"Beth, darling, wake up. We arrived."

I woke up to my mum's voice. I was lying on the back seat of our car, with a teddy bear in my hands and a blue pillow underneath my head. I sat up, wiped my eyes and looked outside. We were in a small town, not too far from a huge forest and a fjord.

My mum was outside the car talking to some old lady. I opened my window a little and tried to listen. Unfortunately, all I could hear was her saying goodbye. She looked over to me and said:

“Sorry for waking you up, darling. It's a few streets away.”

“It's alright, I slept enough, anyway.”

“Alright then.”

She drove us for around thirty more minutes. In the meantime, I listened to music and looked through the window. The streets were pretty much empty, except for a few kids walking somewhere or riding bikes and older women talking to each other in front of their houses.

Mum finally stopped in front of a small, white house, not too far from the port. It had two floors and a small attic. I got out of the car and opened the trunk. We had five suitcases in total. Two of them were mine and the rest was mum's. I had one more backpack on the back seat. We mostly took clothes and things we’d use if we have to stay inside, like books, DVDs and a few board games.

My mum owns a few houses beside the one we live in. Two outside the country, and this one, in her hometown. She asked me which one to spend the vacation in, and I said this one. We live in the capital city and I'm not a big fan of it. I really like nature and the countryside. I do some photography in my free time. I like taking pictures of plants, flowers, trees, and animals, so a town like this is perfect for me. I took my stuff to the room in the attic and went downstairs to help mum with cooking.

While eating dinner, I asked her:

"Can I go to the forest? I wanna take some pics."

"I'm sorry, sweetie, but it's pretty late already. And I don't want you to be outside in the dark, especially in the middle of the forest."

"C'mon, mum. I've been out late before and you didn't mind at all."

"That was back home. You know that city well, but we've been here once and you didn't go there back then. If you'd know the forest, I'd let you go, but you don't. I don't want you to get lost. Do you understand?"

"Yeah..."

She smiled at me.

"You can go there tomorrow, but you have to come back before the sunset, 'kay?"

"Alright! Thank you, mum."

"Not a problem, darling."

After dinner, I washed the dishes and went up to my room. I noticed some old chest under the window on the other side of the attic. I opened it and found an old book with leather cover and golden tips. I laid down on my bed started reading it. There were some folktales written in it.

This one caught my eye the most. It talked about a girl with white hair and red eyes. She lived in this town in the Middle Ages. People in there mistreated her for her looks. One of them claimed her to be a werewolf. He said he saw a white wolf with red eyes, identical to hers, in the forest. For them, it was enough to kick her out of the town. Afterwards, no-one saw her ever again. A lot of people claimed to see that wolf with the pack in the forest. They say it would approach them, sniff them and then leave. It said that after she left the town, she turned into her wolf form and got stuck in it and now she's waiting for someone to free her out of it.

I kept thinking about it. I pulled out my laptop and started watching my favorite movie. I tried to focus on the movie, but I couldn't stop thinking about the folktale. I turned it off in the middle of the movie and tried to fall asleep.