Whispers of the Wild

I was just six years old when I learned that I could speak to animals. My parents said it was just my imagination, but even back then, I knew they were wrong. Every sound they made, I could clearly figure out what they wanted to say. Other children my age didn’t believe me, and some even avoided me after I revealed my secret. Mom urged me not to speak of it with anyone else; she said people would only ostracise me even more. I took her advice and kept things to myself.

Towards the end of my schooling years, however, my abilities helped me excel at my job at an animal shelter. I was able to detect any animal that was in distress, and I always knew exactly what was worrying them. One of my colleagues said I should become a vet, which I had already considered but was hesitant to pursue. After a discussion with my parents, I was convinced that it was the job that suited me the most.

A few years later, I had my own clinic, and it wasn’t long before many people from my hometown, and even its surrounding areas, flooded my clinic every day. One of my former classmates who had become a journalist at the time wanted to interview me, but I turned them down several times since she was among the initial group of friends to whom I revealed my secret when we were children.

During our interview, however, a stray dog rushed into my clinic and started whimpering and yowling. I knelt down and checked him, but it was then that he left me stunned with what he said. The dog said that he was actually a human who had made a wish to trade places with his dog because his wife and children “got along more with their dog than with him”. He also said that their dog was now a man and was nowhere to be found. I asked my former classmate to reschedule the interview, and once they were gone, I called my mom for advice. Mom said she could help, and that she’d be there in twenty minutes. She also asked me to close the clinic in the meantime.

When Mom arrived, she had with her a book I had never seen before. I asked her what it was, and she said it was the family grimoire. According to Mom, we came from a long line of witches, with some like me, gaining only specific abilities, while others like her, were able to use a wide variety of spells and enchantments. So many questions stormed my mind, but we needed to solve the problem at hand first, so I rushed to her side to help however I could.

Mom cast a tracking spell to find the confused family dog who was wandering through the woods as a man. Upon locating him, she was able to teleport him to the clinic, and there, she sealed both the man and the dog within a barrier so that they could be switched back to their original forms. I was amazed to witness the transformation that unfolded before my eyes. Mom was exhausted after the spell and had to sit down, so I prescribed some medicine for the dog, since he had injured himself while running in the wild. I also asked the man to see a doctor since he was suffering from lingering immunity complications following the initial transformation.