All my life I have felt connected to the woods. I feel it. I feel its soul and it calls to me. My grandmother tells me that I have always been this way. She says that when they found me out here, as a baby, I cried as they took me to their home. Almost as if I felt they were taking me away from my home. As a child, I longed for the woods. I would sit out here and absorb my surroundings. The scents, the sounds, all of it. I enjoyed the solitude, being completely alone with my thoughts. It wasn’t until I was fifteen that I realized I had never been alone.
One evening when I was sitting with my back pressed up against a tall Oak tree that sits in a clearing surrounded by the hills, my toes digging their way into the soil, I saw him. The black wolf. I stared at him from my position against the tree, a tree which I now claim as my own. He stared back at me, I could see no expression in his light brown eyes. We stayed like this for several minutes when suddenly, he turned and walked away from me, out of sight from my position downhill. Curious, I stood slipping on my shoes and walked up the hill. When I got to the top, the black wolf was nowhere to be seen. “I wonder where he disappeared to”, I thought. Slightly disappointed, I shrugged my jacket back onto my shoulders and headed back to civilization. Mom would kill me if I got home after dark, and from the looks of the setting sun I only had about 10 minutes to get there.
I stepped through the front door and shrugged off my shoes, draping my jacket on the hook as I did so. Exhausted, I climbed the stairs to my room. Slowly I opened my door and dragged myself across my room. As I crawled into bed, I thought about the wolf. He felt familiar to me. Almost as if I knew him, or rather that my soul did. It was the oddest feeling. I felt cautious of him, but not afraid like I should have been. I laid down and slowly drifted off to sleep.
Foggily my mind entered into a dream. Slowly, I began to recognize my surroundings. I was back in the woods; the air was cool and the sky was dark. I was back at that tree, my back pressed against it and my toes stuck in the cool dirt. I looked around and again saw the black wolf, standing above me at the top of the hill. Just like before, we stared at each other. His brown eyes studying mine. My eyes blinked and then he was gone. “Just like a shadow”, I thought. “Shadow. I like that. I will call him Shadow.” Again, just like before, I stood and slipped on my shoes and walked up the hill. Shadow was nowhere to be seen, just like before.
Slowly, I walked back to my house through the door and kicked off my shoes. I walked up to my room and through the door. Shocked, I stared at a sleeping form covered in my bed. “What the—”, I began. There, in my bed, was me. “What is going on?” I walked towards the bed, a light shining out of the corner of my eye stops me and grabs my attention. I turn and look, seeing the full moon. I walk towards the window to get a better look. When I get there, something below my window in the grass moves. I start as I watch the wolf dart away from the house and stop by our tree on the edge of the yard. He turns his head, looking over his shoulder and directly making eye contact with me. “What do you want from me”, I whisper from my spot in the window.” In my head, I hear a voice. “Soon, my dear. Very soon this will all make sense”, and then he was gone.
I woke covered in sweat. The sun shining through my window and draping itself across my bed. Quickly, I threw off my covers and went to the window. The black wolf was nowhere to be seen. Desperately in need of some answers, I descended the stairs and weaved around the corner to the back of the house where my grandmother’s room is located. “Grandma”, I say as I push open the door to her room. “Yes, dear?”, she replied. “I have some questions for you…about the day you found me.” She was quite for several moments, then turned and walked over to sit on her bed, patting the spot next to her. “You’re curious about the wolf, I assume”, she said. “How did you—”, I began, but she held up her hand to silence me.
“I know he has been watching you. He makes sure you are safe, I think.”
“What? Why?”
“Your birth parents abandoned you, out there in the woods. When I found you, that black wolf was with you. Sheltering you from the cold.”
“No way!”
“It’s true my dear. I don’t know why your birth parents abandoned you. But, I do know that the wolf you are seeing outside your window, he protected you. He probably saved you, kept you from freezing to death until your parent’s and I came across you out there in the woods. It is my theory that he has just continued to watch you, to make sure you are safe.”
Filled with this new knowledge, I left my grandma and walked back to my room. Firmly, I shut the door behind me and promptly laid on my bed for the rest of the day, contemplating everything my grandmother had told me. I must have drifted off to sleep, for when I opened my eyes next the ceiling above me was black. I got up and walked to the window. Just like I expected, the black wolf was there staring up at me. I stared back at him. “Thank you, Shadow”, I began. “You saved my life, and for that I will always be grateful.” I am not sure if my eyes are playing tricks on me or not, but I think I saw him nod at me. Then he turned, disappearing once again into the woods.
Now when I go to the woods, I no longer need to wonder why I feel connected to them. I know why. Somewhere out there is the black wolf that saved me. My protector. A constant presence looking out for my well-being and because of that, I will always feel safe and I know I will never be alone.
Short Stories
Comments are closed.
1 Likes
959 Views
Share:
Good start to the writings I have read. There is an art and a liviliness in the words.
Thank you