faces of moon: mother

Chapter 1: Outcast

Song: Meg Myers "Make a Shadow"

Coley's POV: 26 years ago

Coley Elizabeth Brynn. Such a sweet name for such a girl. If my thoughts were made manifest, I would burn this forest down. Watch them all burn to ash. I would rub the soot on my face as a reminder of the pain they've caused me.

Or freeze it. Encase everything in inches of ice. Their lips blue, eyes fixated above. Frozen on Death. I would laugh in their faces at their terror. When their toes fell off from frostbite, I would wear them as a necklace. A trophy of my vengeance.

If only, I weren't so... so different. Life might be better. I'm the only daughter and heir of the Alpha, but I'm cursed. A black spot on my pack. The shunned one. I shouldn't exist. They remind me of this every day.

I live on the edge of the Shadow Moon pack. I'm technically the next Alpha of Shadows, as they call my father, but no one accepts me. I should have power, but I'm as good as rogue out here. My mother is my only connection to the pack, and she's human. She wouldn't accept me either if she wasn't biologically programmed to love me. At least, I don't think she would.

Love is this weird concept to me. It's just a chemical reaction in a person's brain that creates a connection to another for the purpose of survival. But what is life living in survival mode all the time? It's not worth it.

My parents hid me as long as they could, but rumors spread. Everyone thought the baby my mother gave birth to was sick or diseased. Wolves said I wasn't even real. Some said I died in child birth. They said my human mother was infertile, and they pretended to have an heir hiding away in the Alpha's house. There was even talk of overthrowing my father and killing my mother. 

You hear a lot from a bedroom window.

Only the truth was worse. Their only heir was cursed. The moon goddess spit in their faces by giving me to them. I just didn't know it back then.

Curiosity killed the cat, as they say. One day, I think I was 8 or 9 or so, I snuck out. I heard kids playing outside, and I just wanted to see them. I had never seen another pup in person before. TV doesn't count.

I waited until my mother left during my nap time. I pretended to be asleep, slowed my breathing and heart rate, relaxed my muscles completely, so when she laid me down, she suspected nothing. I heard her feet softly tiptoe out of the room, the door squeaked closed, her feet padded down the hall to the family room for her "shows." She had a weakness for a good telenovela.

I had memorized where to step so as not to make any noise on the wooden planked floors. I had unlocked the window and greased it a few days before, so the old metal pieces wouldn't squeak as it slid up. I was on the second floor of an older home, but I'm a pretty nimble wolf. I shimmied down the drain pipe and had my feet on the ground in record time.

I waited, listening for my mom to notice. She was preoccupied with the most recent love triangle on the tv eating her popcorn. I could hear her crunching and digging in the bowl. I hunched down and crept along the edge of the house. Then the open lawn, until I got to the bushes bordering our yard. The pups' voices trailed over from the pack school just a block away. At the edge of the line of bushes, I looked around to make sure no one was watching, and I ran.

As fast as my legs would carry me, I ran to my new friends. 

Freedom tasted like fresh air, pine trees, and the scents of my pack members. My heart hammered in my chest as I barreled straight into the school yard. I ran right into the thick of a group of pups, fully expecting everyone to want to play with me, The Daughter of the Alpha. I expected surprised faces followed by excitement. I might say something like, "Surprise! The Heir of Shadows is here!" Or I might say, "Hi! I'm the Alpha's daughter. I've just been hiding away to surprise everyone. Wanna play?"