Dear Pumpkin

When the autumn leaves,

Ripe – poems of levity,

Left – O’ moon!

She traced a finger over the familiar cursives inked into a haiku. It frustrated her every time she thought of how fifteen syllables were enough for him to bid farewell to her. Fifteen syllables that had a deep meaning she’d never figure out in her lifetime.

She imagined him seated behind his centuries old mahogany desk in the darkest corner of his candlelit room holding a quill – because ink pens were boring and had no personalities, and when she’d argue of how a pen isn’t supposed to have a personality, he’d continue to move the quill swiftly between his fingers, with which her existence faded away from his world. Her young self had spent hours watching the quill move fascinated, eventually annoyed and jealous, of it getting to keep the slender fingers of the old man all to itself. She pictured his thin cyanosed lips bordered by a sea of wrinkles harboring wisdom tug up from the corners, the sign of another successful collection of syllables. She had tried to understand them many times and had failed miserably. She had started to believe that he didn’t want her to understand his work, the same way he didn’t want to understand her.

She was startled when Mr. Fat-bottom leapt to her lap from somewhere and then to the window sill beside her, with a loud thud. She ignored Sir Arthur’s complaints from behind her couch; about how Mr. Fat-bottom hates to be touched, as she pulled the sheer in place, a poor attempt to obstruct the moonlight which still fought to creep inside. She glanced at the moon through her silk drapes, from the corner of her eyes. Right on time a bolt of lightning sent the clouds asunder, exposing a naked moon that is one day away from becoming completed.

She wasn’t afraid of lightning nor thunder. No. All her life she had only been afraid of two things;

1.   Her father 

2.   The tenth full moon of the lunar year

Ever since she started to live alone, she discovered a third. 

3.   Halloween

Oddly enough, two of her deepest fears were aligning on the same day, eclipsing her life at once.

She was startled once again when her phone beeped twice and the call by default went into voicemail.

“Hey neighbor it’s me Dave again, from that antique shop. We argued over that tall handsome Halloween lampshade, remember? - You said it wasn’t born to be a Halloween lamp”

How could she forget? She glanced over at the antique wooden lamp with shade, standing dwarfed by the window frame. Its body had carvings of pumpkins and leaves, and though she hated everything about autumn, she bought the lamp. She had to convince herself that her buying the lamp had nothing to do with a certain stranger she met at the shop. He had insisted that the lamp was definitely carved during the seventeenth century when she was sure it was way before that.

Of course it wasn’t simply a mere mismatch of opinions between her and him.

Something about him got under her skin.

Maybe it was the way he smirked as if he knew all the secrets of the world or the way he ran a hand through his messy raven hair as he tried to prove her wrong or maybe it was just him being a human.

It wasn’t her first time dealing with humans.

She was taught by a specialist, on how to live amongst humans even before she was trained to be an alpha. She found it easier being a human than being one of her kind. After all she had seen what being a werewolf did to her father.

Werewolves who were cursed to age slowly could only mate with a human once in their long lifetime. From then onwards they had to live in misery missing their significant other until death redeemed them. Hence, the only thing she knew about her mother was the fact that she was a human and that her death devastated her father. Nothing more. She never asked in fear she’d be adding salt to his raw wounds. 

 “So I was wondering whether you’d like to go trick or treating with me tomorrow,” the stranger paused to take a deep breath in, “that is if you don’t mind. It’ll be fun I promise. Bye”. His monotone echoed inside the otherwise silent living room. 

“Woof!” Sir Arthur kept two of his paws on the tea table, his tail wagged continuously from behind.

“I’m not going with him.” She said making eye contact with the curious brown eyed bigger ball of fur.

“Moew.” Mr. Fat-bottom joined the conversation, for once after a long time taking Sir Arthur’s side.

“I don’t think you two are in any position to lecture me,” she stood up, “given the fact that the two of you had been fighting the whole day”.

She placed the piece of paper bearing the haiku on the tea table. Beside it was a notebook containing some of her own masterwork of poetry, which not even Sir Arthur and Mr. Fat-bottom knew the existence of. She wouldn’t say that her father inspired her to write. It was more like he challenged her. She wanted to see what was so good about poetry that didn’t even leave him time for his daughter. 

She dusted her hands. "Alright I want one of you to come with me to the bathroom."

“Meow?”

“Those Halloween decorations outside really scare me.” She lifted her hands up defensively.

“Woof!” Sir. Arthur wagged his tail as he came to stand by her feet. She playfully stuck her tongue out at the grumpy Mr. Fat-bottom.

“Meow- meow.”

“No he doesn’t do it for extra treats. Kindness is-,” She didn’t get to finish her sentence as the doorbell rang. 

She asked the two fur balls to stay put as she looked around for something good enough to defend herself. She picked up the antique lampshade from its shaft, after a lot of contemplation, against the glass vase sitting on the tea table because she didn’t want to deal with the aftermath. She jumped over a few neatly taped boxes, still unpacked and made it to the front door.

For all she knew, opening the door could even be the end of her, but not opening it wouldn't make the situation any different. Not like she could outrun a pack of wolves. She had to face them. She placed her hand on the door knob and tried to smell out the numbers outside. If the odds were in her favour, she could distract them for sometime before figuring out her escape route. 

Other than the usual smell of wet soil against pine trees, she smelled coffee beans coming from her porch. Not the kind of smell she was expecting.

She twisted the doorknob open only to find a familiar face smirking at her. His raven hair was all over the place and his crimson eyes had a sparkle of mischief. The midnight breeze brushed past her entering her warm lair, uninvited. It was definitely colder outside, but not cold enough to make her shiver. He on the other hand looked like he had walked out of a blizzard poorly equipped, yet his composure was exceptionally calm. She wondered whether he had been outside for awhile.

“I don’t remember inviting you over.” She said.

“Hello to you too my neighbor, Rose. I see you love that Halloween lampshade. You seem to be carrying it everywhere with you.” He stopped to catch his breath. His delicate lips were partially cyanosed.

“Rose is a nice name. To think that we were actually neighbours! What a coincidence? In case you didn't get my previous voice messages, I'm the guy living in that house.”

Her gaze followed his pointed finger towards the brightest house in their street with a little too many smiling pumpkins and a gigantic scarecrow facing her bedroom window. The scarecrow was the reason behind her lack of sleep and why she felt like she wasn't alone even in the bathroom.

She took a deep breath in. She had made two mistakes in her life.

1.   Moving to this guy’s neighborhood out of all the places.

2.   Going to the antique shop at six in the morning, thinking that she’d be able to avoid humans.

“Not to be nosy, but I noticed that you haven’t put up a single Halloween decoration.” He tucked his hands in his pocket.

“So what?” She was usually never this rude, but she couldn’t control her urge to be so, towards him. The urge was equal to a wolf’s urge to howl at the sight of a full moon.

“So I was wondering whether you needed a hand.” He awkwardly shrugged.

“No.” She said. 

A loud crash was heard seconds after. She cursed under her breath and ran inside. The stranger followed suit.

The minute she entered the living room she found herself in the eye of a hurricane. Two fur balls clashed with each other and kept rolling around the living room. Her vase was already in pieces at the foot of the tea table.

“STOP!” She banged lampshade’s base against the wooden floor and that did the trick.

“Meow” Mr. Fat-bottom dared to speak.

“I don’t care who started it, both of you don’t move.” She started to look for her broom. 

“Behind the couch.” The stranger said as he went casually and picked up the cat from the ground.

“Wait. Mr. Fat-bottom doesn’t like to be touched.” She said, but she was instantly proven wrong as the smaller ball of fur purred under the stranger's touch. It didn’t take long for Sir. Arthur to join the club. “Who must be this guy?” He bent down to caress the dog with his free hand.

“Sir Arthur.” She said involuntarily. 

“Cool names.” She watched him shower the two little beasts with pheromones and love perhaps.

“Traitors!” She muttered under her breath as she started to sweep the glass pieces fast.

She never liked that vase anyway. It reminded her too much of the person she used to be, with its odd proportioned pumpkin shape and gloomy shine. It was the vase in her bedroom that she felt too attached to leave behind when she decided to run away from home. She had tucked it in with a couple of books that she took from her father's study and was out into the oblivion.

She still remembered that night like yesterday. It had rained hard and the clouds were covering every trace of the moon. The air tasted like pumpkin seeds crushed against mint leaves, as it hammered past the sleeping trees. She had to hoist herself up against the wet soil as she ran ahead, without looking back. Not even once. The only thought in her head was that she had to get away. Far, far away.

She couldn’t bear to see her father exhale his last breath.

It had been almost a century since then.

She often wondered where her father and mother were now.

Did their souls meet?

Were they at peace?

Did they enter another cycle of life?

Nobody really knows what happened to a werewolf and their human lover after death.

Some prophecies say that they keep being born, exchanging places every cycle of life until one kind of species ceases to exist. Some other prophecies say that a werewolf would only find peace if they meet their significant other, until which their significant other keeps on being born, till that moment in time they’d meet and mate under the tenth lunar moon.

No prophecy however tells about how to end this cycles of birth, so here she was trying to figure it out herself. She too might have been a human in her previous life cycle, born a werewolf again, to go through the grief of losing. So her strategy to save herself and the poor human who was born to be her significant other- if the prophecies were at all true, was running away.

By refusing to give in to what the prophecies say she was also in one angle saving the rest of the werewolves in her clan, as their alpha on the run.

Because an alpha existed for only two reasons.

1.   To help the clan survive

2.   To let the clan know when to mate

Currently in the twenty first century the werewolves barely needed to be taught on how to survive. However reason number two was why she had to keep moving every one to two years. For unless the alpha mates, the next generation of werewolves can’t either.

“I’m going to throw this away.” She said out loud, not that anyone was listening. The three were busy getting cozy with each other. She almost felt jealous as she stared at them, but she wasn’t quite sure of whom she was jealous of.

She ended up storing the vase pieces in the pantry instead of throwing them away. She poured herself a glass of water and was on her second round when Dave entered the kitchen. She didn’t like how he was getting too comfortable in her house.

“I liked both the poems.” He said.

“Both?” She said.

"Yes. It looks like a haiku, but it's a Nariya. An old form of poetry used centuries ago. There are two poems in one stanza." He said.

"When the autumn leaves,

Ripe – poems of levity,

Left – O’ moon!"

“O' moon- ripe,

Poems of levity- left,

When the autumn leaves!”

He recited the stanzas with confidence.

“And both mean different things?” She watched his now pink lips, tug upwards a little as he tried to maintain a stoic face. However his sparkling eyes gave away his excitement.

“Yes one says that, when the time comes not even the moon can stop you – I’m not quite sure why the moon would want to stop someone though. The second says that, no matter how much pain separation brings, the moon awaits autumn every time the season ends.”

“That’s quite confusing now that I think about it. Funny how he wrote an entire poetry about it.” He sat on the kitchen counter comfortably and started to sway his legs back and forth.

“What do you mean?” She said.

She was still struggling to absorb everything he had said so far. Her head felt heavy and her thoughts were clouded. She wasn't sure whether she was simply stuck in one of those endless hallucinations, as she watched Dave speak.

“That poem is simply just one out of a poetry book written by a famous ancient poet.” He said. “The author happens to be the husband of one of our princesses who died young due to the 17's pandemic. It’s still quite a mystery whether the poetry was for his wife-”

He ran a hand through his hair. Something he seemed to do when he was in deep thought, she noticed. Her heart was pounding furiously inside her ribcage. She felt as if the pillars holding up everything she had known were collapsing and somehow she was standing in the middle of it without a safe ground to escape to.

“- or for his child. No one knows for sure."

She felt a warm hand steady her shoulders as she struggled to hold her foot on the ground. She freed herself from his strong grip and tried to walk out of the kitchen. It was as if she was strutting in an endless dessert, each foot she took ahead glued her down to the ground like quicksand pulling her in. The living room lights were flickering as if creating an illusion of the oasis she was afraid she'd never reach. She did make it out, with the help of a hand she didn't remember taking. She felt blood rush back into her face, at the sight of the cardboard boxes lying everywhere on the living room floor. Each box had neatly been taped tight, concealed and sealed by anger and many mixed emotions that had already been forgotten with time. She started to rip them apart one by one spilling its content, a sea of books out into the open.

Dave silently bent down and helped her with whatever she was doing. No questions were asked.

“This might be it.” He said as he handed her a book. She clutched it in her hands as her vision started to blur and her lips tasted salty.

Her father had left her more than just fifteen syllables.

Maybe he didn’t hate her after all.

Just maybe.

After a while she looked up at Dave. “Do you want to go trick or treating tomorrow?” Her voice was hoarse as if someone had been rubbing her glottis with sandpaper.

“Nah. How about we stay in and admire poetry?" It was more of a statement than a question. "I saw that you’ve written some confusing poems yourself, which I’m dying to know the meaning of.” Dave said.

He smiled. Not a smirk, but a genuine smile.

“You read them?” Her hazels were locked by his crimsons as he laid out his soul for her to see.

“Yup.” He extended his hand for her to take and pulled her up from the ground.

“How about we start now?” Her hand under his touch was on fire. Maybe it was just the moon doing its business. She didn’t care what it was.

 “Woof- meow” The two little beasts who had silently been observing from the sides joined the two on the couch, under the 17's lampshade.

She caressed her father’s initials on the poetry book titled; ‘Dear Pumpkin’.

The book’s cover had a familiar odd proportioned pumpkin shaped vase on it.

She was his pumpkin.

She had always been.