The same salt and pepper hair that adorned his head formed a v-shaped pattern over his chest, slightly thicker than Marco’s. He had a thicker trial of hair running down his flat stomach as well, but was by no means too hairy. I’ve always liked a man with a hairy chest, just as long as they don’t have hair all over their back.
His arms were just as well toned as his abs, though he was not quite as muscular as Marco. He had his chin length hair pulled back in a ponytail. Stray hairs were beginning to escape and hung in long loose strands which framed his face.
As I admired his body I understood why Marco had insisted that he stay with Luther during his visit. Sam was a very attractive man, but I didn’t want to jump him. That was bizarre and completely unexplainable to me, too. I just liked Sam, and that was all there was to it. It was sort of like Luther and me. Yes, Luther was gorgeous, but when I looked at him, I didn’t see an object, I saw a friend of mine. Even though I hadn’t known Sam long, he was the kind of person that you couldn’t help but think of as your friend.
“You hungry?” I asked.
“Thanks, but I’ll catch my dinner elsewhere tonight, if that’s alright with you.”
“Marco tells me there are some nice rabbits in the woods around here.”
“I’ll keep that in mind.” He smiled.
Sam and I shared a pitcher of iced tea before he rose to leave near dusk.
“Darlin’, if you’ll excuse me, I think I’ll be spending the rest of the evening outdoors.”
“Alright.”
I wasn’t sure how exactly to respond. I’d never been around a werewolf on the full moon before. Well, one that I wasn’t trying to kill, anyway. Before Sam left the room I asked, “Should I make a point to stay inside tonight?”
“That won’t be necessary with me, but you might prefer not to see.” He looked sad when he answered. The expression on his face told me someone had had a very bad reaction to his transformation in the past. When I didn’t respond he continued, “An alpha werewolf has more control than some of the lesser wolves. At first no one really has control when they turn. Often times they black out completely until the next morning. But, over time you learn to make peace with the beast. And if you have the potential to become an alpha, you might even learn to control it. The point is, when I turn I’m still me, and I won’t hurt you.”
I’ve never been afraid of you, Sam.” I meant it to be a comfort, but it seemed to bother him.
“If you saw me tonight, you might change your mind.”
I watched as Sam walked out of the kitchen and heard the front door close behind him. It was just as well that he was spending the night outside, because I was too tired to carry on much of a conversation.
It was barely dusk when I went upstairs and stretched out across the bed.
—
Howls echoed through the night and I was startled awake.
I rose from the bed and threw the balcony doors open wide.
It was after midnight and the early morning air was cool and fresh against my face. Sam’s warning was still in my mind, but as I looked out over the woods I did not feel afraid.
Somewhere out there was a werewolf, but I couldn’t bring myself to think of Sam as a monster. Just then a large silvery gray wolf emerged from the trees and stepped tentatively toward the house. He was huge. Though he looked like a real wolf, he was nearly three times the size. The wolf continued forward until he was almost underneath my balcony, sat down, threw his head back, and howled.
“Hello, Sam,” I whispered.
We made eye contact, and for a minute I recognized Sam’s dark eyes before he turned and ran back into the woods. My heart beat faster, but it wasn’t exactly with fear. I don’t know if excited was the right way to describe recognizing someone’s eyes in a wolf’s face, but it was close enough.
He looked so sad. I didn’t know how I was supposed to react, and I wasn’t sure if Sam had been glad to see me, or disappointed that I didn’t listen to his warning. But, the hour was late and I was still tired. Without bothering to turn down the covers, I crawled back on the bed and tried to get comfortable again.
Once I was awake enough to be aware, I missed Marco something terrible. That was about the time of night I had been used to waking up and rolling over to touch his warm body. I hugged a pillow against my chest, but it just wasn’t the same. My grip on the pillow grew tighter and tighter. I yearned to be close to him again. My heart ached in a way I didn’t think was possible for someone I wasn’t in love with. I flopped to my back and looked at the phone beside the bed.
The longer I lay there, the more tempted I was to call. But it was the full moon, he might not even be there, and tomorrow he would be gone.
I wanted Marco back, even if it was only for a night. But I couldn’t call. What would it say about me if I called then? We had mutually agreed to get on with our lives. No matter how many times I reminded myself of this, I still stared at the phone by the bed.
Finally I got up and took Mathias’ journal down from the shelf.
“If I ever needed words of wisdom old man, it’s now,” I said as I opened the cover.
I turned the page and was once again confronted with an image of one of the most hauntingly beautiful men I’d ever seen. Beautiful might not be a very masculine way to describe a man, but it was the closest I could come to doing Mathias Alexander justice. He had been known as The Seducer. He was one of the most powerful wizards to have ever lived, and he was my great, great grandfather. His hair blazed like a captive flame in the faint moonlight streaming through the balcony door. The picture seemed alive in some way. The kindness in his eyes tugged at my heart and put a lump in my throat. I needed a shoulder to cry on, someone to tell me that everything would be alright. When I finally turned to the next page I found these words:
I cannot offer you my shoulder, but please believe that
everything will be alright.
That was all it took. My emotions were already shook up
and I started to cry. Before I could find a tissue more of his
words began to appear as if being written by an invisible
hand.
Do not cry, child. It would be wrong of me to tell you the
future. I do not believe in interfering with fate. But if you will
not take the word of a wizard with the gift of sight, then who
will you believe?
I understand what you are feeling, because I have seen it.
I have also seen your frustration at hearing me say that, but
it is true. However, you are thinking, “Why did he not warn
me about this?” And I say to you, I did.
Do not try to analyze things too much. As someone has
recently told you, “Do not complicate things that need not be
complicated.” Yes, I know where you were this past week. Do
not blush. I am a very old wizard, and there is little that I
have not been exposed to.
Never be embarrassed to turn to me. As I have said before, I do not have all the answers. I am merely offering advice that might be of some comfort to you. You are thinking that you haven’t really accomplished anything by reading this journal again, but you have.
You are already less anxious than you were when your fingers first touched these pages. The future will unfold before you like a wild rose blooming in the spring. They do not need your care, or your time, and whether you notice them or not, they still grow.
“What the hell does that mean?” I asked out loud.
As much as him not giving a straight answer bothered me, Mathias was right. I did feel much better than when I’d first picked up the journal. I wondered how I would ever manage to get to sleep and I saw one last response:
Close your eyes.
“Smartass,” I mumbled as I put the book back on the shelf.
Mathias Alexander’s enchanted journal had come to me through an unlikely source. Marco had passed it along during one of my visits to his club. He’d found it the year before in an old bookstore in London. Since the journal was enchanted, Mathias had used it to instruct Marco to deliver the book to me. Marco was able to read the journal like a diary, telling him Mathias’ day to day life, but the teachings that my wizard ancestor had longed to pass down were only seen by me.
Mathias had made sure of that.
I decided that the only way I would ever still my mind enough to rest was to meditate. I lay flat of my back, adjusted the pillow as best I could and began to breathe deeply and evenly. Once my heart began to beat more slowly, I started the visualization exercise Mathias had taught me.
A staircase stood before me. I saw along this staircase many colors that stretched upward and wrapped around the steps. The staircase that I visualized looked very much like the stone steps leading down to Alfred’s lab and the dungeon.
As I approached the first step I looked down, and through my mind’s eye saw my right foot with the dragonfly tattoo on the big toe. This was my way of visualizing me without detaching myself from the surroundings.
The lower portion of the staircase was surrounded in a beautiful, almost jewel like red. I stepped into this red and let it embrace me. I breathed in the color and let my anger and frustration flow out of me. It took several deep breaths before I felt calm enough to continue.
The red faded into a beautiful orange that I passed through next, followed by a magnificent sunshine yellow that I stopped to breathe in, as well. I let the bright and cheerful color fill my heart and breathed out my anxiety. The yellow became a green that spilled over into a blue and from there a glorious purple. By the time I had reached the purple I felt as if I were floating instead of ascending a staircase. The purple gave way to a blinding white, beyond which there was a garden. This was my safe place, the place in my mind that I went in order to practice my skills, to release my worries, and if possible, heal my heart.
The garden was awe inspiringly lush and vibrant. The plants never stopped growing. Flowers bloomed before my eyes as if in fast motion, and vines continued to spread while I walked across them. The colors were the most vivid I’d ever seen but in particular I remembered the roses. Here I always took the time to stop and smell them in all their glory.
Surrounded by a tangle of beautiful pink roses and vines was a door. This door was silver and ornate as the door to my dungeon, but it was always locked. In order to gain entrance to this particular door, I had to let go of the last of my worries, the ones that no amount of deep breathing could take away.
I looked down and beside the door there was a box. This box was also covered in wonderful carvings and had the look of silver. I sat in front of the box and opened the lid. Inside I saw what looked like a reflection of a clear night sky. There were stars and comets, planets and moons. It looked as if the entire universe had been fitted to the inside of that box. If it could hold the universe, it could hold my problems. I visualized an object to represent each of the things that troubled me and placed them in the box. The first thing that appeared was a picture, almost like a snapshot of Marco in his red pajamas, and I put it in the box. The next was a picture of Alfred looking very upset.
Next was my father, then Elijah, and Kat. This went on for a while with everything from my bathroom scale to a paintbrush appearing before me. Miraculously the small box held them all including the next object, Mathias’ journal. I was tired of worrying about what he had meant when he warned me to be careful who I loved. I wanted to be free to love whomever I chose without worrying about what meaning it would have. Even as I thought this I knew that I could try as much as I wanted, but I could never change what I felt, nor could I dictate to myself what was appropriate for me to feel. In spite of all of that, the last object I placed into the box was a picture of a heart. Not the real kind, but a valentine version, fitted together like a puzzle. The pieces still held, but they had obviously been separate at one time.
When everything that was on my mind had at last been placed inside the box, I closed the lid. I reopened the box and saw only the reflection of a beautiful clear night. My problems were gone, at least for now. I looked back up to the door and a key appeared in the lock. As I opened the door and stepped inside, I always put the key on a small table near the door.
But it never stayed there. In this room I had created a place for myself to cope with whatever might come my way. The room always contained whatever I needed to be there. One thing that was always there was a comfortable couch just to the left of the door. There was also a fountain that gently splashed near the end of the couch and tall bamboo plants in every corner.
I approached the small table near the sofa. This table had many layers and among the layers were many bottles. I selected the one labeled, ‘sweet dreams’. But before I could open the bottle I heard Mathias’ voice in my mind.
“
There is a bottle on the shelf below that might be of more
use to you,”
he said.
I picked up a small bottle shaped like a tear drop and read the label.
The Desires of Your Heart
I held the bottle for a moment and wondered if I really wanted to know the desires of my heart. What would knowing such a thing accomplish except to confuse me further? I was afraid that if I knew the desires of my heart it might shape my reality in a way that would not have previously been. To put it bluntly, I was afraid it might be screwing with fate. I believe things happen for a reason, and there is no such thing as coincidence. Therefore, fate should be left alone.
“
But is it not fate that I would bring this to your attention
now?”
Mathias’ voice floated through my head again.
He was the only one capable of visiting me when I went to that place in my mind. I think it was because he had shown me how to get there. He was very specific in his instructions that I should never bring anyone with me to that room. He said that having someone else’s consciousness there might warp me in some way. Of course he said it much more eloquently than I, but that was the gist of it. It seemed I was able to somehow channel his thoughts when I was there. The way he had explained this to me in his journal was that I knew what he would say because he was a part of me.