Wolfdale

FOURTEEN (Iselen P.O.V)

"Iselen, my love, please... calm down..."

I stare at the woman standing in front of me while my head is spinning like a whirlwind. Sometimes random thoughts pop up more clearly from the mist of confusion that is wrapping my mind, most of them are like: "Oh my God!" "Fuck!" "What the hell is going on here?" "How is this even possible?" and so on. But then they sink again in the mess that is my mind right now, I feel dizzy so I lean my back against the wall behind me while I try to catch my breath. Wolfdale's major takes a step forward with an extended arm but I close my eyes and try to lean more against the wall so she stops abruptly.

"Please, calm down. I can explain it all..."

"Explain it... There's no explanation for what I just saw, right? Damn, my day started so good this morning and now..." I think desperate while tears run down my cheeks.

When I woke up this morning I had a message from Ruby on my phone telling me that she was on her way home just in time for the grand opening of the fair and I was so happy: I'd missed her so much during those past days and I'd been very worried about the valley. Ruby had a few tricks up her sleeve according to Denise and nothing bad would happen to Wolfdale, in fact everybody looked very calmed despite a great multinational hotel chain was threatening their forest , but they all were sure that the major would find a solution to fix the problem. I asked Grey who was in charge of taking care of Rosie while she was away and he answered that it was probably Claire, I wish I could've seen her and taken her out for a walk but I was very busy working in the studio and helping with the fortune-teller's tent. Besides, I'm not sure the young girl likes me.

After reading Ruby's message I got up full of energy ready to set my photo call. Denise had helped me with the backcloth and I found out that she's a great artist, very talented, and she earned her living painting oil portraits before marrying Grey and helping him to run the studio.

"You have to go and see the portrait I painted from Ruby two years ago, it's hanging on her office wall in the city hall..." she told me while we got things ready for later. I promised that I'd do it and took my camera to take pictures of the children while they were participating in their games and sack race; activities included also an exhibit of handicrafts they had done during the previous week at school, they baked apple cakes with Anna and then we all ate them together and finally Denise and I did some make-up work painting coloured flowers and butterflies on their faces before the singing and dancing contest. I'd never had so much fun before in my whole life, I'd never been able to enjoy these kinds of situations during my childhood and I was even more excited than the kids. I took a big amount of beautiful pictures and I had to rush to Grey's studio in order to download them in his laptop so I have enough empty memory cards for the parents pictures later. I had the opportunity to change my clothes at home, I was looking forward to wear my new dress and denim jacket that reminded me of Ruby.

When I came back to the open area next to the river Denise was waiting for me dressed like a gypsy with a long red skirt, a green shirt and a headscarf with golden pendants. She dragged me to her tent and insisted on reading my palm. To be honest her acting skills are superb, her colourful tent had a round table with a crystal ball and curtains with weird symbols, the moon and stars embroidered in gold thread. I smelt incense and herbs and she kept a straight face while focusing on my hand, telling me in a deep voice:

"The love of your life is very close to you... and she has a canine pet..."

I couldn't help bursting into laughing... her transparent attempts to set me up with the major were very funny. During the whole week Denise talked me about Ruby, about how wonderful she's, about how she's willing to help everybody and how sad she was being alone and single. It happens that my boss' wife is a matchmaker but I just let her keep talking, I like to hear stories about hottie major's life... like that time when she invited the children from the school to visit the city hall and, after showing them her office and the attic where the clock mechanism is, she took them to the longest corridor of the building and proved them that, if you run very fast at the very beginning, you can slide down the corridor over the hardwood floor. Kids loved it of course and it's easy to find some of them trying to do it since then when they go with their parents to the city hall for whatever reason... even some adults try.