by Mia Carroll
The wind whistled as a cool autumn breeze blew through an open window—but not just any window, this window was the window leading to Isla Jewel Bark’s bedroom. Isla Bark was a sixteen-year-old girl with jet-black hair, sky-blue eyes and a half-star scar on her left hand. She stirred as an ash black cat prodded at her silk sheets. “Night Star,” mumbled Isla. “What are you doing here?” but the cat didn’t seem to hear her.
Isla turned and glanced at her rusting pocket watch.
“6.05am. I can’t believe it,’ whispered Isla. “She actually didn’t wake me up at …”
Before she could finish, her stepmother’s voice rang from outside the door. “Get up,” her stepmother screeched. “Get up now girl, I said now.”
Isla sighed, spoke too soon. She dressed hurriedly in an ankle-length dress with a nicely trimmed jacket and hood that clung to her feather decorated braids. A leather glove and gold wrist band grabbed at her arms and delicately carved boots stuck to her feet like glue.
“Girl, are you ready? I need you to clean the pots.”
Isla sighed again, and then walked into the kitchen, picked up the scrubbing brush that she had been using for the last six years, and got to work. An hour later, Isla stepped back to look at the sparkling pots and pans. Just then, her stepmother walked in to examine her work. Then it hit her. Literally. Her stepmother had hit her hard on the arm, but something else had given her a tingling sensation, so Isla ran. She knew that feeling by heart. It was a feeling that only a witch or wizard experienced—but not just any witch or wizard. So yes, Isla was a witch. But now, to Isla’s surprise, she discovered that she was a moonbeam witch. That is, a witch that can turn into a wolf.
“That explains my scar,” thought Isla.
She didn’t stop running until she was deep in Willow Woods. She could hear her stepmother shouting, “Girl, there is gravy on this pot,” but Isla didn’t stop. She could feel her nails thinning, and a mass of black curls started to grab at her once-bare skin, and before she knew it, she was running on all four paws.
The woods look different when you are a wolf. Trees towered over her and grass stalks reached her knees. Isla felt a bit like an ant. By nightfall, Isla had decided it would be best to stay here instead of going home to the mansion.
Soon, Isla had found a moss-like bed, but something was bugging her and it wasn’t the bugs, who seemed to have quite an interest in her. It was something else. It was a thought, and it was saying, “If you are a wolf, then someone else has to be.”
“But that’s impossible,” whispered Isla’s thought. “Your family is dead.”
At that moment, a memory flew into her head and her stepmother’s voice echoed, “Your family died in a plane crash. Nobody looked for the wreckage, of course. They were such fools to go on that little mission of theirs in the first place.”
Isla jumped to her feet. With tears stinging in her eyes she ran, jumping sparkling streams and leaf-covered logs as she went.
“My family is alive,” thought Isla, her expression impossible to read.
Finally, Isla slowed to a walk. She could hear dew trickling down every leaf as if they were crying. She sniffed the air. It smelt of honey from a nearby hive.
“Good. I’m starving,” said Isla.
She effortlessly jumped from branch to branch before reaching the hive. Bees buzzed as they entered the honey-glazed palace. She took a lick out of a honeylike pool, but instead of getting the usual sweet surprise she got a treacherous taste, a bit like spew-covered salmon or steel steak.
Isla grimaced. “Right, I forgot I’m supposed to be a carnivore.”
That night was another restless sleep, so Isla decided she would keep looking. Her family’s last sighting was at Willows Edge, which was where she would look. It was only a few kilometres away, so she would make it there within an hour or two.
After thirty minutes of walking, she could see it, tall and towering. At the ledge, there was a cave. It looked a little crooked, sitting there on its own. But that’s not what she was looking at. It was what was in the cave that she was interested in. She had seen it, a flash of grey and white and a distant howl. That was all it took to get Isla going. She took off, leaving only dust and a few prints in her path. Finally, she saw them. The smallest of the group was around fifty centimetres high and was stone grey, the second had lavender eyes and was pure white, and the last was coal-coloured with splashes of grey here and there. The one thing that was the same about them was the amount of happiness on their faces when they saw Isla.
