Page 65 of The Starling and the Hatter

My eyes popped open, but I didn’t move. Instead I just looked around me from where I lay on my side against the boulder. The sky was starting to pink, reflected in the ocean. The scuffle and grunting came again and my heart nearly stopped. I stayed still, but the noise never came closer or became more menacing; it was just there, somewhere close by.

I slowly pushed myself up to sitting, turning this way and that, seeing nothing but continuing to hear it. I kept my cloak tightly wrapped around me as I stood and moved to the edge of the boulder so that I could see around it to the path.

There in the early dawn light, four wolf cubs pranced and played with their mother. She lunged and ran and came back again, encouraging them to chase after her.

I was terrified and fascinated. From what I knew of wolves, a mother was likely to avoid humans unless they attacked her or her cubs. So I crouched and I watched, entranced.

This felt like more than coincidence. It felt like fate, or a sign. After all the stories my mother had told me about the mother of wolves, and after the revelation of Garnet’s words and the strength I’d found to embrace my own wolfish self, this felt almost inevitable. Of course a wolf would come to show me that I was on the right path. That sounded silly and unlikely, but I didn’t care. That was what it meant to me. I continued to watch them as the dim early dawn became the piercing rays of sunrise. I’d become so enchanted with watching their games that when I looked to the mother wolf and saw her looking back, her eyes fixed on mine, I wasn’t afraid. I mean you no harm, I chanted in my head, hoping she would sense my intent. I mean you no harm. She stilled for a moment and then, seeming to decide I was no threat, she rounded up her pups, chasing and being chased, until she finally led them out of sight.

Perhaps they were going back to their den. Maybe they were just beginning a hunt. Either way, the encounter made me braver than before, and I set off with new energy and a burning determination in my heart.

As I walked, I started pulling out my mother’s words, the ones I’d tried so hard to remember last night, and I put them to a tune.

In my solitude, I was able to sing my song out loud, over and over until it all made sense and flowed together. The tune was slow and smooth, the notes in the lower register of my voice. It was a hypnotic melody, one that would only catch the attention of those willing to stop and listen.

Where the sun beats down on the desert place

Where the moon creates shadows in empty space

There on desolate ground, you’ll find her

With silver fur that streaks and lines her

She digs at the earth

Discovering the bones

Of the person she was

And the love that she owns

This is the wild mother

She will protect the other

The one who’s lost her way

The one who wishes to stay

She learned to heal by trial

Walking each craggy mile

She teaches the song to her children

The notes that will soothe and fill them

This is the wild mother

She will protect all others

Singing the lost souls home

Singing life to their bones

I sang and I walked, and my journey, though entirely solitary, did not trudge by. The steady beat of the ocean and the constant wind in my hair and skirts pushed me along, and for the first time I felt that I was choosing to walk toward something—someone. The ocean showed me what freedom was. In its ebbing and flowing I saw the way that beauty and rhythm worked with the chaos, and I tried to breathe it in. I breathed in my truths. The ones I was proud of as well as the ones that brought me shame. They were all a part of me. And with each step I took that drew me closer to Winhaven, I learned to accept all of those truths.

In the end, the journey did not feel like drudgery, because I knew where I was going and who I was going to. Most importantly, I knew who I was.