Up the Wolves

Up the Wolves- Part 1

              Dr. Pascal didn't have me lay on the couch like they do in the movies, nor did she have a notepad in her hand. It didn't matter, I was comfortable enough in the leather chair that was just across from hers. Rather, I was just as uncomfortable as I would be in any posture; my nerves didn't care.

Dr. Pascal smiled gently at me. "Tell me about why you're here today, Catherine."

I'm sure she noticed the way I looked down at my hands before I answered. "I've been having these dreams." I looked up at her again. She nodded for me to continue. "I'm afraid of what might happen. I'm afraid to go to sleep at night; I've started setting an alarm that goes off every hour to keep myself from going into deep sleep."

"You're afraid of 'what might happen?' What do you mean by that?"

"I've had these dreams before. They're the same ones I've been having since I was seven years old." Dreams, I called them. They were nightmares.

Dr. Pascal sat a little forward. "Since you were seven? How many times have you had these dreams since they began?"

"First, when I was seven. Again when I was twelve. And the last time I had them, I was seventeen." After ten years, I thought I had outrun them at last. Their return had upended my peaceful world.

As I spoke, Dr. Pascal had unearthed a notebook and began writing. The pen clicked in her hand like a stopwatch beginning the start of the true session. "Can you remember what was going on in your life or your family when you first started having these dreams? Did anything happen when you were seven that might have been a catalyst?"

"Yes." I looked at my hands again; clammy and interlaced tightly as though I were praying for her to cure me of these nightmares. "On my seventh birthday, I got lost in the woods behind our house. I was lost for thirteen hours." The pen scratched quickly against her notepad. "When I was found, I had no memory of what had happened while I was lost."

"Did you speak to the police? Were you hurt? Did anyone see anything prior to your disappearance?" Dr. Pascal's pen hovered above the page.

"I know the police were involved, but I don't remember much. I was unharmed, only a few scrapes and scratches that were perfectly common for someone to get after wandering around the woods. I talked to a child psychologist too, but they couldn't account for my memory loss. No, no one saw anything." It was a non-mystery. Something might have happened, but if I was unharmed and I had no memory, there was no prescriptive recourse for anyone to take. Everyone seemed to forget about it, even my-

"What about your parents?"

"They were disturbed, at first. But after being reassured by the police and the psychologist that I was physically and mentally fine, they moved on. They kept a tighter rein on me for a while, but that's all that changed."

Scribble, scribble. Dr. Pascal's brow knit in the middle. "You still have no memory of those missing hours?"

"None."

"How interesting," the doctor murmured to herself. "Did these dreams start immediately after you came out of the woods?"

"Not quite; they started a few weeks later. I think they started as soon as people stopped talking about it." As soon as my parents seemed to forget it ever happened.

"Tell me about the dreams."

I inhaled a shaky breath, growing cold all of a sudden. "There are three dreams, but they're all connected. In the first dream, I'm running through the woods; it's cold and I'm barefoot. I'm being chased by a pack of wolves. I don't look back, but I can hear them snarling and howling right behind me. I know if I slow down or fall, they'll catch me. That's the first dream."