Chapter 24
I didn’t know that to be true until the second I just thought it. I crave safety over love.
My mother told me she loved me and she also was the person who walked out of the apartment while her drunk and coked out boyfriend strangled me half to death.
I never felt safe in my home. I never even had a consistent home. Mom couldn’t pay bills and we’d be evicted from places. We did a lot of couch surfing, but who the hell wants to host two junks and a kid. They didn’t, and we’d be out on our asses again.
I’ve lived in shelters from time to time and I hated them. People weren’t nice there and you had to be in a room with so many others and you’d hear all types of things at night. I would be afraid to shut my eyes.
Just like I am too afraid to shut them right now. I’ve spent my life afraid.
Afraid of strangers touching me or my very few personal belongings in the overcrowded shelters, or in broken down apartments that we were living in where junkies of all kinds would come through the house all hours of the day and night.
Humans were the creatures I feared then but now it’s other animals out here who might be hungry and looking for a snack.
I’m helpless out here. Have I always been helpless? I exhaled a long shaky breath at the thought. I don’t want to be afraid or helpless. I hated the idea of it.
I clenched my fists tight and decided to shut my eyes to try and meditate again but at the first sound of shifting leaves they snapped open again and that was it. I couldn’t close them.
The more my mind reeled with all these thoughts of Devran, being vulnerable out in this world and my last one, and everything else I began to cry. I felt silly for doing so but it all just came pouring out of me.
I pushed out of the cross legged position and instead hugged my knees to my chest. “If there is a God or Goddess out there are you even listening?”
I should feel ridiculous yelling that out to the moon in the sky but I felt it was taunting me being above head that way and just passing through the night like any other. What the hell was I doing here?
My sadness turned to anger. My small fists grabbed at the dirt beneath me and I held it’s soil tightly in my palms. Why is my life like this?
If there is a Moon Goddess does she only guide wolves? Mate wolves in their beautiful bonds? Why did she include me in this at all? Why lead me here to Devran just so I could be rejected?! Was it that I was led to him at all?
Fate, coincidence, or circumstance? I had no idea which it could be.
My shitty life led to me running away from home. Running away from home led me to that mountain town where I was taken by that awful group of men. Being taken is what led me deep into this forest where Jasper’s pack saved my life.
Those wolves saving my life is what led me here to their community of people. And that’s what led me to Devran. I released the dirt that was in my palms and slapped the ground.
“What’s the point? Huh? Go ahead and talk to me” I mocked the air. When there was no reply, not even a rustle in the trees I released a frustrated shriek.
I spent the rest of the night stewing in my emotions as the full moon passed over me and hid itself from me in the treelines. I don’t know when it happened but eventually I laid my head on the ground and fell asleep.
-
I was only woken again at the start of sunrise when I felt someone nudging me. I scrambled awake in fear of it being something other than Jasper, but was relieved when I saw his cinnamon locks and warm hazel eyes peering down at me.
“Did you just sleep the whole time?” He chuckled. He gave me a hand to stand up and I wiped my bum off, noticing the candles were no longer lit. The wind must’ve blown the flames out. “No, only towards the end I guess.”
I could tell Jasper wanted to ask me a million questions but he waited for me to fully wake and start our trek back to the village before he began, which I was grateful for.
“I can answer everything in one sentence. I had no idea what I was doing and absolutely nothing happened” I answered him. We both sighed at the same time.
“Dang, I thought maybe you’d get something out of this,” he looked genuinely bummed. What had he been expecting to happen? I thought back on my emotional night alone in the forest. Angry, afraid, and sad. I had cried and I had slapped the dirt. I shrieked at the sky in frustration and then I slept.
I vaguely remembered a dream I had but it was as pointless as my night was.
I had been back in my cottage, or rather Nealin’s home, and I was picking up all the discarded flowers in my living room one by one into that vase.
I picked up the one healthy flower and twirled it in my fingers, and that was it. That was the dream.
“What’re you thinking?” Jasper interrupted my thoughts.
“Just about a dream I had. It was as dumb as this night was for me” I soured in my mood. I was sleepy and hungry and frankly I was cranky right now.
“What was the dream?” He asked me. When I told him he chuckled but I wasn’t sure why. “Maybe it’s a metaphor for being the living thing amongst dead flowers or something like that” he tipped his head trying to even think about what he was trying to say.
“That’s a very weak metaphor” I found myself laughing.
Jasper pulled me under his arm and we walked quietly that way for a little while so my mood would lift. It did. I thanked my best friend and by the time we were back in the village I was faced with Gran and Mel both at my door.
I sighed but let everyone inside and told them all the same things I had told Jasper on the hike home.
“That’s a bummer” Mel threw her feet up on the coffee table with barely a care. Gran looked dissatisfied and lost in thought. “The moon is fullest for three nights. You should go back” she surprised me by telling me.
“Uh...no offense Gran but...” I trailed off when I saw her expression.
“Did you ever think that maybe having that conversation with yourself was actually you talking to someone else. Something else” Gran added the dramatics. All us young kids frowned in thought.
“I was talking to voices in my head?” I asked for clarification.
“Just because it’s in your head doesn’t mean it’s yours” she shrugged like this was obvious.
It hadn’t been obvious to me. I went through a lot of emotions last night but that was because I was bored and thinking how crappy my life was. I didn’t even meditate so how could that have been anything but me getting lost in my own reel of thoughts.
I looked at the vase and remembered my silly dream. Absent-mindedly I walked to it and glanced down at all but one dead flower. I brushed my fingers over them and watched the dried crinkled petals fall to the table beneath them.
“Three nights, or else you have to wait until next month to have the strongest of the moon phases again. Up to you honey” Gran left me with that thought. I wasn’t interested in going back. I wouldn’t tell her that but I knew my best friends knew. I wasn’t going back.
-
I hadn’t gone out into the neighborhood at all today either. I got some sleep since I spent most of last night awake and I just spent time indoors.
Alpha Conan and Luna Leslie were gracious enough to understand why I didn’t want to go cook in their household for the time being.
I wasn’t going to shy away completely but I deserved a few days away from all the curious eyes of the people.
I also didn’t want to see Devran again so soon. It’s just too soon.
As I ate dinner quietly in the living room I kept glancing at that damn vase. I don’t know why but something was nagging in my gut.
I didn’t take that meditation seriously enough and I was beginning to regret that. Abandoning my food I reached for the single healthy flower and twisted it in my fingers the way I had in the dream.
It meant absolutely nothing to me and yet I knew I wanted to go back. I don’t know why or what changed my mind but I wanted to go back.
I finished my food, changed to something comfortable and warm, and left the house to go looking for Jasper. I wouldn’t be able to find my way back to that sacred ground on my own.
I ended up asking someone in town if they could mindlink Jasper and tell him I was looking for him. It would save time since sundown was happening very soon. It’d be easier for me to trek in dim light than no light.
“What’s up?” I heard the distant voice of Jasper as he walked down the road towards me. He must’ve been in the Pack house. “I wanna go back” I spoke with conviction. He looked surprised. “Why?”
I just shrugged. I didn’t know.
This time we had Mel tag along and she rolled some herbs as she often does and smoked it on our way over to the circle of trees. I still had the lighter in my pocket.
Again when we got to the place neither Jasper nor Mel walked beyond that circle of trees into the clearing. I guess because it’s sacred and meant for those who would be staying there for something.
I hugged them both and again Jasper promised he’d be here at sunrise. I smiled and thanked him.
“Love ya, but I’m not getting my ass up at the crack of dawn. You’re on your own” she smirked at Jasper. I laughed and shook my head at them as they began bickering and walking into the thicker tree line until their voices disappeared entirely and I was alone again.
I sighed and walked over to the altar to relight the candles once again. Because I had smoked some calming herbs I was less tense as the sky dimmed.
I was exposed to the forest and it’s many creatures again. I was vulnerable again. I sat cross legged in a yoga pose and tried to meditate with my eyes open. I tried quieting my mind which was very hard.
My thoughts would wander without me realizing then I would have to start again. Is it even possible to not think of anything at all? Was this a task meant to be failed?
I kept thinking in the back of my mind, “Don’t think. Don’t think” which in turn, is still me thinking. There was a light breeze tonight which made the leaves whisper in their rustling sounds.
I heard twigs snap and I would become nervous until nothing would appear to me. Maybe all animals could sense that beyond this circle of trees they were not permitted to walk. That’d save me a lot of paranoia if that were true.
I shifted uncomfortably for a long time and kept glancing up at the moon. What was I supposed to be doing? Meditating with my eyes open wasn’t working so I sucked in a breath and decided to try it with my eyes closed. I was still afraid but I would give it a shot.
Eyes open or closed, was I really any safer? A thought of Gran’s words came to mind. She asked me if I knew for certain that the voice in my head that I was ‘talking to’ was even my own voice at all.
It sounds crazy until you think about it. Who is that voice? Is it me? I started asking myself that and thinking the voice would suddenly reveal itself like ‘hey, I’m Moon Goddess, what’s up?’ and that obviously wasn’t the case.
Why was I even taking what Gran said to heart? She’s much older and stuck in her beliefs from generations before her.
I came from no beliefs.