Chapter 6: The Healer’s Secret

*MIRA’S POV*

I drove as fast as the old van could go toward Ada’s house.

Ada was my reclusive Grandmother's medicine woman and her only friend. She had been living in an old cabin on the outskirts of Seattle for as long as I could remember.

Trae slept the whole drive. At least, I hoped that he was sleeping. He’d certainly lost a lot of blood and I could only wish for the best, considering the lack of medical supplies I had and the makeshift bandage I’d tied around him.

I didn’t know what forces were making me want to help this stranger, but as he lay there, weakly, when I draped a blanket over him, I couldn’t help but notice that he had a scent, an essence that was absolutely intoxicating. It seemed to put me in a trance-like state just like his touch did at the ranger’s station. What on earth was happening to me?

Whatever it was, it gave me a sense of confidence, like I was exactly where I was supposed to be, even though my mind was telling me to run for it.

We turned up the gravel drive to Ada’s cabin just as the sun was beginning to set. I honked the horn, hoping that she’d come and see how dire the situation was and lend me a hand.

The corner of an old faded curtain lifted in a window and Ada peered out at us. When she saw my grandmother's van, she pulled the curtain aside entirely and looked at me with astonishment.

“Ada, please come! I need your help!” I yelled, gesturing toward the passenger's seat.

Without any further hesitation, Ada was making her way down the front steps swiftly, wielding her cane. She reached the van as I threw the passenger side door open, revealing Trae’s limp figure.

To my astonishment, Duke sat beside the man and refused to leave his side.

Ada sniffed the air then turned to look at me, a suspicious frown on her face.

“Where did you find this man?” she asked.

“Seriously? He’s bleeding to death, and you are wondering where I found him?” I asked, taken aback by her lack of urgency.

“Yes. How did you come to have this gentleman in your company?” she pressed again, curtly with no explanation.

I was confused by her behavior. As a bit of a wild woman, Ada had always been eccentric, but she was like family and had always treated me kindly.

“I was camping, and I found him in the woods… he was just lying there,” I explained. “Ada, he’s been shot, and he wouldn’t let me take him to a hospital,” I blurted in desperation. She glared at the naked, bleeding man lying under a blanket.

“Yes, I see that,” she replied, coolly. “Where exactly were you camping?”

“I don’t know? Off of some dirt road near Leavenworth… What does that have to do with anything!?”

“Interesting,” she mused with still no sense of urgency. ”And why did you feel compelled to bring him here?”

“He said he’d been poisoned and that he needed a healer,” I expounded.

“Did he?” she asked, her voice finally sounding somewhat intrigued.

Trae stirred as Ada leaned in and laid a hand on his forehead.

“I could smell you for the last two miles,” she whispered to him. “Tell me boy, what is your surname, and why should I help a dog that is clearly unwanted by its own kind?”

Her cryptic words were lost on me, but they seemed to register with Trae. His eyes snapped open to attention.

“NorthStar my surname is NorthStar,” he muttered.

“NorthStar?” she considered his words.

“Yes, I was attacked… betrayed by a pack of rogues…” he whispered weekly, his brief moment of clarity abruptly coming to an end.

“Won’t you at least try to help him?” I asked.

“Why are you so concerned with his well being?” questioned Ada, eyeing me curiously.

“I don’t know. I can’t explain it,” I answered honestly. “But I feel like the universe pulled me toward him and put him directly in my path.”

Her jaw seemed to drop in surprise.

“I know it sounds crazy,” I continued. “But that path has led us to you.”

Ada placed both hands on the top of her cane and thought for a moment then shook her head. “No. I’m afraid I can’t help him. What you are asking me to do is too dangerous, and it goes directly against your grandmother's wishes.”

“Well she’s not here anymore is she?” I snapped, angrily. “But I am here. And I am asking you to help him. My grandmother can’t protect me forever.”

Trae moaned loudly and his entire body began to convulse.

“He’s going to die! Please Ada, please help him!” I cried.

***

*The next morning…*

*TRAE’S POV*

I awoke to the feeling of a hand on my shoulder. Without seeing her, I knew that it was her hand. Mira’s. I wasn’t sure how a human could possess such a touch, one that lured me in like a moth to the flame.

My apparent weakness for the girl disgusted me.

Instinctively, I wanted to shift from her and her scent. I opened my eyes and found that she was sitting beside the cot where I was lying. She was fast asleep, with her head resting near mine.

I slipped my shoulder out from under her hand and rose to my feet quietly, not wanting to wake her. Then bent over and gently picked her small frame up from the chair.

Still fast asleep, she sighed and nuzzled into me. I turned away, avoiding breathing in more of her scent as I laid her in my spot. Human or not, it was the least I could do. She had saved my life, after all. More than once.

The girl's dog wagged its tail and sat beside me. I gave it’s head a pat then picked up the cellphone that was laying beside her.

Sensing someone’s eyes watching me, I looked around the room and saw the old woman healer was seated in a corner.

I nodded at her.

“I am forever indebted to you. Thank you,” I stated, remembering her chanting over me all through the night as I continued to fade in and out of consciousness.

Despite my then catatonic state, I could feel the toxic wolfsbane being summoned from my body and the feeling of overwhelming relief as the wound in my chest began to finally heal itself.

“Thank her,” answered the woman, gesturing toward Mira with her cane. “Then leave here and never return. Unless you want to get all three of us killed.”

“I will,” I agreed. Mira must have told her that we may have been followed.

I took a step toward the healer trying to see her face in the shadows.

“How does a human girl know a… healer like you?” I asked quietly, not wanting to say the word ‘wolf’ in Mira’s presence.

“Oh, please. Do you take me for a fool?” scoffed the old woman with a speculative glare.

I cocked my head in confusion. “What?”

“Don't sit there and pretend to think that she’s a human,” she whispered angrily.

I looked over my shoulder at Mira who was still fast asleep.

“What else would she be?” I wondered aloud.

I was a wolf after all, there was no hiding anything from my superior senses.

“Okay, then why were you following her?” asked the old woman.

“Following her?”

“She said she found you in the woods, near her campsite, and I'm supposed to believe that you don’t know what she really is after you were clearly tracking her?”

“I was attending a council, to reclaim my pack's rightful territory, and was ambushed. I had no idea that she was nearby,” I said. I was half lying because I didn't owe her an explanation, even if she was a great healer.

In truth, once I’d picked up Mira’s scent the first time on the mountainside, it had been easy to pick up again when she was camping that evening. But I certainly wasn't tracking her. She was the one trespassing onto my land. I just hoped she wasn’t staying for long when I picked up her scent.

The healer stood and walked toward me. She raised the end of her cane up towards my forearm and pointed it at my birthmark.

“Then explain this tattoo. You expect me to believe that you have a tattoo bearing her family's sacred crest, the very crest that is on her bracelet, and you still didn’t know?”

“First of all, that’s not a tattoo, it's a birthmark, " I answered impatiently. “And second, I have no idea what the hell you are talking about. What bracelet?”

What was this crazy old lady going on about? The healer grabbed my arm and held it up to the light.

“What did you say your surname was?” she asked, peering down at my birthmark…

“Northstar, but what does that have to do with anything?” I wondered.