A/N: Hello so I've rewritten a lot about this story, so to those of you that have read this before, some details are different. But to those of you that have not, enjoy!
And I finally narrowed downt the plotline, so I know egg-xactly where this is going. I will conquer and finish and whatnot!
-SKatInk
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“Sigrid! Dinner’s ready!”
“Coming!” I shouted and I scrambled up off my bedroom floor, leaving my drawing of my family behind. I still needed to color my mom’s dress and the sky, but that could wait. Dinner smelled delicious. When I walked in the kitchen, I saw my older brother Marcus, who was twelve, already scooping my mom’s famous meatloaf and home fries onto his plate.
I walked over and my mom filled my plate, contrary to how she’d let him serve himself. When I saw the amount of food she’d given me, my brow creased. It was so small and there were so little fries compared to what he had! “Can I have some more?”
My mom shook her head. “No, sweetie. This is enough for you.”
“But Marcus got more!” I protested. This wasn’t fair! I wanted just as much as him!
My mom smiled down at me with her cerulean eyes. “Marcus is a big boy.”
“Yeah,” he sneered from the table.
“Marcus!” my mom exclaimed at the same time I said, “Shut up!”
“Sigrid!” she said, whirling back to face me. “Say you’re sorry!”
Marcus was smirking at me from behind her back, so I stuck my lip out. “He’s making faces at me again!” I pointed to him.
She didn’t even turn around. How unfair! Why should I say sorry to someone who’s making faces at me? I crossed my arms when she glared at me. “Say you’re sorry, Sigrid. Now.”
“Sorry,” I muttered, glaring back at her.
“That’s it,” she said and she stood up straight, her blonde hair trembling out from her bun. “Go out on the back deck. I will call you back in when your time-out is over.”
“But mom!” I protested, stomping my foot.
She towered over me and pointed towards the back door. “Five minutes, Sigrid. Go.”
I stomped outside and she closed the door behind me. Thankfully it was summer so I didn’t have to worry about being cold or dark, but I hated Marcus! What a meanie! Just because he was four years older than me!
I plopped on our swing, but I quickly grew tired of being alone. I remembered I had my Raggedy Anne doll in the woods behind our house. My dad had found a plastic house that the previous owners of the house had left behind and he’d cleaned it out. It was now my official playhouse. Not even mean old Marcus could go near it.
I jumped off the swing and took off for the woods, clomping down the stairs. Surely I hadn’t used up more than a minute. Minutes took forever to pass. I’d have some time to play. Making my way into the woods, I spotted the cabin-styled plastic house and grabbed some wildflowers in a messy bouquet. Anne would love them.
When I arrived at the house, Anne was calling my name. “I’m here, Anne! I brought some flowers!” I hurried inside the red door and found her smiling up at me with her beaded black eyes. I picked her up and gave her a big hug.
“Marcus is such a meanie,” I muttered into her red hair. She agreed with me eagerly. He was the meanestest person to ever walk the earth.
“Let’s go play in that open space,” I said and she agreed again, bobbing her head as I pulled her away from my chest. We skipped out of the playhouse and headed fifty yards away, deeper into the forest. There was this small, circular clearing in the middle of the woods and Anne and I had made it our backyard. We’d played baseball out there before. She wasn’t very good at it, so we gave it up quickly.
We arrived and the evening sun shone through the trees, casting long shadows. I saw our remote control car—actually Marcus’s; I’d stolen it—a couple Hotwheels, and a tea set. We also had pillows back here, but they had long since flattened from the wear and tear of the weather. The ground was very grassy, so we wouldn’t get too dirty.
She plopped down in front of the tea set and we began having a grand old time, eating cookies and cakes. Our tea was sweet and bitter and the bestest tea in the whole world! Anne kept asking for more. I laughed at her.
After what seemed like five minutes, I heard a growl around me and fear blossomed in my chest. We’d recently seen The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, The Witch, and the Wardrobe and it sounded like Aslan. But a meaner Aslan. I clutched Anne to my chest—she was scared and needed a heroine; I guess that was me.
I stood up as the growl rolled across us again. This was our land, our backyard! Why was anyone else here? “Hello?” my little voice cried, hitching. Anne was shaking in my arms.
We saw a pair of yellow eyes stare at us from a bush on the other side. My chest shook with a scream, but the animal was faster than my lungs. In less than a moment, he’d crossed the clearing and had jumped over me. I shrieked as the dark brown wolf sailed over my head and I threw my hands up to protect my head, dropping Anne in the process.
Hot pain flashed across my palm and I cried out. I was afraid the scary wolf would come after me, but he didn’t follow me. I saw a deer in front of him, scampering away in fright. I looked at my palm with blurry eyes and saw dark-colored blood staining my hand, seeping in with my normal red blood.
Tears welled over my eyes and my lips blubbered with the pain. It was like a fire, starting in my hand. I wiped it on my pants to dull it, but it only spread it further up my arm. I rubbed it off in the grass, crying profusely, but it bloomed across my chest, hitching my breath.
I gasped in pain and whined, almost like an animal would. The agony almost seemed to pump out from my heart then, gushing throughout all the crevices of my body and screams poured out of my mouth. I fell to the ground and tucked my hand against my chest as I rolled in agonizing pain. It was blinding and my shrieking couldn’t get any louder.
It was inescapable, this anguish. It felt like every bone in my body was snapping—I was sure I could hear cracking—and rearranging itself. Tears fell over my elongating face and I screamed again, rolling around. My muscles spasmed like one thousand charley horses had suddenly seized my body and I groped at my legs and arms, unable to stop the pain. My breath was short and I couldn’t stop moaning in torture.
And then, my spine shot up and I gasped in pain, the shock too immediate to scream. I watched in horror as my fingers shortened to stubs and black claws erupted from my nails. The hair on my arms spurted longer and all over the place. I felt my legs shortening to match my arms, and I fell again to the ground.
What was this?! “MOMMY!” I screeched hoarsely. She wasn’t coming! Just as this hit me, all the pain dissipated. It had left. Just . . . faded instantly. Like Cinderella’s fairy godmother had said “Bibbity-Bobbity-Boo!” and poof! It was gone.
I panted and tried to stand up. Terror gripped me when I saw I couldn’t prop myself up on two feet and I leaned forward on my arms—my arms that had morphed into front legs. I ran my tongue over my teeth. My jaw . . . it was longer. I peered down at my shiny black nose and short whiskers. I was much closer to the ground. A muscle above my butt twitched and I spun, seeing my tail.
I looked like a puppy. From what I could tell, I had morphed into a pup. My paws were streaked with silver, as was my tail. But other than that, I saw beige and black along my butt. I assumed it was along my back, but I couldn’t see anything.
I was a puppy! I could tell mommy and daddy we had a pet now! I almost shook with glee, but as I took a step forward, I crumpled to the ground. My leg muscles trembled. This was going to take some getting used to.
Just as I thought that, a lightning bolt of pain ripped itself down my body and I yelped, but it turned into a human scream. I stared at my hands, but blushed when I realized my clothes were ripped shreds a few feet away.
I grabbed Anne and took off for the house. The wind was cold and biting, but the sun did feel nice. But what if anyone saw me? Anne was laughing at me. I tossed her in the playhouse on my way to my first-story window.
See, I was clever eight-year-old and listened to my older brother half the time. I knew that if I cracked my window a little bit, I could open it from the outside and get inside. Like now, it came in handy. With some grunting, I shoved it up and clambered up over the ledge. I threw on fresh clothes and then went back outside. Marcus had told me that if I go in or out from my window, I had to go out or in afterwards, as to not making mommy suspishus.
When I arrived at the back desk, I saw mommy with a worried expression on her face. “Sigrid!” she crowed and she ran over to me. I was sore from what had happened in the woods and I winced. She knelt down and brushed hair from my face. “Where’ve you been? We’ve been looking all over for you!” She kissed my forehead before taking out her cellphone and putting it to her ear. “Derek, we found her. She was here the whole time. Okay. See you soon.” She clipped it shut and tucked it in her pocket.
She turned to me and hugged me tight again, knocking the breath out of me. She stroked my head and when she pulled back, her eyes were shiny. “Don’t ever run away again, okay, Sigrid?” she tucked my hair behind my ear again.
I nodded. “Okay.”
She smiled through her tears. “I love you, honey.”
I pecked her on the lips. “I love you, too.”
“Let’s go get you some dinner,” she said and she picked me up and held me against her hip. She led me inside and this time, I got more food than Marcus.
………..
Four years later . . .
………..
I walked inside the front door of a different house in a different city, throwing my backpack on the homework table in the front room. There were boxes everywhere. Great. We were moving again.
“Mom!” I yelled exasperatedly. Was she home?
“Up here, honey!” she replied from upstairs. Okay, so she was home.
I made my way into the kitchen and tried to ignore the nearly empty countertops. I opened the cupboard. Lovely. Only a few bowls, cups, and plates here. So much for ignoring the fact we were moving again. I grabbed a bowl and poured myself the last of the Lucky Charms. I dunked some milk on it and plopped myself on the couch, turning on True Jackson VP. Jimmy was so cute.
A few minutes later, my mom called my name.
“What?” I shouted back.
“Come up here!” she yelled.
I groaned. Dang it. True and Jimmy were about to kiss in the clock tower. I abandoned my TV show and my empty cereal bowl and made my way up the stairs. I actually liked this house, but alas, the most we ever stayed somewhere was six months.
Upstairs, I peeked my head in each room before spotting my mom and her brother in his office. Uncle Zion looked at me. I tried not to grimace back at him. He was always the one to march in one day and say, “We’re moving again.” I could more or less blame him for my lack of childhood friends.
“Your uncle wants to speak to you,” she said.
Oh lovely. I liked the guy—he was funny and all—but I was totally friendless and a loner because of him. Making friends was completely pointless because of this guy. It was like he could march in our house, say we were moving, and suddenly we had to follow his orders.
“Okay,” I said.
“Have a seat,” my uncle said formally. This was weird. He never used that tone of voice.
My mom left. I felt creeped out as my uncle leaned across his mahogany desk towards me. “Do you know the story of Peter Stubbe?” he asked.
My face was blank. “Who?” What was he getting at?
“Peter Stubbe. He lived in England in the fifteen hundreds. He practiced black magic and when he was older—a man my age, perhaps—he would use a girdle or belt given to him by the devil himself to transform into a wolf.” He was waving his hands as he spoke. Our family was famous for animated speaking.
My blood turned cold. I had lied when I had said I hadn’t heard of Peter Stubbe. When I was old enough to know I was a werewolf, I was thankful I hadn’t told a soul. I had looked up legends and had been thoroughly terrified and disgusted when I came across all the different versions of Peter Stubbe’s story.
My Uncle Zion continued, oblivious to my discomfort. “He ate fourteen children, two pregnant women and their fetuses. He ate one of his own children. He consumed animals, too. Eventually, he was caught and admitted to black magic, relationships with those he shouldn’t have had intimate relationships with”—his daughter I knew—“and the fact that he would morph into a wolf. He was executed.” At this, he looked up at me with his dark blue eyes that were a shade lighter than mine.
I swallowed and shoved my nerves under my skin. If I was caught, I would go down fighting. “Why is this important?” I asked, attempting to spark it up with my usual sarcasm.
He continued to pierce me with his eyes. I resisted the urge to flee and release my wolf. She was scared, but wanted to fight him and rip out his throat for telling us a threatening tale. She couldn’t decide and my chest ached.
“Today, more or less of that tale is true. There are people who can literally transform themselves into wolves.” He pulled open one of his drawers and removed two pieces of jewelry. “Smell these,” he said and he handed them both to me. One was a diamond ring and the other was a charm bracelet.
What was I supposed to do? I couldn’t imply I had werewolf abilities. I pulled the dumb card as I smelled them. In reality, I could tell why he had me sniff them. One had the scent of werewolves and the other just smelled like humans. “What am I supposed to smell?”
He took a breath before taking them back. He held up the ring. “This belonged to a female werewolf.”
Well, clearly, I thought, mentally rolling my eyes. What guy would wear a ring that gaudy?
“She is dead.”
My throat turned to cotton. “What did she do?” My brow creased and my skin broke out with goose bumps as I took notice of the guns on the walls. Of course, I’d always know my uncle collected guns, but not for this. My gut started to turn inside out.
“She was a werewolf. And as a werewolf, she has no control over her animal instincts. She could kill this little girl, for example,” he said and he held up the charm bracelet. My stomach churned. “And not think twice about it.” He set the jewelry down and walked to the front of the desk. Suddenly he was too close for comfort.
“The man I work for believes all werewolves should be extinct. That they are abominations of nature.” He took another breath and looked at the ground. “I agree with him.
“When you were a couple months old, you were in a park with us--while your brother was at daycare--including your Aunt Calliope, and a werewolf appeared out of nowhere. Back then, of course, I didn’t know it was a werewolf, but I know now. It was starving and we looked like a good meal.” His voice grew tight and he swallowed. I didn’t want to hear this. I felt sick.
“I was coming back from the bathrooms, so I could only watch as he leapt forward and . . . killed her.” His breath hitched and my chest burned. My Aunt Calliope, the one I had never known . . . she had been killed by a werewolf?
“You all escaped,” he said vaguely, not looking at me anymore. “I beat the tar out of that animal with a branch I’d found nearby. He was starving, so he wasn’t that hard to overpower. At her funeral, I met up with this man named Marshall Kingston and he told me he hunted werewolves. He explained everything.” He readjusted himself and looked me in the eyes this time.
“Now, I go around killing every one of those bastards I can get my hands on. None of them deserve to live.” His face was taut, his lips a set line. “That’s why we move all the time. I couldn’t have anyone getting suspicious.”
I grit my teeth. He was killing my own kind! I would never forgive him! He was doing it for his own pleasure—maybe for revenge—but not every one of those werewolves had done something horrible! I held back the desire to jump to my feet and rake my claws across his face in a sharp slap.
“Due to the fact that werewolves have heightened abilities, hunters developed a way to have heightened abilities as well,” he said, moving to the side of his desk with the drawers. He pulled a black binder out and gave it to me. I opened the binder and felt a wave of shocks go up and down my arm, like it had when I had changed four years ago. Except this time, it felt as if I was sticking my hands in a blender.
Inside the binder, I saw lots of black markings. One looked like a V with an umbrella handle going through the vertex. Another looked like a square without a top and an X was drawn threw it. The V-like one was for ‘any that come across to lose their sight’. The X-like one was to start fires. On the third page there was one that looked like a circle with two perpendicular lines that extended through both sides. That meant protection.
“These are Huntsman Hexes. They can do simple things, like start fires, causes temporary blindness, deafness, inability to smell, protection, brief invisibility and the like. Since werewolves can run faster, are stronger, and their senses are amped up to extreme levels, we have some special skills of our own to even the playing ground.” He pointed to the binder. I looked up at him, hiding my revulsion. “I want you to draw the protection symbol on everything you own. Practice them. Memorize them. Your parents don’t want me to train you to hurt werewolves, but you can be taught to protect yourself. I intend to do that.”
Every ‘oh crap’ phrase was flashing across my mind in neon letters. Oh crap, rats, dang it, and every other vulgar phrase I could think of came to mind. I creased my brow to hide my shock. He wasn’t ratting me out. He didn’t know I was one of those so-called ‘abominations’.
“Tomorrow I want you to know at least two. They can be drawn with any medium. But it has to go on the area intended for the hex. If you want a house to catch fire quickly, but you draw it on the sidewalk, it won’t work. You want to be invisible, but you draw it on your clothes, you walk around in your birthday suit. If you draw it on your skin, everything for five inches out is invisible. Get it?”
I nodded with a dry throat. I got it alright.
“Good.” He stood up and made a ‘shoo’ gesture. “I have work to do, Sigrid. Practice those. I’ll see you tomorrow.”
I stood up shakily. He killed werewolves.
He killed werewolves. Would he kill me? I spun on my heel and got out of that room as fast as humanly—oh, sorry, werewolf-ly possible. I couldn’t look at Uncle Zion anymore. He killed my own kind! I hated him! I understood about Aunt Calliope and how that werewolf that killed her should’ve died, but he shouldn’t have completely followed Marshall Kingston off the bat! Idiot! Now he was ruining everyone else’s lives!
I stomped in my room and kept myself from slamming the door. I couldn’t give any indication I was a werewolf. Not now. Not ever. Not until he was dead, as morbid as that sounded. I was trapped in a box, confined to only release my wolf at night or in my dreams. I would have to scrub my skin extra hard now, to hide my scent. I couldn’t let him know I was a werewolf, or he would kill me. My own uncle!
It was official: my life royally sucked.
………….