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Inside my abandoned flat, courage finally gives way to despair, much like my legs. I slide down the front door, collapsing on the floor as my heart breaks.
I don’t know how long I’ve been sitting here, listening to the rain replace silent, tearless misery. Hours and hours. I can’t stay here forever, though I want to close my eyes and sleep until my life ends.
Am I insane?
Maybe, but I’m also Curt’s mate, a Furtletooth, and I can’t just give up. Are they waiting for me, back at home? Waiting for me to tell the story?
“The Storyteller sat in her Earthly flat, grief stricken at being alone,” I whisper, afraid to shout the words of a mad woman. “But she knew love was the most powerful magic in the universe. She knew she was loved. Loved by her mate. Loved by her family, awaiting her return. They believed in her and she in them. The Storyteller rose up in her soul, calling out to the portal to open at her command.”
Nothing happens, of course. No portal opens to another realm. There’s just the rain, lashing against the windows and playing a drum beat on the roof. I try again, and again, and again, but each time my heart sinks farther and farther from belief and all I gain is a chill from a soaked anorak.
Groaning at the stabbing pain in my back and legs, I haul myself up and enter my tiny studio flat. At least it’s warm, since the heating is on a timer. The tinsel, fake snow, fairy lights and miniature tree scream artificial joy even louder than when I left over a year ago.
Or was it yesterday?
I look around, standing in the cramped home of a sad, lonely woman whose memory longs for a beloved wooden lodge, carved by a wolf. Everything in my life burns down, eventually.
I must be insane. A mad old woman in a soaked purple anorak.
Enough. Wings would slap the back of my head and tell me to eat my dinner.
I hang the offending coat on a peg and check the fridge. The shrink wrapped turkey meal for one stares back at me. Of course it’s still there. Where else would it be? I feel too nauseated for anything much, so I reluctantly chew on a cold slice of bread and put the kettle on.
The tea steams my nose as I sit in my self assembled armchair, both hands clasped around a mug for its comforting warmth. I miss Curt’s rocking chair. The three sips of tea threaten to revisit, so I place the mug on a wobbly side table and glance at the torn wildlife magazine I’ve been using as a coaster.
A sabre tooth tiger on the cover winks at me. When I look closer, it’s just an ordinary tiger, peeking through the undergrowth of a place I’ll never travel to. I’m so tired and cold to the bone. A hot shower might help.
Running water, whilst steaming away the ache in my bones, does nothing for a broken heart. Shampoo removes the park’s grime from my hair in a foam of artificial apples. Too vigorous rubbing bumps the swelling on my forehead and I wince.
My softest sheep covered onesie reminds me of Roger the Ram as I try to watch television, but the glare and energy of cartoon superheroes just make me want to crawl into bed and forget I exist.
So that’s what I do.
* * *
When I open my eyes, it’s dark, not even a fairy light to brighten the gloom. How long have I been asleep? It’s winter here. It gets dark early. I sit up in bed and reach for the night light, but my heart stops in terror.
Someone sits in my armchair, the outline of a head and arms emerging from the shadows. I reach under my bed, where I keep the rounders bat I stole from my junior school and, brandishing the weapon, switch on the light, demanding, “Who’s there?”
“Who do you think, Big Bum?” he replies, with a huge grin. “I rather you didn’t hit me with that.”
I fling the bat across the room, knocking the miniature Christmas tree off its perch. “Curt,” I croak, scrambling out of bed and launching myself into his arms. He gathers me onto his lap and his lips find mine, the passion of his touch bringing life back to my aching body. “I missed you, so much,” I whimper.
“I know,” he replies, delivering another kiss that glues shut a crack in my shattered heart.
“How did you get here?”
“The same way as you.”
“But I couldn’t get the portal to open. Did Kit do it?”
“Who’s Kit?” he asks.
I laugh, but his smile has gone, replaced by confusion. It’s then I notice he’s not in his usual leathers. My palm’s resting on a jet black, double breasted designer suit. A black shirt and a sapphire tie, the colour of Serpen’s eyes, completes the look and his silver hair has been cut short and styled in waves to hide the bald patches. He looks amazing, but he doesn’t look like my wolf anymore.
“Where did you get the clothes?” I ask.
He shoves me off his lap and I land in a heap on my worn grey carpet, crying out in pain and shock.
“I didn’t get anything,” he snarls. “I’m not real. I wasn’t real. I won’t ever be real.”
“You were real to me,” I wail.
“Were. You were real to me,” he repeats. “I’m already gone from your belief.”
“No. You’ll always be real to me.”
“If I was, you’d be able to find me. But you can’t because you know you don’t deserve me. You never did.”
“No,” I whimper. “I love you.”
“You love your dream. You failed at everything, your whole life. You weren’t good enough. Nobody loves you, so you invented a wolfman and made yourself special.”
“No. Stop. Please.”
“Made yourself a Chosen One? Chosen for what? A joke?”
I crawl away from him, hands over my ears, but I can’t block out his words. I’ve heard this voice my whole life, deep inside my head.
Curt revolves in my unmovable armchair and my flat morphs around him, gaudy decorations melting down the walls. The office builds brick by brick, pixel by pixel, every chair at every desk filled by a beloved face from my realm, laughing at me.
“Welcome back, you old bag,” Curt says, giggling in my face.
Files pile up on my desk and the leaning tower topples, disgorging paper everywhere. My computer glares so brightly my eyes burn in their sockets, and the screen fills with scrolling emails, in thousands upon thousands of shrieking fonts.
“Lots of work. Lots of work. Lots of work for you,” voice after voice sings to the tune of Jingle Bells.
“You really are too fat, you know,” says Curt. “All hail the return of the teamaker.”
They all laugh, hysterically, as mugs filled with squelching mould pop up on desks, chairs, windowsills and the floor.
“This is the best it’ll ever be,” says Curt, waving a mug. “Enjoy.”
He throws the mould in my face and I wake from the nightmare, screaming.
