Chapter Two

Ivy

My body felt hot, and I needed the air, but I was growing increasingly concerned about how I was going to get home if I was this drunk. I barely remembered where home was.

The stars were hidden behind the moon’s light, giving the grass a beautiful metallic hue. The color made me want to lie down and roll around in it. My senses seemed heightened here, and everything hit me with full force. Especially how everything smelled. The flowers, the grass, and something else. Whatever it was, the source was far away. It reminded me of these candles I like that were amber and vanilla-scented. But it was as if someone poured the wax on a pine tree and lit it on fire. Something about the woods always brought calamity to my soul, It’s like my soul longed to be here while in the city; I felt like a foreigner.I wanted to capture that smell and wrap myself in a blanket to hold it around me. That was a place where I could die happy. It made me feel something else as well, a feeling of safety, love, and lust. I had only ever felt that feeling one other time, and it made me wonder if he was here or if I was hallucinating. But that’s not what he had smelled like. He smelled like roasting marshmallows over a fire. The wood burning was maple, and the memory of that sweet and smoky smell made me even hotter. I couldn’t help but run my hands down my body to try to calm the storm inside me.

At that moment, I felt like someone was with me in the woods. I moved towards the scent, drawn to it like a moth to a flame. Whatever it was, I had to know. Before I could reach it, I felt like my skin was burning. As if someone had injected fire into my blood, and it was trying to work its way out. I dropped to my knees, attempting to get closer to the Earth, which felt cool under my feet. My shoes were missing. I took them off and forgot to get them before running out of the bar.

Lying down felt so lovely, so I resolved to stay there until this hot flash stopped. All the medication they gave me messed up my hormones, so it was not the first time this had happened. It usually passes quickly, but this time, it didn’t. The pain was unbearable, and I had to fight not to cry out. It didn’t feel safe to make a sound out here.

“Just breathe…” I coached myself. Then I heard the voice that I tried so hard to silence. It whispered, ‘Get up, you stupid bitch. Mate is here. You look weak.’

“Shh…” I begged Kiara.

That’s what the voice told me was her name. I joked with her when I was younger that it was fitting since she brought all the accurate prophecies that no one ever believed.

She always bragged about how strong she was and how weak I was. I worked so hard to be as strong as I could and regularly slammed grown men to the ground in my classes. In a few weeks, I will graduate with my master’s degree, and I have always taken care of myself. I had to do all of this mostly alone. My grandmother explained that it was a family thing, that my mother went crazy when I was pretty young, and that my father was taking her to the hospital when they had a car accident and died instantly. I have vague memories of my father sometimes. His eyes smiled back at me every time I looked in the mirror. Sometimes, he would visit my dreams to tell me he loved me, but that wasn’t real. Just like nothing ever seemed to be real to me. According to my therapist, that was part of my hallucination. After tonight, I might need to go back to therapy. If Kiara is back, it might also be time to upgrade my medication. I occasionally needed to, as my tolerance for it increased. Or maybe she was the one who became immune to it. She could also have been pretending to be gone, but was listening the whole time.

She’s not real. I reminded myself. None of this is real.

‘I am real! You need to stop shoving me behind your mind,. Our lives depend on it.’

‘Please… stop Kiara.’ I pleaded with her. Now wasn’t the time for us to argue.

My grandmother raised me, but I wonder if she was my real grandmother. She used to scream at my mother that she wasn’t her daughter, but that was probably due to her behavior rather than it being the truth. My mother was wild and had me young. She was barely sixteen. Whoever my father was, my grandmother was not happy about it. 

We struggled to connect for all of my life. When I went to college, my grandmother and I only remained in contact enough to ensure we were both alive. Resentment and distaste are all I have ever felt from her, but I never quite knew why. Despite that, I’m grateful for her taking care of me. She took me in when I didn’t have anyone else, so it’s hard ever to be mad about that. Deep down, I knew she loved me. I think her capacity to express that she had died. Something dark happened to her, but she never discussed it with me. Someday, I hope she finds peace. Then, we may have a chance at a more loving relationship.

‘Ivy!’ Kiara screamed, and I opened my eyes.

I could see her standing in the field, a blueish-gray wolf with a tiny bit of white on one side of her body. The white streak seemed to change in size with her mood. Or I should say with my mood because she was me. I had to stop thinking of her as a separate entity, but she felt that way. It was as if her spirit lives inside me. Her eyes were golden like honey and were glaring at me right now. I admit she was striking. I wish I could pet her.

She howled. ‘Something doesn’t feel right!’

“I had a couple of drinks, and  I’m drunk.  That’s all. Let’s lie here. Enjoy the moon and that smell. Oh god, I need to find it.”

‘MATE!’ She cried out as if calling to someone.

‘What are you talking about ,no one else is here.’

’He’ll come. Mate will help us.’ Suddenly, she was lying beside me, head on her paws. ‘We will be with him again. He’s so close. I can feel it.’

I did not understand her. Of course, she was a hallucination, but each time she showed up, she seemed so sure about this mate of hers coming to save us, like the Prince Charming of Wolves or something. However, this was the first time she was confident he was here. Any other time, she just urged me to try and find him. A few times, I did attempt to, and my grandmother found out. That’s when she gave me medication to silence her. Kiara’s fantasy of her mate was now suddenly a reality. But why? Hormones? The forest? That scent? People with hallucinations and rarely, if ever, make sense. And if I weren’t careful, I’d wind up in the hospital next to my mother. Tonight was the first time I could hear her again in a while. I hadn’t seen her in years. It hit me that I had missed her. When the world got hard, I longed to talk to her. Sometimes I did, even though she couldn’t answer.

‘I missed you, too, human. Please trust me this time. Our lives depend on it. Mate is almost here. But the other wolf might be closer. He will only hurt us. I don’t get how you trust him.’

‘Trusted who?’ What wolf? I had never met any wolf in real life, and she was the only one inside of me.

My hand went to the chain I wore around my neck. My grandmother gave it to me for my birthday when I turned thirteen. She said it would keep me safe from the voices. It was a moonstone shaped like a teardrop. I never took it off, even though I was allergic to silver. Sometimes, it would burn my skin, and there would be angry red marks. The burning became less intense over time, but some marks still occasionally appeared. I noticed it most on the full moon, but that had to be a coincidence. Anyway, I tolerated the irritation to keep the voices away. Silly, I know, but so are most superstitions. Tonight, the silver chain was burning me again.

If this is how being drunk feels, I will never drink again. I blacked out to my thoughts as everything went pitch black.