Page 26 of Wolf's Fate

“Oh, they did,” she told me earnestly. “Noel made them work for it. Yard work, they did lots of work in and around the house. They did extra practice with their dad, so they did a lot. But the kitchen chores never stuck.”

I kept my mouth shut because it sounded very much like the housework was deemed not acceptable for the men in the house. Not my business. But still, when Noel came in from the den to ask if Lorna was making more coffee, I had to bite my tongue to tell him to make it himself.

The man had stopped jobs to fix my house and store. I should be making him his coffee.

“Are you feeling better?” he asked me for the second time.

“Yes, sorry about earlier.”

“It’s fine, just had me worried for a couple of minutes there when you didn’t come back.”

I’d left him to go to the bakery. Instead, I went to the library and lost track of time. I had checked out two books, which were stuffed into my tote so they couldn’t see them. Not that I was ashamed, I just didn’t want to explain my sudden interest in the supernatural.

Explain that the two books had taken precedence over thethank-you pastries. I had picked up one on spirituality and the other aptly calledHow Do You Know If You’re Psychic. I planned to read them both in bed later. Not cover to cover, just skim.

It had been a good plan, and like most good plans, it went wonky when, instead of skimming them, I read them cover to cover, and when I heard Noel rise for work, I realized I had spent the whole night reading. My ME would not appreciate this, and I hastily shuffled down the bed to catch a couple of hours of sleep before the smell of bacon lured me from slumber.

I fell asleep immediately, but it was not a restful sleep. Almost immediately, image after image of Caleb flooded my mind.

The images had come to me in fragments, pieces that were hazy and unclear at first, but little by little they came into focus. Caleb was alone in the middle of that clearing I now knew as well as I knew my own home. It seemed soempty. The clearing had that huge log cabin in the corner and was surrounded by trees, but there was just the feeling ofnothingness. He looked different, even in so short a time. He looked…haunted.

Caleb was tall, six three, and he always seemed taller because he had excellent posture, standing tall with confidence, and never slouched. His whole persona was one of sureness, and in the vision, he lookedlessthan that. Less than him. He looked dull like his light was extinguished.

I felt as though I could see the isolation and loneliness that reached for him, eager to surround him like a blanket that offered no comfort. His head was bowed, his shoulders slumped, and when he turned his head to look my way, I sawthe vacant stare, looking right through me as he stood there looking like he had given up.

I wanted to reach for him, comfort him, and tell him that even though he had isolated himself, he was not alone.

But as the fragments joined into a clearer picture, even I couldn’t put a positive spin on how utterly defeated he looked. There was no sign of life around him. He was alone, no pack, no friends, no one beside him.

Only the darkness.

At first, I thought it was shadows from the tall pine trees, but then I realized it was darkness that reached for him while it stretched out impossibly far in front of him.

Image after image flooded my dreams, and as they filled my head, I began to see what I had missed before.

The darkness wasn’t around him; it wasinsidehim. Was it in him and wanting out, or was he taking it into himself the more he stayed away? I didn’t have the answer, but I knew I couldn’t bear to watch him as his strength ebbed away and he embraced the solitude that was crushing his soul.

He was fading.

Despite knowing I wasn’t awake, knowing in my own subconscious that this was a dream, I still called for him. I yelled at him to rally, not to give up, but the more I yelled, the more I saw it tighten around him, almost seeping into his pores, embedding itself under his skin.

I could see it wearing him down, and Caleb—he didn’t fight it. As the images slowed, I saw him weaken. I watched as he sagged further under the weight of misery that clung to him. I saw his body crouch and almost curl in on itself.

Horror gripped my throat as I saw the very ground onwhich he stood turn black and boggy, ready to pull him under, pulsing in anticipation of claiming its prize.

The ribbons of darkness spun out from him, reaching to the sky and meeting…nothing. What had they said to me…he needed a pack? Is this what happened when you had none? When there were no connections to a pack or another person, effectively cutting yourself off from everyone. And only you remained, cloaked in an isolation of your own making.

The images changed, morphing in front of me, twisting into something more than a man bowing in weakness, changing to slashes of blackness that shimmered with night as they covered his body. Had it been an actual sketch, I would have drawn thick, black, heavy lines across the page, erasing the details ofhim.

Tingles of fear peppered down my back as I understood the message for the first time. Caleb wouldn’t hold on much longer. He was in a battle for his soul, and he wasn’t even fighting. Once he let the darkness take him, there would be no coming back, because he would be powerless to stop it.

Caleb was slipping away. If he remained there any longer, he would be lost to me forever.

I woke up in tears. I didn’t care where I was, I didn’t care whose bed I was in, I didn’t care that Lorna would be watching the clock for me to come down. The urge to draw, to record what I had witnessed, consumed me. I reached for my sketchbook and pencil tin and began to draw everything I had seen.

My fear at what he would become, and my anger that he was letting it happen, poured out onto the page. When I was done, I sat back and looked at what I had created.

More tears spilled over. I could sense the desolation reaching out of the page for me.