Zeke ushered her through the streets and back toward the motel. He seemed frantic and urgent, as if every second mattered. Esme let him lead her, but it felt as if, for the first time in her life, she was seeing the world with amazing clarity. She could look around and see each individual detail even from far away, and every color looked brighter. Her senses were heightened, and it was intoxicating and bewitching, but it was also comforting.

She felt more alive than she had ever been.

As they got to the door of the motel, Zeke pushed it open and then he stood back and looked down at her.

“I have to leave you here,” he told her as he held onto her chin and tilted it up so they could look into each other’s eyes.

“Why?” she asked. “Please, if you do, I’ll get sick… I don’t know why or what is going on but when you left me there on the wall, I thought I was going to collapse. It happened last night too in the bar when you were watching me over the balcony. When I went into the ladies’ room, I thought I was going to faint then too.”

He smiled at her sadly and traced a warm finger down the side of her face again.

“Don’t worry,” he smiled. “It’s not going to happen anymore.”

His words were sincere, and as he spoke them, she knew he meant it, but she still couldn’t bear the thought of being apart from him again.

“What are you?” she whispered as she stared deep into his eyes.

“I think you already know,” he said, before he leaned forward and kissed her again on the lips and then he stepped back into the darkness and left her standing in the doorway alone.

She felt more alone than she had ever in her life, but she could still feel his warmth on her lips, on her hands, and now she was sure it was spreading deep to her heart.

“He’s done something to me,” she whispered as she looked up and realized it had started to snow again. She watched flakes fall, and she smiled as she realized she could see them in incredible detail, so much so that it was almost blowing her mind.

She closed her eyes and took a deep breath. And then she stepped back into the motel and let the door close quietly behind her.

 

Back in her room, she began to pace up and down. All of her felt on fire and alive, and she had an energy she had never experienced before. She looked at herself in the mirror and she looked much the same, but there was something about her eyes she couldn’t quite pin down. It was as if they were clearer and brighter, and when she turned her head to the side, she was sure they were flecked with green.

She went across to the bed and sat down and started to twiddle her thumbs. She felt more powerful than she ever had, but she also knew that it was controllable, as if she had to just push it deep inside her and let it lay there dormant.

She bit her lip.

What the hell happened to her since she set foot in that town?

She went into the bathroom and ran the tap to fill the sink, and then she dipped the edge of a towel into the warm water and started to blot at her face to remove her make-up. She felt wide awake, and at the same time, she was tired. She needed answers, but she didn’t know where to find them.

Zeke had given her a job, he had observed her for a short time, and then he had made sure she was gone from the bar in a matter of hours both nights. It was as if he wanted her close, but then pushed her away. It was like he wanted to keep tabs on her, but he didn’t know how.

She looked at her bare face in the mirror and her skin appeared to be clearer and more radiant, and it made her clasp her hands together with glee. Whatever he had done to her, he could keep doing it if this was going to be the result. He had kissed her and made her skin illuminate. He had touched her, and had brought her back to life.

She put on her pajamas and climbed into bed. She knew her night was going to be filled with dreams and wild whispers all over again, but this time, she was prepared for them. She was ready, and she was opening her mind to the potential of whatever it was that Lost Creek was hiding.

She closed her eyes and lay flat on her back, and then she breathed in and out deeply. She could still feel him with her, it was almost as if he was holding her hand and guiding her into her sleep. He was going to show her every step of the way…

And this adventure was only just beginning…

 

The initial memory had only been the tip of the ice berg. There had been so much more she had forgotten. Her life had been a mess of one town to the next, and she had gone from place to place without a say in the matter. She had been a drifter because her mother had decided that was how they were to live their lives.

She had never argued, and she had never questioned if it was right or wrong. But even as an adult she had never settled in one place because of it… and now, she had the feeling her fate was coming full circle and she was coming back to where she truly belonged.

Her dreams were the doorway to her soul, and she was being shown through them to the truth. She had dreamt of wolves and she had dreamt of a man in a hot spring with her deep in the forest… Now she knew that the wolf and the man were one and the same. They were both Zeke. But how had they come to her and why were they so important to her survival?

As she slept, her mind unraveled and she began to learn the truth. Zeke was there with her and he was holding her hand… she was riding the wave of sleep, and all would be revealed.

 

The memory of that day in the woods had always rumbled around somewhere in her mind, but she had never known whether she had imagined it or it had all truly happened. She had been so young, and whenever she had tried to ask her mother about the incident, she had always been shut down.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about, Esme,” her mother had snapped at her. “It must have all been a dream.”

But deep down, Esme knew it wasn’t.

Something had happened to her that day. They had gone to the play park, she had met a boy… and something had changed.

She had only been around six years old, if that… but the memory had stayed with her, she had always known something magical had happened to her.

Her mother had been a wandering gypsy soul, and she hadn’t ever settled in one place… but as the night unfolded and Esme’s dreams began to come to life around her, her memory of that day, when she was a child in the forest with the boy, started to come back to the surface.

She remembered it all…

He had changed into a wolf, he had beckoned her to him, and she had touched him. She remembered the green. The black wolf with the green eyes.

Zeke.

She gasped and sat up with a start as she looked around the darkened bedroom. Her heart was racing a thousand miles an hour and her brow was slick with sweat. She reached over to the nightstand and grasped at the glass of water and drank from it quickly. Her whole body was red hot, even though the temperature in the room had plummeted.

She took a deep breath and tried to calm herself, as she tried to make sense of the mess of her twisted memories.

The incident with the wolf when she was a child… it had all been real. She had always known it had been somewhere deep inside of her, but her mother had always told her otherwise.

She remembered reaching out and touching it, and she remembered her mother appearing behind her and shrieking before she pulled her away. The animal hadn’t been acting dangerous, but her mother had been so wild and afraid, she had been so determined it was bad and that something terrible was going to happen. She had swept her up in her arms and carried Esme out of the forest, and then the park, kicking and screaming. She had shouted to anyone who would listen about the wolves and how they were dangerous.

Esme couldn’t believe how quickly the memory was flooding back to her, and she had to take a moment to get to her feet and gather her thoughts.

“Mom knew something else that day,” she whispered to herself. “She knew that wasn’t an ordinary wolf…” she trailed off and wracked her brains. It had been years since she had spoken to her mother, but if she didn’t find the answers she needed there in Lost Creek, then she was sure as hell going to call her and find out.

She lay back down on the bed and didn’t know how she was possibly going to wait until dawn. She needed to see Zeke. She needed to know what it was he was hiding, and why she had been so drawn to him, and the town, and The Nowhere Bar.

It was almost as if the trail had been set and had led her there. As if all of her years wandering the wilderness and the country on her own had been for this exact reason…

Someone was trying to bring her home.

She had been to Lost Creek before.

She didn’t know how she knew it, but she just knew.

She had been there, and something had happened to her when she was a child. And now she was back, and all sorts of magical forces were coming into play.

Esme didn’t know a whole lot about what was happening to her, but she did know this… she wasn’t going to stop until she discovered the truth, and every last detail of her hidden past, and the town’s secrets were all brought out into the open.

Zeke and she had stirred something in each other… And she had the terrible feeling that although he was glad to have found her, he was also afraid.