Half Bitten

“ Can’t you see? This is the only way I won’t lose you again!” he grabbed the girl in the white dress forcefully by the wrist and pulled her. Knocking her onto the ground as she screamed, “I’m not the girl you’re looking for! Trust me!” He picked her up by the shoulders and growled,
“Are you kidding? You had the journal—you have my heart! I will never lose you again.” he continued to drag her, deeper and deeper into the woods. She was starting to feel faint as tears ran down her face; she looked up at the sky and shuttered, “full moon.”
The guy pushed her to the ground and started to look up as well. His face was something unlike anything she had ever seen before. Violent blue eyes—he breathed like an animal, “The legend is just about to begin.”
She looked up trying not to let her mind wander. She knew what was supposed to happen next and the odds of her coming out alive weren’t in her favor,
“And you’re the boy who turns into a werewolf.” She whispered, looking through her eyelashes.
He smirked, “and do you know what happens after?” She got up and screamed, trying to run away. It was a feeble attempt because he had caught her within seconds, “say it. Tell me, what happens to you.”
She didn’t want to say it, she was filled with so much anger that if she opened her mouth no words would come out.
“Say it!!” he shook her,
“ Death.”

I gasped as I threw myself awake. That was the second Hopi Legend dream I’ve endured unwillingly. The dim sun blared through the car window. My arm reached for the button to allow the glass to progress up when my cell phone rang sharply.
“Help me!” an overly dramatic voice cried on the other side. It was my cousin Carmine. I wasn’t even 20 minutes off the plane from Austin, Texas and she was already in trouble.
“What’s wrong?”
‘You can’t move to Washington, you just can’t!” she cried once again.
Washington was where my new home would be. I hadn’t seen my father in two years and ever since then my life felt incomplete. I sighed as I looked through the back windshield with a hint of regret running through my mind. Maybe I would get sick of him. How long can a normal teenage girl go without harboring hate for her father? Maybe Austin, Texas was where I was meant to stay.
“You know I can’t do that, Carmine.” A moment of silence fell into the conversation. We’ve never been separated for more than two weeks. We would spend all day together and even have some of the same classes at school. As young kids I remember us having sleepovers that would last for more than weeks. We would do nothing but snuggle under the covers and tell scary vampire stories.
“But the Hopi Legend! You’ve heard about that!” she recalled. Heard? It was the only thing on my mind since last week. I couldn’t even sleep without having a dream of werewolves attacking helpless girls.
When Carmine found out that I was going to move to Port Angeles, she figured the best thing to do was talk me out of it. Do research; tell me exactly what kind of hot mess I was getting myself into. She was in a bookstore one day and stumbled into the Myths and Legends section. She found one book in particular, “Legend of the Hopi girl.”
It all started when the Hopi Indians took their land during the 18th century. They were smart people, their tribe full of seers and chiefs known to talk to the gods. Their women would be in charge of the land, the home, and taking care of the children. They would weave baskets made up of only the finest cornhusks. The men were in charge of harvesting, crops, and defending the tribe of any invaders. On a full moon, the chiefs were known to get visions, more vivid then any other night. They over saw great white clouds coming to the land. Those great white clouds happened to be the sails of a European traveler named, Andreas Veranda, and his eldest son Alexander. He was very powerful, bringing along weapons such as guns, and iron shots. They soon took over Hopi’s land.
The Hopi tribe was one of which you did not mistake for bearing ignorance. They always had something up their sleeves. They sent a half Indian Female to charm Andrea’s son. With intentions of making him spill all of their secrets.
She fell in love with him, instead.
The man she was destined to marry, Lowell, heard of this and decided to turn himself into the bravest animal to win her love back—only he used black magic and something went wrong. He became a werewolf; the girl didn’t like what he had become and in return, Lowell killed her. Alexander heard of this and vowed to avenge her death. Turning himself into the one thing stronger then a werewolf.
A Blood Sucker.
“Carmine, what are you worried about? We’ll talk on the phone daily.” I re-assured her as the cab driver subtly swerved into the next car lane.
“Yeah right,” she retorted. “You’ll have your new cool friends and your new cool school. Your dad’s got all the money in the world. Please, just come back.” It broke my heart when she said that.
“Carmine, I’m sure I’ll hate it. In fact, I’ll spend everyday wishing I was with you.” I could hear her smile. She wasn’t very hard to please.
“Okay fine. But promise me you’ll be safe?” I nodded as if she was sitting right next to me. Her laughter chimed in,” and promise you wont fall in love with any sexy vampires without me?” this time, I laughed.
“We’re here,” the cab driver mumbled slightly as we pulled into the driveway of my dad’s condo. I dug into my pocket nervously to pay him.
“Ah, there she is!” the door swung open as my dad walked out into the freezing cold with his arms wide open, “hello sweetie!” I smiled lightly; I had missed him so much. But he looked a lot different now, his face just showing signs of light creases. His eyes were a dull brown color; weathered, as if they’ve seen all the wonders of the world and then some. He caught me in a bear hug I was not prepared for.
“How was the trip over from Texas, Jackie?” he wondered out loud. I didn’t mind that he asked. I was thrilled that he even cared. But what I did mind was that the answer to the question would just have to be an utter lie. Traffic on the way to the airport was endless and agonizing. The road was filled with nothing but overly stressed, paranoid, agitated beings. The lines in the airport were at least two miles long. Security stopped every person that showed even the slightest amount of suspicion. The children around, so loud, it was as if they had the lung capacity of a healthy 20-year-old opera singer.
“It was fine,” surprisingly, my voice came out more soft then usual. I started to walk towards the house. Trudging through the snow, my dad hauled the rest of my bags up to the porch and sent the cab driver away with a tip that made him smile. As I began to arrive closer to the door, I couldn’t help but hear voices laughing happily and rejoicing over something that seemed very amusing. I hesitated to open the door, maybe it was an ambush. My dad chuckled and opened the door slightly; the booming of voices began to grow louder.
“Jackie Brown!” everyone started to scream. There were all of my dad’s guy friends. All middle aged and huskily built. They reminded me of him, except for the long following uncut gray Indian hair.
“Hello, Jackie. We’ve missed you.” my father’s best friend greeted me politely. We would call him Bird—well, at least I would. My dad never did until the day I told him about the miracle.
I was about five years old, and my parents were still in a semi-functional marriage. For my fifth birthday I had managed—with my adorable love-me smile- to buy for me, a pet bird. They had their doubts, but as stubborn as I was, the only thing they could have done willingly was buy me the bird. She was small, and gentle. The color of the autumn sun; just after a new moon. When we got home, I for one was the only one overly excited about the whole situation. I took it out of its cage to play, when it decided to make a run for it. It flew towards the window, and to its unfortunate demise, it had been shut. Entirely crashing into it, head on; I screamed. His name at the time, Sam, and the person who had been watching me, bolted up the staircase to save me. When he had seen the bird he sighed quietly and took it in his hands. Cradling it back and fourth from his right hand to his left, I was so afraid that he would hurt its dead body even more that I screamed. He quietly shushed me and began to chant a soothing Indian lullaby. Before I could blink, the bird was alive, twitching and fluttering around trying to realize the fact that it just plunged willingly into a closed window.
I had called him Bird ever since.
“I’ve been great.” I finally answered. People filtered in lightly with hopes of greeting me. Apparently my dad was talking about me non-stop. I remembered everyone and even met new people. My dad lived right next to the Hopi Indian reservations; they were good people and best friends to my family. When things had quieted down everyone filtered out into the back yard to help my dad make a feast.
I knew exactly how it would end.
My dad, trying to get the barbeque started soon would realize that he does not possess the knowledge to starting a barbeque successfully. Bird would innocently offer to help. Little did he know, this challenged my dad’s ego. Everyone would start to argue and the dinner would be served four hours late. Within seconds, I had taken the obligation of heading straight to my room to unpack. I knew there wasn’t much I was going to miss.

I couldn’t help but notice that my room was the only place that didn’t change, if anything it accumulated more stuff as each year passed throughout my life. My room was the same as I remembered it two summers back. Of course, then I was obsessed with Harry Potter, and the new Spice girls single. The walls were painted a light calm blue only to be covered buy rock band and movie posters. My bed stood against the wall opposite of the door, right next to a bookshelf that carried everything but my books. I grazed my finger lightly across all the memorabilia my dad had collected for me. Pictures of him and me at the cabin in Colorado, where we spent his 30th birthday—before him and my mom called a conveniently-placed-innocent-vacation-from-each-other. I stopped in awe as I saw my gymnastics medals. Still in their case, just like dad had promised.
Till this day, I still remember where I won each one of the five. But that was nothing compared to how many medals my big sister won. My happy memories soon turned into nightmares of regret—I wasn’t going to go back to that. I flopped down on the bed and couldn’t control my utter revelation to the fact that the ceiling was the blandest color I’ve ever seen.
“Red with black paint splatter?” I mumbled to myself, I turned on my stomach hearing the voice overlap in the yard and creep through the window. Voices over voices—laughing, conversations flying like it were as if they hadn’t talked in years. I started to glide my arm under the pillow when I felt something stopping me. I threw the pillow across the room only to be staring at a patent red, hand sized, journal. I flipped the cover open to sheer emptiness. I flipped the pages, examining thoroughly if it had writing—anything to tell me where it came from. I was sure that the book didn’t belong to me.
There was no hand writing in sight, no crease on any page. It looked new but something told me it was as if it had been around for centuries. Thoughts rushed through my head. It was just a simple book; more bare and empty then I had ever seen, yet I could not put it down.
I couldn’t recall where it came from and decided that it was a present from my dad. A simple welcome to a new land. I smiled lightly, trying to think of ways I could thank him.

The back yard was full of even more people then I expected. Kids, lost amidst their imagination, running in circles as their parents yelled back to them. Some looked back to spot me. I smiled in return. I didn’t want to get anyone upset. Much less, be the gossip of a small town like Port Angeles. The barbeque was finally up, Bird stood beside it, flipping the meat as my dad stared with envy.
“Hi! You must be Jackie!” an overly perky voice chimed in. I turned around into the presence of a petite girl. Her hair was tied into braids as the pink and green knitted hat snuggly clung onto the top of her head. She pushed her purple-rimmed glasses further onto her nose as she let a smile shine. I wasn’t sure what to do—I didn’t want to excite her anymore then she clearly already was.
“Hi.”
“I’m Kindle. You’re best friend.” I glared lightly waiting for her to go on before I gathered enough energy to ask what she wanted.
“Well, I mean I used to be your best friend. Then you moved with your mom to Texas.” I nodded along, recalling the Texas part. My mind wouldn’t let me remember her face.
“Well, it’s nice to meet you again—“
“You’re going to love it here. I mean we’re a really small town, but people here are great.” She interrupted me mid-sentence only to stop abruptly. “With a few exceptions.” She continued in a hushed tone.
I felt that Kindle had no intention of my ears picking up her words and decided not to protest.
“Anyway!” she perked up once again, a hint of tease followed “high school will be awesome. I mean, it’s been a while since fresh meat showed”
Fresh meat?
I glanced over my shoulder hoping my dad would pull me over to introduce me to more people claiming to recognize me. To my wishful thinking, he wasn’t there.
“You’ll meet all my friends! And you could sit with us at lunch!” her mind was working like clockwork; planning on how much time we could spend together. I did nothing but nod; maybe she was just trying to be nice. I started to phase out of the conversation until a plastic cup hit her on the side of her forehead.
“Yes! Right where I was aiming!” a childish voice exclaimed from a distance. We both turned simultaneously.
“If you do that one more time, mom won’t let you see the light of day!” Kindle threatened back, almost as a reflex. She sighed graciously and turned back to me, “that’s my 9 year old brother, Quinn.”
I looked back to the seven year old. He was sheepishly laughing while throwing pebbles at another kid that resembled him. Only, he was just a few inches taller.
“And the one he’s about to murder, is my 7 year old brother, Coco. You’re lucky you aren’t stuck with three brothers.” She stated exasperatedly.
“Three? Where’s the third?” she seemed silent, her mind wandering off to find the right words to answer. Maybe that was too personal, maybe he had died—moved away.
“He’s, just… around.” She finally answered. Her face squinted lightly then went back to a calm state.
You have to learn to keep your mouth shut, I reminded myself. No more questions.
“Hey Jackie!” my dad yelled back happily. I turned to find him standing next to the grill proudly flipping the meat around. Bird watched a few steps away while his wife urged him to remove my dad from the grill. Obviously, she knows what’s good for us. It wasn’t long till kindle was caught up in another very elaborate scheme to spend more time with each other.
“The café would be perfect. Me and amber meet there every Tuesday to edit our articles for the school newspaper.”
“Perfect.” I didn’t try to protest my side. It wouldn’t have mattered. She would’ve twisted her schedule to fit mine anyway.
“Okay!” Bird exclaimed, pulling out a plate of overly sizzling steaks. I cleared my throat uncomfortably. Meat was never something I enjoyed. Everyone started to gather around, conversation overlapping others, laughter flying through the midnight air.
“Come on, what are you waiting for?” Kindle shouted, already at the table holding two plates out.
I shrugged, “I’m just not hungry. Maybe it’s because im still getting used to the time change.” I thought quickly. Everyone was so happy sitting around munching; I didn’t want to ruin the picture. I slowly shuffled my feet until I hit the backdoor and allowed myself to enter the house again.
I thought hard looking to the clock on my phone. 20 minutes, then they would be up to the dessert and card playing. I could go back outside and no one would have even noticed I was gone. I went up the stairs in an urge to find something to do.
“I’ll explore the rest of the house.” I muttered to myself. I passed my bedroom, my dad’s bedroom, the second half bath, and what used to be my big sister’s bedroom, then stopped short at the end of the hall. There was nothing, nothing that could keep my mind busy. Sooner or later I would think about the people I was leaving behind in Texas, my mother’s thoughtful eyes would flash in my mind, and the tears would roll down my face.
The last time my mom was here, she was arguing with my older sister, Krissy, to clean the attic.
I gasped, the attic.
We would always hide in the attic late at night when we didn’t want to sleep. Even as young girls we didn’t like to follow the rules. We would spend every Christmas Eve with Carmine telling ghost stories, as my mom screamed for us to come eat dinner. I popped my head up, letting my eyes gaze to the ceiling. There was an old tattered string flailing around in the draft. I jumped up to catch it, pulling out a magic staircase. I put one foot onto the stair in front of me; it creaked as if it was shocked that someone found it. I climbed in further; with each creak I let my anticipation run higher. As I got to the top of the stairs I reached for the light, with one tug I realized that the bulb was burnt out. I felt around boxes, trying not to let my clumsiness get the best of me, to the nearest light source. After wiping the dust away, I let my eyes peer through the translucent glass of the window. The moon was so close—so amazing that it made the stars around it shine dimly, as if they were ashamed to have challenged such a divine thing. I tugged at the window; it creaked nosily as I struggled to get it open.
I glanced back at my phone.
Ten minutes. Just ten more minutes.
I raised the window high so that half my body would be able to fit through the opening. I sighed as I looked around. The mountains seemed to surround Port Angeles, inclosing it with the privacy everyone would dream of. Without another second of thought, my legs had swung themselves onto the ledge. I was surprised at the thrill it still gave me even after a decade of rebellion. I could hear the light chatter and laughter from the back yard.
More talking meant less eating.
I let my eyes follow the faint silhouette of the tall trees. They swayed so delicately in the cold night’s wind that it made my mind ponder on how majestic they were. Their roots dug deep into the ground, leaves fell lightly as the breeze continued to pass by. The bushes under them grew happily, allowing themselves to carry many types of berries. Granted that the shrub and trees had the same bark and leaves their species shared, the land they had firmly planted themselves on was a land that was different. There was a sense of history it let out, As if it had endured the footsteps of the most important and skilled men in history.
There was always an advantage to living next to the Hopi reservations and The Hopi forest had never looked this charming.
The moon was still dazzling, glimmering back to whoever would look up at the night sky. Lulling you deeper into its trance, clouds would roll over it ever so gently. The trees rustled around in a subtle breeze that caressed my face. The wind suddenly began to slow down. I opened my eyes and saw the shrub quiver and shake as if something ran by it with immense force and agility. I leaned forward slightly, squinting my eyes. I could see a faint shadow running in and out past the trees.
It wasn’t something—it was someone.
Stripped leaves fluttered into the air as the person ran by them. Only to be several feet away before they trailed back onto the ground.
No, it couldn’t be a person. No one would run that fast… no one.
I leaned forward a little more, trying not to lose my balance. I tried to talk myself out of it, it must’ve been an animal—maybe it was the food I consumed on the plane. You never know how much they re-heat the Mac and cheese.
Yet, the figure still ran—with grace, slightly brushing past broken tree branches; it started to climb. Climb higher and faster through the trees. I shook my head; maybe it was my eyes playing games on my mind.
The figure suddenly started to slow down. I focused my eyes more.
It was a boy, hanging onto a branch about 60 feet off the ground. He started to swing his legs back and forth aiming for another branch—then suddenly he let go and fell into the air. My heart started to beat fast—there was no way he wouldn’t be able to hurt himself coming down. There were other branches, he was falling too fast, and his legs wouldn’t have time to fix themselves properly under his toned body.
I made the mistake of blinking.
The next thing I knew his feet were firmly planted on the ground. His coal black hair clashed with his insanely pale skin, he jerked his head up revealing his fervent golden brown eyes. They searched lightly for something, gazing into the night with intense passion.
He wasn’t like anyone I’ve ever met before.
There was something about him, something so scary; instead of warning to get away, it threatened me to come closer.