"I love the origin stories!" Zach, the silent dark-skinned boy, said in his funny accent. 

He had jumped up and ran to me. If he hadn't been so tiny, I would've probably jumped into a more defensive pose, instead I remained still. He stopped in front of me, looked with eyes too wise for someone his age and smiled carefully up at me before he grabbed my hand and pulled me to the table.

Everybody laughed at his excitement. I dared to breathe again now that the tension seemed to have dissolved a bit. Everyone focused on the boy whose eyes sparkled. I was simply someone in the room with them. It was progress, I guess, not getting to be the unwelcomed one to everyone in the room.

What was I even thinking? I wasn't going to stay here, so it didn't matter if they liked me or not.

"Me too, Zach. I think it's a great idea from Sky," Mimi said in her cracking voice. 

The old lady's eyes started to sparkle with the same excitement as the young boy. Everybody turned towards Mimi. Heather stood up and walked out of the room, her blonde hair dancing on her back. 

Mimi's attention turned to me. Her voice softened and silence settled over the room.

"I don't know which stories you've heard, my dear. There are many versions, some true, others only told out of fear. You have to know that stories always have two sides. For example, the stories about how vampires are the worst kind of monsters running around. Yet, the stories about how vampires once helped the humans seemed to be forgotten. Do you know how they were created? For what reason they were created?" 

I stayed silent. I had heard stories in Holt, but only pieces, and I never knew whether they were true or not. 

"They saved many villages from disasters, yet no one ever included that in their stories. The same goes for the werewolf stories. You might have heard a different version, but this is the one that is told over and over again by the werewolf alphas. It might be true, it might be a lie. Nobody knows. But it's important that you know that every story has its own point of view. So if you heard a different version, tell us in a friendly way and don't tell us that we are wrong with the way we tell it." 

I looked at her, impressed and speechless, and all I could do was nod in respect. 

"Well then, let's start." 

Heather walked back in, carrying a pile of paper. She put them on the table in front of Mimi. The old lady smiled at the blonde girl and told her to take a seat. Mimi turned towards the table again. Her face changed from a friendly smile to a dark expression. Her friendly cracking voice turned into a cold and dark sound that made me shiver. Her eyes were now stormy instead of the loving gray. Somebody had put out most of the candles and the room was now only lit by the two big candles on the table. The atmosphere had turned dark and mysterious.

"Long ago, before a time when vampires existed, our world got overruled by terrible monsters. Nobody knew where they came from. The story goes that they appeared one night, out of nowhere, and slaughtered whole villages. Only pieces of the bodies remained. Religious people were praying for forgiveness, others cried in helplessness. Most thought the gods had brought them to the Kingdom to punish Mankind. The religious leaders kept praying but nothing seemed to work. Whole villages had been slaughtered by these monsters, the Shibaura."

Mimi held up a drawing of a village and a big creature of darkness that had a human in its claws. 

"Atheists started to gather people for an army. They weren't going to let them take any more of their families. Brave men fought every night against those murderous creatures, but nobody ever survived an attack. Whole armies had nothing against one single monster and more and more seemed to come every day. People were getting desperate; their strongest men were dead, solutions were running low and hope was fading."

Mimi's voice softened, everyone's face was hidden in the shadows. My heart felt heavy in my chest and I had trouble swallowing.

"Humans knew about witches of course. But, they preferred to stay away. Probably out of fear of their power, or maybe because Mankind was never good at accepting differences. That's why they used to burn them. It's what people always seem to do with the things they were scared of; destroy it. But now, they were desperate. The bravest men weren't brave enough to go look for the witches in the woods. 

"It was the young prince and his lady friend that escaped the castle one night. You see, the prince had a new born son, and they were willing to do anything to protect him. Their biggest fear wasn't the Shibaura, but the loss of their child. So, they put their fear and hatred aside and begged the witches for help."

My heart was beating faster, curiosity made me want to ask what happened next. Mimi swiped between drawn pictures, before she showed one of the prince and his lady friend standing in front of a coven of female witches.

"You can imagine they weren't big fans of Mankind. I wouldn't have been either if they used to burn my kind on a stake. But they were old and wise. They knew about the fear that lived among humans, they knew that fear could kill even your most loved one. So, they decided to help."

Someone sucked in a sharp breath. I doubted it was the first time they heard this story, but somehow I enjoyed that I wasn't the only one sitting at the edge of their seat.

"Some say the witches did it so that balance remained in the world. But there are people that believe it was out of the kindness of a witch's heart, that the human race survived.

"And so, the witches gathered inside the forest on the night of a full moon." Mimi kept showing the drawings that told the story visually. "The prince and his lady friend were asked to come and take their strongest warriors with them. Not many soldiers remained, so out of necessity and desperation the prince took his most loyal servants with him, even though they weren't his strongest fighters. The witches needed the power and magic from nature to create a new race. The Vampires. They say the spell was so strong that years later, magic was still absent from the forest. They still whisper about how the witches drained the woods from its life. Hundreds of miles of forest were dead after the ritual. But nobody was angry with them. The witches were welcomed with open arms in the towns after they saved the world. The Vampires had enough power to kill the terrible monsters that lived inside the darkest places of the earth."

Confusion made me frown. "What does the birth of the Vampire Race have to do with wolves?"

Jason, who was seated next to me, put his hand on my forearm and hinted to keep listening. Mimi still had the same grim expression on her face, and yet again I had difficulty to swallow.

"One night in a city along the Great River, there was another monster attack. Many died, but before the whole city was slaughtered, their heroes, the Vampires, arrived. They killed the Shibaura and saved the lives of the remaining humans. People cheered and partied, the way it happened after each rescue. They celebrated that one of the brave soldiers attacked by the Shibaura survived and could go home to his family. Little did they know that the wounds were infected by those monsters.

"The man celebrated his survival that night. Unfortunately, his celebration quickly came to an end when he felt himself changing. His appetite became bigger and he started to change physically. His hair grew faster, his voice became lower and he smelled more than he could handle. He retracted himself from his family and friends. His interest in the forest started to show and his circadian cycle flipped. He slept during the day and woke up when the night started to fall."

A silence stretched over the small dining room. My hand gripped the side of the table.

"It was at the first moon after the attack that he lost complete control over his body. He got scared and went looking for his family, hoping that maybe someone could help him with his problem. But Mankind hadn't changed. Fear broke loose in his town. Lost and broken the man ran inside the forest, away from the people he once called family and friends. He didn't get far," Mimi sighed, she sounded sad as if she had known the man personally, "before his body started changing into something very different from his human body. The man transformed into something between human and the monsters that once threatened to destroy humanity. Disgusted with what he had become, he went looking for the witches, hoping they could cure him from this terrible disease. Or at least that's how he saw it."

Mimi fell silent, her hand went to Isabelle's hand and squeezed encouragingly, before she looked across the table at the alpha. Her smile was encouraging. 

After clearing her voice and letting the shadow fall over her face once more, she continued: "He traveled from city to city. It took him years to find the witches. During that time, he learned new things about himself. He started to understand that it might not be as awful as he once thought. Nobody realized what he was during the day, only on full moon nights, he lost control. Over the years, his transformation kept changing. More and more he started to look less like the Shibaura and more like a wild animal. A wolf to be exact.

"But he was a good man and didn't want to hurt anyone, so he separated himself from society those nights. He kept looking, it gave him purpose. So, after many years of searching, he found the witches. When they asked him why he came, the man didn't have an answer anymore. He told his story, why he went looking for them and why he did no longer need their help. He had accepted himself. He didn't see it as a disease anymore.

"The witches accepted him in their circle that night and cared for him. They warned him that people would fear him for what he was, it was the human thing to do. They fear things they don't know and things that are stronger than them. They told him he would have to live on the side of society but that it shouldn't stop him from living his life. They gave him tips to stay close to the ones that accepted him for who he was. 

"After hearing his story, they expected there to be others like him after the war. With that information, the man decided to look for others like him and help them. One of the witches offered to accompany him on a quest to find more like him. So, that's what they did: they went looking for more people like him. For the first time, a pack was formed and the man no longer felt alone. He had a purpose and a new family to care for. For the first time since the Shibaura War, he felt complete again."

Mimi's normal happy smile returned. Her hands held the final drawing in her hands, a group of people holding hands.

"And that is why wolf packs always have witches that accompany them; to find more wolves and keep them safe from the dangers out there in the world," Zack finished with a big smile. 

Everyone around the table was smiling now too. I felt the love and unity between them. I became acutely aware of how different my upbringing had been - and what I had so desperately wanted as well. 

It stayed quiet for a while. My thoughts raced and my emotions were getting harder to suppress.

"Or it was because a human fell in love with one of those monsters and got a little monster baby," Mimi said chipper and a bit crazy.

The complete ridicule of that statement pulled me from the intense tension that was filling the air, and my mind. Suddenly, a laugh escaped me. Everybody looked at me with open mouths, and then they all joined. 

"But that isn't as dramatic as this story." 

She stood up and put the candles back on and opened the curtains. Only now, I realized that someone had closed them. Mimi walked around like a crazy old lady that was having the time of her life. Everyone was so alive here. 

Unable to help myself, I smiled. Perhaps it wasn't so bad that I had found myself here, no matter how unconventional it was.