Whispers of the Wolf

Her Smile

Radley

I kept my head down as I scurried along the walkway.

Everyone I knew was at the party last night.

Everyone.

And they had all seen what happened to Alaric.

But seeing all of those people in the centre of the town today, going about their business, visiting stores, going to work ... they all just seemed so ... normal. Like nothing unusual had happened the night before.

There was no way I had imagined Alaric rolling around on the floor. Okay, so maybe he hadn't been in pain, as I had thought. Maybe he had been drunk, like Claudia said.

But, still ... something had happened. Right?

I shook my head and buried myself further into my jacket, wishing for the tenth time that I'd put my coat on. This thin jacket was doing nothing to keep the biting wind away from my body. The cold had seeped through, chilling my joints and freezing my bones. I shoved my hands deeper into my pockets, hoping to seek a little heat to warm them up.

Claudia had wanted to stay at home, not really wanting to venture out into the cold autumn weather. It wasn't like she was very old. She was in her sixties and still quite agile and upbeat. But some days ... she struggled. And it was usually on cold days.

Like today.

With winter on its way, I knew she would be spending more and more time in the house, snuggled up warmly by the fire that kept out the bitter winds and rainy days.

So it was up to me to grab supplies and groceries from the town. We didn't need much today, just a couple of things. So I'd fetched them already, bagged them up and was on my way to the coffee shop to grab a couple of their milky lattes, and take them home. I preferred hot chocolate, but I was waiting till Christmas before having one.

Something about hot chocolate and Christmas ...

I stumbled a couple of steps and started to curse myself at my clumsiness.

Keep your head out of the clouds, Radley, as Claudia would say. Always reminding me to watch where I was going. Constantly telling me I was a daydreamer. She blamed the beasts in the woods on my overactive imagination.

She firmly believed that I had somehow managed to twist what I had seen into something more sinister.

She kept telling me that they were only wolves in the woods. Nothing more than that.

But I knew they were something more.

I had seen them.

They were bigger than normal wolves.

Much bigger.

And they had strange eyes.

Normal wolves didn't have eyes like that. Instead, they had eyes like Alaric did last night.

Silver eyes.

I shivered at the memory.

It was definitely a memory. It wasn't my imagination. I would be the first to agree with Claudia ... yes, I did have a wild imagination. As a kid, I used to dream of beasts, and see them in every shadow, behind every tree.

But I knew what I saw last night ...

I hadn't made it up.

It had really happened.

Shaking my head, I hurried to the coffee shop, hoisting the backpack further up my shoulder as I went.

Everyone I passed offered me a kind smile or a nod of their head. No one was freaking out. No one stopped to warn me about Alaric. Everyone seemed ... normal. It looked like a normal day here, too. Like it did every day.