Page 25 of The Lone Wolf Café
I turned to face the path to the cottages, then the path to the town square, and groaned.
You just need to get through this evening.I reminded myself.You’ll be able to go to bed early tonight and adjust your sleep schedule.
My exhaustion won.
I didn’t end up going into town.
Instead, I sluggishly dragged my feet to the cottage, flopped down on the dusty floor, and let my fatigued body melt into the hardwood.
You know, if you’d gone into town, you could’ve found a place that had coffee.
I groaned, fighting back my caffeine cravings for the second time that day, and shifted my cape beneath my head. It was stilllight outside, which meant the temperature hadn’t plummeted, and the slight, breezy chill was comfortable enough for me to fall asleep within minutes.
When I woke, it was dark outside. I stumbled off the floor, and the resulting cloud of dust caused me to sneeze several times. It was nighttime, but I could see Rowena’s silhouette sipping tea in the cottage across from me, so I knew it wasn’t overly late. Since it got dark so early in Maine, it was likely only 6 or 7 p.m.
But it was still too late to go back into town. Rowena mentioned most shops closed at five, which meant even though I now had more energy, I couldn’t go to the general store and fetch those desperately-needed cleaning supplies.
I debated resorting to the half-destroyed broom again, but I’d left it on the front porch overnight, and I shuddered at the thought of bugs, ticks, and other pests crawling in the bristles. So I laid back down, this time with my arms crossed behind my head, and closed my eyes.
But I wasn’t as tired now, so I let my mind slip away into my memories. Thoughts of leaf piles came back, and I remembered a cool autumn afternoon from when I was very young. We were at the edge of a forest near a marina, with rows of sailboats lightly bobbing in the calm water. I was almost certain it wasn’t on Hollenboro. My father led me, hand-in-hand, up a steep, leaf-covered hill. My mother sat at the bottom, next to a humble blue house perched on the water, her belly swollen with my yet-to-be-born twin sisters. She was blurry in my mind; I struggled to remember what she looked like other than having red hair. I assumed she was short, with pale skin and green eyes. Just like me.
I sank further into the memories.Leaves flying in the air, my father’s smiling face, my mother’s laugh, a squeaking sound…
Wait.
A squeaking sound.
“Hello?” I whispered into the dark abyss of my cottage. The wind rustled at my feet, and as I moved away, the wind followed, swirling at the toes of my boots like a tornado.
My jaw fell open in pleasant surprise as the wind solidified into a semi-transparent little mouse.
“Oh, it’s you again!” I exclaimed, offering an outstretched palm. The air elemental happily climbed on, and I giggled as her little airy nose sniffed my fingers.
“Sorry, I’m not sure what to call you. We still never decided on a name, did we?”
The mouse shook her head.
“Hmm…” She needed something more unique than Windy or Breezy. I dug deep into my mind, searching for answers, and another memory surfaced.
When I was a child, one of my cousins rescued a seagull that was tangled in fishing line. The bird hung around for a while, and my cousin named herAria, claiming it meant “air”. When I asked him where he found that name, he said in one of the books in Hollenboro’s communal library.
I never managed to track down which book the name was in, but I did like it. I suggested the name to the air elemental, and she responded with an enthusiastic squeak.
“Alright… so I guess you have a name,” I held out my finger, as if offering a handshake. “Nice to officially meet you, Aria.”
Aria extended her slender paw and pressed it against my fingertip. Through the ever-moving gusts of wind that made up her face, I swore I saw her smile.
A breeze washed over me, ruffling my cape and tossing tendrils of my long red hair into the air. I stumbled around in confusion as the wind increased in both speed and power, engulfing me like a tornado. I let out a panicked shout, but Aria patted the toe of my boot and gave me a reassuring squeak.
I paused. Suddenly, the tornado of wind no longer felt wild or frightening. I held out my hand and extended my fingers, feeling the wind sweep through them like a rushing waterfall. It felt powerful. Beautiful.
Instead of curling in on myself and hiding from the wind, I embraced it. I stood up tall and raised my chin, imagining the wind wasn’t a tornado but a simple autumn breeze. I didn’t know why, but something about this felt natural. As if the wind were calling to some long-forgotten magic hidden deep in my blood.
There was a sudden slapping sensation on my neck, like the wind had burned me, and everything died down as quickly as it began. The cottage felt eerily still with the wind gone, and I was left dumbfounded with a little mouse at my feet and a prickly feeling against my neck.
I lifted my fingertips to touch the skin just behind my ear. It felt different.
I needed a mirror.
