She just gestured for me to follow and turned to head through the woods.
“What did you do to them?” I asked, but she just kept walking. After a moment, I scurried after her.
The leaves crunched underfoot as we followed a winding trail through the forest that opened into a broad meadow. At the far end, there was a rather large country cottage.
This must be what my mother had circled on the map.
“Oh nothing, really.” The woman said. She moved very spiritedly for someone her age. “They will wake up once you return.”
“So, you’re saying I’ll be able to return.” I said drily.
“Oh of course. I’m not going to eat you.” The woman sniffed as we trekked across the tilled field. “I’m not hungry.”
Well that was reassuring.
“I take it you know my mother.” I said as she marched up to the door of the cottage and scraped the mud off her boots on the boot scraper next to the door.
“Oh yes.” She opened the door and waved me in. “I’ve known your mother since before you were born.”
“So, who are you?”
“You can call me Sofia.” The old woman said, showing me back to her kitchen where a wooden table sat next to casement windows with cheery half-curtains.
“Well, Sofia.” I paused, not sitting quite yet, “Why did my mother direct me to you? And is she here?”
“I haven’t seen your mother in years, but I’m not surprised she sent you to me.” Sofia bustled around her kitchen, putting a kettle on for tea. “Lots of women come to me.”
“Are you some sort of doctor?”
“You could say that… I help people with problems. Sometimes the problems are in their body, sometimes they’re in their souls, and sometimes they’re not inside of them at all. So which are you?” She peered at me over a pair of half-moon spectacles she’d scooped off the counter.
“Well…” I hesitated, but something about Sofia’s manner made me feel like I could tell her anything, “I need to get out of an arranged marriage.”
“Your mother arranged a marriage for you?” Sofia looked shocked.
“Well, not exactly. My father was threatening to kill me, unless I married someone. My half-sister offered me to this Alpha of another pack… And I kind of had to do it.”
Sofia whistled softly, “Well, I remember your mother telling me about your father long ago. I admit, I’m not surprised to hear he’s still a troubled man.”
That was putting it lightly.
“So now you’re stuck with this Alpha…?”
“Gideon.”
“Alpha Gideon.” Sofia nodded, “And you want out.”
“Yes, but I made a promise not to escape until after the wedding. I need to find a safe place for my mother before then.”
“Well, if your mother shows up here, I can certainly give her a place to stay. I can help you with your problem as well.”
“You can?” I gaped at her. “You make it sound so easy!”
“Not exactly.” Sofia shook her head, sitting down opposite me at the table with her cup of tea and one for me. She pulled a plate of cookies into the middle between us and gestured for me to help myself.
“I would make a deal with you. That’s what I do, I make deals.”
“What… sort of deal?”
She paused before answering, chewing slowly. “You have magic inside you, girl. I can teach you how to use it, if you agree to stay as my apprentice.”
I stared at her, amazed. “What… are you?”
She just smiled at me. “I’m a teacher, if you need one.”
Her offer was tempting. An opportunity to get away from Gideon, and to come here, to this cozy cottage and learn magic. But I couldn’t help but feel like there was something more to it than that.
“What aren’t you saying?” I asked, “What’s the catch?”
Sofia smiled tightly, “That I can’t tell you, until you make your choice. Stay with me and I will handle your Alpha. Or return and see where the path you’ve chosen takes you.’
I stared into my mug of tea. Gideon’s face kept swimming before me. The intensity of his gaze when he said that he would never let me leave. He needed me.
“Surely a big strong wolf like Alpha Gideon doesn’t need to imprison a lovely young woman like you just to run his pack?” Sofia seemed to be reading my thoughts.
“I don’t know why he needs me.” I admitted, “Other than to fulfill some old tradition or something.”
“Ah.” Sofia rose from the table and went into the other room, “Follow me.”
I rose and joined her in the next room, which was packed floor to ceiling with shelves of books.
“I hate to see you stuck between your word and your destiny.” She said, cryptically, placing a few musty- smelling books in my arms. “Let’s postpone your decision until you’re more sure of your own mind, shall we? Take these, look them over. They will help you understand more of how to use your magic.”
I looked at the titles of the books curiously. ‘Under a Full Moon’, ‘Selene the Blessed’, ‘To Ride A Wild Hunt’, and one enigmatic tome titled ‘Panacea Obscura”.
“Those will tide you over for a little while. When you’re ready for more, come see me and we’ll talk.” She followed me back to the kitchen and placed the mug of tea in my hands, “Now drink up, and we’ll get you back to your wolf.”
I closed my eyes and took a sip. When I opened them, the house was gone. I was standing in the field near the road and Tegan was just stepping out of the car, looking concerned.
“No need to worry,” I said, stepping out of the brush onto the shoulder of the road, “I’m right here. We can return.”
When we got back to the pack, I spent some time in my room looking over the books Sofia had given me. They were mostly books of healing, but one was a tome of invocations to the Moon Goddess, and some rituals.
The Full Moon was due to rise the next day. Most of Nightwolf pack would be out in the woods running wild, bu I had no wolf to run with. Perhaps I could try and do one of these rituals instead.
I noticed that the ritual I had chosen to start with required some medical reagents that I didn’t yet have. I would have to visit the pack doctor to see if he had any of them.
Hudson’s office was in the middle of the village. An attractive older woman was leaving when I entered, and she winked at me as she left. That was odd.
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