Willow Springs

Chapter 16

Chapter 16

Almost three months past and I settled into life at Willow Springs. I was doing well in my classes and I was closer to my friends than I had ever been. I enjoyed my werewolf classes most though, they weren't what I expected. They were split into two parts, the physical side and what you would call the theory and history of our kind. Since most of the class didn't know about the history of werewolves the first few months was starting from the beginning. Mr Haggatt was our teacher, he was keen and very interested in both human and supernatural history. The rumour was he was old, very old, almost as old to be an original. The originals we learned was the first of our kinds, the first supernatural beings. They all have their own originals, though they are few in numbers now and most spend their time sleeping. But the rumour was that Mr Haggatt was one of them, then that he was from one of the original families but a half-blood. Half-human, half-werewolf and much more powerful than true blood. We learned that half-bloods are formed when a werewolf has a child with a human who carries the gene. The gene can bond and can grow inside them until they are much older age and then they have a power which full-bloods don't have, and far beyond that of a turned werewolf. The true reason is unknown why they are stronger or have the potential to be stronger, but they certainly are. It's the same with vampires too, and shapeshifters but they are very rare. Not as rare as originals, but not far off because it's very rare to find a carrier of the gene. Those who carry it often have it because it's passed down through family bloodlines and most of them were killed in many wars over the years.

It turned out Mr Haggatt wasn't half-blood or an original in the end, he was just full blood like I am. He looked in his twenties and always dressed in a black suit and shirt and red tie. He was a very friendly teacher who spoke with passion for history, and he was only happy to keep the students guessing about his own history.

I was amazed about how much time could be spent learning about the early history of werewolves, there wasn't much in the line of things to read, as in the early writings of humans supernatural beings were still young and didn't want humans to know about us. But there is cave paintings and stone carvings which show our kind in the early days, sometimes hunting humans, other times hunting humans. Humans know about supernatural cave paintings and stone carvings of course but they interpret them wrong. Mr Haggatt said that humans see them as evidence of humans eating humans, of animals attacking animals and not the truth. The truth is they show werewolves feasting on humans, or vampires sucking their blood. The animals though are symbols of werewolves and us transforming and hunting animals, like scenes of humans hunting buffaloes. The photos fascinated me and were happy to hear that we would be going on a school trip to see some in Scotland later in the year.

The physical lessons are not the normal sports lessons you would have done in your schools. The idea of them was not to teach us sport, not to keep us fit but for us to get stronger. The aim was to make us as fast as possible, strong as possible and quick thinking as possible. Not to turn us into soldiers or fighters but so we could defend ourselves if it came to it. The first few lessons were based on us learning to turn much faster than we could before. I was already the quickest at the start, well other than Lisa, but we both managed to lean to turn even quicker. Mr Haggatt taught us techniques to control it while we had turned too, as well as how to use less energy too. My parents had taught me well, but they didn't know what Mr Haggatt knew. By the second month, I could turn within a second, just as fast as Mr Haggatt could. I also got to the point that I used only a little more energy than in my human form. Mr Haggatt was surprised I made such progress so young age. We then moved on to running in our transformed form, running through the woods and up the mountains. It helped make it easier to cope in our werewolf form; as well as increasing our abilities and how fast we could run. Lisa was by far the quickest runner, able to move at an incredible speed. We also learned how to move lighter footed, making less noise than a feather falling to the ground. It was much harder to do than the rest though and took longer than the rest to pick up. We carried on learning how to do it until the end of the year. I enjoyed the lessons though, both sides of it but as winter came the physical lessons got harder, as we still were taught outside.