Between the Perennial Blooms || Paul Lahote

Seven | Jasmine

"Here's how the story ends:
not in fireworks, or bloodshed,
no tears and no laughter,
no holy grace and no hellfire.
It ends as all stories do,
in a deafening silence."
—l.d. | your story is a revolution; your revolution is not a story

• • •

Bailey Swan awoke to the sound of soft conversation emanating from somewhere below the second story. She blinked up at her bedroom ceiling blearily, yawning a fierce yawn and stretching a limber stretch. The events of the day prior had left her exhausted, the bottle of pain medication perched on her bedside table having rendered her into a deep state of unconsciousness the moment her head hit her pillow the night before. The events of yesterday came back in flashes at best. She remembered her heartbreak, she remembered her fall, and she remembered the tourniquet she'd tied around her arm. She even remembered the strange wolf that simply watched her as if contemplating whether to act on the urge to come to her aid or simply leave her there instead. However, what she failed to remember was how she had returned to Bella's truck, who had sewn her stitches after her sister had rushed her to the ER, and how she had gotten to bed without at least an hour-long lecture on safety precautions and survival techniques from an overwhelmingly distraught Charlie. Vague recollections of Bella's frantic return to the truck spammed her mind with phrases like "Oh my God!" and "keep your eyes open, Bay!" and "I swear to you Bailey-Wren, if you don't live to see eighteen I will personally bring you back just to kill you myself!" echoing off the walls of her skull. So she gripped her head, applying pressure with her fingers to slowly dissipate the haziness, and proceeded in pulling a pair of panties over her hips and a pink sweater dress with three-quarter sleeves over her shoulders. The gauzy white bandage wrapped around her left forearm covered the skin from her elbow all the way down to her wrist completely, and as instructed by the fine print labeled on the orange-bodied prescription bottle sitting on her bedside table, Bailey swallowed one tablet of Codeine before continuing on her merry -though somewhat fuzzy- way.

"-not giant bears," she heard Bella saying somewhat frantically as she made her way carefully down the stairs and toward the kitchen. "I saw them. Up in a meadow-"

"Damn it, I told you not to go into the woods, Bella! Just look at what happened to your sister!" Charlie argued vehemently, boots stomping across the linoleum floor in a pattern that Bailey could only assume meant he was pacing back-and-forth.

"What did you see, Bella?" A new voice piped up, effectively diffusing the tension as well as curving a fond smile onto the corners of Bailey's lips as she registered the deep timbre to belong to none other than Harry Clearwater.

"Wolves. They're wolves, dad." Bailey froze on the staircase mid-step. "Five of them. The size of- of cars. They went after- something -and I ran."

For a moment, all was quiet. Then, suddenly, "Harry, can you get some men from the Rez?"

Bailey imagined him nodding. "Sure. Yeah. I'll just-"

A series of clicks indicated the landline had been dialed. "Jerry? Put a hunting party together -tranq guns, large caliber shotguns- there's something dangerous out there."

And that was when Bailey burst into the kitchen with a gasp. "Papa, no!" She exclaimed, heart beating a wild, staccato rhythm against her ribcage that proved almost painful. Her eyes glistened with tears, the prospect of her father killing the huge, powerful wolf she had encountered just the day before sending a sharp bolt of pain through her chest that left her staggering to stay upright. Three sets of eyes met hers round with shock, but Bailey's never left her father's familiar brown ones. "You can't, Papa! I- I saw one too! I think it smelled the blood from my arm and tracked the scent through the woods, but it didn't hurt me or anything! The wolf was- was sweet! And I know it sounds strange, but it was, well, it was- was concerned! You can't hurt them, Papa! They're not -not dangerous! Not like you think!"