The Wildest Of Them All

Chapter 4

Chapter 4

"So lemme get this straight, you and Ana are shifters, I am a seer and so was Dad?" She took a long drink from her tea before answering. "Yes, that is correct." My thoughts shifted as I thought of something else. "So it is purely a coincidence that Dad is thought to have died because of wolves?"

My mother shook her head and said, "No your father's death was not a coincidence. Your father had been attempting to forge peace, with his influence as a Seer, between the two packs of shifters that live in this area. The Oryana and the Mandi packs had been feuding for years over territory, until your father came along. He decided that he could help the packs; he was able to forge a treaty between the two packs when a rogue shifter decided he was not going to go along with the peace treaty. The rogue had been benefiting from the territory wars to steal prey from the unguarded territories of the packs. He decided that the best way to end the treaty was to kill your father."

I sat frozen in my seat for a while as my mother let the truth of my father's death sink in. I can't believe that she never told me the real reason behind his death. "Why did you never tell us? How could you keep this from us?" I was surprised at how angry my voice sounded, but I guess learning the real cause of your father's death was kept from you can do that to a girl.

"He wanted me to keep it a secret, to protect you and you sister as long as possible," she said in a defeated voice.

"There is also a statute of secrecy, it says other shifters can not tell anyone about shifters until they are of age and come into their powers, so 15 for your sister"—I nodded, understanding— "You can also not tell any human about the shifters or the Hidden World unless it directly applies to them. So, like, you can tell Amira because she is like an extension of the family but you can not tell your teachers or other kids at school. There is a whole different set of rules for Seers but I don't know the rules for that section of the Hidden World. You—"

I cut her off, "But how am I supposed to learn about being a Seer then if you don't know?"

"Well if you would listen to me for a minute you would have heard that I was going to say that  you need to have to ask your aunt about that because she knows more than I do."

Wait, what? "Aunt Emma is a Seer too?" Well I guess it makes sense, she is crazy enough to fit right in with this whole mess. My mother paused, thought about something, and finally spoke.

"No, your Aunt is something else, but that is her story to tell." Thanks for that highly descriptive answer Mum. I thought about all I had heard and decided that it was enough for now.

"Well, uhh, I guess that is enough for me right now, my brain is on overload. Is it OK if I go back to bed?" My mother nodded, "Yeah, sure honey." I stood up and walked over to the sink, washed my cup and began to climb the stairs.

As I was  making my way up the stairs I heard feet following me. I turned around and saw Ana coming up behind me on the stairs. "Hey Ana, how are you holding up?" She glanced back down stairs, "Can we go to your room before we talk? I don't want to stress Mum out anymore"

I nodded and we continued to climb the stairs, not speaking again until we sat by the window in my room. We sat on my window seat, facing the trees behind our house, and looked out to the for. I turned my head and faced Ana, "So how do you feel about all of this? It must be weird being a wolf."

She scrunched her nose, "Not really, I mean I can hear all these new things and I can sense a lot that I could not before, but besides that I feel pretty much the same as I do as a person." I nodded, "So you don't, I guess, share thoughts with wolves or something crazy like that?"

She giggled and said, "No, nothing that weird. I mean, I could understand Mom when she shifted, but it was more like speaking a different language. It was a like I could sense what she wanted to say. So, I guess it is kinda like mind reading but you can't look into another person's head they just say what they want. Do you understand?"

I shook my head, "Not really, is it like you are speaking but not?" She paused for a moment, scrunching her nose again, "Think of it this way, you know how you just know a person so well that you can just know what they are thinking to you when they are half way across a room and just looking at you?" "Yeah, like me and Amira." She giggled again, "Yeah like last week at the winter dance when that guy was hitting on her and she was sending you The Glance and you were just smiling over at her and not paying attention until I poked you. Yeah, just like you and Amira."

I gaped at her, "That was an accident and a fluke! Besides that one time we are almost psychic." She giggled again, "Ok, if you say so."

I looked back out the window, "Well regardless of mine and Amira's mad skills, can we talk about the shifter thing again? Does it hurt when you shift?" She nodded and rubbed her arm a bit, "Yeah, it did the first time I shifted this morning but Mum had me shift back and forth a few times and it didn't hurt at all the other times. What really hurt was when I shifted the first time I was walking down the steps to the car and I shifted and as I was shifting I fell and hit my arm on the rail, got a good bruise out of it." She lifted her arm up as she was speaking to show me, she pulled her sleeve back and sure enough there was a huge black and purple bruise on her pale arm.

"Wow that must hurt," I said. "Nah, not too much unless you touch it." I snickered, "Well now me and Mum have something to do when we are mad at you, just poke the bruise."

"Haha, you are sooo funny" she says as she scoots away from me. I decided to ask her something that had been bothering me all morning, "So why did you feel the need to bring a deer into our garage?" "Well, I was hungry you see, and there was this deer that I could smell and Mum said to just follow my instincts, so....." she trailed off blushing a bit. "So you had a deer for breakfast?" I giggled again, "Was it any good?" She nodded, "It was like a really good steak, but rare, not that I minded."

"So are you going to clean the garage?" She looked at me in question, then she realized, "Oh, you must be so exhausted with all of this going on. I should probably go clean that up, Mum is not going to be too happy if the deer starts to rot in the garage."

"Yeah, probably not, I guess will sleep then. I'm glad that this is going well for you Ana. Oh and can you wake me when Aunt Emma comes home, I want to talk to her about the Seer thing." She nodded and stood up, "Yeah sure, I will send her up. I'm gonna go before Mum comes to hunt me down."