Angel - In Dreams

She noticed the Mirror of Truth was shimmering. She walked over to it slowly and peered into the depths of its reflection. She gasped at what she saw. She wasn’t alone in the reflection of the mirror - her mother stood behind her. She swerved around quickly to find her mother now standing in the room.

“Hello, my daughter,” Christine said with a cruel smile. She reached a hand out and stroked Virginia’s cheek, but then drew it back swiftly and struck her full force across the face. Virginia fell backwards in shock. “That was for murdering me,” Christine hissed at her stunned daughter.

“I didn’t murder you. It was self defense. You tried to kill me. You tried to kill everyone.”

“I would have killed them, too, if it hadn’t been for that ungrateful animal.”

“He’s not an animal.”

“Oh, but Virginia, only a monster could love someone like you. You killed your own mother in cold blood. No matter how many times you tell yourself that it was an accident or that you did it out of self defense, you will never be able to believe it. Will you? You know the truth, don’t you? You can deny and deny and deny, but you will always know in your heart that you murdered me. Why Virginia, what will your own child think, knowing what its mother did? The child will think you are a monster, just like you think I am.”

“Noooo. No. No. No,” Virginia sobbed as she woke up in Wolf’s arms. What, a dream? It was another dream? She looked up to find Wolf staring down at her. There was worry in his eyes.

“Are you all right? You fell asleep and then just woke up screaming. Was it a bad dream?”

Virginia didn’t know what to say. She didn’t want to scare him, but she felt like she should tell so he could help comfort her. Then she decided making Wolf worry would just be selfish of her, so she decided to take the easy way out. “Yeah. It was just a bad dream, nothing to worry about.” She studied his face to see if he believed her, but only found pity.

“Was it about your mother?” he asked with understanding that said he knew what she was going through. He had lost his parents too and knew how hard it was.

“Yes,” Virginia replied quietly.

Wolf could tell she didn’t want to talk about it so he just held her and let her cry.

Tony stared up at the ceiling of his room. He couldn’t fall asleep. Maybe I’m afraid of having another one of those stupid dreams, he thought to himself. He shouldn’t do this to himself. If Virginia was pregnant she would have told him. This thought was coming up too much in his mind lately. Wendell was right. Wolf had just been kidding.

“Arrrggg. I can’t fall asleep this way!” Tony got out of his large bed, got dressed and walked out of the room. He didn’t know where he was going, but heck, it was a big castle; he could just walk around for a while. He made his way down the hall quietly because he was unsure whether or not anyone else was still awake. Despite all the candles, the castle was dark at night. Shadows danced on the walls. It was actually quite creepy. He continued to walk, trying to ignore the shadows. Wait. Had that shadow just looked like a woman?

“Tony, what are you doing? First, you’re paranoid that a half-wolf might have gotten your daughter pregnant, now you’re seeing ghosts,” he said to himself quietly. “And now you’re talking to yourself. Oh great.”

He continued to walk until he noticed a strange light coming from the mirror room. Only two people had a key to this room: Wendell and Tony. So what was going on in there? He unlocked the door and went into the room slowly. If someone had gotten in, he wanted to sneak up on them. He peered around the room. There was no one there. He took one last look around, and was about to leave when he saw where the strange light was coming from. It was the Mirror of Truth.

Just like in my dream, thought Tony. He made his way over to the mirror as if drawn by the hypnotic light. He peered into the reflection and... (dramatic pause. lol!) gasped at what he saw. He wasn’t in the reflection at all. Instead there was a woman whose face was completely covered by a black hood. He was too stunned to move. “This can’t be real,” he cried.

“On the contrary Dad, it most certainly is.”

Tony watched in horror as the woman pulled back her hood to reveal Virginia’s face smiling coldly at him. Tony was so shocked that he ran out of the room.

When he made it back to his room he finally stopped running. “You didn’t see what you thought you saw. You’ve just been stressed lately, and have started to hallucinate. It wasn’t real. It wasn’t real. It wasn’t real.” Tony tried to reassure himself that his mind was playing tricks on him, but in his mind he knew what he had seen was real. “What is it with this place?” After saying this, he finally managed to fall asleep.

Wolf stared at Virginia lying beside him in the bed. (They had stopped at a small inn on the way.) She was so beautiful. He still couldn’t believe she had married him, or that they were having a cub.

Wolf was more nervous about going to the Second Kingdom than he had let on to her. The dream he'd had bothered him. In the Nine Kingdoms a dream wasn’t always just a dream. What if something bad was going to happen? He knew Virginia would never do to him what she had in the dream, but he was more worried about the other way around. He didn’t think he could hurt his mate, but what if he did? He would kill himself for sure. There would be no way he could live with himself. Besides, if he did hurt Virginia, Tony would kill him anyway.

Wolf closed his eyes and somehow he fell asleep. When he opened his eyes he immediately smelt smoke. Smoke!? Was the inn on fire? He looked around and realized that he was no longer in the inn. “Oh Cripes, where am I?” He began to scratch his temple, frustrated. He looked around and realized he was in Wendell’s castle. But how had he gotten here? He didn’t have any answers, just lots of questions. The only thing he did know was that he needed to find Virginia and whatever was burning.

He ran out of the room and down the hall. Wolf realized that he had been in his and Virginia’s room. That information didn’t really help much. He still didn’t know where Virginia was.

He finally found her scent at the end of the hall. She was close by. Wolf turned the corner and, to his surprise, somehow found himself at the grand entrance of Wendell’s castle. Cripes! Their room was on the third floor. He was very confused, but his mate’s scent went out the door, so he continued on. As soon as he stepped through he heard Tony call his name, but it wasn’t a cheerful greeting. Instead it was full of hate.

“Wolf.” Tony walked over to Wolf and stared at him with eyes that were a mixture of extreme hate and extreme pain. “How could you? You killed her, you animal! I thought she was your mate for life, your one true love, and this is how you show your affection?” Tony pointed at a body lying near by. It was Virginia. Her throat had been ripped out.

“Noooo! Virginia, oh Virginia!” Wolf rushed over to her and held her lifeless corpse in his arms. This all seemed familiar, but he couldn’t remember at the moment from where.

“Tie him to the stake and burn him,” ordered Wendell, who until now Wolf hadn’t noticed was standing there. Two guards grabbed his arms and began to pull him away from Virginia.

“What? No I didn’t, I couldn’t!” Wolf pleaded with Tony, but Tony’s gaze was hard and cold. He would never be able to convince him.

“She loved you, you know, and this is how you repaid her.” This time Tony’s tone was sad, but filled with no less hate for Wolf.

The guards tied Wolf to a stake. He smelt the burning of wood again, but it wasn’t from his pile, it was from two beside his. He hadn’t noticed them before either, but then he recognized the two agonized people tied to the stakes as his parents. Why did this image still haunt him after all these years? Wolf looked down to see that Tony was lighting his pile now. Soon he would join Virginia. He let out a long mournful howl, and this time did not struggle as he felt the heat of the fire against his legs.

Wolf awoke with a start. Another one of those dreams? Why was this happening? He would never really hurt Virginia, would he? He looked over at her like he had before, but this time something was wrong. Very wrong. He reached over to touch her and when he pulled his hand away it was covered with blood. He turned Virginia over and gasped in horror at the site of his lovely Virginia with her throat lacerated. Her eyes stared blankly forward with a look of utter horror. He licked his dry lips, but when he did this he tasted something vaguely like copper. He put his other hand to his face and when he pulled it away found blood on his fingers. He had killed his precious Virginia, and this time it wasn’t a dream. “NOOOoWoooo!”

“Wolf, Wolf. Wake up!” Wolf’s eyes flew open and he stared into the eyes of his beloved.

“Virginia, you’re okay, you’re okay.” He hugged her over and over and kissed her repeatedly. “I am so sorry, Virginia. I would never hurt you. I’m so sorry.”

They had started their journey again, not long after daylight. After Wolf’s dream, neither he nor Virginia had managed to get back to sleep anyway. Virginia worried about Wolf. She had asked him about his dream, but he had only replied that he didn’t really want to talk about it, so she tried to change the subject to something else. It was their honeymoon right? They were supposed to be happy, not bothered by silly nightmares.

“Wolf, what was your family like? You never really told me much about your past.” Virginia hoped that Wolf would open up to her. She was curious about Wolf, and wanted to know things about his family. He’d told her during their first full moon together in Little Lamb Village that his parents had been burned, but he hadn’t said any more about it.

“My father was a wolf named Jacub. You see, wolves are different here then in your kingdom. They walk upright and resemble humans, except they have fur, tails, and snouts, and ears similar to the wolves of the Tenth Kingdom.”

So that’s how it worked. She had wondered how a wolf and a human could mate. It explained a lot that they didn’t walk on all fours. “So your mother was human?”

“Yes, her name was Catrina. You see, her family weren’t happy about her marrying my father, but she didn’t care. Most people thought wolves were filthy, dangerous monsters. A lot still do.” A sadness swept over Wolf’s eyes.

He must be thinking about his parents being burned, thought Virginia. She would have to get his mind off of that. “Did you have any siblings?”

Wolf’s eyes lit up at this. “I had two. A brother named Colin, and a sister named Lica. I was the oldest. I’ll never know why they named me Wolf. Original huh?”

Virginia smiled. “I like your name. It’s perfect for you,” She kissed him softly. Wolf did his puppy whimpering, so she kissed him again, only this time more passionately. (No, you sick people, they are not going to do it in the carriage. That’s disgusting.)

“Anthony! Wake up.”

Tony looked up to see Wendell looking at him, obviously annoyed.

“Oh, I’m sorry Wendell. I didn’t get any sleep last night.” Tony rubbed his eyes while he said this.

“Not another dream?” Wendell asked, concerned.

“I wish,” Tony confessed. “It was really strange. I couldn’t sleep, so I went for a walk. Then I saw something coming from the mirror room. I decided to go in and make sure there was no one in there. When I went in the Mirror of Truth was, well glowing. When I went over to it there was this strange woman in it that looked like Virginia, just evil.”

“Like your dream,” replied Wendell absentmindedly as if he were deep in thought. “The Mirror of Truth shows things as they truly are, but I don’t believe Virginia is evil.”

Then a horrible thought crossed Tony’s mind. “What if it was telling the truth abut the future, not the present.”

“You're saying that you think your fears about Virginia are going to come true?” asked Wendell, stunned at what his friend was saying.

“I don’t know what I’m saying. I guess my mind was just playing tricks on me because I’ve been worrying about those kinds of things lately. I don’t think my daughter is evil; I’m just afraid that...that...”

“She’ll end up like the queen, and that the mirror was bringing reality to your fears,” Wendell finished for him. They’d already had this conversation once, but he didn’t know what to tell Tony. The Mirror of Truth usually did exactly what its name suggested, tell the truth.

“What are you afraid of?” There she had said it. Virginia had been building up the strength to ask Wolf that question, and she had finally done it.

“What do you mean, my dreamy, creamy girl?” asked Wolf with only a half wolfish smile. He hadn’t expected that question and wanted to steer her away from it.

“Wolf, I’m serious. What’s been bothering you? Why are you afraid of going back to where you grew up?”

Wolf’s eyes lost their brightness and his head slumped down. “I’m afraid of what I’ll find there,” Wolf confessed.

Virginia didn’t know what to say. She figured it had something to do with his parents. “Wolf, tell me more about what happened to your parents.”

Wolf stared off into space as if he were looking back in time. “They were accused of a horrible crime. You see, my mother was betrothed to another before she met my father. She didn’t love him, though; the engagement was arranged by their families. One day she was taking a walk in the woods when she was attacked by a bear. She screamed and tried to run, but the bear was too fast for her. My father was in the woods nearby and heard her scream. He raced to where she was being attacked and fought the bear off. When he saw her it was love at first sight. That’s the way it works for most wolves.”

Virginia smiled at that. “Your parents told you all of this?” she asked, urging him to go on.

“Yes.”

“What happened next?”

“Well, my mother wasn’t sure what to think at first. She had always been taught that wolves were dangerous, but this wolf had saved her life. Of course she soon fell in love with my father and because she knew her family would never accept him, they eloped. They lived in a cabin, had three children, and lived happily ever after. For awhile.”

Virginia watched as Wolf’s eyes got that sad look in them again. “You see, the man she was engaged to was furious with my mother. He felt that she had deeply embarrassed him by marrying a wolf instead of him. He tried several times to get my mother to leave my father and marry him, but she always refused. When I was fifteen he had finally had enough. It will never be proven whether he did it himself or not, but his farm was razed. His livestock were killed and his barn was razed. He blamed it on my father, of course, but huff puff, Virginia, my father would never have done something like that. It wasn’t even a full moon, but the other villagers believed him.”

Once again Wolf’s face got that far off look as if he could see that night playing in his head. “The villagers came that night. They tied my parents to stakes and burned them together in the village square. The man who had accused my father forced me and my siblings to come and watch. My brother and sister were still young, so I stood in front of them so they couldn’t watch, but I did. I couldn’t tear myself away. Oh, that night is still fresh in my mind. The look on my parents’ faces as they choked out their last good-byes. Afterwards, they took my siblings away. I tried to stop them, but there was nothing I could do. They tried to lock me up, but I escaped and ran into the woods. That’s how I spent the next several years of my life. Wondering from village to village, trying to hide who I was. Some how I ended up back in my old village one night. It was a full moon, and when I saw his farm I lost it. I had eaten all of his sheep by the time they caught me. I spent the next eight years in the prison. The rest, as they say, is history.” By the time he had finished his story, Wolf’s eyes were filled with the sorrow that only comes from recalling one’s past.

“Wolf, I’m so sorry. I had no idea,” said Virginia, hugging him.

“No, you deserved to know.”

“Wolf, it’s time you got out of your slump.” Virginia had come up with the perfect plan to perk Wolf up again.

“What did you have in mind?” Wolf asked, interested.

Virginia stuck her head out the window and called for the driver to stop. She took Wolf’s hand and got out of the carriage. “It’s my turn to be ‘It,’” she whispered into his ear.

That wolfish grin appeared on Wolf’s face and he eagerly followed after her.

“Wolf and I have been cramped up in the carriage for a while, and we just wanted to go for a walk,” she told the driver. He nodded while trying not to smirk. With that, Virginia headed for the woods with Wolf jumping excitedly behind her.

After their “walk” Virginia and Wolf went back to the carriage and took a nap. Virginia was the first to fall asleep. When she opened her eyes (whoa, deja vu) she was in the middle of a forest. She looked at her surroundings, trying to find her bearings.

“Virginia.”

Who was that?

“Virginia?”

She started to go towards the sound.

“Virginia, where are you?” The sound came from behind her now. She turned quickly, expecting to see someone behind her, but there was just darkness. She became frightened and suddenly found she was holding something in her hand. It was a small dagger. How had she gotten this? It didn’t matter; she might need it to defend herself against whoever kept calling her name.

“Who … who’s there?” she called into the night.

“Virginia,” was her only reply. “Virginia, I know you’re there. Come to me, Virginia.”

Who was calling her? The voice seemed familiar, she just couldn’t remember whose it was.

“Where are you?

“I’m here, Virginia.” As this was said she heard a sound in the trees behind her. She jumped around and with a swift motion she lunged the dagger into the bushes and nearly jumped back with horror when she felt the dagger hit its target, followed by a familiar howl of pain.

“No, Virginia. No.”

She ran into the trees to find Wolf lying on the ground bleeding.

“Wolf! No. No. What have I done?”

“Virginia, behind you,” were his final words as he died in her arms.

“Oh, Virginia. First you kill me, then your husband. What kind of a person are you?”

She tried to turn around, but it was too late. She felt a scrape on her neck. She turned to find her mother staring at her, the poisoned comb in hand. Virginia touched where her neck had been cut and felt blood.

“What an ironic twist of fate. Killed by your own weapon.” As soon a she heard this everything went black.

Virginia’s eyes flew open. Her heart was pounding and it took her a few moments to remember where she was. “It’s okay,” she told herself. “It was just another one of those dreams. You’re safe. In a carriage somewhere in the Second Kingdom by now, with Wolf.” Wait a second. Where was Wolf? Hadn’t she been leaning on him when she fell asleep? “Wolf?" she asked, turning her head, but he was gone. Gone? Where could he have gone? “Stop!” she yelled to the driver. As soon as the carriage had stooped, she jumped out and started to run. She stopped when she realized that she didn’t know where to run; where to look. Why had he left? Why would he do this to her? Was he going to come back?

Wolf ran through the forest. He didn’t know where he was going; he just had to run. He looked up at the sky as he ran and saw the full moon shining down at him. He hadn’t known there was a full moon tonight. Wasn’t that several days away? How could there be a full moon tonight?

He finally stopped when he heard a noise.

“Wolf.”

Who was that? Wolf sniffed the air trying to catch the scent of is caller. He smelled no one.

“Silly Wolf, you can’t smell me.”

Huh? Who was this person? He couldn’t rely on his nose, so he decided to follow his ears.

“That’s it, Wolf. Come to me.”

Every wolf instinct that he possessed told him to turn back, that there was danger ahead, but all he could do was go on. Something was pulling him to the voice. Then as he was coming to a clearing, he saw a dark figure standing in the middle of it.

“A little closer, my little wolf.”

As he got into the clearing, he noticed that the figure was a woman, but her face was hidden by a cloak. He sniffed the air again, but found no scent.

“Now Wolf, what did I tell you about doing that?”

Wolf stared at the woman, not sure what to do. Then she started to lift her hood...

Wolf opened his eyes to find himself in the middle of the woods again. Except this time he soon realized he wasn’t asleep. “How did I get here?” he asked himself. Where was he? Where was Virginia? “Virginia?” he called out into the darkness, but there was no reply.

“How could he have just disappeared?” cried Virginia to no one in particular, mostly because she was alone. “Did he just jump out of the carriage and run away?” She was mad now. Where was he? She’d been walking for three hours and there was no sign of him.

“Wolf!” she called out for the umpteenth time, but as before there was no answer. “Urrrgggg! Why did I ever decide to go look for him alone?”

When Wolf had disappeared from the carriage she hadn’t known what to think. So she decided to go look for him. She told the driver of the carriage to wait for her, but if she wasn’t back in five hours to go back to King Wendell’s castle and get her father. She had figured that Wolf hadn’t been able to get far if he had run, but there had so far been no sign of him.

I should probably go back, she thought, but how could she go back? How could she just leave him? What if something had happened to him and he hadn’t just left? “Wolf, when I do find you, I’m going to kill you!” she yelled into the trees.

“Not if I do first,” the woman watching through the mirror said as she smiled the same cruel smile. “Not if I do first.”