Chapter Sixty-Five

It doesn’t take long before the entire dorm smells like delicious food, and the rumbling in my stomach doesn’t care if what I’m eating is vegan or not. Since there is no dining table for us to sit at, Serene hands me a set of plates and gestures to the tiny living space across from the kitchen, just enough room for a television, a love seat, and a squat coffee table. I set the plates and silverware I was handed onto the wooden table and follow instructions to sit where ever I’d like as if the compact space has many seats to offer. The couch is my dinner chair of choice, since I’m wearing borrowed clothes anyway I decide that a little bit of cat hair isn’t going to do too much damage.

Wilfred decides to join me, curling up in my lap and vibrating like my own personal little masseuse. Serene brings a serving tray over to the table and sets it in the center, moving around some candles and display items to make room for everything. “Sorry about him, he can tell that you’re stressed. If he starts to bother you, just shove him off.”

I smile gratefully and reach to do just that, but the purring combined with his sweet gaze when I look down at him softens my heart. I reach for my plate instead and place a few eggrolls onto it, along with a side of kale salad that Serene produced from the tiny kitchen. “He’s alright for now. This all looks amazing, I’m jealous that you can cook,” I admit, taking a bite of the crunchy roll.

Serene goes on about more details of Sorcery, explaining the metaphysical properties in common everyday things. I eat while she explains, seeming happy to have someone to gush to about the mundane things of her world, the world that I’m suddenly a part of. As lovely as it is to listen to her ramble on excitedly, my appetite slowly fades as I tune in and out of the presence looming at the corner of my mind. Jasper has moved a few times since I first located him, but I haven’t felt brave enough to glimpse him any closer than feeling his aura allows. I didn’t notice right away since Jasper’s presence is so demanding, but a warm, familiar appearance joined his dark one almost as soon as we entered the dormitory building. It’s Adrian, I know, but his energy feels totally different from what I’m used to. Maybe it’s because I’m still new to being sensitive to auras, but he seems agitated and almost melancholy.

I narrow in onto the feeling, seeing the tiny living room suddenly fade away, replaced by the greenery of the trees in the forest beyond the campus, standing in a foot of snow beneath the shade of the canopy. The sunlight is fading, splashing everything around me in oranges and reds, reflecting brightly off of the snow. Aside from the amazing colors, the trees are silent, creating an eerie feeling in my gut. Not even the birds sing from their homes in the trees as the forest falls into a tranquil hush, like the calm before the storm.

A red strong appears in front of me, faint at first until I adjust my focus. It seems to be tied to my rung finger and trails through the trees, leading to somewhere beyond my sight. Despite every instinct in my body screaming at me to run away, I follow it with suddenly leaden footsteps. My feet are bare but I don’t feel the cold as I creep silently through the hushed trees, melting into the shadows. I know that I’m not actually present within a body, but something about being in the forest when something as bloodthirsty as Jasper’s Madness is roaming freely is deeply unsettling, like a nightmare that I can’t wake up from.
I push on, following the red thread through the shadows for what seems like forever, unable to see anything that may lie ahead. A splotch of darkness melts away from the trees, startling me and pausing my steps, holding my breath. The blob is only about knee-height and produces a soft glow of light that is nothing similar to the oppressive darkness of The Madness. It makes its way towards me and reveals itself to be a cat, long black fur the color of shadows. Wilfred. He doesn’t meow in greeting, but rather, fixes me with a long, cautionary look before trotting on up ahead, melting into the shade once more. The interaction is just enough to let me know that he’s here to guide me but otherwise wants to remain hidden from view.

I find comfort in his presence and continue forward, following his trails through the snow. Even though he isn’t my familiar, Wilfred is still kind enough to join me as I search for something I know I shouldn’t be. It feels wrong for me to be out here, but the tug of the string against my finger, against my heart, keeps me moving forward. I get the feeling that I already know what lies ahead, but I have to find out for sure. The air begins to thicken, feeling heavier as if it's laden with smoke from a fire the longer that I walk. It feels as though I’ve been trudging through the snow for the better part of an hour by the time I feel Jasper’s presence again, except that it isn’t the same, imposing energy as before. This time, it’s actually him.

The trees open their darkness onto the scene of a clearing, the snow overturned like soil and splashed bright crimson with blood in places, suggesting the fight that took place mere moments before my arrival. A dark brown heap of fur lays in the snow up ahead, surrounded by pools of blood that have soaked into the packed snow beneath his body. I creep closer, sticking close to the trees. He’s breathing, but it seems labored. Even though it’s a wolf, a gigantic animal the size of a brown bear, I know it to be Jasper. I stop behind the tree closest to him, able to get a better look at the gashes that crater his skin, chunks of his fur missing to expose the wounds. He looks nothing like the black mass of muscle that I glimpsed earlier on, making me second guess if that was really Jasper, as Serene had said.

The wolf whines with each exhale, though his eyes remain shuttered as he breathes, remaining still in the snow. My heart catches in my throat at the sounds he makes, wondering if he’s going to pull through with the severity of the injuries. The red string tugs suddenly against my finger, making me look up from the tattered body of my friend. The trees that the string beckons me to are far darker than the rest of the forest that surrounds us as if there is a shroud of black mist clinging to the trunks beyond. A pair of golden yellow eyes peer back out at me, just below knee level inside of the darkness. Wilfred.

Finding courage in his signal to follow, I peel away from the tree that shields me, giving one last look back at Jasper as he continues to whimper in the bed of snow. I promise to return for him, just as soon as I discover what this thread is attached to. Just stay alive until then. I whisper the promise as I bend over the wolf, pressing my hand against his head. The coarse fur beneath my touch feels so real, very similar to the feeling of Adrian’s the night that he showed me his true form. So, this isn’t exactly a dream, after all. I right myself and trudge towards the blinking eyes in the thick darkness ahead, using Wilfred as a beacon to lead the way forward. With him here to guide me, I suddenly understand the importance of familiars. They are far more than just companions to the physical body.

The shadows become more oppressive the deeper that we tread, but the uneasy feeling in my gut begins to dissipate slowly, finding relief in whatever lies ahead. Wilfred is no longer visibly in the darkness, but I continue on regardless, following the steady beat that has begun to hum through the red thread that is tied to me. The strange, dark fog begins to subside as I near the destination, allowing me to see the prints in the snow that I’ve been following this whole time. Nearly three times the size of my own feet, the massive paw prints in the snow have been leading me straight to him, speckles of red dying the snow every few steps.

I lift my gaze from the trail of blood and squint through the lingering mist as the remaining light from the sun begins to fail. A growling breath up ahead tells me what lies just out of view, so I creep forward, veering off of the trail that Adrian had left for me to follow. Sticking close to the trees, I peer through the forest to a creek that runs through the woods, like a hidden paradise. It’s too wide for me to jump across, but a gargantuan mass of darkness is slumped over on the other side, a trail of red droplets leading to the body. My breath hitches as I lean against my tree trunk, following the red thread with my eyes, leading to the wolf across the running stream.

Adrian seems to be in hardly any better shape than Jasper, with oozing wounds that gash his skin beneath the dark fur of his coat. His breath comes easily, though, as he sits in silence on the opposite creekbed, his back facing me as he stares through the fading light of the canopy. Every other exhale is accompanied by a growl, but he remains oblivious to my presence just behind him on the other side of the water. My mate, the pulse in my veins sings. The Alpha.

Adrian’s profile turns suddenly, the fading red of the sunset lighting his fur like a fire. Though I know that he cannot spot me in the shadows behind my tree, his dark eyes search for me. The thread tugs me forward, beckoning me to go to him. “No secrets are kept between the Beauty and the Beast,” A distant voice caresses my brain, wrapping around my thoughts like silk. “All things come to light.”