Daughter

LAKE

“Well.” Oliver is smirking as Derrick and I emerge from the dark room. “That was fast.”

I hide my face behind Derrick’s arm as he just chuckles. He and I are currently shirtless and bare for the world to see.

“Come with me, my dear.” Oliver smiles gently at me and takes my hand in hers. I cling to Derrick and refuse to move. I just want to be near him.

“Go on, Firefly.” Derrick kisses my forehead. “I need to put a shirt on and so do you.”

I whimper and reluctantly walk away with Oliver.

I’m taken to a room in the back of the building. Oliver waves her hand over the door, and it automatically opens. She almost immediately ushers me into the room.

I walk in, and I’m blown away by the magnificent, almost otherworldly bedroom.

The ceiling above is a night sky with colors of blue, purple, green, and pink swirling to and fro. The floor is blue grass with purple plants that smell heavenly.

There’s a bed with cotton sheets on the far wall, hanging from a cherry tree. The frame is made from naturally formed branches.

Opposite the bed is an enormous wooden wardrobe with metal accents and handles. I move my hand over a floor-length mirror that shows my reflection as if I popped right out of a fantasy novel.

I have waist-length hair and piercing green eyes that seem to glow. My skin is no longer tan but a fair tone with light freckles dotting my face and arms.

Derrick’s mark is healed. The skin surrounding both sides of the imprints of his wolf’s teeth is risen. The mark itself is dark.

“Beautiful, isn’t it?” Oliver smiles at my reflection. “This was to be my daughter’s room.”

“Was to be?” I ask her.

“She was taken from me by the Fates.” Oliver’s eyes turn to her own reflection in the mirror. “It was my punishment for going against them.”

Oliver’s reflection is her appearance just as it was in my mind. She’s much younger and healthy. Her hair is in a pixie cut and her skin is pale. Her lips are plump and her cheekbones are very prominent.

“What did you do?”

“As a Celestial, I’m one of the first candidates to be a goddess.” Oliver walks and sits on the bed. It swings back and forth from her weight.

“When wolves were beginning to merge themselves with humans, the Fates came to me with an offer: to become goddess of the wolves. I was pregnant at the time.

“The notion was that I would give birth, give my daughter to another Celestial, and become the Moon Goddess.”

I sit beside Oliver and see the tears coming from her eyes. She sighs heavily and looks forward.

“I fled. I wanted my daughter to grow up and be happy with me as her mother, not some other woman I barely know.”

Oliver continues, “Once I gave birth, I settled in this realm. I started my diner for the inhabitants and those just passing through.

“It was to be a place of happiness. That is, until the Fates stormed in.”

“Oliver…,” I whisper. Oliver wipes her eyes and smiles faintly.

“They took my daughter and cursed this realm,” she says gently.

“I’m to look like this for eternity. My customers are to wander through, unaware of what’s around them, and I’m to be bound here until I rot. Poor Benjamin has the attention span of a gnat.”

I can’t help but giggle at that. “I’m sorry.”

“I laugh at the thought as well.” Oliver strikes a smile before continuing. “I haven’t seen my daughter since.”

I think for a moment to try and make sense of this. “What was your daughter’s name?”

Oliver sighs and looks up at the night sky. A full moon begins to shine over us.

“Luna.”