Alessia sprung up from her sleep and grabbed the arms of the person shaking her.

Even in the darkness, she recognized her mother’s figure.

“Hurry, get dressed.” She said with urgency underlying her words. Her mother thrust clothes into her hands.

Alessia assumed the worse. As she changed, she asked, “Did something happen?”

Normally, a sudden visit from her mother meant something bad happened or is about to happen. Perhaps, someone had died.

Alessia moved to turn the light on, but her mother rushed to object. She whispered with fear in her voice, “Don’t! He’ll see us.”

Alessia moved her hand away from the light slowly, “Mummy, what’s going on?”

“You have to run away.” She said, straightening her back with finality, “Your father intends to marry you to Rickard.”

Alessia’s breath caught in her lungs, “But- I can’t- Rickard is-”

“I know that,” her mother said, with impatience, “That’s why you have to leave.”

Fear crept into Alessia’s veins, slowly spreading the panic from her heart, “Mummy, I’ve never been on my own. I don’t know how to survive out there.”

“You’re a wolf, Alessia. You’ll have to figure it out.”

Alessia had barely set the jacket over her shoulders before her mother thrust a backpack into her arms. The backpack was bigger than any they had around the house. It had a sleeping bag attached to it and was heavily filled.

Her mother ordered, “Put it on. Let’s go.”

Despite Alessia’s rising panic, she grabbed her stuffed rabbit and clutched it tightly in her hand before following her mother. She was more in a state of shock, barely processing what she was doing.

They made their way swiftly down the stairs and out the back door of the house.

Outside, the air was as crisp and chilling as ever. The silhouettes of the tall pine trees towered over the two small women. The crunch of ice under their boats were too loud in the dead of the night. There was no moon in the sky nor stars that she could see; only a pale glow from the old fluorescent light from above the door. But even that felt safer than the looming darkness of the forest.

Alessia turned back to the house she’d grown up in.

She’d hated living here, but somehow leaving the only place she’d ever known was harder than staying in that moment.

She faced her mother, searching her eyes for any chance that she’d be able to stay. Any other plan that didn’t promise loneliness and struggling to survive, but she was met with the cold hard truth.

There was no other way.

Alessia had always protested when people said Alessia and her mother looked the same, but in truth she knew that they did. Alessia could see so much of herself reflected in her mother’s features. Staring into her misting violet eyes that matched her own, Alessia worried. Who would bring her mother tissue when she cried now?

Tears streaks glittered on her mother’s face, “I love you.”

Alessia’s throat burn, but she refused to let the tears fall. She resolved to be strong for her mother, “I love you too.”

She loosened the straps of the backpack and shifted, white paws blending in with the snow-covered ground.

Alessia spared one last look at her mother. She hoped the small stall of time would convince her to come with, but she shook her head. They both knew she couldn’t leave.

Alessia forced herself to turn, abandoning her pack, everything she knew and leaped into the darkness to face whatever the world had waiting.