Changeling Dream by Dani Harper

in its thick white fur. “I thought I dreamed you. You came to me. You came when no one would come, but they all told me I dreamed you because no one saw you but me. And I looked and looked for you, but I couldn’t find you.”
    Here now. Found you.
    The voice in her mind was real. The fur beneath her hands and face was real. The heat radiating from the wolf’s body was real. Her voice hitched as joy overwhelmed her. “You’re in my dreams all the time. I’m so glad that you’re here, that you exist.” And that I am not crazy. Although her rational brain told her there was certainly something crazy about being in the forest at night, hugging a giant wolf. But she couldn’t think about that right now; she had this moment in time and she had things to say. “I owe you a lot; you don’t know how much you’ve done. You saved my life all those years ago, but you saved my sanity too. When things were hard and horrible, and I didn’t want to face them, I thought of you and it helped me get through. I got through the hospital and the counseling and the therapy and came out on the other side, because of you.” She wiped her cheek on the soft fur, but couldn’t stop the tears. “I thought I was done then, I really did. But after a while I felt like it wasn’t enough to be alive, that I hadn’t really survived until I started living my life again. And you helped me do that too. I thought about what to do with my life and it was so plain to me—I wanted to work with animals, work with wolves. Because of you, I found that dream inside me. You did that for me, and I can’t tell you how thankful I am, how grateful I am that you were there for me. Even now, just handling ordinary life, I feel like I’m never really alone.”
    Not alone. Here with you. The wolf nuzzled and licked at her hair, then lay down beside her. Gradually the tears subsided, and Jillian tumbled into an exhausted sleep with her arms still around the wolf’s neck.
     
    He couldn’t remember who she was. Within the body of the wolf, James struggled to understand how her scent could be so familiar yet her identity elude him. All he knew was that she was important. Vitally important. In her presence, both his wolf and human natures were strangely in accord, balanced. Almost at peace. As she slept, he had nudged her to softer ground by the side of the trail as he would do for a cub. He had even felt compelled to try to heal her injured knees as he would do for a Pack-mate. Yet she was neither cub nor Pack-mate. Not a stranger. What was she?
    As he had lapped the dirt from her torn skin, he was shocked to discover that he had tasted this blood before. Her blood. But he had no idea where or why. James eased himself away from the woman and sat up on his haunches, but remained close enough to share his warmth with her. He knew he had done that before too. Last night her words had resonated with truth and deep emotion, but they had shed no light on the mystery. He wished she had said more—not only in hopes of learning more about her, but because he liked the sound of her voice.
    The sun had almost topped the horizon when James slipped away into the forest. He paused and looked back at the small figure in the brush by the side of the trail. For a split second he saw another trail, another forest. Saw the woman much younger, barely a teenager, lying just off the path and looking more like a discarded doll than a human being. Her blond hair was long and matted with blood. But her eyes were open. Green. Sea green. And infinitely sad as she observed the wolf—and waited for it to kill her. As she grieved not for the ending of her life, but for being alone.
    James shook himself hard, looked again, and there was only the woman sleeping peacefully as before, full-grown and uninjured except for her skinned knees. Her hair was short, and tufts of it stuck out in odd directions as if it had a mind of its own.
    What the hell had he just seen? A vision? A memory? An