Charlotte P Lambert

  
“What did you see on the video?” Mishka asked in a whisper. She could not keep her curiosity to herself. She needed to know even before dinner.  
“We saw Myrtle call the cat into the nursery and then she fed it a live rat. She wasn’t even afraid to hold onto the rat by its tail,” Gillian responded.
***
While Mishka Classens practices her singing in the woods one afternoon she runs into Bruce Cameron, a handsome, famous fashion designer. 
When she confides in her friend, Gillian’s mother about the meeting, Joan tells her that Bruce is an estranged cousin of Joan’s and that he is a werewolf. 
So, Joan wants Mishka to keep Gillian away from Bruce and keep the family secret, but Gillian already has a crush on him.
Bruce wants to be a normal human because his human family does not accept him as a wolf, but he also loves his unusual powers and diverse creativity. 
Eventually he and Mishka confide in each other about their burdens in life and become close with regular meetings in the woods, where they exchange creative ideas about fashion and music. They also plan to do shows together. 
Myrtle, Mishka’s bossy grandmother is an undercover fortune teller. She had a premonition about Mishka being involved with a werewolf one day, so she wants to orchestrate Mishka’s life so that this will never happen. 
She almost has a heart attack when she finds out that Mishka is involved with Bruce. She tries everything in her power to split them apart.
After a series of weird and bad events, Mishka and Bruce find out that Myrtle is causing the problems in their lives and in their relationship. They decide to join forces against her by confusing her spells, making them powerless.



The Siren and the Wolf

Mishka moved through the hotel lobby like a sleepwalker, her mind racing ahead to the garden, to the impossible image on her phone. Hotel guests and staff passed her in a blur of faces and voices that seemed to come from far away. Her heart beat an unsteady rhythm against her ribs as she pushed through the ornate glass doors to the outside. 


The garden was quiet in the late afternoon sun, shadows lengthening across manicured lawns and carefully arranged stone. The koi pond glittered with orange and white flashes as fish moved beneath the surface. Just as in the photo, the light struck the water at an angle that created familiar patterns—echoes of the disk's symbols dancing across the rippling surface. 


But there was no one waiting by the pond. No Catherine. No mysterious woman in white. Just empty benches and the occasional flutter of fallen leaves. 


"Mom?" Mishka called softly, feeling foolish and desperate in equal measure. 


Reflections and Refractions