April
Summer should be every child's haven.
School is out, the weather is warm, playtime begins.
But for me, summer means days and nights spent with my parents attending functions and stuffy dinners. At least during school I get to play with my friends and be creative in class.
Dinner fork, salad fork, soup spoon, teaspoon, dessert spoon, dinner knife and salad knife.
"Make sure the plates are straight," my mother tells me from across the dining table as I stare down at the assortment of cutlery that I have carefully set out. I straighten the dinner plate over the service plate, inch by careful inch. It has to be perfect; we must be dutiful hosts.
The men that are coming to our house for dinner work with my father. They bring along their picture perfect families. I don't know why my parents have to work so hard to get the others to like them. It is something about our wealth being new; my parents grew up poor but my father has become a successful corporate lawyer. I don't know what he does exactly and it doesn't interest me in the slightest. My mother calls the men he works with 'old money'. Wealth that isn't earned, but passed down through generations. I can't fathom why that would matter, why any of this matters.
At dinner, I am silent. My red hair has been pulled back into a tight bun that nearly scalps me, my dress is scratchy and the collar chokes me.
Finally, when they are gone and I am showered and in comfortable pajamas, I sink into bed and I dream.
I see a black wolf, prowling through a dark forest. Trees tower around me like silent sentinels as I stand in the middle of a small clearing. The wolf snarls, unnatural amber eyes glowing as it stalks between the trunks, but I'm not afraid.
Why would I be afraid? This wolf would never hurt me.
I know it implicitly, the way one knows the sun will rise and set and the moon will wane and wax.
The wolf steps into the silvery moonlight, jaws snapping, hackles raised. I should be afraid, I should run...But I am carefully still. Waiting.
It comes closer, sticks breaking under its large paws. A low growl fills the night air.
I reach out a hand and for one moment, I am sure it is going to bite me. But then it nuzzles against my fingers gently. The coarse fur of its face tickles my palm. I run my hand up between the animal's ears, but then it slips away, circling me slowly. I turn to watch it, our eyes meeting. There is something about those glowing eyes, something deeper. They are animalistic, of course, but they are also so achingly human.
I reach out for the wolf, but suddenly it is gone and I fall forward toward the forest floor...
I wake with a start, gripping the sheets of my bed tightly. The memory of my dream—so vivid I could almost swear it was real—clings to me as I look around my darkened, empty bedroom.
⋆⁺₊⋆ ☾⋆⁺₊⋆