Creeping Beauty by Kaye Draper

Author:Kaye Draper
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: dark fairytale, short sexy read, if you like vampires and werewolves, light horror with romance, magical realism urban fantasy paranormal romance, main character turns into a monster, wendigo native american creature paranormal
Publisher: Kaye Draper

Chapter 10

I dreamed I was a child. The memories in my dream were as vivid as the horrors that usually stalked my sleeping world.

I was little. The old fence I climbed over, the grasses that I waded through seemed so tall. And the world so big.

I wandered overgrown pastures that had once fed livestock, but now only held a few old, disinterested sheep.

The grass grew greener and I stepped across marshy ground onto a series of random, jutting stones, worn clean by my constant visits. I could probably navigate them in my sleep, crossing the place where the swampy ground at the edge of the pasture gave way to a small creek that meandered into the woods to become a river.

My favorite place. A grove of tall walnut and maple trees bordering the field by the creek. My fairy place, I’d called it.

My child self drank water fresh from the creek—even as my adult self cringed at the unhygienic thought. I’d had no worries then.

Child me trailed fingers in the cool water, watched tiny crayfish scatter and hide. I chattered to imaginary guardians of the secret places.

I rambled the woods and drank in all the hidden secrets and wonders it held.

A tiny skull, bleached white on top and yellowed beneath, where it lay half covered in leaves and tall grass. I ran fingers over its smooth surface. Examined the knitted patterns of the bones of the skull, the sharp canines that said it had probably been a raccoon or something similar. I peered into hallowed eye sockets and thought it terrible and wonderful all at once.

The shadow lurked there, in the dark places at the edge of my vision. Under overhanging tree branches and rocks. And it thrilled with me over each new discovery.

A dead fish at the edge of the pond, its arching ribs visible through its dried-up skin, delicate like cat’s whiskers.

A great, awe-inspiring owl who perched over perfect pellets of soft fur and tiny bones.

I wanted to see and know and touch. And the shadow thought it beautiful.

I woke slowly. No clawing terror. No aching pain. The sense of wonder lingered as I lay in bed, peering up at my ceiling in the shadows of late afternoon.

I rubbed my eyes, recalling the shoe box of treasures I’d kept as a kid—old bleached skulls, bits of bone, an owl pellet or two, a perfect, soft shed snake skin.

My parents had cringed, but allowed it. I said I wanted to be a scientist.

The memories were real.

But had that dark, shadowed something really been there?

Cold shivered up my spine, emanating from the base of my tailbone—I had an instinctive urge to tuck my tail.

Even when I was a child, I had a vivid imagination. It was no wonder I’d turned out to be a writer eventually. I knew I had dreamed up people back then. I had talked to them and included them in my rambling adventures. But…this was the first time it had ever occurred to me to wonder whether they had all been imaginary.

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