The headache came, and this time she didn’t fight it. Blackness came, but her body kept moving. She stood up, dropping the blanket to the redwood, then pulled off her shirt and pushed down her sleeping pants and underwear. A crunching noise filled the air, and moments later a rust-colored wolf stood on in her place. The shewolf trotted down the stairs and took off across the back yard, entering the greenspace left between the widely spaced housing.
Morning came, and Dawn knocked on her daughter’s room. Hearing no answer, she poked her head in and saw the room was dark and the bed was empty. Moving to the kitchen and not seeing her there, she joined Mark at the table. He was dressed for work already in his State Trooper uniform and having a cup of coffee while reading the paper. “Where’s Treasure,” she asked.
“I thought she was sleeping.” Dawn searched the house and didn’t find her; she was heading back to the kitchen when she heard her husband yell “Fuck” and the sliding door open. She ran in, taking note of the discarded clothing outside. Mark was running across the back yard, and then she froze as she saw where he was headed.
A naked Treasure was walking back towards them, her body cut and bleeding from the brush. Her father picked her up and carried her back inside. “Is she all right?”
“She’s freezing,” he said. “Run a bath for her, we’ve got to warm her up and clean these scratches.”
Thirty minutes later, she was tucked into bed. The scratches were nothing, but her feet were in rough shape.
She didn’t remember a thing after one in the morning, she didn’t know why she had blood on her face and in her mouth, or why she woke up almost a mile from home in the woods. Dawn went to call the doctor and get an emergency appointment. The episodes were back, and that scared them all.
The single episode turned out to be a blessing in disguise.
Treasure woke up about noon, running to the bathroom to throw up. She flushed the toilet, wondering what the chunks of red were, and she could have sworn she saw a tuft of white fur or something in there, but it was soon gone, and she dismissed it. Rinsing her mouth out and brushing her teeth, she paused when she looked down and saw the trail of blood spots her feet were leaving. As if by signal, her brain started processing the pain and she yelped a little and pushed herself up to sit on the vanity. “MOM!”
The door opened a few moments later and Dawn came in, pausing when she saw the light on in the bathroom. “Are you all right, baby?” She could see the blood on the floor and could see how she was sitting, plus she could smell the vomit.
“I threw up, then I felt my feet and couldn’t go any farther,” she said.
Dawn put her hand on her forehead. “You’re a little warm, let’s take your temperature too.” She opened the medicine cabinet and pulled out a digital thermometer which she put in her mouth. “Hang on, I’m getting Dad to clean this up while I fix your feet.”
The thermometer beeped. She pulled it out, one hundred point six degrees. She sighed, knowing Mom would restrict her to bed now until the fever was gone.
She went back out and came back a minute later with a stool and her big first aid kit. While her Dad damp mopped the blood trail she had left and stripped the bed of the bloody sheets, Mom was cleaning and bandaging her feet. “You soaked through some of my earlier work,” she said. “Nothing is deep or serious, but I need to check it twice a day to make sure nothing gets infected.” When she was done, she got some fuzzy socks and put them over the bandages to protect them. “I want you to stay off your feet for a day or two, call Dad or I if you need to go to the bathroom.”
“You can’t lift me, Mom!”
“Oh you hush, I’ll get the wheelchair out of the garage and take care of you that way. If you keep tearing these cuts open, they won’t heal well.”
“Yes Mom,” she said with a roll of your eyes. She lifted her shirt as her Mom checked the other scrapes and cuts, these were shallow and scabbed over so she put the shirt down.
“How are you feeling, honey?” Her Dad stood at the door, leaning against the frame, dressed in a State Patrol T-shirt and shorts.
“I’m fine,” she said. “I’m sorry I made you miss work. You’ve missed so much this past year.”
“It’s all right, I’ll always be here when you need me,” he said. Dawn had packed her kit up and stepped out so Dad could take her back to bed. He laid her on the fresh sheets while Mom tucked her in. “Are you hungry?”
“My stomach feels better now,” she said.
“I’ll bring you saltines and Seven-Up. If this is the flu, we don’t need you eating too much too fast. And drink a lot, it’s important to…”
“Hydrate, hydrate, hydrate,” she finished. “I know, Mom. Can I have my phone, laptop and sketchpad?”
“Sure, honey. I’ll be back in a few minutes, but you make sure you rest up, and no getting out of bed without help.”
“Yes Mom.” She looked up at her Dad, who was sitting at the end of the bed still. “I’m all right, Dad. I’ll be healed up in a few days.”
“You scared me, baby. If it was a colder night, you could have been in real trouble out there, not to mention if anyone decided to take advantage of your state.” She looked down, she had been so scared when she woke up, and she hadn’t even considered that. She was more worried about someone seeing her.
“I still don’t remember anything,” she said. “I was watching the stars, trying to relax and then it’s all a blank until I woke up in the woods.”
“We’re going to talk more about this with your Doctor, we’ve got an appointment late this afternoon,” he said. “I know you won’t like it, but I’ve also ordered an electronic locator beacon for you.”
“A what?”