Darkest Wolf

VII

Lovelie lived in a curious house on a tired street. There were at least three cats hanging around the steps that all jumped up to rub against my legs as we went up the steps. The windows were all wide open but the shutters, all painted a different bright color, were hanging by their finger tips to stay where they were meant to be.

I studied the many different herbs growing by the front steps while my cousin knocked on the door. A strange smell was coming out the windows and drifting into the yard. 

I had just coughed to get rid of the tickle in my throat when the door opened and revealed a little old lady in a strange dress that I can only describe as a thrift store's day dream. Her earrings were so long and heavy that they made her ears droop sadly and her black afro was pulled up into a high ponytail that was so tight it made her forehead look six inches long.

My eyes wandered around her place to find a series of interesting décor. A hanging incense burner that was empty while an incense burned in a bowl of sand. A cross with Jesus hanging off it that was trimmed with a pentagram. A painting of a doll rocking a little girl to sleep. A few phones from different generations sitting in a line on the rim of a window. A statue of a frog sitting nicely on top of a lizard that was on top of a duck. A young boy with a fluffy head playing with small set of mismatch matryoshka dolls. Yet another cat climbed down from the top of the wireless internet router to purr at the feet of her owner.

"Hello, Miss. Baptisne. My name is-

"I know who you are, child," she said in a very non-Canadian accent," You have grown an awful lot since I last saw you."

"Well, being born does that to a person. Can we come in?"

Lovelie threw a look over her shoulder at the little boy. I took a closer look at him and saw that even though they shared the same fluffy hair and strong eyebrows, they didn't look much alike. He radiated a sort of gloomy feel as he looked up at the woman I assumed to be his grandmother. Maybe great aunt.

"Ale nan chamn ou."

He stood up obediently and left while the dolls sat the way they had been in the middle of an unfinished game.

"Please, enter."

We stepped over the threshold of Lovelie Baptisne's home and entered a world of the last true magic that was left in out world. It was truly beautiful.

"Introduce me to your cousin, Miss. Jade, and tell me why you came to Ontario."

"How did you know she was my cousin?"

"I know too many things."

Jade looked back and forth between Lovelie and me while she tried to understand the works of this mystic. I coughed again, my throat growing scratchy.

What is she burning?

"Her name is Eve Wright. She's the daughter of Xena."

Nova, I mentally corrected. I hate it when people refer to my mother as an oracle before a person. My mother is not Xena. the oracle. My mother is Nova Wright, the werewolf.

"And why are you here?"

"We want to find her mate."

"Most every werewolf and hybrid wants to do that. Why did you come here for it?"

I rubbed my throat as I coughed again, this time both Lovelie and Jade looking at me. I stopped and they continued the conversation.

"I read in my mother's journal that she knew you while she was pregnant with me. She referred to you as a powerful voodoo wom-"

"I am a hoodoo woman, young lady, not a voodoo woman. I am a doctor of magic, not a Pagan practitioner."

"I'm sorry, but can you help? It's very important that we find Eve's mate right away."

Lovelie didn't have  chance to reply as I jumped off the bed in a coughing fit. It felt like my insides were trying to crawl out of my throat. Jade stood up to help me but Lovelie was backing away from me. She had pulled a rosary out of the inside of her shirt and was holding it in a tight fist and I ran out of the strange house with all the speed I possessed, falling into a pathetic ball on the floor when I got there.

"Eve! Eve, what's wrong? Eve, talk to me?"

I heard my cousin talking to me but the words didn't really process as the fresh air filled my lungs and cleaned the crawling feel out of my body. My insides settled back into my inside and I looked up at the doorway to see Lovelie Baptisne staring at us with her rosary held out to keep the devil away from her precious little home.

"That was sage that just went all up in your soul, child. Don't you think I know evil when I see it?"

"Don't you think that's why we are here," Jade screamed at her, jumping away from my side and more than ready to murder the woman who dared harm her cousin," We came to you for help because that damned prophecy is coming true and you tried to poison her?"

"Sage is only poison to the bad, the dark, and the wicked, Miss. Jade. If I had known you were going to defend that when you grew big I would never have told your mother she was with child."

"Lovelie, if she doesn't find her mate then the whole world could end!"

That stopped Lovelie Baptisne in her tracks.

She turned around to look back at the door that the young boy had gone through, her eyes filling with fear of the unknown, before returning to us.

We had found our first ally.