INTERPRETING DREAMS PART 1

8pm and Savy and I are in dad's office, we are sitting at the opened window, the way we had since we were visiting as small pups.

It's dark outside, pitch black, the brightly lit interior of the office reflected in the glass. Outside, a quiet breeze stirred every now and then, bringing through the opened windows smells wafting from our pack house kitchen, and back yard forest... It's a familiar and calming smell of the safety of home.

I sniffed for the floury and yeasty scents of the dough for tomorrow morning's breakfast. It's the happy smell of Saturday night air reminding me that tomorrow morning will see most of the pack's leading families at the dining hall.

"Is everyone here?" Asked Dad from behind his desk.

Beta Lucas and Mrs Beta were seated on a side sofa with Mum. Gamma Harry and his mate, Laura, were sitting at the chairs in front of Dad's desk.

Flynn was standing by the door, he looked at all the kids littered around the office, Savy and me, Lizzy and Ben using the cluttered coffee table as a bench, Jonah leaning against a side counter, and answered, "Just one more."

There was a knock, and Dean popped in, "Sorry I'm late... Good morning, Alpha, Luna, Beta, Gamma..." He bowed repeatedly.

My dad waved him to stop, "It's fine Dean, just settle anywhere. Let's start."

Dean shuffled to the empty space next to Jonah.

Dad handed the time over to Mrs Beta who explained that prophetic dreams are from the goddess. She took out a large leather bound book, there is a frisson of excitement, almost like magic between her fingers when she turned the pages, it shone in her eyes. Mrs Beta was very knowledgeable about things like these.

Prophetic dreams are a gift from the goddess, a personal message of one's destiny.

One can receive it at any point of one's life, but the most common points are usually before a significant change, such a the first shift, or before you meet your mate, or after a traumatic experience.

Sometimes, it is a message of assurance. A common type of such a dream is often had before a girl's first shift. Running in the forest, and meeting her mate. It reassures her of her mate being there for her in life's journey.

Sometimes it is a message of guidance. This is particularly common before the mating age, just giving enough clues for the recipient to recognize and sometimes even find his or her mate. In such dream, the details of the place and time were important.

Sometimes it is a message of instruction. This could happen anytime in a wolf's life, and it's usually significant. Such as when my dad dreamed of stepping into a classroom full of young pack wolves, rogues, humans, vampires, and warlocks sitting at their desks waiting for him to start the class. These dreams were not so much the place and time, but the shape of things to come and the recipient's role in it.

Sometimes it was a message of testing. And most boys receive this before their first shift. Where they are shown a moment of their most conflicted emotions, and have to choose.

I looked at Ben, "What does that mean?"

I had expected him to shrug it off, but he surprised me by answering, "If I trusted you. My test was if I trusted you."

I looked at Jonah, who was staring at the ceiling as if the answer might be found on it, and maybe it was. He said at long last, "To fight till I die and still lose everything."

That took me a while to understand. I had to put myself in his shoes and his dream before I realized, it's one thing to die if your death could save your pack, but Jonah had chosen to die fighting even if he couldn't save anyone.

"Does that mean those things won't actually happen?" I asked, suddenly hopeful.

"That's hard to say." Beta Lucas said.

"The dreams are a representation of what will come." Mrs Beta explained, "Perhaps not exactly, perhaps in a different form, a different setting..."

"But actually, yes. They will happen." Gamma Harry was more direct.

I gulped. Okay. I will never ever leave Jonah to in charge of guarding my parents. I try to think about how to stop Ben's dream, but the best I could think of is to carry disinfectant and bandages around with me. Lame, I know.

"You have to note," Mrs Gamma chimed in then, "that only what you see happen would happen, and what you don't see, you don't know."

"Like Alpha and Luna!" Jonah suddenly looked so relieved, I wanted to cry for him, "I didn't see them die."

And that was when I really did cry. But not for Jonah. For me. For my parents. I hadn't realized how much I had been holding it in.

Savy petted my back soothingly, and the tears quickly dried, and suddenly like a silver lining in a cloud, I saw what I was looking for... the loophole, the OPTION 2: DO SOMETHING CRAZY in their dreams.

I announced, "Then technically, nobody died." Not Ben, not my parents, not even Jonah.

I pointed at Jonah, "Did you see yourself die?"

Jonah shook his head, "But Sam, there was no way..."

"But you didn't see yourself die." I persisted.

"I saw black. I think that meant I died." Jonah said.

"No," I decided then, "You're not going to die. Nobody is going to die."