Castle in the Forest

Part 2 Chapter 14: Leave.

"Granny...they're really angry," Deliah whispered.

"Yes," Granny said snatching both sacks and shoving Deliah out her bedroom and down the stairs. 

"Where are we going?"

"To pack Seven."

Deliah froze. Granny groaned and tried shoving the girl the rest of the way down the stairs. They were losing precious time. 

"We can't go there. The fallen won't rest until I'm...gone. I won't go."

"I wasn't asking," snapped the old witch as she crossed her arms. 

"If I go, they'll all die."

"We can't know that for sure," said the old woman as she shooed Deliah and her concerns into the cold lifeless kitchen. 

The hearth wasn't lit today and the old dried herbs rattled like skeleton bones. It gave Deliah chills and she froze her anger and fear of the Fallen fully forgotten by the creepiness of the dried herbs that still hung from the rafters. It was mostly wolf Reed with its thin and reedy stalks. But there was also some ancient, almost petrified rosemary and mint. The perfume had long since gone. She abscently brushed a hand gently over a petrifed wolf reed stalk. For a brief second Deliah felt jolt of electricity move from the plant up her arm. Her eyebrows rose and she snatched her hand back from the plant. Maybe she had imagined it but her hand still tingled, a reminder that something had happened. She stared at her hand in shock. 

"Deliah!" Snapped the old witch. Deliah reluctantly met the Forest Witch's haunty eyes. The witch seemed to be in no mood for Deliah's ditsyness. The old woman held and an air of jittery impaitence. Deliah suddenly felt a jolt of anger that was not her own pass through her body. It felt as though she had been hit in the gut by a heavy stick or like she was being stabbed in the stomach by a thousand needles.

"Granny," Deliah said through clenched teeth. She gripped the old table for support as she curled her shoulders inward with each vicious stab of anger. Deliah felt as though the world were starting to spin. Granny put an arm around her waist and half dragged, half carried her to the back door of the kitchen. Deliah couldn't find it in herself to argue with all the pain she felt.

The witch towed Deliah out the door and into a thicket of oak trees. They were so close together that even in the dead of autumn they still provided a great place to hide. Granny gently nestled Deliah in between the oak trees' roots. 

Deliah didn't argue even as she felt a sickening wave of nostalgia. When she heard howling off in the distance her blood was pure ice. She turned her head frantically from side to side-looking for Winnie or....Colton. She had to warn them! Tell them to leave...before...

"Shhh, Deliah, sweety...stay very quiet," whispered granny gently. Deliah could only manage a weak nod and blink away her tears. The smell of decaying leaves and rott brought her back to the present. The past was done. There was nothing she could do to change it. No matter how much she wished too.  Still guilt shackled her stomach and she could only weakly curl into the root of the oak trees and try to slow her breathing. 

The howling had stopped but, not the quietness of the forest. Everything was still dredged in a terrible liquid hot anger. It was getting closer and closer as the silent minutes ticked by. Deliah could feel them and their collective burning rage. Just when she thought it couldn't get any worse, they descended upon her house like rabid wolves on a rabbit. She didn't dare look. But she could hear their swearing, snarling, and smashing as they raveaged what was left of the only home she had known after parents' death. Her own anger rose and for a moment the anger of the fallen ceased its terrible stabbing-it was bliss. Then she blinked and her anger was snuffed out by the Fallen's. Soemthing was terribly wrong. because their anger wasn't just cold and twisted. It was...uniformed, calculated and...singular. It was wrong. Really, Really wrong. 

When Deliah felt the emotions of wolves she felt multiple emotions all at once. Each wolf's emotions slighty different but always faintly connected. It was beautiful when there wasn't death or war. However, it was a though the Fallen had erased all other emotions accept for a collective anger. She couldn't disguish which anger belonged to which wolf like at the battle of the Fae colony. Instead it was nothing but a blanketed emotion that only seemed to get stronger and stronger. Deliah couldn't get over how wrong it felt. 

"Where is that geezer of a witch hiding that unnatural child," sneered a wolf that was meer inches away from the thicket of oak trees. Deliah blinked and she realized Granny had cast a cloaking of spell. The faint glimmer of silver danced between the clearing and the oak trees.   

Dear Reader,

I am sorry for the delay on this chapter. I am still moving everything around but I had time to create this chapter. The reason why its taking longer with this book is because I started writing the other chapters but then redid them because I saw the story going in another direction. Rest assured that the book is not ending yet. There is still some sparks to fly and a nice...slightly steamy romance to occur. It's just veering off in a different direction than I thought it would when I began writing. So sit tight the fun is about to begin.