Page 14 of Wolf's Whisper

I scratched my head. "That doesn't sound so bad?"

"Oh, but then he threw a whole bucket of water over her. And when she tried to run after him, the tree took a big chunk of her hair. It took months to regrow." Darren chimed in.

"Ouch, that sounds painful."

Regan nodded again. He was a big nodder. "Yes, Ash was livid. We had to tell Aspen to knock it down a peg."

"So the fights were over?" I asked, simpleton that I was.

Danny tore herself away from Darren. "Oh dear heavens, no, that was only the beginning. We call it The First Great War."

"Hmm..." I hummed in disbelief. Surely, it couldn't have been that bad?

"Oh y-yes. It was a b-bad year. It involved a l-l-lot of angry bees, more burned off eyeb-b-brows, and one time, a m-moose."

I threw another look at the twisted twins and found Aspen now hidden high up in a tree, while Ashleigh seemed to be furiously hacking it down, slivers of wood flying everywhere. What a weird bunch. How did I get involved with them again?

Oh right, wolf in pain, sadness, yada yada.

At least she was making tinder. I could grab it, run away from these crazy people and start my own campfire again.

"Just ignore them. They will calm down soon," Regan advised as he went back building a miniature house out of moss and sticks.

"You sure we don't need to go and... I don't know, help?"

Darren laughed. "Oh no, I made the mistake once of interfering in one of their fights. They both came after me instead. Aspen threw an axe at my head."

"Oookay..." Staying away from them, it is. I gave my log-chair another shove and decided to let the kids play.

"Sooo... How do you all know crazy twins?"

Darren and Danny finally pulled apart.

"I have known the twins basically from birth. They were my neighbours. They burned down my house once. It was interesting," Regan casually said, like people going around and burning down houses was a regular thing.

"Alrrrrighty?" I think...

"I met Ashleigh a long time ago. She tried to cut off my ponytail, so I hit her and we have been best friends ever since!" Danny chirped in, and again, I wondered about the sanity of the group.

Darren grinned as he folded his arms behinds his head. "I met them both when I started going out with Danny. I thought they were kind of weird in the beginning, but you get used to it real quick. Don't worry about it," he reassured me.

Well, if Darren could get used to it, so could I, right? I turned to JP who seemed oddly quiet, even for his part. "How did you meet the twisted twins?"

A smile broke through on his face. "I-I wasn't a very p-popular kid... I g-got bullied a lot. A l-lot. A-Aspen and Ashleigh got rid of my b-b-bullies. I never really had much f-friends in my entire l-life. B-But now I have a family."

He smiled as Danny kissed him tenderly on his cheek and wrapped her arms around him.

“You’re all my family," JP added, his stutter oddly gone.

A warm and comfortable feeling fell over our little group and although they all seemed crazy, I got a brief glimpse of why they all stuck together.

"Aaaaarrrggghhh!"

A scream echoed through the night as Ashleigh finally managed to take down the tree, and Aspen with it. With a loud crash, the tree smacked into the frozen ground and the naked man tumbled out onto the branches

"Oww, oww, owww, needles in my butt. Needles in my butt!"

A laugh clear as water accompanied the screaming and I felt the wolf inside me stir. An intense longing filled my chest as I looked at the female figure hitting her brother with a fan of branches.

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