The Blood Red Path

Mother - Wolves.......Part 1

Crows gather - black-cloaked 

A crack.

The sternum of my mother has split apart. I try to rise but can't. I'm held down in her arms, shifted to her lap, head pressed against her chest that is full of violent rage.

Her breath wheezes out, and her shoulders curl around me. 

I feel protected. 

Grey storm clouds gather the sound of thunder chews into the air eating away almost every other sound. 

"Please don't cry," I want to say, but I can't get the sound out of a broken jaw. My mother screams. 

Her hands are shaking...her body is shaking while looking up into my father's eyes that are not eyes but something terrifying, something so black that I don't even recognize the Wild within them. He's not my father, he's something different, something that I never knew existed within him. 

"Odin," barbarity extends from our radius to eat into the distance. His Wild calls for Odin...over and over and over again. His footsteps gouge a trail into the ground searches the treeline. 

"You're going to be okay, Charlie. Your mother's here now." Her teeth are clenched, and she rocks us. 

Both of us rock together, while a gentle finger feels my septum. She screams through her teeth, her jaw shifts outward, the Wild whines out that I'm terrified something is broken within her. 

"You're going to be okay," she keeps saying this with blown out eyes that are entirely consumed by the rawness of her nature. She snaps at my father when he tries to touch my head, her claws dig into my shoulder. I'm anchored into her. 

"You're going to be okay, Charlie." She keeps rocking back and forth on the dirt. Screaming to the world, screaming so hard that I'm afraid her insides will come out from her throat.  

I reach up to touch my mother's face, "you're going to be okay, Mom." I say through mumbled words that don't make sense to the ears. Reaching my fingers up to wipe away my blood from her cheek. 

...she cries, bone-broke.

We rock together back and forth, "I'm going to kill them all," she's whispering to herself. "All of them," I'm not sure she sees me now with her unblinking focus. 

"He told me he would protect you, he told me that he would protect you," the last word screeches out.

"Bessa promised me." My mother's war of teeth has never been sharper. 

Uncle Grey comes to stand facing my father, he puts his hands on his shoulders, and they share a look with the same eyes. 

Shapes move within the forest to reveal the wolves I know. 

I press the palm of my hand against the extreme beat of my mother' heart. 

Aunt Meela comes to stand on my mother's left, she cradles my mom's head against her hip.  

"What happened, Charlie?" There is a distinction of tone, this is my Aunt, but she sounds like a Luna, full of controlled caring. 

The light of the sun creeps between the spaces of the leaves on the trees, Aunt Meela shimmers in shifting light.

A crack from a twig has my eyes roam in that direction, I can't take the full force of Aunt Meela not when the tears start to come. 

Her jaw trembles - lips pressed tight. 

Ryeson and Paley join the growing group. Ryeson shifts from foot to foot when Uncle Grey and my father turn blacken silver eyes on him. Paley walks to stand with his father, shoulder to shoulder leaving Ryeson to stand by himself. He stands straighter, chin up - the weight of him sinks into the dirt.