I don't know what I would have done had that taxicab not rolled out of the fog when it did. I didn't have a clue where I was or where I was headed. All I could see in my mind's eye was Remus shielding his face from me and my crumpled letter clutched in his hand.

When the driver asked for my destination, I told him the first thing that came to mind: the London Eye. There was an advertisement for it across the street. The last place I wanted to be was anywhere near the wizarding community and a ride up in the sky overlooking the city seemed like a grand idea. Maybe I could escape my problems up there, although I doubted it.

I bribed the attendant at the Eye an exorbitant amount of money in order to have a capsule to myself for the duration of the ride. The tears started flowing the moment I stepped aboard. Images came and went unfettered, reeling from the present to the past like a film in reverse. Remus reading my letter in the kitchen. The pink-haired witch with her arm on his shoulders. The look of horror on the face of one of my former boyfriends when he realized the monster that lurked beneath my skin. A letter with the seal of Hogwarts informing me to desist in writing one of their students. Fireflies flitting about in a glass jar. Each image brought its own surge of tears.

There are some things that stay with a person forever. For some it is their wedding or the birth of a child. For others it is the first time they worked magic or experience the death of a loved one. For me it was love and the first boy I ever kissed, the one who held hands with me while we chased fireflies. It was Remus, the boy who promised that one day he would marry me.

My fingers twisted the bracelet around my wrist. From it hung charms for those I have helped, for my lineage both by blood and curse, and for those I called friends. I caressed each one as I recalled their meaning. Wolf for those cursed like me; wand for the witches and wizards who supported me at work; feather for my Cheyenne heritage, distant though it may be; and heart. The silver heart was a shiny blur between my fingers. I couldn't see the initials RJL on it, but I could feel the engraving of them. My tears led me back to that time when I wore my hair in pigtails and hated everything about England.

When I had turned nine, my father was given orders to RAF Lakenheath in England. He was a pilot in the United States Air Force. I had never been overseas before. At first I had thought it was going to be a wonderful adventure; my mom had promised it would be. It hadn't even been close.

Due to the shortage of on-base housing, we had ended up living in the outskirts of a small town named Thetford. There were no other American families there. Instead of making friends easily as I did back at our old base, I became a loner. The village children made fun of my accent, my appearance and my lack of knowledge about anything "normal". They told me to bugger off, go back home and take the rest of the bloody Yanks with me.

Then there were the other children, the ones who behaved oddly and lived on the other side of the woods. They might have worn strange clothing like robes, but they were no better. They outright refused to play with me and called me an ignorant Muggle, not that I knew what that term meant at that time.

After being in England for only one month, I had come to hate everything about it: the gloomy weather, the food but most of all, the people. It didn't help that my fibromyalgia flared up. The fatigue, achiness and difficulty sleeping made adjusting to England all the more trying. My mother, bless her soul, decided it would be best if I was home-schooled. She did her best to educate and entertain me.

I had led a solitary life for several months before I first caught sight of Remus. He was playing in an empty field near the woods. Right away it was clear he was one of those others, but he seemed different. He shyly accepted when I asked if he would play with me. It was a shock to find someone who didn't make fun of me.

That was the beginning of our friendship. We would meet a couple of times a week in the field after my school work was done. Often we played until the sun dipped down to the tree tops. Then his mother caught us and Remus disappeared for an entire week. I went to the field every day regardless of the weather. I had almost given up when he reappeared one afternoon.

At first his mother stayed nearby when we played, but little by little she came to trust me. When the weather would turn cold and wet, I had tried to invite him to play in my house, but he steadfastly refused. Remus never invited me to his house, either. As odd as that might have seemed, the strangest thing was that occasionally Remus disappeared for days on end. When I asked him about it, he had claimed he got sick a lot.

Finally summer made its appearance. I had been there close to a year by that time. It was the first occasion I had ever seen fireflies. Where we had been stationed previously there had been relentless sunshine and dust storms. Fireflies were nothing short than enchanting to me. The way they danced above the ground like earth-bound stars was magical.

Remus taught me how to catch fireflies. We would go chasing them in the summer twilight and put them in a large glass jar. Before we left to our respective homes, we always remembered to set the fireflies free.

Some time over that endless summer Remus became more than a friend in my eyes. I developed a crush on that shy, mischievous boy down the lane. The feeling was mutual. In the beginning we held hands briefly, making sure there was no one watching.

Summer gave way to fall, which in time yielded to winter. The following Christmas Eve, we kissed for the first time. It was terribly awkward, bumping noses, unsure of exactly how it went. Oh, but it had been magical. I thought I saw little red sparks fly when our lips had met. That had been the best Christmas ever, for I was Remus Lupin's girlfriend.

By the time spring had rolled around, I actually was invited to dinner at Remus' home. The house was small yet tidy, a warm comforting place. I couldn't understand why his parents had been so hesitant in letting me over. The only funny thing that had stood out to me was the lack of picture frames. I could see on the wall where pictures might have been, but nothing had hung on the empty nails. Before I left I did find one small picture frame that had been forgotten in the kitchen. For a moment I thought I had seen the figures in it move, but that couldn't have been right. At least, that's what I had told myself.

Summer returned, only it brought with it more than just warmer weather. That was the summer I had learned Remus' dark secret. It had all started out with Remus getting sick, again. By then I had noticed a pattern. Remus would get sick once a month, almost as if on schedule. Without his knowing, I sat down one day and had plotted it on a calendar. The result had seemed so weird, so far-fetched, that I dismissed it out of hand. In retrospect, I shouldn't have.

To further complicate matters, my mother had briefly returned to the States. My aunt had just given birth to triplets and needed all the assistance she could get. While I had been excited to have three brand new cousins all of a sudden, it had been at the temporary loss of having my mother around. Since my father's flight schedule was a bit all over the place, it wasn't surprising that I was left to my own devices.

So it was on the evening of June 20th that I found myself alone at my house. Remus had just gotten sick and I was quite bored. From my bedroom window I could see the fireflies out in the field under the light of the full moon. It occurred to my young, naïve self that if I caught some fireflies and took them to Remus, it would probably make him feel better.

It had been a wonderful plan. I caught at least have a dozen fireflies in the old glass jar and had screwed the lid on tight so none would escape. Then I had headed over to Remus' house. The moon had been so bright overhead that I hadn't even had to use a flashlight to find the path and arrived without any problems. It was when I approached the kitchen door at the back of the house that I heard the growling. It had seem to come from the cellar doors, which was situation next to the kitchen. They were the old fashioned type that opened outward from the cellar to the outside, but had been closed shut with a thick beam held secured by heavy brackets.

I had almost ignored the strange growling, had had my hand up to knock at the back entrance to the kitchen when the faint sounds of scratching and whining halted me. I set the glass jar with the captured fireflies down on the back steps and shuffled over to the cellar doors. Whatever could have been making that noise? Had the Lupin family gotten a dog? We had had to give up our German Shepherd when we transferred to England and father had refused my heartfelt pleas to get another.

I had been a very inquisitive girl and a very naïve one as well. I shoved the beam of wood out of the brackets without ever once wondering why the cellar doors had been barred from the outside, that danger might have been deliberately locked behind them. There was a moment of silence when the whining and scratching stopped. In the following stillness, the only thing to be heard were the crickets hidden in the woods and the soft sighing of the breeze through the leaves.

Then the cellar doors burst open.

Watching the blurry lights of city from the safe, glass-enclosed capsule of the London Eye, I could still vividly remember those awful eyes glowing like lanterns in the darkness of the cellar. In the space of a heartbeat it attacked, all claws and fangs. I think I had screamed, I must have, but all I had been able to focus on was the terrible visage lunging at my face. There was a sharp tugging where the claws dug into my shoulder and sudden warmth. Then somehow I was laying breathlessly on the cool ground.

The kitchen door burst open. I rolled my head to the side and saw Remus' parents. His father raised a stick that curiously glowed and shot out balls of light at the monster. I remembered wondering whatever was he was doing with that silly little stick. His mother stood on the steps; at her feet lay the broken jar I had brought over. My earth-bound stars flickered as they escaped upward to the heavens. Before darkness descended my last thought had been that my gift for Remus was ruined.

I had woken up sometime later in the Lupin home, in Remus' bed. He was nowhere around. His mother had fussed over me as she changed my bandages. Then the pain from my injured arm and shoulder flared awake. Mrs. Lupin fed me some strange medicine, all the while arguing with her husband. He had wanted to take me to some place called St. Mungo's. She had argued that I was a Muggle and couldn't be infected; only a wizard or a witch could contract it.

In the end, I had stayed the night at their home. An old woman with fly-away grey hair under a pointed black hat had visited. She gave me more medicine and had put some strange green stuff on my wounds when she changed the bandages. When I had asked about my father, I was told not to worry about him. It had all been taken care of.

Later the next day I had woken up to find Remus standing over me. There had been tears on his face and his blood-shot eyes were haunted with pain. He apologized for hurting me and had claimed it was all his fault. That was when finally revealed to me the whole story, had told me the truth behind is frequent bouts of illness. My introduction to the world of magic had been stained with my own blood and soaked in his tears.

When I had returned home a day or so later, my father had acted as if nothing was out of place. He had asked how my weekend at the Lupin house had gone and remarked how nice they had been to keep watch over me while he had worked. His memory had been altered, but mine hadn't. I had vowed never to speak of what happened. There was also a very slim chance I had been infected, regardless of what Remus' mother had said.

The next several weeks were a strange time. On the surface everything had appeared normal. Mom had returned home and Dad continued his flying. I saw Remus everyday. Beneath the surface was another story. Remus' parents had watched me very closely. They had asked whether any of my habits had changed or if I suddenly craved meat more than previous. I had answered their questions and tried to ignore their constant observation. The only thing I had noticed was a lessening of my fibromyalgia flare-ups, something I didn't bother mentioning to them.

In any case, I had been more focused on Remus. Time after time I had told him that what happened wasn't his fault. If anyone was to blame, it had been me with my inquisitiveness. I had opened the cellar doors, not him. Remus could not be held responsible for things done under the influence of the full moon. At least that had been what his mother insisted when she pulled me aside. Although I had told Remus I still loved him when on occasion we sat alone in his room, he refused to speak about that or to hold my hand during those long weeks.

When the full moon rose the next month, I was invited to the Lupin home for another sleep-over. That's what my parents had thought. In actuality, I was there for my own safety as well as that of others. Remus remained locked in the basement. I was outside with his father. He kept guard over me with his wand in hand as the moon shone down like a baleful eye.

Nothing had happened, at least not to me. As I had stood there, hearing the growls and scratches from the cellar, relief broke over Mr. Lupin like a wave. A few days later, I had been presented with a charm bracelet that marked me as a wizard-friend. Instead of Obliviating my memory, they had rewarded my silence and loyalty.

Remus had given me a silver heart charm engraved with his initials to hang from the bracelet. As we sat alone on the back steps, he had leaned close and whispered that his heart was mine. For the first time since the attack, he told me he still loved me.

Everything had went back to normal, or as normal as could have been when the curtain between my dull world and the magical one had been pulled aside. I was saw so many wondrous things. There were pictures that moved, flying brooms and dozens of other enchanting delights. None of it held a candle to the magic I felt when Remus kissed me.

In late August, Remus had told me he would be going away to a wizarding school and his parents would moving from Thetford. It was then that I had truly experienced the first real longing to be that which I could not. I had wanted to go with him, but I was only a Muggle. It had been a bittersweet pill to swallow, knowing that I could never work real magic while he went away to learn all sorts of amazing things.

Remus knew my pain even though I had tried to hide it. The night before he left, we went out to the field one last time. While we sat there watching the fireflies, he had promised he would write me once a week. Christmas would come soon and he would head home and spend part of the holidays with me. It had almost been enough to ease my pain. Then he had held my hands and looked me in the eyes. Remus had promised that when he finished wizard school, he would marry me. It hadn't matter to him that I was a Muggle, not back then.

It had been enough, those promises made at twilight with the fireflies dancing around us. I had held onto those promises when he left the next day. Remus wrote me, not as often as he had originally promised, but it was often enough.

Then silence. I had initially thought it was due to all the homework it seemed they heaped on him. Then the worst news possible arrived. My father had been given orders back to the States, to Minot Air Force Base in South Dakota. I had thought the world had fallen. How could this have happened? I couldn't simply leave, not then. Remus had promised to come visit for Christmas.

I was a ball of anxiety when the owl from Hogwarts had finally arrived. It hadn't been from Remus though; it was from the school. Our unique friendship had come to the attention of the administration. They went out of their way to state that a close friendship with a Muggle was inappropriate for a wizard in training. I was warned not to write Remus again.

It had left me devastated. When Remus did not write and the silence stretched out for weeks, I realized all hope had been lost. I had been discarded despite of the bracelet and the promises spoken. I was nothing more than a Muggle girl. In those dark days, I desperately wished they had altered my memory after the attack. The charm bracelet eventually its way into the bottom of my sock drawer. Two weeks before Christmas I closed my eyes to the realm of magic and had left England with a broken heart.

That should have been the end of it, the termination of my dealings with magic had lycanthropy not been lurking in my veins. Three years after the initial attack, in that small town in South Dakota, I discovered Remus' legacy to me. I was a werewolf. My re-introduction to the world of magic had been drenched in blood. At least this time it had been only horse blood. The unfortunate creature had belonged to a local witch with ties to the Native Americans in the region. Meredith had introduced herself, cleaned me up and heard out my story. She gently scolded me for not wearing the wizard-friend gift. Then she put me in contact with the Werewolf Council.

In America, werewolves ruled themselves. Although there was a Werewolf Liaison Office at the US Bureau of Magic and the Supernatural, the government had allowed werewolves to take care of their own problems. If a werewolf went rogue, the Council handled the matter swiftly. They also took care of safe locations, inter-species and werewolf-Muggle problems, and newly-turned werewolves.

I learned to manage my affliction as I had once managed my fibromyalgia that had long since disappeared, but I had been determined to tackle my curse as a Muggle. The world of magic had been too painful for me. I finished high school and had gone straight into college in Denver, Colorado with the aim to become a lawyer. The month I graduated, my parents had died in a car accident. The last thing my mother had wished in our final conversation was to see me marry a good man.

So I tried to honor my mother's wish. Remus had discarded me because I was Muggle. I had resolved it would be better if I stuck to my own kind and went through a number of boyfriends. My little monthly problem kept things from ever getting past the second or third date, though. I almost ate the last one, whose name for the life of me I still couldn't remember. He had caught me at the wrong time and the wrong place, but luckily he got away. Thankfully the Werewolf Council pulled some strings and had his memory Obliviated.

That had been the turning point for me. I could no longer ignore the fact that I was simply not a Muggle anymore, not one hundred percent. So I decided to working for the USBMS. If you couldn't beat them, then join them, right?

For the last fourteen years that's what I have done. I have tried my best to make a place for myself, struggled to fit in. I dated no one, neither werewolf nor wizard because of the lingering memories of a certain boy. For years I worked with people whose abilities I secretly envied, and had been a guest speaker at the American Magical Academy where the youngest of students could perform feats I could only dream of. It was painful and wore at my soul.

Standing in the capsule of the London Eye, I realized I had come to yet another crossroads in my life. There was a truth here that was as plain as the charm bracelet on my wrist. I could no longer go on living like this. I had one foot in the Muggle world and one paw in the realm of magic, but I truly belonged to neither. I was forever caught on the outside looking in, with no place to call home.

I had to leave the realm of magic, but it was obvious that I could not flee totally into the Muggle world like I previously done. Even as I wondered what I would do, a scene of majestic mountains rose in my mind. Sweeping valleys and unspoiled tree covered landscapes called to mind my years in college. The place that I had felt was closest thing to being a home: the Rocky Mountains. The Werewolf Council had set up several large safe enclaves in that range of mountains, both on the U.S. and Canadian sides of the border. Perhaps that was where I could find the peace I needed.

Slipping off the bracelet, I held the heart-shaped charm to my lips. Twenty-two years. It had been twenty-two years to the day since I had last seen Remus Lupin as a boy headed off to school. We were no longer the same people we once had been, and I could no longer hold onto the past.

"Good bye, Remus," I murmured and kissed his initials engraved on the charm before securing the bracelet in my pocket.

I felt curiously at peace when I exited the London Eye. My eyes were dry and my heart, no longer bleeding from the freshly opened wounds, was numb. I had a plan, it was simple one but it felt right. I would leave my job with USBMS and head to Rocky Mountains, maybe the Canadian side. I didn't need much, just a little house with a view and the solitude to sooth my battered soul.

I was starting a new chapter of my life.