Chapter Three: Daydreamer

“Emily? Emily?” a plaintive voice called from miles away. My shoulder was shaking, so I put a hand on it to stop the shudders that were racing through it. But my hand landed on another hand, not a shoulder. I came rushing back to present time and saw that it was Kaliyan’s hand.

I gave a strained smile. “Back,” I said jokingly, and my best friend returned my expression. “I was just thinking about that day, in the woods…” I looked up at Skylar, who was looking at me. “You’re Nobody? Nobody is you?”

The look that Kaliyan gave me was beyond confusion. “He’s Skylar.”

Skylar and I laughed in unison, and soon, for some reason, tears were streaming down my face. Her confusion wasn’t all that funny, but my nerves were a little frayed.

“Yes, I’m Skylar,” he said. “But…I guess you could say I’m Nobody, too.” He bit his lip and averted his eyes, looking extremely uncomfortable. “And, to answer one of your other questions, I saved you because…” He paused. “I saved you because I knew you were lost.”

He looked back up at me. “It would have been extremely rude of me to leave you there,” he added, “so I went back, in wolf form, to drag you back to your treehouse—yes, I read your mind—and then, because I was curious, changed back and went to check on you.”

My strained smile melted into a true one as I recalled how he’d found me still on the ground, looking dazed and brushing myself off. “I was so shocked about being carried off by a wolf that I couldn’t even stand up,” I remembered. “You came up and started giggling, and I got offended and…” I broke off, wondering if he recalled what had happened next.

He laughed: apparently he did. “You got very offended,” he echoed, “and told me everything about the so-called ‘giant wolf’ that had carried you there in its mouth. Then you began to stutter and look dazed, as if you’d hit your head. You’re a great actor, by the way.”

He said this slightly as if he’d rehearsed it, but I ignored the feeling. “Thanks,” I replied. “It’s a hobby of mine, to act dazed after being carried around by a gigantic wolf. Besides, you’re a better actor; you acted as if you’d just seen the wolf run past…”

I hear a rustling to my right, and flinch; a creature making noise is the last thing I need right now. What I really need is to keep my head about me and think logistics, but of course that isn’t going to happen. There’s another noise, and suddenly the so-called creature steps out of the bushes. It towers above me, casting its huge shadow over me and sending chills along my spine, and its tawny, brown, and black pelt gleams in the afternoon sunlight.

A giant wolf, I think. It’s beautiful.

Suddenly it leans down and clamps its powerful jaws on my shirt, bringing me up in the air so that my legs are dangling a good 3 feet off the ground. Then it runs, so quickly that I feel as if I’m flying through the air. We reach my treehouse in seconds, and I’m dropped onto the ground at the wolf’s feet. It bows its head to me, like it knew what it was doing, then trots off into the trees again.

I wait for a few minutes, stunned, thinking that perhaps it will come back. It doesn’t, so I attempt to get to my feet; I definitely know the way back home from here. But my legs feel like the bones and muscles had just disappeared, and I can’t rise more than an inch above the damp forest floor before plopping back down again.

There’s another rustling, this time from directly in front of me. This sound is quieter and more subtle, though, and soon I realize why as a young boy steps out from the underbrush. I quickly recognize him as Nobody, and brush my legs off. “Hi, Nobody,” I say a little shyly.

Nobody waves. “Hi,” he says, his tone amused. “Are you okay?” His face adopts a concerned expression, which looks kind of silly upon an 8-year-old boy’s face. He walks over to me in 2 long strides, then squats down to my level. “I, um, saw this huge creature go past, with a…small person in its mouth, so I, uh, followed it and I guess it was you, because…here you are,” he finishes lamely.

“Yeah,” I say uncertainly. “It was this huge wolf that came up just a few minutes after you l-left me, and I was just so surprised that it, well, was so huge and wolfy, and just came up to me and grabbed me by my shirt and carried me here. I don’t know how it knew where my treehouse was, but…”

I stop abruptly, having realized what I’m saying, and blink. “Never mind, it was nothing. I guess I…well, my head hurts a lot, so I guess I might have hit it, and—” I try to adopt a dazed expression “—just…never mind. Never mind.”

Nobody sits down and crosses his legs, his concerned expression faltering to reveal his intensely entertained one underneath. He struggles with it for a few moments, then unexpectedly breaks out laughing, his high, clear voice echoing among the trees as he clutches his gut and falls to the ground. His chortles slowly fade, and he slowly sits up.

“What? What’s so funny?” I demand, feeling affronted. “That’s not funny!”

Nobody grins widely, his white teeth gleaming as he responds with another laugh. “Yes it was,” he argues, still grinning. “It was very funny. But I’m not telling you why!” His face is suddenly very serious as he swiftly stands and runs off into the woods again.

“You’re sure good at disappearing, Nobody,” I murmur, then stand and walk slowly out of the reserve and towards my house, mind whirling with thoughts of Nobody and the giant wolf.

I blinked. “Sorry. I did it again,” I said, before anyone could tell me that themselves. “Sorry, I didn’t mean to, it’s just…I finally figured out who Nobody was, and it’s kind of…I’m sorry.”

Both of my companions stared at me. Skylar then broke the awkward silence with an amused, “It’s okay. You don’t have to be so sorry.”

A blush crept up onto my face. “Sorry,” I said automatically, then almost slapped myself. “Sor—Ugh. You know, I’m just gonna stop talking now.”

Kaliyan laughed. “Nice job, Em,” she grinned.

“Anywho…” Skylar sighed. “Do you want to, I don’t know…do something besides sit here and daydream? Maybe we could…” Suddenly his spine stiffened and his sentence changed course. “Maybe we could—I’ve got to go. I’ll be here tomorrow if you need me.”

Then he stood, gave a tight smile, and ran off just the way he did all those years ago.