dripping onto his new son’s silky lion fur. “Yes, my adopted son.” Annabelle climbed into the carriage beside Tempo. The carriage was slightly battered now. Rudy sat up on Gus’ haunches, but Gus patiently followed Annabelles slight cue to move forward. Gus came into a quick lope, each hoof hitting the ground with a drumming motion. He thrust his head forward into a run, and Rudy pummeled backward, yelping. Tempo reached for the small cub, and sat him beside him. Annabelle touched muzzles with Tempo and they both howled, for no reason at all.

 

 

Rudy tried to howl with them, but instead gave a feeble roar for he didn’t know how to howl. Tekita and Bert gave calls of their own, on top of the carriage, their wings spread as if to take flight, but they were still sitting on the carriage.

 

 

“We’re here.” Neighed Gus. “This must be the family here, the family that can speak to animals.” Annabelle stood up on the carriage seat, as Gus drew to a halt a bit of distance away from the house. Strangely, the storm had not touched here. It could DEFINITELY not have touched here yet. The ground was dry and cracked, very little centimeter-wide streams of water streaming in between some of the cracks in the dirt, but only here and there. The only grass that survived was brown, and in groups of three blades or more. The house stood alone, rickety and tall, made of wood put together by rusty nails. It seemed as if the house could collapse any moment. The only signs of life were desert mice scattering here and there. Tempo looked at Gus. “It can’t be here. I mean, there’s barely any animals to talk to.”

 

 

Annabelle nodded, agreeing. “You’d think an animal speaker would live in an area filled with animals and plants.”

 

 

Annabelle licked Tempo on the cheek. “You stay. Here goes...” She trotted up to the house.

 

 

“Hey, why can’t I come?” Tempo asked.

 

 

“It’s my job. I’m the one destined to do this.” Annabelle answered, climbing onto the front porch. Gus turned his head and gave a nod to Tempo. “Let’s hope she’ll be ok.”

 

 

Rudy punched his paws high into the air. “Go Annabelle!” and Tempo picked him up and rose him higher.

 

 

Annabelle put her paw against the door, and scratched. In her own language, she spoke softly, “Hello? Is anybody here? I need to talk to you.”

 

 

Annabelle sat on the front steps for a long time, as it began to rain. The rivers of water in between the cracks in the dirt became more apparent and more often. Tempo watched anxiously, as Gus carefully watched the water height with a wary eye. A girl in a long apron came to the door. Annabelle whined, no real meaning behind the whine. The girl rubbed behind Annabelle’s ears. “You look worried, girl. Come on in, I’ll show you to my bedroom, then you can tell me all about it.” Annabelle looked over her shoulder, gave a brief nod to her friends, and trotted into the rickety house.

 

 

Though the house looked old and untended for on the outside, the house was clean and fancy as a whistle on the inside.

 

 

 

 

Annabelle followed the young eleven year old into a totally pink bedroom. Though Annabelle could not tell its color, the room felt warm and inviting. Annabelle settled herself on the girl’s bed. The girl sat next to her, and rubbed behind the wolf’s ears. “My name’s Shanay. What’s yours?”

 

 

Annabelle gazed at the bedroom wall. “Annabelle.” She said softly in her language.

 

 

The girl smiled. “Annabelle, is it? So Annabelle, why did you come all the way out here? Animals never come here, except for the mice, and the geese that are flying back north.”

 

 

“There is an urgent problem, Shanay. There’s going to be a huge flood, and a storm. I almost got caught in it. They’re called hurricanes.”

 

 

Shanay gaped at Annabelle. “You’re serious, aren’t you?” she choked out.

 

 

“I‘m serious.” Said Annabelle softly.

 

 

“I must tell Mother. She’ll believe me. Only you come with me, she needs to see you.”

 

 

The girl touched Annabelle’s back, and Annabelle leapt off the bed. Shanay kept her hand laid across Annabelle’s back. This made Annabelle uncomfortable, but she knew in order to tell the animal-speaking humans about the terrible storm, she had to do as the human said.

 

 

A older-looking boy tramped through the house, with a fierceness in his eyes that frightened Annabelle. This boy reminded her of the rough humans her parents had been killed by, and the rough men that had stolen Brock away from the caravan. Annabelle shivered lightly.

 

 

Shanay noticed this and said to the boy, “Ken, stop trampin’ around like an elephant.” Strangely Annabelle understood Shanay’s word to Ken, who appeared to be her brother in very few ways.

 

 

Ken looked at her and noticed Annabelle, who shrunk against Shanay’s pantleg. “Oooooooooooooh! You brought a mutt into the house? I’m tellin’ Moooooooooom.”

 

 

“No, listen K.G. Remember my ‘ability’? To talk to animals?”

 

 

“So then, tell me what this dog says when I do this?” Ken kicked Annabelle, and made her nervously step away and growl.

 

 

“She said, ‘Make this insufferable idiot stop kicking me.’ I really think you should go, Ken. Be glad I warned ya.”

 

 

“You’re good.” Annabelle told her as Ken glared at them and stomped back down the stairs.

 

 

“I know I am.” Shanay smirked and said to Annabelle, “Ok, now, let’s hope that we can get downstairs alive.” Shanay shivered and glared after Ken who just tramped around a corner at the way bottom of the stairs.

 

 

Annabelle sensed her nervousness and gulped. “Uh? What do you mean, if we get down there alive?”

 

 

“Yeah. Ken’s a human and wolf-eater.” Shanay shrugged.

 

 

“Haha. You scared me there.” Annabelle forced a laugh.

 

 

They ran down the stairs. Both had to tell the story of the hurricanes, and what might happen if they don’t move out of the storm’s range.

 

 

“Mommy I... mom?!”

 

 

 

 

The 40-year-old lady who was Shanay’s mother was gone. The house was dark and from the distance they could hear screams.

 

 

 

 

The twelve-year-old Shanay moved closer to her wolf-friend and began to bite her nails. “Where’s my mom?” Annabelle growled at this new predicament. From somewhere in the room she smelled Tempo... she sniffed around and followed the scent. Only a few feet away from where the woman had been sitting, a badly injured Tempo lay.

 

 

 

 

“Tempo! Tell me what happened!!” Annabelle whined. She licked one of the wounds on his shoulder to help heal it.

 

 

 

 

“The... hunters... they... they came here...” coughed Tempo. His whole body shook as he coughed. “They... tried to take her away... to the north... thinking her ability... would be useful... for hunting.”

 

 

 

 

“So mom’s up north...” Shanay said, biting her nails until there was almost no nail left. Then her hands fell limply at her sides like they were broken. “That... that place is full of... of terrible monsters... their nothing we can speak to... somewhere between an animal and a demon... we can’t understand them...”

 

 

 

 

Annabelle looked scared up at Shanay. “This is bad.” She whined quietly. “Real bad. Tempo, tell us how did this happen to you?”

 

 

 

 

Tempo coughed again, his whole body shivering to no end, his closing wounds opening up again. “The wolf-speaking woman wouldn’t allow herself to be taken North. So they tried to bring her there by force. I got in the way though, and tried to fight them away. They didn’t have guns, thank god, but they had knives, so they tried to fend me off.  I couldn’t... protect her... or myself... because those humans were unnaturally powerful. They picked me up by the scruff and THREW me, yes, threw me, over here. The fall caused some of these gashes to become more serious.”

 

 

 

 

“Tempo...” Annabelle was really worried.

 

 

Her best friend in the world lifted his head to look at her. “I’ll be fine. Go. They... took everyone else too... but Rudy may have gotten away... Go find them all and save them.”

 

 

Annabelle smiled and through the haze of her panicked mind she joked, “Hey, you sound like the world is at stake!!”

 

 

“A bit cliched line.” Muttered Shanay.

 

 

Tempo ignored Shanay and told Annabelle, “It is. My world... is at stake. If I lose my friends, well... I’ll have nothing left to live for.”

 

 

 

 

“I’ll do my best, Temp.” Annabelle nuzzled him and ran off, ready for the trail of monsters! She was ready for anything, so she could protect her friends.

 

 

 

 

 

 

TO BE CONTINUED

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