Incarnadine

Chapter 10

CHAPTER 10

Jamie and I hung out with Ingrid at the weekend.

We went to the mall, just us all girls. Ingrid and Jamie almost raided the whole department store because of the seventy-percent-sale. I bought pair of heels for myself with the tips money I’d collected. Ingrid tried on a long yellow sundress that looked really cool on the hanger.

When she got out from the changing room, she looked like a sunflower. We couldn’t stop laughing.

“You think?” Ingrid scoffed. “Try it on yourself and see if you fit it better than I had.”

Jamie answered her challenge and went inside the changing room. It appeared out that the sundress looked very good with her complexion and her blonde highlights.

“You should try it, too,” Jamie told me.

I eyed the bright yellow color and smacked my lips together. “Ah, I think not.”

Ingrid grabbed a midnight-blue long-dress from the hanger. “What about this? You can wear this to the prom.”

I bit my cheeks. “Long dress isn’t really my type…”

“Aw, come on. With legs like that? Just try it on!”

So I ended up trying it on. The trouble emerged inside the changing room. The dress was designed for someone my height, true, but it was too tight on my chest. I almost had to force the zipper up.

I looked at myself in the mirror. I didn’t look half bad. In fact, I looked so mature. I remembered the dream where I’d looked older than I really was. How could I dream about something that hadn’t even happened yet?

“Elena!” Jamie called out. “Are you done?”

I took a deep breath—regretting it instantly when my bust threatened to spill out of my bodice—and opened the door.

Ingrid and Jamie pondered on my look for awhile.

Jamie squinted. “Got some trouble with your boobies there?”

“Jamie!” My face flushed.

“Aww,” Ingrid said, “don’t be such a prude.”

“Seriously, though,” Jamie continued, “you look like you have, you know, four boobs.”

“I think they have a bigger size,” Ingrid said.

I winced. “I think I’m fine. I don’t want to wear this anyway.”

‘No, no. Wait here.” Jamie ransacked the hangers and found a similar dress. “Ah, it’s half-a-size bigger.” She thrust the dress at me. “Go try it on.”

I did as she asked, and this time it fit perfectly.

“Wow,” Ingrid said. “Your ass looks good enough to eat.”

I blinked.

She shrugged. “No biggie, hon. I still prefer male ass.”

In the end, I decided to buy the dress. Jamie bought the yellow sundress. Ingrid bought two little-black-dresses with different designs.

And we all purchased the same white sweater with this shoulder cut, because we got a special discount for them after buying the dresses.

“God,” Jamie exclaimed, “I’ll feel like an eight-grader wearing this!” But she was smiling.

“We can form a girl band,” Ingrid said with a laugh.

“Very 90s,” I said.

Our last stop was a new ice cream joint. I stacked four flavors of ice cream up almost two feet high. Jamie took a picture of me holding it, and as soon as the photo was captured, Ingrid lunged for the first lick of the ice cream. Half of it plopped down to the table.

It was one of the most fun moments in my life.

The days went by.

I’d almost given up pursuing the answers. The first few days after my conversation with Duane in the History class, I had been anticipating for more dreams. But they seemed to have withdrawn. Every night I closed my eyes and hoped to dream—wished for a clue. But the more I sought for them, the further they went.

And then, one night after a long day at Ollie’s, I finally did.

I was so tired. I had to take over the shifts of two other waiters because they couldn’t come that day. I didn’t even bother with shower anymore. I just went to my room, stripped myself off my dirty clothes for a mismatched pj’s, and slid under Jamie’s fluffy Hello Kitty blanket. I had a fleeting thought about Jamie finding out that I’d monopolized her favorite blanket, and then the sleep took me down.

The dream began strangely. I should have been used to strange by then, but I wasn’t.

I saw brown earth beneath me. It was so close to my line of sight—I wondered distantly if I was lying down. I felt like I was already up, running, in fact. I was moving forward. Green and brown dissolved into a shade of blur. It didn’t make sense. When did I become shorter?

The wolf was following me behind, from a distance. I remembered that wolf. I didn’t even need to glance back to see the gray eyes. I recognized the smell.

The smell. The scent of the earth, the scent of the woods, the scent of lingering rain on the soil, the wolf. I knew the wolf meant no harm.

The wolf was getting closer. I smelled something else. A threat. I slowed down to a stop and turned.

The wolf was looking at the tall figures passing by. Threat, my mind screamed at me. Run. Don’t let them see you. The wolf turned back at me with lowered gray eyes. I mean no harm, the eyes said. I believed them. I always did.

And then I saw that those eyes were looking at something on the ground. A puddle of water. I followed the wolf’s gaze.

Paws were what I saw first. Not the wolf’s. They were too small to be the wolf’s. And then, in the clear reflection, I saw the fur. Red fur.

The threat was coming. The black wolf beckoned at me to follow. To be led away from the threat.

I followed the wolf.

When I woke up, I knew what I was.

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