3 The night can be scary

The wolfess wasn't just a wolf. She was a gifted one.

"You won't get my daughter,! Get out of our life!" Nenita grabbed Isabella, then, three years old, who was trying to get her ball back from a distance in the front yard. while playing. She stopped. The ball bounced and suddenly, was suspended in the air, then, it bounced back again. Nenital let out an air of relief as this was not the first time that it happened. Isabella was unaffected.

The next day brought the mother and daughter to a child psychologist. The doctor performed a series of tests which showed Isabella as "normal."

"I'm happy that it looks like she is," Nenita told Dr. Santos while looking at Isabella playing with other children in the clinic.

That night that they went home, Isabella asked Nenita to read a nursery book to her before going to bed. Nenita was sleepy and groggy, but the tyke was very much up and alert. Suddenly, upon returning from the bathroom, she saw the book leaped up in the air and Isabella was looking at the book without any expression on her face. She told John, Isabella's father, who dismissed the experience as some "trick of your eyes."

One day, they were walking along a busy street in the market. An old woman approached Nenita and looking at Isabella told her that her daughter was different and that not all was going to understand.

"Gifted? How could it be? We're an ordinary couple!" Nenita exclaimed in disbelief upon returning home.

John stopped drinking his coffee. "How can we be ordinary?" His forehead wrinkled. "I mean... we are... ordinary."

xxxxxx

Isabella turned thirteen. John and Nenita held a birthday celebration for her. She had a big birthday cake.

When it came to the candle, she did again what she did when she was only a toddler. The cake blew by itself. The children around wouldn't notice. Only nanny Teresa, and mother and father knew.

It was almost midnight and the guests had left. John was cuddling his "big baby."

"You have to be brave. We love you so much." She had always heard that from her father and mother.

John said they were all going out for a stroll in the park They, indeed, drove her to a park where the street seemed to be sleeping. John, Nenita and Teresa thought that it was time to reveal the family's secret.

"We can't just blurt it out that we are wolves," Nenita told John one time that they were arguing.

"Then, how would she know?" John asked.

"She would just know," Nenita said.

xxxxxx

"Do you know that you are special, Isabella? Father told her while they were walking.

"What do you mean father?"

John looked at Nenita and Teresa.

"What I mean is… ahm… if you think that you are somebody special because we love you, then, you are special. Let us say times call that you be brave. Then you have to be brave because we love you, and when you have to fight in an arena, fight with all might and heart, thinking of the people you love. If you think that you can fight like a wolf, you will become a wolf. Fight like they do, you will."

Isabella was puzzled.

"Supposing I think like I am a fierce, blood hunting wolf now. Will I become a wolf?" she asked, emphasizing the "blood-hunting wolf" in a big voice, pretending and acting out like she was one. She growled with the voice of the big dog.

"Hmm…" John muttered; he chortled.

"Focus… close your eyes."

Isabella saw her mother and Teresa smiling although she obeyed what her father said. She closed her eyes and in a little while she heard herself howl like a real she-wolf—the barking pierced the quiet night. She looked at her father, mother, and nanny. They, too, had changed their form. She was very afraid of course.

"Can we run as fast as a wolf does?" She was now looking them in the eye. The more she was astounded that they could understand and talk like her.

"Yes," her dad said. He had the smile of a gentle wolf. He was having fun, Isabella thought.

Ran, the four of them did. They ran in the quiet streets, and they reached the forested part of the neighborhood.

They ran after one another like little children playing games in the middle of the night. She got curious climbing the trees. She was overjoyed; she felt an overwhelming sense of personal victory discovering herself and thought that if she could climb even the tallest tree that fast, she could practically do anything. From a distance, she could see a river, its water glimmered in the dark. She ran towards it and when she reached the embankment, she tried to feel the water, slowly, allowing first, her forelimbs to feel it; she could tolerate the cold water. She tried to soak herself. "Hmmm…" She was calculating if she could further tolerate the coldness-- breathing deeply. She could see father, mother, and nanny Teresa from a distance. They followed her. Then, she moved her limbs forward, backward, let herself float like a real dog who could swim; she found herself floating. She felt good. She swam a little and then she swam back towards the river side. Then she wriggled her body to let the water out.

"I can swim," she told them.

The three wolves were smiling at her.

Then, they all ran back to the house.

"You can change into your human form if you choose to." Father said.

"How?" she asked.

"Think you can. Focus."

Isabella closed her eyes and again, right then and there, she reverted back to her human form, so had father, mother, and nanny Teresa.

They were all gently smiling at her.

That was her first lesson.

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