This approach seemed to work; the power was responding to her, and the white mist gradually cleared. She no longer felt the world’s haziness.
Maggie widened her eyes, trying to see where she was. Still, she found herself back in that night. The origin of the nightmare, she attempted to approach the silver wolf, but its eyes lacked reason, and it wasn’t the agile and cunning creature she used to look at. It wasn’t Aldrich, nor the familiar silver wolf. Under the moonlight, it had turned into a thoughtless beast.
She asked, “Who are you? Where’s the silver wolf? Where’s Aldrich?”
The only response was the howling of the wind. The silver wolf pounced towards her, its sharp fangs coming within half an inch of her throat, but it couldn’t bite her because another force pulled her back. She found herself back in the white mist, but this time, there was someone else there.
“Maggie.” The woman smiled faintly, with a bright halo of moonlight surrounding her. “Long time no see.”
“Have you met me before?” Maggie gazed at the woman curiously, a strange sense of familiarity tingling between them. It was as if they had been close together a long time ago, like her childhood with Alisa, as if they had spent hours talking enthusiastically on a street corner coffee shop. But neither of these events had taken place.
The woman simply gazed at her with a subtle expression, filled with tenderness and kindness.
Maggie suddenly had an urgent desire to know the woman’s identity.
“Do you know me? You know me, right!”
There was an answer on the tip of her tongue, but she didn’t dare say it until the woman confirmed it. She was afraid of disappointing herself again.
“Selene,” the woman said. “My name is Selene, and the werewolves call me the Moon Goddess. I had already fallen before, and what you see is merely a remnant of my power. I brought you to this place.”
“Are you… my mother?” The answer was confirmed, and Maggie was on the verge of tears. She had only been able to understand her completely unfamiliar mother from Aldrich’s descriptions, and she had never had the opportunity to meet her. But now that she had seen her, she wasn’t as happy as she had imagined.
“Why did you leave me? Why did you abandon me in the human world? Why did you never look for me? Do you know how I survived all these years? Why are you suddenly appearing now?” She questioned, every word an accusation of the scars she had carried over the years. Tears flowed down relentlessly, and she had hoped to be stronger, to act like she didn’t care, to say calmly, “Mother, I’ve managed all these years without you.” She had hoped to pretend not to care, but she had failed. She couldn’t pretend not to care.
Alisa didn’t care because she had witnessed the accidental deaths of her loved ones. She wasn’t abandoned; she just had bad luck.
But Maggie had known since childhood that she was different, that she had been abandoned. Every adoptive parent would ask the orphanage director about her when they saw her records, questioning whether she had been abandoned due to illness or other reasons. Even the director didn’t know; they said that one year, during California’s coldest winter, a child was left on the orphanage’s doorstep.
Still in her infancy, the baby was so hungry that she had stopped crying. The director picked her up, finding no identity card or any form of identification inside. As she grew up, her eyes became bright and expressive, reflecting a variety of colors. Because of those eyes, the director named her Maggie, signifying a child of light.
However, such a beautiful little girl remained unadopted because she was an abandoned child. Nobody was sure what kind of person she’d become with those genes. Even after Alisa arrived at the orphanage, no suitable adoptive parents chose Maggie.
This was why Maggie so desperately wanted to build a family of her own, to have a child of her own. She had never had a mother in her life, so she aspired to become one herself.
Everything that happened in her life and everything that befell Alisa might not have occurred if she had stayed with her mother. Alisa wouldn’t have endured humiliation and bullying for her sake, wouldn’t have been locked in a restroom, wouldn’t have to work outside without completing her college education, wouldn’t have met Max, experienced betrayal, and been burdened with massive debts. If she hadn’t met Aldrich, she might not have embarked on a completely new adventure but instead would have lived a painful and mediocre life in the shadows of society.
Selene gazed at her daughter with a pained heart, who had been forcibly separated from her since birth. “Maggie, I’m sorry. I didn’t know you’ve been through so much. Believe me, letting you leave me wasn’t my intention. I love you. You’re my only daughter, and I love you more than anyone else in the world. Just like you love the two unborn children in your belly.”
Maggie stubbornly wiped away her tears, “I’m not blaming you; I’m just confused. When I was a child, I envied others who had mothers. Then Alisa appeared. She was both a sister and a mother. She protected and cherished me, but I still wanted a real mother. My very own mother. But you never appeared.”
“I missed you, Mom. I missed you so much. Even though I’ve never seen you, I still missed you.”
Selene waved her over gently, “Come here, my child, come to me.”
Maggie approached her, and the woman embraced her. She still had body heat, a temperature wrapped in clouds and kissed by the sun. She exuded a unique fragrance that was hard to describe. Maggie held her tightly, “Mom.”
“I’m so sorry it took so long to see you,” Selene stroked Maggie’s cheek. After Maggie arrived at the Blue Moon Pack, Elizabeth and Thomas had done everything to help her regain her health. She wasn’t as thin as before, but she was still a little person, as if she could be blown away by the wind at any moment.
If possible, Selene wished she could keep her by her side, feed her cookies, give her milk, wipe away the food residue from her lips when she ate, and console her when she cried. She wanted to see her in beautiful dresses, her hair and skirt swirling in the wind, to teach her the ways of the world. It didn’t matter whether she became a werewolf or a human, a vampire or any other race. She only wished for her to grow up healthy and happy, and to lead a life filled with joy and happiness.
But it was impossible. From the day she became a deity, she knew that her daughter’s life would be as turbulent as her own, as the path to godhood was always fraught with twists and turns. They often had to face more disasters they didn’t want to face, endure unbearable pain that only they knew. Outsiders couldn’t glimpse even a fraction of their secrets.
“I am a fallen deity with no surplus power. The very act of merging Aldrich and his wolf was difficult. The little power left couldn’t support me in finding you. I could only wait for the day you became aware of the power within you and sought me out.”
Aldrich?
Maggie exclaimed in surprise, “You’ve already met Aldrich and the silver wolf?”