Hanley and Giselle Durand
"By the time Hanley and Giselle reached their teenaged years, they
probably could be considered
unruly. Among their peers at Faraway
Senior High, they were considered "not to be messed with." It wasn't that they were bullies, or
outwardly nasty to any particular person.
They were just hard. Brooding and
angsty. Maybe it was because they were
so quiet, most often seen together with their matching faces set in stony
frowns. Maybe it was because they were
known hunters; spending hours together in the forest hunting wild game. Maybe it was because of all the silly stories
that had sprung up about them, as if they were some sort of urban legends.
Or maybe it was just their bitterly cold, dark, haunted eyes."
Jennifer Tide
"Jennifer Tide came from a family comprised
of a busy, widower father, his beloved mother who lived with them, and five
older sisters. Their dad was a powerful
man who was rarely home as he worked, and traveled for work almost all the
time. His mother had moved in years back
when their own mother had passed away.
And four of her sisters were grown and out of the house, leaving only
she and her sister Adrian behind.
The family of women was one of traditions, strange though they
may be. Grandmother's rule was that each
girl must wait until age fifteen to start dating. At age fifteen, Grandmother
gave the birds and the bees talk to each girl, and then took her to pierce her
ears before bestowing upon her much more freedom to explore the world. Jennifer hadn't been crazy about the ear
piercing idea, but it was just a thing that they all did. Like some sort of symbolic rite of passage."
Aunt Melanie
"Aspen's head snapped up, and she was instantly yanked from her
reverie by the sound of her mother's scream as she came crashing through the
trees.
"GET AWAY FROM HER, MELANIE!" Mrs. Briar shrieked. She sprinted across the clearing, and the
look of sheer terror on her face prompted Aspen to leap up and scramble away
from the woman in black and toward her mother.
Mrs. Briar reached Aspen and scooped her off her feet. Her mother's body trembled violently and she
began to weep inconsolably as she cradled Aspen against her. She glared angrily at the woman in black
who'd risen to her feet and loomed at her full lofty height, glaring evilly at
Mrs. Briar.
"Go away, Melanie.
STAY AWAY!" Mrs. Briar made her demand and then turned to run back
the way she'd come, Aspen bumping in her arms.
The woman spoke a reply, in a quiet voice. It scared and confused Aspen, for her mother
was putting distance between them quickly, yet she heard the response as though
from inside her own mind.
She said, "I'll find you again. I will always find you.' "
"When sleep found her, Kimberly fell fast to dream. She found herself strolling hand in hand with
her grandmother next to a lake with a surface calm as glass.
The sun high in the sky glinted on its
surface, and trees all around it swayed gently in a warm breeze. She looked over at her grandma and found her
exactly as she recalled her from when she was a young girl. A bittersweet pang of regret stung her, as
she realized she was dreaming, and wished she'd enjoyed such times more.
As they strolled, chatting and laughing at shared reminiscences,
a wolf lumbered out of the trees on the other side of the lake, and a rolling
black cloud passed over the sun.
Kimberly and her grandmother stopped short, staring at the
beast. So huge it was it stood almost as
tall as a grown man. Its muscles rippled
under bristling fur. Its nostrils flared
and it grunted and snorted with each heaving breath it took. It glared at them with angry, bloodshot,
glowing red eyes. Kimberly's heart sped.
"Kimberly," her grandma said urgently. "Beware the wolves. They lurk where you least expect them."
She tore her eyes away from the unnatural creature and stared at
her grandma.
"What? What do you
mean?"
"Beware the wolves!" grandma said again, her voice
shaking, her eyes wide with fright.
Kimberly became anxious and quite upset. "Grandma, I don't understand!"
"Run, Kimberly," grandma said. "RUN!"
Grandma gave her a shove just as the wolf sprang forward with
huge, super strides. Kimberly's knees
went weak. But, she dashed off into the
trees."
