"Skye?" Melinda yelled as she picked her way through the forested area around the house.
"Excuse me," Phil started after knocking on a neighbor's door.
"It's almost 11. What do you want?" The woman asked grouchily.
"My daughter, she- she ran off and we've been looking for almost two hours. Have you seen her?"
"How old is she?" The woman asked, suddenly awake.
"She's four. About 3 feet," he replied.
"I haven't seen her," the woman said apologetically.
"That's fine, thank you." Phil smiled sadly. The woman closed the door. He sighed and moved onto the next house, the same conversation on loop. About twenty minutes later, four house doors opened with people dressed in boots, jeans, and jackets, equipped with flashlights.
"Have you found her?" One woman asked Phil, who shook his head.
"It's like she disappeared." Phil grimaced.
"Do you have any pictures of her?" A man asked.
"Oh, uh, yeah," Phil said as he reached in his pocket. He unfolded the piece of paper and handed it to him. "It's the picture from her file from the orphanage," he explained. "We adopted her last week. She had some sort of meltdown after Jemma hugged her and she bolted out the front door."
"Poor girl, she must be scared out of her mind right now," A woman said sadly.
"We're gonna find her, right?" Jemma asked as she came over.
"Oh, honey of course we are," the woman said soothingly.
"But what if we don't?" She cried.
"We will, Jemma, I promise," Phil said reassuringly.
"How do you know?" Jemma asked as she cried harder.
"Phil, I think I found something!" Melinda called from in front of the forest.
"What? What is it?" He demanded as he ran over.
"A piece of her jacket, it must've been torn when she came running through here and it got snagged on the branch," Melinda said as she picked up the piece of fabric from the branch. They went in deeper, following a small track cleared of branches, plants, and trees that had been shoved out of the way frantically. Eventually they came across a clearing where there was a large wolf laying down. It was beautiful, a white coat and bright blue eyes. They scanned the rest of the area and saw Skye. They expected her to be crying or hiding in fear, but, instead she was petting the wolf calmly and giggling.
"You're so soft," she whispered as she stroked her white fur.
"Skye!" Melinda exclaimed. The wolf shot up and jumped in front of Skye protectively. She snarled and growled, staring them down.
"It's okay, Celestia, they're friends," Skye whispered reassuringly. The wolf huffed and laid back down.
"Skye where did you find a wolf?" Jemma asked slowly.
"Wolves aren't indigenous to this area. Coyotes, sure, but not wolves," one of the women interjected.
"Even so, I've never seen a wolf this large or of this color," the woman's husband agreed.
"More importantly, she seemed to understand Skye's command to stay down. How is this-" The woman was interrupted by the wolf howling at the full moon. She stumbled back, startled.
"She's looking for her pups," Skye explained. "They wandered off."
"How do you know this?" Jemma asked.
"Celestia told me," she replied calmly. She stood up and stood beside the wolf, holding onto the scruff of her fur to steady herself.
"Skye, your leg!" Phil gasped as he looked at her bleeding leg in horror. There was a large slash mark through her jeans, the surrounding area of her leg was stained red with blood.
"What about it?" Skye asked, looking down confusedly. "Oh, right, that!" She inspected the wound and looked around, pointing at more around her body. She had removed her coat.
"What happened?" Jemma asked.
"Celestia saved me from a pack of coyotes. She brought me here and another one from her pack helped me clean some of them off in a river over there," she said, pointing over her left shoulder. Melinda stared at her with wide eyes.
"How is this possible?" she whispered to herself.
"I don't know," Phil said. "Come on, Skye, let's go get you cleaned up." He held out his hand to her.
"But what about Celestia?" She asked as she held on tighter to the large wolf. Celestia nudged her and panted. "Okay." She sighed and hugged her before limping over to Phil. They walked slowly out of the forest (Skye refused to be carried) before returning to the rest of the neighbors.
"We found her!" He announced. One of the women, Mrs. McKenna, came forward.
"Oh, dear, what happened?" She asked as she looked at the cuts.
"She got attacked by coyotes," Phil replied.
"Oh, good grief, we've been asking the city council to do something for months about those little menaces." Mrs. McKenna sighed and shook her head.
"They're only trying to survive," Skye said defensively.
"But they attacked you, Skye," Phil said confusedly. She shrugged. Mrs. McKenna came a little closer to inspect the cuts and slash marks.
"Well, I suppose it is a very good thing that I'm a nurse," she said. She led Skye and Phil into her house and to the bathroom and waited for him to put her on the counter. She pulled out her First Aid kit and took out some antiseptic pads. "Okay, this is going to sting a little."