carefully, really seeing how amazing it was.  The wolf in sitting position and there was so much detail that it looked real.  There was something oddly familiar about it.

“I made this just a couple weeks ago, after waking up from a dream,” the man said to me as I still looked over the wolf.  But his words caught me off guard for some reason.

I looked up into his eyes, seeing a knowing glint in them.  The smile never wavered.

Then suddenly I gasped.  The wolf in my hands was me.  I recognized it now from a time when I had looked into a pond and saw myself.  I had seen a wolf with white, grey, and black markings.  And even though the wooden wolf in my hands had no color to it, I could tell it had the same markings.

“I suppose it was made especially for you,” he said.  “My name is Dakotah.”

I looked at this man in wonder, probably like he had been looking at me earlier.  Did he know what I was?

But something in me stopped me from asking.  It’s not that I didn’t trust him, because for some reason I did.  Instead I just said,  “My name is Riley.”

“It’s nice to meet you Riley.  I hope my store can lets you find anything you search for, whether it be objects or answers.”

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Okay, for those of you who have seen my profile know that my name is Dakota, spelled without an h.  And no, I did not make the old man's name Dakotah just so my name could be in the story.  I made that this name because when i typed into google "male native american name that means friend" that is what came up. 

So Natasha, no making fun of me for putting my own name into the story, because it's not my name! It's spelled differently! lol

 Oh and pic to the right is Riley as a wolf :]