Page 3 of Protected By the Wolf

“You do not want to become me,” she said quietly. “Alone, forgotten.”

“You’re a ghost.”

“I am not a ghost!” She took a deep breath and released it. “I am a spirit of the house. I guard this abode so that the wards stay up to keep our family treasures and secrets safe.”

“You’ve told me. I’m sorry, it’s just?—”

She sighed. “I know I look like a ghost. You can see through me, and technically, I am. But it makes me feel forgotten.”

“I get it. I’m sorry.”

She reached over and patted my hand. “Don’t turn into me, Lira. That’s partly why our Wu family magic started dwindling. I shut myself away with my daughter. I thought I could teach her everything she needed to know before I set her free. I chose to stay here, alone and secluded.”

“You still haven’t told me why you hid yourself away.”

“And I’m not going to. That’s ancient history.”

That’s what she thought. I’ll get it out of her.

Charli released another sigh, louder this time. “Lira, you are alive.”

“Yes, I know.”

“No! Listen. You are lively. You live for this life of yours. That’s the person you are.”

“And my family and friends all think I’m flighty and have no responsibilities. They’re right.”

“No, Lira. You love life where many of them don’t.” She held up a hand to stop me from interrupting. “That’s what sets you apart. That’s why the magic has returned, and only to you. You are willing to be free.”

I let her words sink in and thought back to the first time we met. She ‘haunted’ me for days while making food for me, singing me to sleep, and basically grand-mothering me until I realized that she wasn’t going anywhere. I’d had no choice but to admit she was actually there.

It was Charli who brought me back to the books in the library. She encouraged me to read up on my family history. I learned my grandmother was the last witch of the family, and not a very strong one at that. Our power had started diminishing with Charli’s daughter. No one knew why, but by the time Mom was born, all our power was gone, and the Wu house was abandoned after Charli passed away. It was a lot to swallow, and I took pride in knowing I hadn’t run for the hills.

“I’m going to give you two days to hide here, then I’m sending you back out,” Charli had said to me. “You must live and be with people in order for your magic to grow.”

“And what about this grove I’ve read about? ‘The seat of our family’s power?’”

“You are not ready for that.”

And this response was how it always went—Charli shut me down every time.

“Fine.” For now, I said to myself. “What’s the catch for letting me stay for two days?”

“You must meditate and do your breathing exercises. Let your vision of this boy materialize so you can find out who he is.”

I groaned.

“Or you can head back to your sister now,” she added firmly.

“I’ll stay,” I grumbled. At least the boy was handsome. I didn’t mind looking at him in my vision. It was all the ‘what-ifs’ that came after seeing him that I didn’t want to know. Visions in movies never turned out well. I didn’t see how mine would be any better.

Three days later, I returned to the hotel room, looking forward to seeing Millie. We might be complete opposites when it came to personalities, but my sister was still my best friend. Not waiting for her to wake up, I jumped on her bed. She groaned when she saw me, which prompted me to turn up my Lira Factor.

As she prepped for the morning and ate her breakfast, I told her all about my trip to Africa and how I rode on a camel backward. The crazier the story became, the less questions I received, and no questions was what I was aiming for.

Millie already thought I was irresponsible, flitting here and there while dropping problems for others to fix. But what she didn’t know was that even though these visions only started a year ago, I’d always had weird feelings at the most inopportune times. My hands would start shaking, and I’d come back to reality with the realization I couldn’t remember the last ten minutes of my life, or how I got to wherever I was at the time. Foods would also taste different to me, and not because it had gone bad, or I was sick, or had lost my sense of taste; they just tasted . . . different.

When I was eight, a Snickers bar was my favorite sweet treat, and I was eating them almost every day. Mom had told me to stop for a week, as I needed to cut back on my sugar intake. When I’d complained and said I couldn’t go cold turkey, we bargained out a deal. It was agreed that I would start off by having one every other day, and then every two days after that, and so forth until I was only having one a week. And instead of a Snickers bar, Mom made me bring oranges to school. I ate the first one begrudgingly, but after a few days of eating the fruit, I actually started enjoying them. But I was still annoyed that I was forced to stop eating my favorite snack.

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