The Darkest Eternities

XII.The hunt

Cara

I WAS PRACTICALLY FLYING through the living room trying to tidy up the place. It was almost five o'clock. Ivan was going to be here in a few minutes. He had been coming over at exactly five o'clock for the past week and a half except for the weekend.

I always looked forward to his visits.

I don't know how I had managed to turn the living room upside. Gathering up my strength, I pushed the couch back to where it's supposed to be and dragged the table back to the middle of the room. It's a wonder how the house had become such a mess in the one hour I had been home from school.

Everything seemed fine now.

Just as the hour hand of my father's hideous grandfather clock (I hadn't yet found a way to get rid of it) struck five, there was a knock at the door. Straightening up, I made sure I looked fine and untied my hair and ran my fingers through it a little to forgive it a little bounce. I wanted to look good for Ivan.

I opened the door. There he was. I could not help but smile. It was as if a part of me had feared I would open the door and he would not be there, that he was indeed a phantom of my imagination.

A small smile tugged at his lips."Come in," I invited him inside, realising that we had just been standing there like idiots. I let him in and closed the door.

"Thank you,"he said. I took him to the living room. We usually hung out there or the kitchen. Never upstairs as per the 'no boys upstairs' rule.

"Ummh...so what do you wanna do?"I inquired, taking a seat next to him on the couch.

"Before anything, I have something for you..."

"What do you mean?"I asked.

"I mean I got you something,"he replied. He reached his hand into the pocket of his coat. He pulled out a small wooden box with a small crest carved into it.

There was a necklace inside. The necklace had a slightly large pendant. The pendant was circular with what looked like the head of a wolf at the centre and around the metallic centre was a circle of a glassy dark blue stone. And the circumference of the circle was full metal, the same as the chain. It looked like brass.

Ivan gently took the pendant necklace in his hands and stood. He approached me. I stood up.

"Do you like it?"

"It's beautiful...but I cannot accept it. It's too much..."

"It has been in my family for centuries. I want you to have it." Without waiting for me to say anything he brought it over my head and put it on me. He looked at it as it hung around my neck along with my mother's.

"I doubt anyone can wear it as well as you do, Malen'kiy"

***

"Let's go to the woods,"I said as we were in my plain backyard. It was like I had completely forgotten what happened the last time I was there.

I had convinced him that we should for once hang out outside rather than being cooped up inside like the elderly.

We had not lived there for long so the backyard had nothing at all, no grill, no tree , no swing set, just an empty grassy land where I planned to bury dad's grandfather clock.

"Don't you remember what happened last time you were in the woods? I told you never to go back there. You could get hurt or worse." His tone changed and his eyes darkened from the alluring grey I had grown accustomed to to a darker midnight grey, the blue specks disappearing. Oddly enough, I was not afraid.