Page 7 of The Alpha Dire Wolf
All my love,
Grandma
“The guardian. What guardian? Guardian of what? The forest?” I shook my head, frustrated at the lack of transparency in the letter. What had my grandmother been trying to tell me?
And why?
There was so little information in the letter. Almost none of it helpful, other than to act as a foreboding sense of impending disaster, now that disaster had struck, and she was gone. Leaving me alone and confused, without anything to go on.
No, that wasn’t entirely true.
A niggle in the back of my brain drew my attention away from the letter in front of me and back to the front hall. To the table next to the grandfather clock in particular.
In a rush, I was on my feet, standing over the wooden surface and staring down at the piece of paper with my name scribbled on it and the journal beneath it.
Grabbing it up, I thumbed open the first page and whistled.
“Journal #74?” I noted the date as being her birthday. Quick math said she’d been journaling since she was twelve. “Seventy-three more of these?” I hefted the journal. It wasn’t slim.
Tapping the book against one hand, I let myself become lost in thought about the woman who had become a second mother to me in many ways. I’d known much about her, but journaling was a new thing.
What else had she kept secret?
Thumbing open to the first entry, I read more about the forest, mostly skipping that, and the mundane notes about what she’d done that particular day. I smiled when I got to the part where she talked about me showing up with cupcakes and a card. Tears trickled down my cheeks, warm tracks on the cool skin. She sounded so happy.
“I’m glad you enjoyed it as much as I did, Grandma. I’m just sorry I wasn’t here when you really needed me.”
I didn’t need you in death, dearie. I had you in life.
I wasn’t sure where the words came from, but they certainly sounded like something she would say.
Blinking until I could see clearly, I read on.
I wished I hadn’t.
Time is running out. I have failed. The bonds are being withdrawn, and soon the chains will begin to fail. They must be reforged before it is too late.
I stared at the four sentences. The writing was very clearly hers. But the words. I had never heard the woman speak like this. Ever. She was a kindly old lady who enjoyed her bridge, going to church and weekly bingo nights. This … this was different.
Flipping the page, I was again left stunned at the opening lines.
The guardian presence of the forest is fading. It’s strength and welcoming are dissolving as the cold darkness begins to worm its way in. No longer do I feel protected in its arms.
The last sentence in particular held my attention. I reread it a dozen times. More. My grandmother used to feel protected in the forest too? A validation of years of my childhood, and it was right there, on the page.
I had told my parents, over and over again, how walking in the forest made me feel safe and secure. Like it was looking out for me. None of them had understood. All my childhood life, I had thought I was crazy. Now here, on the page, was confirmation that someone else had felt it too.
Only she was saying it was gone.
I looked into the kitchen, out the window and across the back lawn, past the giant oak tree standing alone with its tire swing, to the tree line of the forest another fifty feet back.
Fresh sadness welled up as I fought with the realization that now, after all these years, I would never get the chance to talk about it. Because she was gone.
The harshgongof the grandfather clock startled me out of any impending reverie or downward spiral, reminding me that my time was also running out. I had a funeral to attend, and I needed to pull myself together if I was going to make it.
Returning to the funeral home where I buried my parents wouldn’t be easy.
Chapter Four
