Heartsong (Green Creek 3)

motes of dust/something more

When I dreamed, these pinpricks of light filtered through the trees of an old forest. It was safe there. I didn’t know how I knew that. I just did.

I wanted to run as fast as I could. The maddening itch to shift crawled underneath my skin, and I needed to give in.

I didn’t.

Leaves crunched underneath my feet.

I ran my hand along the bark of an old elm. It was rough. And then it was wet from a trickle of sap. I rubbed it between my fingers, sticky and warm.

The trees whispered.

They said here here here.

They said here is where you belong.

They said here is where you are meant to be.

They said this is PACK and LIFE and SONGS in the air SONGS that are sung because this is home home home.

I closed my eyes and breathed.

The light seemed brighter in the darkness.

Little motes of dust swirled.

I brought the pitch on my fingers to my tongue.

It tasted old.

And strong.

And—

A low growl off to my right.

I opened my eyes.

A white wolf stood a ways off in the trees. It had a smattering of black on the chest, legs, and back.

I didn’t know it

(him)

but I thought it

(him)

familiar somehow, like it was right there on the tip of my tongue, mixed in with elm sap and—

Its eyes began to burn with red fire.

An Alpha.

I wasn’t scared.

It—he—wasn’t there to hurt me.

I didn’t know how I knew that. Maybe it was the trees. Maybe it was this place. Maybe it was the sap coating my throat.

I said, “Hello.”

The Alpha snorted, shaking his head.

I said, “I don’t know where I am. I think I’m lost.”

He pawed at the ground, carving jagged lines in the dirt and grass.

I said, “Do you know where I am?”

And he said, you are far away.