PART TWO : THE WOLF

1 | Ira

Sunlight kissed at his skin, filling him with warmth as gentle as the scent of strawberries on the breeze. He stretched his arms over his head, yawning wider than even his pet cat Peter could master. The day was perfect for this. He belonged exactly here, relaxing into the soft scratch of the untamed grass. 

He knew that he couldn't exactly recall how he'd fallen asleep beneath the oak tree, sprawled on the crest of the hill, overlooking the strawberry fields. But, well, did it matter? No, not when the weather was so inviting. The bird song so lulling. The clouds so beautiful, streaming across the endless sky. 

His eyes, as bright as that far away sky, flickered open. He lazed on his back, staring up into the soft green canopy, which stretched out to shade his body from the harsh yellow sun. The oak tree's fingers spread out across the sky, shielding him from sight with its tangled limbs. 

Sight from who? He wondered dizzily. There was no one beyond the puffy white clouds. The angels didn't care--not for him. Not after their tricks. 

"Are you awake?" 

The voice didn't startle him. Instead, it filled him with familiarity as sweet as the strawberries around them. Ira rolled over onto his side, placing his bent elbow beneath his pale hair. He smiled, fitting his pink lips to flash his white teeth. 

"No," he laughed. "If I was awake, we wouldn't be here together." 

"If you were sleeping, we wouldn't be talking." He chuckled, a sound as smooth and comforting as warm blankets on a cold night. 

Ira forced his eyes towards the figure sitting just beyond the oak tree. He was perched in the grass, his broad back leaned against the rough bark. His legs splayed out before him, his fingers drummed along the tops of his knees to fill the time. And Ira thought, if he leaned just a little to the left, then maybe he might catch a glimpse of his face. But he did not cross the oak tree, and when he spoke, he did so looking straight up into the green leaves. 

"You have no idea." Ira murmured. 

The rough bark of that single tree might have been an ocean to them. A barrier which Ira could never cross, keeping from him the only thing in all the universe that he needed. That he needed so desperately he dreamed of it. 

Carried along on the sweetly enchanted breeze was something else beneath the soft tang of berries, the faintest whisper of petrichor. The soft and subtle way the pine forest smelled after rains tumbled from the sky, washing the needles in heavenly kisses. It was the scent of his skin, and Ira drank it in knowing that when he woke, it would be gone. 

His heart twisted behind his ribs, sending a jolt through his spine. He could recall another night, one dark and plagued with fear, when they had stayed beneath the pines and been washed by the rain. But those drops had been tears. Divine and angelic, warning them of all they stood to lose. 

And they did lose. 

Ira pressed the heels of his palms into his eyelids. The sky above them flickered, threatening to fill with gray storm clouds weeping over their summer afternoon. "Speak to me." 

"And what should I say?" 

"Anything," he begged. "Just make me think that this is real." 

"It is real, Ira." 

"If you were real, you wouldn't call me that." He pressed his hands into the fresh tears flowing down his freckled cheeks, collecting them on the tips of his fingers.

He was shocked to see that he could cry in this place, shocked to see his tears gathered there, flowing over hands as warped as melted plastic, molded from lumpy clay. Another inadequacy. Another picture he could not paint to mirror image. "If it's inside my head, why can't I make it perfect?" 

"Nothing is ever perfect," he laughed, "or fair." 

Ira's tongue flinched, flicking forward his venom before he could think better of it. 

"Is that why you died?" He scoffed. "To preserve the ongoing unfairness?"

Where his acid touched, it melted. The grass between them turned fuzzy and gray. The oak tree wilted, blurring into the background of this pleasant dream. Ira rubbed at his eyes, turning them down to stare at his nondescript shoes. He couldn't look--he couldn't face the figure sitting with his back pressed against a depleting tree. 

"No," he said, and although Ira dared not see his face, he could hear his beautiful smile in the tone of his voice. "I died because of you." 

"Stop it." Ira warned. "If you don't--I'll erase you." 

"Erase me?" Melchior Brisbane repeated incredulously. "You've already killed me!" 

Ira squeezed his eyes shut and shook his head until the world went blank. 

Sunlight kissed at his skin, filling him with warmth as familiar as the scent of strawberries on the breeze. He stretched his arms over his head, yawning wider than even Peter could master. The day was perfect for this. They belonged exactly here, relaxing into the soft scratch of the untamed grass. The birds perched in the oak tree over their heads sang songs meant for only them. The clouds painted the endless sky, making figures molded out of starch white cotton to forever dance across the blue stage.

His eyes flickered open. He lazed on his back, staring up into the soft green canopy stretched out to shade his body from the yellow sun.

"Are you awake?" Melchior asked, whispering softly into the space between them. The unbridgeable gap filled by a sturdy oak. 

Ira rolled over on his side, placing his bent elbow beneath his yellow hair. "I am now." 

"Was it a good dream?" Melchior asked. 

"Yes, one I hope never to wake from." Ira answered. His breath eased out across the skin of his inner arm, sending shivers up into his shoulder.

"We all have to wake up sometime, Ira." 

Ira's heart twisted, plummeting into the soles of his shoes. He squeezed his eyes shut and whimpered past his trembling lips, "stop it." 

"This is desperate." Melchior teased, his voice as soft as those untouchable clouds. "Dreaming of me--when I'm out there somewhere, lost in Hell, because of you." 

"What choice do I have?" Ira whispered. "If not here, when can I see you?" 

"Can you see me now?" 

Ira glanced at the oak tree holding them lengths apart. At the silhouette of his broad shoulders and spread out legs. At the curve of his cheek, just barely visible around the edge of the oak. "No." 

"Would you like to see me?" 

Ira flinched, shoving himself up on the heels of his hands. "No--don't. Or I'll-" 

"Erase me?" He smirked, leaning around the edge of the tree. Ira wished he had kept his eyes shut--but it was too late. He froze, staring in horror at the pale face staring back at him. Melchior's shimmering green eyes had been plucked out, replaced with orbs as blue as the endless sky. His shorn midnight-brown curls had changed, shaggy tangles of golden wheat. He grinned at Ira with pale pink lips pulled up over blunt white teeth. Ira met his eyes, shivering in his own flesh. He stared across the tree, into the mirror glaring back.

He squeezed his eyes shut and shook his head. 

Sunlight kissed at his skin, filling him with warmth as familiar as the scent of strawberries on the breeze. He stretched his arms over his head, yawning as the sleep slowly released him. He lazed on his back, staring up into the underbelly of the leaves over his head. He was napping beneath an oak tree. How he arrived there--he thought did not much matter.

He rolled over on his side, placing his bent elbow beneath his cheek. He stared out across the oak tree, gazing down the hill towards the distance strawberry fields. It was quiet. Interrupted only by the sound of his own weak pulse and bird song. 

Ira steadied his flattened palms beneath himself and slowly pushed to sit on his legs. He curled them under his body, slumping his spine against the oak tree. He breathed in the scents around him. The rich tang of the grass, the earthy blunt cut of wood to his back, the twist of bitter berries down the hill. He ran his fingers through his hair, ruffling away the confusion lingering there, telling him that there should be another. Something more mixed into the light summer air. 

He craned his head, staring up into the flawlessly blue sky. It wasn't raining. How odd. He felt as if maybe it should have been. 

Thump! 

Ira flinched, jolting away from the bark as if it had grown teeth to bite him. He spun around, falling onto the heels of his palms, and stared up at the elder tree he'd been resting beneath. 

Thump! Thump!

The wood hiccuped outwards, bending beneath a force from inside the hollow trunk. As if a heart was inside, pulsating with life. Ira collected his feet underneath himself and slowly rose, hands helds out before him to steady his fawn-weak legs. 

"Hello?" He croaked to the solitary tree. 

Thud. . .thud. . . thump!

Ira took a half step back. His hand darted to his hip, grasping at empty air and fabric. Where was his--his. . . what was he looking for? 

Crack!

Shards of bark flung forward. Ira flung his arms over his face, wincing as the wood pelted his chest and legs. The tree fell back into stillness after its eruption. Ira lowered his arms slowly, blinking at the squirrel hole centered in the thick hide of the oak. He couldn't recall if it had been there before. There was something about it. About the shape of it, carved into the tree. Angular walls, jagged wooden edges. It reminded him of a door he had seen--though he admittedly couldn't remember much about that either. 

Ira crept forward before he could think better of it. His fingers gently prodded at the rough bark, sliding over the ridges of the tree. There was something about it--the darkness inside of it. A mirror which called to him from galaxies away. Ira leaned forward, lifting himself up onto the tips of his toes. 

He brought his eyes to the door, looking down into the hollow trunk of the tree. It seemed a vastness far beyond the boundaries of the oak. An eternity of darkness, one he could fall into if he took one more step. 

"Hello?" Ira whispered. His voice echoed, filling up his own ears with ringing. "Is there anyone-" 

His words froze on his tongue, crystallizing into shards which impaled the soft palate of his tongue. The tree was not hollow. There was something inside. Someone--someone staring back at him from just beyond the wood walls. Inches from his nose, glowing golden eyes blinked lazily at him. 

Ira screamed, yanking so violently back that he was tipping. His feet came from under him, making him momentarily weightless. He spilled onto his back, landing in the soft meadow with a painless thump. 

The world went blank.

Ira shoved himself off his back, screaming until his lungs shuddered beneath the strain of his voice. 

"Ira!" 

Hands found him in the dark, clasping the back of his neck and dragging him into a sturdy embrace. Ira went willingly, wrapping his arms around the warmth given to him. He cried until he thought he might be sick, his stomach soured from the rolling tightness of his muscles. "You're okay, kid! I'm right here. It's okay, I swear." 

As he spoke, nearly shouting to be heard over Ira's cries, his flat palms stroked soothing circles along Ira's spine. 

"Breath, kid." He murmured. "You're awake now." 

The dizziness, a fog which had attempted to eat him alive, fell away from his mind in slates of crumbling granite. Ira sucked in a gasp of incense-heavy air, of oud soap, and of city smog. He forced his eyes open, drinking in the sight of the man before him. 

His black hair, peppered with streaks of gray, was in a sorry state of disarray. Blue eyes, full of worry, had been squinted to compensate for the loss of his glasses. He was dressed in a set of silky yellow pajamas, looking half asleep and terrified out of his mind. 

"Father," Ira whimpered, "is this. . .is this real?" 

Father Pine blew a breath from his nose. He nudged Ira aside and slipped into the cramped twin bed beside him. Ira slid across the cotton sheets, wiping sweat from his brow with trembling fingers. Father Pine held his hands out before them, steady and flat. Ira looked at them, at the faint white scars littered across his skin from years of knife fights. 

"How many?" Father Pine asked. 

"Ten." Ira breathed, counting each finger as a new life line. 

"And you have?" 

Ira looked down at his own fingers, trembling and glistening ice pale beneath the soft glow of city lamps coming in from the open window. He stared at the flesh--but it never waivered. It never turned smokey, never blurring at the edges. "Ten." He exhaled in sharp relief, slumping against the headboard. His hands--for some reason, he could never make them as accurate in his hallucinations. "This is real." 

"This is real." Father Pine agreed. He stroked his fingers through Ira's yellow hair, moving it off his sweaty forehead. "Did you have. . . a memory?" 

Ira shook his head, wincing. He never thought he would see the day when he wished for those nightmarish memories back. He likely never would have if they had not been replaced with something worse. His past, which had always come to him as dreams, had stopped. Several months ago, while in a state of angelic-power overload, Ira had found a door in the back of his mind. He had opened it, causing a whole slew of world-ending tragedies--and the side effect had been a sudden and complete stop of all his past-lives memories. 

They had been replaced with something Ira had never experienced before. Dreams. The kind that everyone got. Well, if everyone suffered from lucid waking nightmares--then, yes, the kind that everyone got. It seemed that years of struggling for control over his sleeping subconscious had trained it into an unbearable super beast capable of producing the worst illusions. 

"Just a nightmare." Ira whispered hoarsely. He groaned, scrubbing his palms against his bleary eyes. "What time is it?" 

"Just past three." Father Pine answered, sliding off Ira's bed. "I'll put on some coffee."

| Coming Spring 2024 |