Jesse

Excerpts from Jesse’s written Journal:

Day: Unknown

Year: Lost track

Season: Winter

There isn’t a lot to write about as of right now. I’ve been abandoned and re-found only to be abandoned and claimed again. I am seventeen and living under the roof of my grandfather, The Beast O’Ciardha. He is a stern man, who does not show affection well. His idea of affection is making sure I get to sleep with only mild exhaustion and can make it fully under the covers of my bed. He doesn’t show it well, as I’ve said, but I know he loves me. He is training me. That is love enough.

I’ll start from the beginning…or partially the beginning. I was seven when the girl who shares my face shoved me off the boat and kept mother from finding me under the water. The girl deserves no name and I shall refer to her as either ‘the girl who shares my face’ or ‘the evil one’. That is how I know her in my heart and shall forever know her. They left me to the darkness of the depths of that god-forsaken lake. I don’t remember how but I was found by my dear friend Aurora and she cared for me. She took me to my grandfather’s deep in the mountains in Europe not long after she took me in. I suppose she figured she needed help with raising a child.

My grandfather, a first sight, scared me. Me a child of seven. He had growled at me…I remember that much. So much from that time of my life is blurred but I will never forget the first time I was growled at. He had taken me in, surprised to see me for what I was. I still had no idea what I was exactly.

He trained me and claimed me as the O’Ciardha heir. He is helping me to my goal of killing the evil one. I celebrated my seventeenth birthday last week. It was an interesting experience. My gift for the day was being able to sleep in. Usually Grandfather wakes me just before the sun rises so I can meditate. Then I study from his books. We take a small break for tea and lunch and then for the rest of the day he works me in combat. I have learned a lot from him. On my birthday, he let me sleep until the time I would have finished meditating. He woke me and took me straight to my book studies. With lunch I got a few extra moments to rest myself before one of the most intense combat sessions.

We sparred long into the evening. I walked away, barely, with a bunch of bruises and very sore. I think I was let off easy. He wasn’t as tired as he usually was when we finished sparring. I soaked in a warm bath for a while, trying to rid the bruises and my muscles of the ache I knew would be coming. When I was getting ready for bed I noticed that the moon was out and I heard birds, Nightingales (or were they Mockingbirds), I believe. Feeling, still, very restless and energetic I decided I was going to go for a walk. I grabbed a light sweater and put on my shoes.

The walk outside was refreshing. I remember it vividly. It was damp, it had rained earlier, and the ground was still crunchy with the dead leaves of fall. The moon was shining through the branches of the trees, and it made me feel odd. It was almost full and the night dress I was wearing seemed to glow and float as I walked. At one point I even went so far as to feel as if I’d been transformed into some majestic but fierce animal. I remember telling myself, “Stop being so silly. You are you…you have no changed and you will not for a time.” Then I felt stupid for actually voicing concern to myself. I laughed and took off at a run. The wind was cold but it felt great. It was exhilarating. I stopped at a hill and looked down. There was a small town down at the foot of the large hill I was on. I wanted to go forward, but I didn’t. I turned around and walked back along the path I had come. I heard some twigs breaking, which usually would not have alarmed me…but theses twigs weren’t on the ground behind me…they were in the trees above me. I remember looking up and seeing someone up in the trees. He, or at least I think it was a he, had wings. I didn’t stay long enough to catch his scent. I ran. I ran as fast as I could go. Grandfather had taught me to be wary of everyone. I wasn’t sure, but men in trees with wings certainly qualified as that. I went to my room, brushing past Grandfather when he questioned me about what had happened and where I had gone. I went to sleep, staring at my window envisioning the man with his wings sitting outside my window, plotting. Plotting what I didn’t know…but freshly at seventeen…I was scared.

The week went by quickly. Last night was the most interesting night I have experienced during the span of my life so far. I woke late in the night and heard voices. One I recognized…the other I did not. I am curious…to a fault. I crept from my bed and hid by the door. I suppose I wasn’t quiet enough and I was heard. I knew Grandfather would be mad, but the other man, chided him lightly and invited me into the room. I felt as if I’d seen him before, but I had never met him. He was…breathtaking. I am very sheltered. The closest I’ve come to another person…much less a man besides Grandfather, was the hill just over the town hidden in the middle of the forest. I was intimidated and I know it irked Grandfather to see me as such. I felt like a bumbling idiot. I felt timid and scared.

The worst of it…he spoke to me. Not like I would have expected to have been spoken to. He actually spoke to me as an equal. Granted, Grandfather spoke to me like that normally, but the books I usually read, being old and out-dated, only showed women to be seen as unequal and subservient. I knew he was old. I could smell it in his scent. It was surprising to see he held more modern views of girls.

He made me feel odd, still does. My insides fluttered and shook and made me feel sick. There was no reason for this so I simply concluded that it was because I was so close to someone other then my grandfather. The conversation was quick…I wanted to leave as soon as possible. I had interrupted a conversation that I felt needed to be finished. That, and Janus, as I had learned was his name, was making me nervous by looking at me. I didn’t understand why I felt in such a way, but my musings were cut short as pain; searing and blinding pain shot through my body. That was all I remembered until I woke to the early light, laying naked out in the middle of the woods.

My mouth was full of a gross taste and my skin was chilled from the wetness beneath me. I noticed I had a cloak laid on me and Janus was peering down at me. I was mortified. My stomach was dancing within me and my limbs shook from something other then the cold. I didn’t understand it. I gathered his cloak about me and sat up, searching for where I was. "What happened? Where am I?" I had asked.

“You are outside of town.”

"And what happened to get me here?"

“You became a werewolf, as your father did, and his father before him.”

"So why am I here? Shouldn't I have just stayed back at home?"

“No, when you become a werewolf for the first time you lose control of all your actions, and you hunt. You kill. Now you are conscious again, and never have to worry about losing control again.” I knew that… I don’t know why I had asked him such a stupid question. I blame the cold and my disorientation from just waking. He lead me home, asking me questions. Something in me said to impress. To flaunt the knowledge I had. He asked and I answered.

When he left I felt sad. So many emotions that were so foreign to me. I don’t like it. He left with a flourish of his cape and a single black rose. I have to rose next to me, sitting on my nightstand as I write this. I will press it and keep it with me. I can’t ask why, but something pulls in me to keep it and press it. Well, it is late and even as I write this my eyes begin to close so I bid you good night and until tomorrow.

~Jesse