The Girl in the Woods

Chapter 8

The hunter's vision turned red. He whipped back through the trees, searching for her scent, a low string of profanities streaming from his mouth.

With a single, graceful leap, Apollo jumped into the trees, his nose following the trail of the mystery assailant. Nothing had escaped his keen attention, not even a silent hunter in the woods.

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The sky had turned into a canvas of beautiful pinks and oranges by the time Laen stopped moving. I could feel his lion body humming with energy beneath my legs as he perched on the branch of a tree. The last hour or so had been a nonstop flurry of movement; I'd had to brace my body as his powerful legs first launched themselves from a branch and then thudded onto another, and I'd had to duck as Laen brushed branches and leaves out of his face. Occasionally, Laen would drop into a lower branch, and my stomach would hurtle into the sky.

All of it though, was exhilarating.

He was completely still now, looking intently ahead. I peered around his huge shoulders and saw a break in the dense forest a couple yards ahead. Neither of us said anything as we looked, both our minds preoccupied with our own thoughts.

When he'd woken me up this morning from a well needed, deep sleep, I'd been disoriented. The sweet smell of the soft moss that made up his nest had filled my nostrils, and I'd looked up into Laen's calm face with utter confusion until the night before flooded back into my mind. He asked me gently if I would like to see where my mother lived, and I'd complied without thinking twice.

Now, staring at that break in the trees, the sunlight weaving in lazily, I felt my heart swell up and fill my chest.

I'd only had fleeting memories of my mother, and none of them were really substantial. Her face was always a blur, but I would have random flashbacks of soft, sweet smelling hair, or the tune of a lullaby sung in a voice like sunshine. My father had gotten rid of any trace of her in his blinding grief, and by the time I was old enough to perceive her absence, everything she'd owned was long gone. There wasn't even a picture of her in the house. I learned very quickly not to ask about her; my father's blue eyes would grow misty and he would gruffly excuse himself to his room, where he would stay for hours before agreeing to come out. I'd accepted my mother as an imaginary figure, someone who'd existed in my past and in my mind, but nothing more.

But to be here! Her childhood home, where she'd learned to walk and braid her hair, where she'd cried herself to sleep and looked up at the sky with dreaming eyes. It was so real, almost too real; it gave my mother substance, and so my pain was no longer a ghost.

"Are my grandparents still alive?" I asked Laen, my voice timid and small.

My arms were still wound around his bronze waist, and he reached up and patted my hand where it lay across his hard chest. It was a small gesture, but it made me feel slightly better.

"It's possible." He told me quietly. We both considered his answer, than he began to wordlessly move closer.

Unlike earlier, when we had been crashing through the trees, his movements were absolutely silent. I suppose he had to be, if he'd survived years up here without my mother's family ever seeing him. The thought of him perched up here, watching over Allanah O'Sullivan for days on end, was somehow sorrowful.

Suddenly, a large farmhouse loomed out of the trees. It was stately and well cared for; the white paint looked freshly applied, and the rocking chair on the long porch looked shiny and varnished. Pots of bright flowers dotted the walkway leading to a dirt road; beyond it, the road lead to a small town. The farmhouse was obviously on the outskirts.

Behind the house was a faded red barn; it's doors were propped open and it's interior was empty. From the looks of it, the farmer had retired.

"I can go no further, little one." Laen told me softly. At my panicked look, he smiled encouragingly at me. "I will be watching from the trees, like I once did long ago. You will never be in danger."