I was making the cinnamon crumble topping to put on top of the recently cooked apples that sat on the old, scarred, wooden work top, mindlessly mixing the ingredients together with my hands into crumbs in the mixing bowl when my Grandma startled me by appearing suddenly by my elbow and staying my hands from moving by resting her hand on top of mine.

She was always silent on her feet, like many of the others in this supernatural community.  Mundanes like me were far and few in between, born from outside the blood lines within here when my shifter mother, young and foolish, fell pregnant when sleeping with someone who was not from the shifter ranks.  I definitely couldn't be silent to save my life, I thought wryly and suppressed a tired smile at my own uselessness.

Supernatural born mistake that I maybe though I still had no abilities  to show from either of my parents one night stand, I strived to be useful in other ways to my community. 

I was left with my mother's mother, so she could still live her life of a warrior and be with her destined mate that she found years later.  She went on to have more children I had heard, siblings that I have never met and probably will never either. 

Everyone involved in creating me had moved on when I had no redeeming abilities to train up.  Grandma told me to not mind about those selfish so-so's.  Well she chose another word to say but if I ever repeated it, Grandma would clip me around the ear.

'The portents are more stronger than ever tonight,' Grandma says in a voice that shudders with her revulsion.  I look up towards her instead of staring at her gnarled hand laid on top of mine and search her pale blue eyes and then smile at her with a huff of a laugh at her antics tonight.

'Good one Grandma, overly dramatic on Halloween again this year I see,' I try to laugh again but then Grandma thrusts something out from behind her back with her other hand to shove right in my face and I blink then give out a scream!

'What the-!'  But I stop before I curse at my Grandma, 'fudge Grandma?!'  I belatedly amend lamely at the end.  A dead crow swung from her hand and I turned to look at her fully again.  She just stares intently at me.

'I am not baking some weird Halloween crow pie as a gimmick to scare the kids for you again this year,' I say reproachfully and sniffed at her and she just sighs and shakes her head at me again in disappointment.

I wanted to impress the pack this time with the delicious food I bring this year and maybe impress a certain boy I secretly liked- not gross everyone out due to my Grandma's pranks.

'I didn't kill it, it fell dead at our house as soon as it tried to fly past our property, there was nothing wrong with it,' Grandma begins to tell me, 'have you looked outside the past hour?'

I stare blankly at her and just shook my head no, waiting for her to get to the point already and hoping no feathers fall into my crumble mix.  'The moon is full and is painted red!'  She tells me over eagerly, I just arched my eyebrow at her and she continues seeing that I don't comprehend what she's getting at. 

'There's an eldritch feel to fog that is swimming across the land!'  She tells me next.

'Oh cool, so Johnny is testing his fog machine out then?'  I say thinking of our next door neighbour who is the party organiser this year.

Grandma glares at me and smacks me upside the head and I yell out, 'Hey!'

'Stop being so obtuse my girl,' she tells me.  'Your Mage father's legacy of a curse is come calling on Wolf shifter territory and its coming for you, the prophecy is going to repeat itself again with you tonight girl!'  She yells at me suddenly and drops the dead crow on the kitchen table with a resounding thump.

I eye the crow and say to Grandma, 'That's so unsanitary,' I point out to her.

'There's no helping you is there!'  She cries out and storms away, leaving me alone to my baking.

'If you fail, you die!'  She calls out to me.

I shake my head and finish the crumble, pour the topping over the apple filling and then put my large baking pan in the oven to cook before I face the dead crow in the room.

I tip my head to the side listening intently but I can hear that Grandma is cursing up a storm in her room at my foolishness.  I open up the back door and yes, Grandma was right about the spooky fog rolling across pack shifter lands.  I slide my eyesight to the dead crow and wave my hand towards it in a lazy gesture as if to shoo it away.

'Up you get now and be on your way home you silly thing,' I tell it and the crow stirs to life, flaps it wings and flys straight out of the open back door and it begins to caw out it thanks to me as it leaves our back yard safely.

I quietly shut the door again, scrub the table top down before I start decorating my cookies I set aside to cool down.  I wasn't so much as a dud as everyone thought I was and I didn't want anyone to find out yet til I was legally an adult and no pack, tribe or no show parents could lay claim to me then.  I had one more night to hide myself and then I'd be free of them all to train as a healer like I wanted to.  No fake prophecy warnings would get in my way.  No way, no how.

~•~•~•~•~•~•~•~•~•~•~•~•

The pack's party had been in full swing, the Alpha's house having been chosen to host the event for all pack members and families.  They had all been enjoying themselves with the loud music, sound effects, costumes and all the food set out like a banquet to sample from.

I had been my usual wallflower self and watched everyone enjoying themselves, including my Grandma who seemed to have forgotten about her earlier misgivings about tonight and was chatting with her friends as they knocked back their drinks. 

The kids and teenagers and younger adults flowed in and out of the open doors to congregate and dance around the bonfires outside.  They screamed and laughed, having fun, even though icy fingers of fog trailed along their skin and made the night extra spooky with a baleful red eye of a full moon glaring it's tainted light down upon them.

But then from my vantage point it had all began to change.  The screams held real fear as something or many somethings burst out of the fog and headed straight through the open veranda knocking everyone in their way to the ground.

Amidst the chaos of tables overturning and everyone screaming in terror, I slid down the wooden wall I was corralled against as I stared at a thing of nightmares baring down at me.  A dead wolf walking.  A bluish flame burned continuously through its rotting flesh.  It's muzzle was more bone than fur and it's rib cage peeked out through holes that my eyes caught hold of.

It was too far gone but I was mesmerised as I reached out to it's snapping maw and laid my trembling hand upon it's head.  Through the flashing techno lights that Johnny had set up, my own inner magic sparked upon contact of the rotten flesh, blue flames changed to green and then to the same red as that of the moon above that watched the antics of the scared mortals below.

My magic pulsed with that of my heartbeat, of that of many heartbeats from hearts that had not beaten for such a long time as it cascaded to encompass all of the dead wolves surrounding me and their flesh began to knit and blood began to regenerate and flow with them all.

I hadn't noticed the silence falling around me, of my pack watching me in astonishment, of my Grandma grinning crazily at me.  All I focused on was feeding my magic into those bodies til they could sustain themselves without my help anymore.  With a final push of my energy and flash of white that made my eyes blink in confusion, it wasn't wolves that stood before me but naked shifters instead.

The one I had laid my hand upon looked up at me and I snatched my hand back from his shaggy black hair and stared into a pair of piercing blue eyes.

'We found our mate at last to set us free,' he rasps out.