Everything is whirling around inside her and sometimes she just wants to scream! She works too hard, life is too hard, pulled in too many directions too often. There's never any time for her. But, lately there has been something different pulling at her, she feels it, she hears it. It makes her restless, pacing up and down the room. She decides to actually take a minute for herself, go outside for once, just for a short walk to shake off this feeling.

The sun is setting, it's still warm out. What is that smell? Musty, dead leaves? She feels the rills of cooler air seeping out of the woods, dancing around her; that smell is stronger, but now she draws the aroma deep into her lungs, languishing in the scent. The feeling from before seems to awaken something in her.

Her walk brings her to a little bridge over a creek. She stops for awhile to look over the side. The sound of the water is mesmerizing as it tumbles over the rocks and fallen branches. How long had she stood there being drawn in? Again, that enticing finger of earth-scent crooks around her nose. She catches herself sniffing at the air trying to find another whiff.

In a nonchalant way she steps tentatively off the road, a whim to follow the creek, just a little way. After all, it is dusk now and she should be getting back inside the house. Hesitantly at first she follows the creekside listening to the water. She notices how quiet the colorful damp leaves make her footsteps and she moves along with growing ease, feeling she must continue even though it is becoming quite dark. That wonderful warm perfume from the woods is all around her now, wrapping her like a blanket.

Leaves are falling; she can hear them tapping the branches as they land in a pool of moonlight with a dry splash. A slight night breeze catches at her hair, ruffling it around; she tosses her head a little. She feels so free! So alive!

A Hunter's Moon has risen like a cool midnight sun. She has a sudden urge to run to meet it and slipping free from her last binding ties she leaps over the trunk of a fallen tree and gracefully alights on the wild side; her life forever transformed.

Folklore tells of this ghostly apparition, that lurks within the forest, which is usually heard (and sometimes seen) by women of kindred souls out searching for their lost "something"... the Spirit Wolf calls to all her sisters. Do you feel it? Can you hear her?

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) Copyrighted � by the author, Melody Nolan. Used by permission only. 1998.