Chapter 4 What’s the real story, Mom?
I walked inside expecting to see my mom waiting for me so we could get this over with already. But when I looked around I couldn't find her.
"Mom…? Hey mom I am home. Where are you? I want to get this done so I can study for my finals tomorrow." I called out.
"I am in the attic. Will you join me up here please?" She speaks softly as if my brothers and sisters are already home.
"Okay give me a minute and I will be up. I just have to put my bag up."
"Alright Honey. Please grab us some hot coco and a few of the sandwiches out of the fridge. We are going to be up here for a while."
"What does that mean?" I mumble quietly to myself.
After about 20 minutes, I have everything ready. As I climbed the stairs to the attic I thought hard about what we would be talking about that would need us to be in the attic. We never go into the attic, that's where dad's office used to be.
After I carefully put the hot cocoa on the top step to the attic I climb up with the tray of sandwiches. Once on the second to last step I put the tray on the attic floor and move the coco.
"Alright I am here what's up?"My words dripped with dread because I didn't want to have this conversation now or ever.
" We have a lot to talk about and it's going to take more than just one night. There is something that you don't know about your father. This is going to be hard to hear and you might not believe me." Mom answered in a soft and sheepish voice.
"Are you scared to tell me something mom?" I ask confused, what could be so scary to my mom that her voice would be sheepish. Never in my life have I ever heard her sound like that.
"You might feel betrayed by this and I don't want you to start hating your father because of this. That and this could change your whole world. I am afraid if I tell you this, that it could awaken something in you. Something that neither of us can control." Her voice is shaking with emotion. Mostly fear but anger and sadness are there as well.
"What is it?" I am scared of what she might say at this point. All the hair on the back of my neck is standing on end. My fox instincts are telling me to change and run. I am so stressed about what she might say I don't even notice that I have started changing. My ears are longer and furry. my hands are covered in amber fur my fingers are shortening into paws. My palms changed to 3in round paws.
"May stop it, you need to hear this. You can't just run away from this. I can't either and I don't want to do this either. Now get control and stop shifting. I am going to tell you this even if I have to pin you down to do so." She uses the command that used to belong to my father. The sound of it coming from her clams me and ticks me off at the same time.
"Grrr… Tell me already." I growl at her, speech being hard when you're half fox already. I sit and try to reverse the change but it only stops. My face and hands do not return to normal.
"Your father was not a shifter. He was a wolf. He used a bit of magic to make him look like a fox to you kids. But it was only that you guys wanted to see a fox that you never saw the wolf running with us. I hoped I would never have to tell you this. He agreed it would be better if you and your siblings thought he was a fox not a wolf. He thought it would help keep you safe." She is whimpering as she tells me this.
Pain shoots threw me finding out that my whole life my mom and dad both lied to me about who he was. I don't know anything about him anymore. My world cracks and breaks falling away from me. All my memories have fun and laughter with him fall and break into tiny shards that keep falling into a black pit of nothing.
As my world crumbles around me I am left standing in front of a mirror looking down. As I watch I shift, human, fox, wolf, human, then a cross of the fox and wolf, then I am on four legs two fox legs two wolves. My paws are my hands and feet, not fox or wolf but human. My face shifting with every tilt of my head. I am not human, not fox, not wolf. What am I?
"May!" I hear my name being screamed but it sounds so far away. I can't tell who is calling for me, only that they are scared.
Pain hits me again but it's not emotional this time. My whole body shakes with so much pain, that I black out.
"It's time to fight Darek, you may hide yourself from your bastard kids and that bitch you call a wife. But you can never hide from us" A strange but familiar voice says in my head. I know that voice. All of a sudden I was just a pup again. The pain was still there I could feel it but it was more of a dull throb in my bones.
"Don't you dare call my family those names. If you wanna fight lets go. But if I win you never come back, if you win I then take my life but leave my family be. It's me you want not them." My dad's strong voice booms.
"No deal when I win I am going after your wife. That woman owes me a lot, taking her life would just be putting her out of her pain. She doesn't deserve that after the hell she put our pack through. But I will let your cubs live so they can suffer for the rest of their lives . I will drag your dead body back to them and tell them the truth that you are too scared to tell. I will make them watch as I kill Jenny. They will know that you lied and failed them. They will know the truth."
"NOOO!" My father yells and shifts snarling. He lunges for the other man.
I look around trying to find somewhere better to hide. I was standing in a bush shaking with fear. Then I hear a whimper coming from the fight. Before I even stop to think I bolt out to my father's side. I was already in fox form even so I was faster than I should have been. My dad no longer looked like a big fox but a wolf the size of a rino. I should have only come up to his elbow but for some reason I was taller than I should have been too. I came up to his neck a whole three feet taller than I should have been.
"Oh here's one of the damned hybrids now. Let's see what color her blood is." The man said.
He reached for me and I froze. Before he could get close enough to touch me, my dad had his arm in his mouth. Freed from the fear, I opened my mouth and launched myself at the strange man's head. I missed but grabbed his left shoulder. I closed my jaw and started grinding my teeth on his skin. Shredding it like paper. The man screamed in my ear. The pitch he hit was so high it hurt so I had to let go. I staggered trying to get my footing. Spots of black dance across my field of view.
Before my vision clears I am sprinting at the man again. His screams are my guide. Just as I reached the man my dad jumped in front of me growling. At first I think he is growling at the man but then I see his eyes are on me. What's happening and why is he growling at me. I started to panic, I didn't know what to do. Then I feel rhythm dancing through my bones. In the rhythm I can hear my dad's voice.
"Run! Go now. While he is down, go."
He wasn't threatening me, he was warning me. I turned to run but my sight was blocked by tears. As I turned the rhythm died something was wrong. As soon as I thought of that I could tell my father was hurt. I turn back to see him hit the ground. His side is slashed open ribs showing blood flowing over his black coat.
A Red wolf is standing over him ready to make the killing blow. I sprint at the red wolf. Moving faster than I ever had before, I made it to the red wolf before he even thought to make sure that I wasn't still there. I was determined to keep this wolf off my dad.
The moment we collided my claws dug in. I made sure that if I was going to lose my grip then I was going to cause as much damage as possible. "My claws shouldn't be this long," I thought. My teeth are sinking in deep. He panicked trying to get me off of him. Being in wolf form he didn't have the needed shoulder movement to rip me off his side. In frantic need he ran to the nearest tree and slammed me into it over and over again. As the world around me faded I thought " If I die here at least my dad will be alright."
The next thing I remember is waking up at home in my bed. My parents holding each other with stress written all over their faces.
"Mommy? Daddy? What happened. Daddy where is the bad man? Did you win?" My voice horse filled with worry.
"Oh my gosh! You're okay, yes I won. That bad man will never bother us again thanks to you." My dad's voice is calm but straind.
Then I blinked and found myself lying on the attic floor still not completely in one form or another. I have four feet but my head is still human. I have fur covering my whole body and a weird thin extra long tail.
Dizzy and confused I try to stand up. As soon as my feet are under me I fall back to the floor to dizzy to see straight. As my dizziness and confusion start to wear off I panic.
"DAD!" I call out in rage tinged with sadness. My confusion is gone. I remember that he can't answer me. That he will never answer my call. For a brief moment I forgot he was gone. I thought that maybe all of this was just a dream. I wanted all of this to just be a dream. Let me go back to that time. We were happy, safe and most importantly my dad was still alive.
" May, honey are you okay? What happened? You were shifting but not into a fox. Honey are you hurt? It's okay mama's here now, you're safe." My mom's voice is full of fear and worry.
"I am okay, I just remembered something I had forgotten. Mom why? Why did you guys hide it from us? Didn't you think we had a right to know?" My voice shakes with anger as I accuse her.
"Oh honey we wanted to tell you kids but. Well if we had then his pack and my leash would have an easier time finding us. Honey, there is a lot more you need to know and it's going to take more than one day to tell you." My mom told me with a sorrowful look in her eyes.
"Why do we have to stay hidden from them? Is that why I have only seen grandma a few times? That's why whenever we see her we meet somewhere far away from home and never go to her house? That's why you two are always fighting?" Sadness and frustration thick in my voice. Memories of all the things they said about us and to each other. Being the oldest, it was always my job to bear the pain and to hide it from my little brothers and sisters.