Status: In Rehab
Peter Pan and the Spiders From Mars
Chapter Ten
Deep from the crevices of time and mystery, the sleek silver wolf crept down the suburb of Middlesex in wanting. Her paws, so powerful in fight and fleet, tread so lightly on the dank asphalt that they were practically non-existent. The metallic white of her fur was dampened in the heavy rain, but it was the pressure on her back that forced her to trudge through all dimensions and weather to find what she was looking for. Its companion, much more in legend than feeling, rode side saddled upon the wolf’s broad back. Her delicate frame was shrouded in a simple white garb that blended in with the wolf and contrasted with her skin that was the color of sugary coffee. As beautiful and majestic as this pair appeared to be, it was promptly disrupted by the mask covering the girl’s face. A pig’s head, oversized, was draped across her features and hung past her shoulders. The empty eye sockets of the pig drooped over her own dull green eyes and half of her cheek. The weepy triangular ears flopped with the wolf’s stride and its prominent nose sunk into its own folding skin.
This thing was a fucking nightmare.
Upon seeing the wolf, my hands had begun to sweat, blending in with the rain. But that creeper of a girl on top with the demonic pig’s head caused my heart beats to accelerate and thud against each bone. They came closer and closer and I became surer and surer that this was the apocalypse. I didn’t move just like during my escape into the forest. This haunt had called me outside, put a tracer on me. They wanted to talk or just wanted me.
It was absolute silence as the great white wolf approached, her bright eyes piercing into me. Her fur brushed against my freezing wet skin. I didn’t have the courage to look up at the girl’s face and her pig’s mask, so I just stared at the wolf’s deep purple eyes. So calming and yet so fucked up. The girl slipped off of the wolf, her feet not making any noise, and took two tiny steps to reach me. With her standing just a mere three inches away from, it was difficult to not acknowledge the girl’s presence, so I glanced up from under my lashes to make sure that I was going to be able to handle her daunting figure. She waited patiently, her hands clasped together, for me to finally face her. Her disguised eyes stared back at mine and the folds of the pig’s mask moved, indicating a smile.
“Hi.” The word hung between us, somehow necessary.
The girl raised her hands, I flinched, and carefully pulled the skin off of her face. First her chin, then thin lips, a pointed nose, and then finally her dull green eyes that barely batted an eyelash came into view.
“Oh my god.” An invisible hand punched me directly in the stomach when I saw the girl’s face. I was looking at myself, my features, my identity. The girl was calm as if she knew that I was her. She reached over and started to delicately pull the skin over my head. I was still shocked over the discovery. I was staring at myself! My straight, hedgehog brown, hair and my funky long eyelashes were all there. Each feature was presented and accounted for.
The skin was placed over my head and I could see through the extended eyeholes. It was warm inside the mask and the wolf have me a subtle nudge with her nose in acceptance. The girl was smiling, but my mouth was still slack jawed with surprise. She gripped my hand and guided me over to the wolf. With her unspoken instructions, I mounted the wolf side saddle like she had been riding. My contact with the matted fur was not being overpowered by fear, but with an alarming calm.
“Ouf, this is weird.” I turned to look at the girl through the eyehole, but she was gone. She had disappeared. I looked back at the wolf and gripped its fur. It glanced over its shoulder and in a very human like gesture, raised its eyebrow.
“So, wolf, what do we do now?” In response, the wolf gave a lurch and moved forward. The rain was pouring, but I didn’t feel it sliding down my skin or soaking itself into my clothes. Despite the company of the wolf, there was a tremendous feeling of loneliness.
“Um, Wolf, do you have a name? Or do I have to call you Wolf?” She didn’t respond. “I guess I’ll call you Wolf.” I tried to shut up because I, frankly, felt like an idiot talking to a wolf while wearing a fucking pig’s mask. But I couldn’t resist.
“Okay, can you tell me about the birthmark? Because I know for a fact that you’re involved in that. I mean, why are you here?” I kept blabbering, venting my anger over her presence. There was a whole range of topics that I was spewing. The scenery was changing with each step. The modest houses of Middlesex were shifting shape. They were becoming smaller and boxier in shape. Eventually the wolf was taking us down a dirty road past the trailer park on the very edge of town. We had traveled far and I hadn’t even noticed it. Trees shot up between randomly to signal the beginning of the forest that surrounded Middlesex. It was the same forest that I had run into during my escapade with my former foster parents.
“Thomas is just so…gah! I don’t know!” It hadn’t been long before the one sided conversation turned to the topic of Thomas. “I think I’m scared of him because of what might happen. Will he want to stay together, because I’m not so sure I can take commitment?!”
Okay, so I had commitment issues. Was it really that hard to predict?
“And when he does that silly little…” I shut up immediately, but the wolf kept walking along unperturbed. We were fully in the forest now with trees spaced twenty feet apart. Bu t I was still unable to see through them to town. My stomach was knotting now. What the fuck was I doing? The wolf seemed to sense my hesitation and looked once more over her shoulder. Her eyebrows rose again in an understanding, almost comforting, gesture. She flicked her eyes to signal to me that she was still listening.
A faerie drifted from the dank mass of trees and settled on top of the wolf. It was this presence that truly calmed me. For it was then that I knew that the wolf and the girl’s pig mask were part of this same world. They were part of my world. The faerie was delicate like the others, but her skin was as smooth as and colored like ivory. Fiery ringlets exploded out of her skull and her black wings sprouted from her shoulder blades. She crossed her legs and arms in a disciplinary manner.
I reached out a finger in temptation. As many faeries as I had seen, I had never touched one. But as my finger got closer, her teensy arm swatted at it. I barely felt anything, but it seemed like she had used every ounce of strength. I couldn’t help it; I laughed. She didn’t think that was very funny. The wolf sensed the faeries presence and shook. Her spin rippled, I swung with the movement, and the faerie jerked out of the way. The faerie flew off to a semi-large group of other faeries that I had just noticed.
I looked back down at the wolf, she was again staring over her shoulder at me and I had the urge to get off of her back. As soon as my feet touched ground, the wolf sprinted off towards the faeries. She lurched up towards them, trying to catch them in her teeth. It was playful, I assumed, and not at all dangerous. I sat down on the damp ground and noticed that we were in a circular clump of trees. The trunks grew straight at tall, branches only sprouting from the bark twenty feet from the ground. In the middle of this forest, there was an inexplicable grey and calm like being in the eye of a hurricane.
“Stay still. Don’t move.” A sharp, cold, point was pressed against my back. My breath stopped and my muscles froze.
“What are you-?”
“Shh. No, don’t talk.” The point jabbed deeper into my shirt and skin. I glanced at the wolf. Her lips were pulled back against yellow teeth, a deep, guttural, sound erupting from her chest. In a flash, I caught what the situation looked like from her perspective. I saw myself sitting on the ground; my body slumped in defeat with the grim pig’s face over my own. A somewhat petite man wearing homemade camouflage of tweed and sticks was sticking a long spear into my back. A hard hat was pushed back off his forehead, but kept slipping down in front of his eyes. I would have laughed, but it seemed rather inappropriate.
I tried to look back at the man and to more importantly find out why he was jabbing a spear into my back, but he was intent on keeping me in the dark.
“I said not to move.” He huffed with questioning authority. “Samson? Are you here, Samson?” Obviously, the man was insane. But then again, I was seeing faeries. There was a large crack and a movement of wind.
“What do you want, Cooper?” This new voice was clearly irritated.
“I found her.” Cooper’s helmet fell in front of his eyes. He jerked it back on top of his head.
“Did you?!” Samson was mocking him, “And what makes you think that?”
“Sir, there’s no one else it could be.”
“Hm, this somehow sounds familiar.” The point retreated somewhat. “Ah, yes! It’s what you said the first four times we took someone in.”
“Samson, I swear, this one is the one.”
“What’s your proof? You wouldn’t want to be embarrassed in front of the committee again, would you?”
“No, sir.”
“Well, proceed.”
“The fugitive that we’re looking for escaped with a wolf, her partner, and she was disguised. The fugitive was known to leave through this same portal because of the guard she stabbed when escaping. This captive is with a wolf. She’s out here in the middle of the forest. Oh, and she’s wearing the mask, sir.” Ideas swarmed through my mind. Was I being taken hostage? Had I committed a serious crime? Who the fuck was the girl and why did she make me wear this mask?
“Hm, this is a lot of hard evidence against you, missy.” Samson walked around to face me and Cooper jabbed me again. He hardly had to bend down to meet my gaze because he was so stout and short. The first thing I noticed about him was the fuzzy goatee of red that took up his ruddy face. Green eyes twinkled back at my irritated ones and it was then that I realized what I was staring at. I was being apprehended by a pair of leprechauns.
Leprechauns. What a joke.
This thing was a fucking nightmare.
Upon seeing the wolf, my hands had begun to sweat, blending in with the rain. But that creeper of a girl on top with the demonic pig’s head caused my heart beats to accelerate and thud against each bone. They came closer and closer and I became surer and surer that this was the apocalypse. I didn’t move just like during my escape into the forest. This haunt had called me outside, put a tracer on me. They wanted to talk or just wanted me.
It was absolute silence as the great white wolf approached, her bright eyes piercing into me. Her fur brushed against my freezing wet skin. I didn’t have the courage to look up at the girl’s face and her pig’s mask, so I just stared at the wolf’s deep purple eyes. So calming and yet so fucked up. The girl slipped off of the wolf, her feet not making any noise, and took two tiny steps to reach me. With her standing just a mere three inches away from, it was difficult to not acknowledge the girl’s presence, so I glanced up from under my lashes to make sure that I was going to be able to handle her daunting figure. She waited patiently, her hands clasped together, for me to finally face her. Her disguised eyes stared back at mine and the folds of the pig’s mask moved, indicating a smile.
“Hi.” The word hung between us, somehow necessary.
The girl raised her hands, I flinched, and carefully pulled the skin off of her face. First her chin, then thin lips, a pointed nose, and then finally her dull green eyes that barely batted an eyelash came into view.
“Oh my god.” An invisible hand punched me directly in the stomach when I saw the girl’s face. I was looking at myself, my features, my identity. The girl was calm as if she knew that I was her. She reached over and started to delicately pull the skin over my head. I was still shocked over the discovery. I was staring at myself! My straight, hedgehog brown, hair and my funky long eyelashes were all there. Each feature was presented and accounted for.
The skin was placed over my head and I could see through the extended eyeholes. It was warm inside the mask and the wolf have me a subtle nudge with her nose in acceptance. The girl was smiling, but my mouth was still slack jawed with surprise. She gripped my hand and guided me over to the wolf. With her unspoken instructions, I mounted the wolf side saddle like she had been riding. My contact with the matted fur was not being overpowered by fear, but with an alarming calm.
“Ouf, this is weird.” I turned to look at the girl through the eyehole, but she was gone. She had disappeared. I looked back at the wolf and gripped its fur. It glanced over its shoulder and in a very human like gesture, raised its eyebrow.
“So, wolf, what do we do now?” In response, the wolf gave a lurch and moved forward. The rain was pouring, but I didn’t feel it sliding down my skin or soaking itself into my clothes. Despite the company of the wolf, there was a tremendous feeling of loneliness.
“Um, Wolf, do you have a name? Or do I have to call you Wolf?” She didn’t respond. “I guess I’ll call you Wolf.” I tried to shut up because I, frankly, felt like an idiot talking to a wolf while wearing a fucking pig’s mask. But I couldn’t resist.
“Okay, can you tell me about the birthmark? Because I know for a fact that you’re involved in that. I mean, why are you here?” I kept blabbering, venting my anger over her presence. There was a whole range of topics that I was spewing. The scenery was changing with each step. The modest houses of Middlesex were shifting shape. They were becoming smaller and boxier in shape. Eventually the wolf was taking us down a dirty road past the trailer park on the very edge of town. We had traveled far and I hadn’t even noticed it. Trees shot up between randomly to signal the beginning of the forest that surrounded Middlesex. It was the same forest that I had run into during my escapade with my former foster parents.
“Thomas is just so…gah! I don’t know!” It hadn’t been long before the one sided conversation turned to the topic of Thomas. “I think I’m scared of him because of what might happen. Will he want to stay together, because I’m not so sure I can take commitment?!”
Okay, so I had commitment issues. Was it really that hard to predict?
“And when he does that silly little…” I shut up immediately, but the wolf kept walking along unperturbed. We were fully in the forest now with trees spaced twenty feet apart. Bu t I was still unable to see through them to town. My stomach was knotting now. What the fuck was I doing? The wolf seemed to sense my hesitation and looked once more over her shoulder. Her eyebrows rose again in an understanding, almost comforting, gesture. She flicked her eyes to signal to me that she was still listening.
A faerie drifted from the dank mass of trees and settled on top of the wolf. It was this presence that truly calmed me. For it was then that I knew that the wolf and the girl’s pig mask were part of this same world. They were part of my world. The faerie was delicate like the others, but her skin was as smooth as and colored like ivory. Fiery ringlets exploded out of her skull and her black wings sprouted from her shoulder blades. She crossed her legs and arms in a disciplinary manner.
I reached out a finger in temptation. As many faeries as I had seen, I had never touched one. But as my finger got closer, her teensy arm swatted at it. I barely felt anything, but it seemed like she had used every ounce of strength. I couldn’t help it; I laughed. She didn’t think that was very funny. The wolf sensed the faeries presence and shook. Her spin rippled, I swung with the movement, and the faerie jerked out of the way. The faerie flew off to a semi-large group of other faeries that I had just noticed.
I looked back down at the wolf, she was again staring over her shoulder at me and I had the urge to get off of her back. As soon as my feet touched ground, the wolf sprinted off towards the faeries. She lurched up towards them, trying to catch them in her teeth. It was playful, I assumed, and not at all dangerous. I sat down on the damp ground and noticed that we were in a circular clump of trees. The trunks grew straight at tall, branches only sprouting from the bark twenty feet from the ground. In the middle of this forest, there was an inexplicable grey and calm like being in the eye of a hurricane.
“Stay still. Don’t move.” A sharp, cold, point was pressed against my back. My breath stopped and my muscles froze.
“What are you-?”
“Shh. No, don’t talk.” The point jabbed deeper into my shirt and skin. I glanced at the wolf. Her lips were pulled back against yellow teeth, a deep, guttural, sound erupting from her chest. In a flash, I caught what the situation looked like from her perspective. I saw myself sitting on the ground; my body slumped in defeat with the grim pig’s face over my own. A somewhat petite man wearing homemade camouflage of tweed and sticks was sticking a long spear into my back. A hard hat was pushed back off his forehead, but kept slipping down in front of his eyes. I would have laughed, but it seemed rather inappropriate.
I tried to look back at the man and to more importantly find out why he was jabbing a spear into my back, but he was intent on keeping me in the dark.
“I said not to move.” He huffed with questioning authority. “Samson? Are you here, Samson?” Obviously, the man was insane. But then again, I was seeing faeries. There was a large crack and a movement of wind.
“What do you want, Cooper?” This new voice was clearly irritated.
“I found her.” Cooper’s helmet fell in front of his eyes. He jerked it back on top of his head.
“Did you?!” Samson was mocking him, “And what makes you think that?”
“Sir, there’s no one else it could be.”
“Hm, this somehow sounds familiar.” The point retreated somewhat. “Ah, yes! It’s what you said the first four times we took someone in.”
“Samson, I swear, this one is the one.”
“What’s your proof? You wouldn’t want to be embarrassed in front of the committee again, would you?”
“No, sir.”
“Well, proceed.”
“The fugitive that we’re looking for escaped with a wolf, her partner, and she was disguised. The fugitive was known to leave through this same portal because of the guard she stabbed when escaping. This captive is with a wolf. She’s out here in the middle of the forest. Oh, and she’s wearing the mask, sir.” Ideas swarmed through my mind. Was I being taken hostage? Had I committed a serious crime? Who the fuck was the girl and why did she make me wear this mask?
“Hm, this is a lot of hard evidence against you, missy.” Samson walked around to face me and Cooper jabbed me again. He hardly had to bend down to meet my gaze because he was so stout and short. The first thing I noticed about him was the fuzzy goatee of red that took up his ruddy face. Green eyes twinkled back at my irritated ones and it was then that I realized what I was staring at. I was being apprehended by a pair of leprechauns.
Leprechauns. What a joke.