WOLF

I yawned as she groggily walked up the stairs of my bottom level house. It was finally vacation, I had finally graduated and was done with the social torture of highschool. Like Dobby receiving his sock of freedom, I was finally free from the iron grip of grumpy teachers, backstabbing friends and break-your-heart boys.

Unlike most teens, my graduation had been a sombre affair. I didn’t do some grand speech or a cringy one like our valedictorian did. Instead, I had walked up to my teacher who boredly passed me my diploma, my ticket out of the hellhole. The audience had half-heartedly clapped and I was off the stage and on came the next kid.

I hadn’t received hugs or group photos from friends or a kiss from a sweet boyfriend. Instead, I was met with my mother who gave me a fleeting hug, kissed my head, offered a small, ‘I’m so proud of you.’ and rushed off to work in her pencil skirt and blouse, earpiece in her ear as she talked in their rundown car.

I praised the metro station close to my school as I took the metro back to my neighbourhood. The moment I had arrived home I tossed my cap in the air, shrugged out off the cape and had thrown myself onto my dear inviting bed. There I had stayed for the rest of the day watching YouTube videos on my laptop as I ate an entire XL Natural Lays bag empty.

I sighed softly as I reminisced the memory. My mother is a businesswoman who had an average salary despite her efforts to get a raise and worked a 5 - 7 job. It is not as if my mother does not care for me, it is because my mother has to work hard to provide enough for both me and her to survive. Do not even start on the topic of my father, he was and is a scumbag that left me and my mother when I was just 3-year-old. Honestly, I can't even remember what my father looked like, but sometimes when I lay sleepless and stared unblinkingly at my ceiling listening to the sounds of my breathing I would remember small snippets. A deep, rough chuckle as calloused hands that threw me in the air and caught me again. A thick red beard braided with black and blue beads at the end that I had loved to tug at.

However, that was long ago and now he was irrelevant. Now, it was just Noël and Mum, Mum and Noël. Together.

Because of her mother’s irregular work hours, I had dedicated the weekends to just my mother and me. As I thought about what my mother and I should do today I walked into the kitchen, however, instead of finding my mother cooking breakfast by the stove, all I saw was an empty bowl on the kitchen island with a box of cereal by it and a pink heart-shaped sticky note stuck onto the face of that weird English man at the top with curled white hair.

I sat on the kitchen barstool and read the not as I poured cereal into the bowl.

Emergency at the office, I’ll be back before lunch. ;) Pinky Promise.

Smiling softly I mumbled,

“Pinky promise.” under my breath as I walked to the fridge to find the milk.

As I ate my breakfast I looked out the window above the sink. We lived in a simple neighbourhood. With some families, young couples with babies and quite a few student houses because of the nearby Universities. One that I was planning to go to, I wanted to go into business like my mother.

The houses were silent as their inhabitants still slept. The students had held raging parties the night before, their thumping music causing the floors of the houses to tremble. Families had held hands over their ears as they invited friends and chatted with each other over dinner. Young fathers and mothers were kept up all night because of their adolescent children crying loudly. Girls hosted sleepovers where they held deadly pillow fights, summoned demons and played embarrassing games of truth or dare. Boys stayed up all night chatting with their gaming buddies as they killed zombies and other players. Then there were the few who pulled all-nighters, reading, drawing, watching movie marathons with friends or actually studying.

I studied the tree on the end of the street, there was a small nest being built by two magpies, a small nest made of twigs, pieces of plastic and aluminium and the odd shiny item here and there. Because of the proximity of the houses, there were close to no trees near my house and many birds fought for spots for their nests in the few trees here and there.

Smiling to myself as I watched the magpies twitter happily as they threaded the thin twigs together. Unfortunately, my view was blocked by the telltale orange uniformed postman walking by huffing and puffing as he carried a medium-sized package. I rolled my eyes at his over-dramatic antics, the box didn’t even look heavy in the first place.

When my doorbell rang I knew that the drama queen postman had decided instead of ringing the bell three times and waiting patiently for the owner of the package to come to the door, he had instead given up after the first ring of the doorbell and headed straight to my house. Groaning loudly I put my bowl in the sink and walked to the front door. I swung the door open to be met with a package being thrust in my face.

“31b?” The red-faced postman asked and I nodded confused. My mother and I hadn’t ordered anything so why were we receiving this?

“Watch out it’s heavy,” he said thrusting it into my arms.

I raised my brows when I held it, as I thought, it wasn’t heavy at all. I looked at the postman who was staring at me in shock, he was one of those proud burly men, and some stick armed girl could carry something without breaking a sweat while he could barely hold it up over his head himself,

“Yeah, right. Anyways, bye.” I said, slamming the door shut in his bulbous red face.

I ambled back to the kitchen and grabbed the kitchen knife from the drying rack and sliced the beaten up and misshapen box open. Probably from people dropping it in shock surprised by it’s ‘weight’.

When I opened the flaps of the box I found another slightly smaller undamaged box.

“This better not be some stupid prank box,” I muttered to myself though I couldn’t imagine who would send me one, then again, who would send me a package in the first place? I had never met any relatives and plus,

I quickly checked the return address,

It came from someplace in Sweden or something and I definitely didn’t know anyone from there.

I took the second box out of the original one and opened it too. From there I pulled a thick, yellowing, heavy leather-bound book out of it with the full cycle of the moon indented on it. Wrapped around the box was a leather cord necklace with a rustic-looking, solid gold fang pendant hanging from it. I unwrapped the necklace and inspected it. What type of fang was this? It definitely wasn’t a shark tooth, maybe from some wild carnivorous animal? If I was being perfectly honest I didn’t really care because it looked awesome, however, it carried this aura around it, something I knew from somewhere. However, I couldn’t quite place from where I recognized this necklace.

Who had sent this to me? I wondered as I searched the box. I found a white envelope taped to the inside of the box, curious I pulled it free from the scotch tape. On the front was written in looped handwriting,

Noël Crestwood

Intrigued I gently placed the fanged necklace down and opened the letter with the kitchen knife. A couple of pieces of college-ruled notepaper slipped out baring similar handwriting to the one that the envelope carried on its front. I distractedly scanned the paper and my eyes immediately were drawn to the name scribbled at the bottom,

From your regretful father,

Fynn Palacio

The moment I read the lettering at the bottom of the page I froze in shock, my father?

My hand clenched around the poor subjected letter, it crumpling under my grip. As if someone had possessed me I stared glassy-eyed at the letter in my hand. I refused to read the content of this letter. I robotically ripped the paper twice, and before the four pieces fluttered to the floor I was already running out of the door.

Sure, I looked odd and slightly mental walking in the subzero air outside in just a ratty jumper and a thin pair of leggings with a print of unicorns shitting rainbows on clouds. However, strangely I couldn’t feel the chill of the morning wind biting into my skin.

I walked steadfastly along the pavement until I reached the small ghost town playground. I pulled myself up onto the top of the hanging bars, I enjoyed heights, I liked the feeling of being above everyone else. (And no, not in that way where I think I am a Queen compared to everyone else. Which I am. But, you know what I mean.)

I swung my legs forward and back as I sat on the sunshine yellow rung. My thoughts were scrambled as my mind ran and skipped from thought to thought. I couldn’t help but let a bark of laughter slip past my lips, how dare he? How dare he?

'After 15 years he thinks some stupid book and weird-ass necklace can make up for leaving me, for leaving my poor mother?′ I thought to myself my hands painfully clenching around the thin sides of the hanging bars.

My mother tries to hide it, but at night when I recall old memories I can hear the silent sobs drifting like painful melodies through the walls of our home. I know these cries aren’t from stress or any excuse my mother can whip up when the question arises, I know that whenever my mother weeps in the night that it is always caused by my father.

It was when I first when to school did my mother throw herself completely into her work. Before it had been morning kisses as my mother woke me up, it had been dropping me off at daycare while she worked, it had been night time stories about princesses with flowing hair in towers or tales of men turning into ferocious beasts and vice versa but falling in love with innocent maidens in yellow.

Then Highschool changed it all, it turned into annoying alarms screaming in the morning, taking the smelly dingy metro home, and nightmares plaguing my dreams of being locked in parapets or of men turning into savage beasts and vice versa and ripping their teeth into innocent animals dressed in blood.

Where was my father then?

Where was he to threaten my first boyfriend with a non-existent shotgun?

Where was he when my 'friends' had badmouthed me and my mother for our lifestyle?

Where was he when I graduated?

Where was he when my mother and I had to discuss my finances, whether I had enough to travel the world and still go to college?

Where was he when everyone at school abandoned me?

That's right. He wasn't there. So he had no right to try for redemption with a necklace and book when it was already too late.

Soon my maniacal laughter turned into gut-wrenching sobs as I held my clammy hands to my eyes. When I had collected my whirl-wind of thoughts I stayed sitting on the rung for hours. Just thinking, not about anything in particular. About everything and nothing.

As I jumped off of the hanging structure to head home, I failed to notice the dents my hands had left behind in the rung from where I had furiously gripped the bars.