The wind sounded different in the morning.
Sharper. Less like a memory, more like a warning.
I got up before the sun had finished rising. My body ached—not from work, but from the bath. The herbs always did that. Pulled something from me. Dull, invisible weight leaving my limbs sore and humming.
My grandmother was already awake. She never slept in unfamiliar places.
She was at the stove, stirring something that smelled like roots and rust.
"Did you feel it?" she asked without turning.
I didn't ask what. I just said, "Yes."
Because I had. Not in any obvious way. Nothing moved. Nothing spoke. But something had shifted in the ground last night, and we both knew it.
She poured two mugs and handed me one. Bitter. Burnt. The kind of drink meant for medicine, not comfort.
We didn't speak again until I pulled on my boots.
"I'm opening at the café today," I reminded her. "I'll pick up groceries after."
Her eyes flicked toward me, sharp despite the circles under them. "Don't wander near the forest. Not even the edge."
"I won't."
She didn't believe me. Not fully. Not anymore.
Neither did I.
I paused at the door, just for a breath. The silence felt too heavy, like the air before a storm. Something in my chest tightened—not quite fear, not quite guilt, but something that made me want to stay, even as I reached for the handle.
The walk to The Wren & Bean was short—five minutes, maybe six. The streets were still wet from last night's rain. Pale mist clung to the corners of buildings. Somewhere in the distance, a dog barked once, then went quiet.
The café felt warmer than yesterday. Jude waved me in without looking up. Nia handed me a new apron—clean, still warm from the dryer.
"You look tired," she said, handing me a spoon. "Long night?"
"Just a weird dream."
That was easier than the truth.
I went through the motions—checking the pastry case, changing out the coffee filters, wiping down the counter. The regulars trickled in. One asked for a muffin with no blueberries. Another made a joke about caffeine being a love language.
A toddler spilled juice on his mother's coat and wailed like it was the end of the world. Jude muttered something about getting a mop and the world kept turning. Normal. Steady. Safe.
The bell above the door jingled steadily, a soft rhythm I clung to. The familiarity of clinking cups and the hiss of steam from the espresso machine kept me grounded. For a little while, it worked. I let the hum of the place pull me in. Pretended I was just another girl in a quiet town, serving coffee, collecting tips, smiling at strangers.
For a while, I forgot to be afraid.
Until mid morning.
Until someone left something behind.
I didn't notice it at first. Just a pen. Left near the napkin stand. Long, black, slightly heavy-looking.
Nia picked it up, turning it over in her hand. "Another one? People really just… forget their things here."
She set it down near the register. I reached to move it.
And the second my fingers touched the metal, I stopped breathing.
It was faint. So faint a human wouldn't notice.
But I did.
The scent was old—days, maybe weeks. Lingering. Clinging. It didn't belong to anyone in the café today. But it had been carried here. Maybe in someone's coat. Their bag. Maybe someone borrowed it.
I didn't know.
All I knew was that it called to something in me.
Something I had buried so deep, I forgot it could rise.
My wolf—silent for years—stretched. Shifted. Stirred.
My fingers curled around the edge of the counter, white-knuckled. My breath turned shallow. My pulse—steady for so long—beat like a warning drum in my ears.
The scent wasn't just familiar. It was magnetic. It clawed at me, pulled like a tide under the surface. My stomach flipped, not from fear, but from recognition I couldn't name.
I felt like I was falling without moving. Like the ground had opened beneath me and only I could feel the drop. There was something familiar in the scent, something impossible and wild and wrong. It pulled at me. Called to me. Like a thread snapping tight.
I had to leave.
"I'm feeling sick," I told Jude. "Stomach, maybe."
She waved me off without question. "Go. Feel better."
I barely heard her. I was already slipping out the back door, already moving through the alley behind the cafe, already trying to outrun whatever was cracking open inside me.
My legs carried me back to the cottage.
But not inside.
I couldn't face her like this.
Not when I was shaking. Not when my skin burned and my lungs couldn't catch air and my wolf kept whispering go back, go back, find it.
I collapsed beside the herb shed, hiding behind the row of overgrown rosemary. The earth felt too loud beneath me. The wind was filled with memory again—only this time it wasn't just the forest whispering.
It was me.
It was everything inside me I had spent years trying to silence.
I gritted my teeth and tried to breathe through it. Counted backwards from ten. Dug my fingers so deep into the dirt my nails broke. My body wasn't mine anymore—it remembered things I didn't want it to. Things I had buried beside my magic.
I dug my fingers into the dirt and whispered, "Not now. Not like this."
But the truth sat heavy in my chest:
Something was changing.
And it had already begun.
Somewhere out there, someone had touched the edge of my world. And my world—no matter how small I had made it—was waking up.