The Company of Wolves

The Company of Wolves

"'I will take great care,' said Little Red Riding Hood, and gave her hand on it."

Bonnie Bennett frowned as the wooden cane came down on the tiled kitchen floor again and again, the sound echoing in the quiet house. She had been looking forward to spending the summer with her aunt unbothered as both of her cousins were out of town spending the summer in more exotic places than Chicago with friends, and her aunt worked more than she was ever at home. However, her paternal grandmother's house was being fumigated and so while her aunt and cousin's weren't there bugging Bonnie to get out of the house and do something like most summers, Bonnie wasn't in the house alone like she had hoped that she would be.

The cane continued to crack loudly as her grandmother's fist griped the wolf carved into the top of it that acted as a handle. Bonnie couldn't help but look up from her grimoire and watch the older woman. Like the grandmother Bonnie had lost Virginia Hopkins had aged rather grace fully. Her round face barely wrinkled. Her almond skin unscarred and without age spots. Her hair was long and brown, streaked with white gray. The only other sign of her grandmother's age was her limp. However, the limp had been there since her grandmother had been bitten by a stray dog at the age of eighteen.

Bonnie's gaze stopped as she met her grandmother's hard coffee eyes. Bonnie had always been intimidated by the woman, she always looked at her as if she could dissect her and peer into her soul.

"Head still in that book I see," Virginia grumbled, as she walked around the table that Bonnie was sitting at and toward the kitchen cabinets, "Find your answers yet?"
Bonnie frowned, her eyes moving from her grandmother to the book she had open on the dark oak table. She had just discovered the spell that would give her access to the powers that she had lost access to after bringing Jeremy back from the dead. She had been ecstatic after spending the summer searching, but had been thrown yet another curve ball when she had seen one of the key ingredients listed, lycopodiella alopecuroides, otherwise known as wolf claw. The herb hadn't been spotted anywhere near Mystic Falls in hundreds of years. She was back to square one.

"Answers to what?" Bonnie asked, playing dumb, once she remembered that her grandmother had asked her a question.

Virginia let out a laugh so chilling that it made Bonnie cringe. "You always thought we were the dumb ones," she chuckled, "You're the dumb one. Young and dumb is what you are."

Bonnie's hands clenched into fists and she fought the urge to respond with something disrespectful. She refused to be baited into a confrontation. The woman had always favored her cousins over her. Her father had told her it was because Virginia hadn't much liked Bonnie's mother. "Excuse me," Bonnie said, standing from her seat, "I have a phone call to make."

"You think I don't know what you are," Virginia said her eyes narrowed, "What your momma was? What your grandmother was? I know what you are."

Bonnie's own eyes narrowed, her chest clenching. "And what's that?" She asked.

"A witch," Virginia replied plainly, before turning and pulling a mug out of the cabinet, "Not a good one like Sheila, a stupid one like your momma. That's not your fault though. No one's been around to teach you."

Bonnie swallowed, and exhaled the breath she had been holding. So the other side of her family had known about her. Or at least her grandmother had. It explained why the woman treated her differently than everyone else. "Is that why you hate me?" Bonnie chanced to ask, playing with the hem of her sun dress as she did so.