Chapter 3: My New House

I didn’t get another chance to talk to Cassie that day. When school finished, I went house hunting. After several hours of flying around looking for houses, I saw one that looked promising. The large amount of untouched land that surrounded it, pulled me in.

The house would be perfect, the forest providing the privacy I needed to come and go as a crow. I scanned the forest, and sensed that it belonged to a pack of shapeshifters. Having the wolves nearby wasn’t necessarily a bad thing, as long as I stayed out of their territory.

I turned back to my human form and approached the house. I passed a sales sign, and a car parked on the driveway. The house looked a bit run down, with a few cracked roof panels, flaking paint by the window sills and it could do with a new door. However, it wouldn’t be hard for me to fix. I rang the doorbell, hoping the owner would be able to sell it to me quickly.

A middle-aged woman opened the door. “Hello, can I help you?”

I gave her a wide smile. “I’m interested in buying the house. Would you mind if I have a look around?”

The woman took in my appearance, wrinkles formed on her forehead. “It isn’t going to auction until next week.” She grabbed hold of the door, ready to close it when a voice sounded from the inside. “Let the young man have a look.”

The woman in front of me rolled her eyes and let out a sigh before opening the door further to let me inside.

I walked through a hallway and into the living room where an elderly woman sat on an armchair, going through a box of what appeared to be letters and photos.

She gave me a smile. “What a handsome chap. You look just like my William did when I first met him. He never could tame that hair of his.” She held up her hand. “Hold on a moment.” 

I watched as she went through the box again. After a while she handed me a black and white photo of a man. “This is my beautiful William. He was taken far too soon,”

“Mum, I’m sure he has better things to do than listen to you, besides we need to get back to the care home soon,” the other woman said, annoyed.

“I don’t mind,” I said, giving the elderly lady a smile.

“How about you go and have a look at the house, while we get ourselves sorted,” the middle-aged woman said.

I gave her a nod. The living room connected to a dining room with an open kitchen. I walked back into the hallway to the stairs that led upstairs. On my way up I overheard them talking.

“I know you’re worried about the wolves, but this is nonsense,” the middle-aged woman said.

“There’s something about him. Besides, anything is better than the auction. If you didn’t need the money I’d leave this house abandoned,” the old lady replied.

Maybe I could use what I had overhead to my advantage. The elderly woman obviously knew about the wolves somehow. I surveyed the upstairs, which contained three rooms and a bathroom. I didn’t need all this space but the location of the house drew me in.

When I returned to the living room, the two women were staring at each other, but when they saw me they broke eye contact and looked over at me. Curiosity got the better of me and I sent my energies out. They were human, so how did they know about the wolves?

“What did you think about the house?” The elderly woman asked.

“It’s perfect,” I said with a smile.

The elderly woman chuckled. “I don’t know about that, but it’s definitely a home. Why is a young man like yourself interested in a house like this, wouldn’t you rather be closer to town?”

“I grew up in a house surrounded by forests and this place reminds me of that. There’s something calming about being around nature and wildlife.”

“Oh yes, the wildlife. There are plenty of large predators around these parts. I hope that won’t be a problem.” She raised her eyebrow.

“No problem at all. I don’t mind the wolves, besides they usually keep to themselves,” I said with a wink.

A wide smile appeared on the elderly woman's face. “Margret, get the estate agent on the phone. I have made up my mind. I’d rather the young man have the house.”

Margret gave her a stare before pulling her phone from the bag. She looked over at me. “We want three hundred and sixty thousand for the house. Sure you can afford it?”

I nodded. “I can transfer the money to you right now if you want.”

She let out a sigh and walked outside with the phone to her ear. A moment later she walked back in. “You’re in luck. All the paperwork has already been done while we were getting things ready for the auction. You just need to sign it. The estate agent is emailing over the deed for both of you to sign and the account number the money needs to be transferred to, but you need to get down to the estate agent to sort everything else out.”

After the contract was signed and the money transferred, Margret picked up the box on the table and headed outside.

The elderly woman approached me with a friendly smile. She placed something in my palm and put her hands around mine. “Here is the key, I don’t mind you staying here until it is officially yours. We were going to donate the furniture to charity but feel free to keep it if you want. We only came back to collect some memories. You were lucky to catch us. It was obviously God’s will to preserve this house.”

She followed her daughter outside. I watched from the front door as they drove away before heading over to the estate agent to sort out the rest of the paperwork. The house would not officially be mine for a couple of weeks, but the elderly lady had given me her blessing to stay in the house until then.

After I had moved in, I sat down on the floor, tapping into my powers within, and started to visualise a dome of energy that had certain abilities. I continued to imagine it covering the area that needed protection. When I had a clear picture in my mind, I pushed the energy outwards until it left my body and created the wall of protection I had pictured in my mind. I repeated this process several times to make sure I'd cover all my needs. 

The different layers provided different protections, some were to keep enemies out, some were to retain the energy within. A spell was only as strong as the person wielding it, but luckily for me, I’d had a lot of practice over the years.

When I had finished with all the layers of protection, I went outside and transformed myself into a crow and took to the sky. It was time to figure out where Cassie lived, so I could place a protective barrier on her house too. I didn’t want anyone to come knocking on her door after sensing her energy from abilities she had not learned to control. It was easy to kidnap and shape someone that had only just discovered what they were.

The house was easy to spot, not by appearance as it looked like a typical suburban detached brick house, with a small garden surrounding it. The reason I knew that it was the right house was because of Cassie’s personal energy.

Remembering her energy from earlier and realising that it was similar to Nick’s, made hers easy to find. Because I was bound to Nick, I knew his energy signature very well and could easily seek it out.

Thinking back, that may have been the reason Nick hadn’t bothered telling me a lot about Cassie. He knew I would be able to sense her.