Neither Gods Nor Devils ~ a WyrderWorld Short Story Collection

A Lost Pack - Part 1

Themes: loss, possible amnesia, shapeshifters, magic.

~~~

The beast rolls under my skin

a feline form rubbing, purring, against my bones. My fingers grip the edge of the table just in case but she is safe, part of me

newly awakened. Reawakened.

I'd missed her, without even knowing what I missed.

Then I realise...

I miss my sisters.

My pack. My forgotten pack.

I still can't remember how I was carried away from them.

What happened?

There is a gap in my memories. Until today that gap included all of my time with them. A time that sounds like a fantasy but I swear, it's true. The purring beast rising inside me tells me that these newly recovered memories are real.

The nights running under the moon, curling up beneath the great, lightning struck, walnut tree.

A witches coven, but more than that somehow, sharing the power to shift spirits and fly through the trees, across the land.

Blessed of Freyja.

Mead dripping from our drinking horn as we toasted to the stars.

And then...

What happened?

Had I dreamt it? Had I imagined our fingers entwined as our feet pounded the land?

One, tall and slim with wavey auburn hair, had the power of death, she saw the past through mirrors and the dead through water. One was part fae, dainty and blonde, her garden blossomed regardless of the season and her laugh could soften the hardest heart, or stop it. One, the stereotypical goth girl, had a way with words and could call the birds from the treetops. And me. Copper, like my hair, emerald eyed, curvy in all the right places, I was told, but oh so lost.

How could I have forgotten them?

As far back as I can think I'd felt like something was missing. The daily rituals of life definitely had their positives but there was always this background hum of sadness, like an echo of static where there should be a music-filled radio station.

And then... Music. What had happened?

How had I remembered? How had my sleeping feline form been returned to me? How had these memories come back?

I look around at the stacks of books in the staffroom, waiting for their shelves. The till chimes with each payment as my colleague chatters with the customers. He'd propped me up in here with a glass of water and one of his granola bars after I'd fainted, apparently.

There'd been an older chap, tweed jacket, pale eyes. He requested a strange title, spelling it out, then saying it slowly.

He said: "repeat after me so I know you've got it right" and I'd learnt long ago that it's often easier to go along with the whims of a customer than to explain that I could spell.

I repeated the words.

Everything span.

And now... I remember them. I remember me.

In my hand I feel the sharp edges of a palm sized piece of card, gripped tight in my fingers. He'd given me his business card to make sure his name was on the system correctly, he said.

The name is embossed silver on matt black cardstock, its simplicity offering the only clue I have for unravelling this riddle of missing memories and a lost pack:

"Mr E. Evans. Fortune Teller. 13a Market Square."

So his name is Mr E.

Well that fits.