Her Safe Haven

Chapter 10 - Mother's Love

In the end he came up with no solutions and just shook his head. Female mind will still be a foreign territory to him, he decided.

After a few more minutes of silent walk, Winter turned to look at Rohan for the first time since lunch. He quickly gave her his full attention.

'Stay quiet,' she held a finger in front of her lips and stopped walking. Rohan followed her and stood as still as he could on the spot.

After a few minutes of the two of them staying perfectly still like that (in which Rohan thought that the whole notion was getting ridiculous), he could finally hear the reason behind Winter asking him to stay still and silent. He listened to a soft whimper or howling of some sort coming from amidst the maple trees on his left, and after a while he could hear the howling replaced by a weird-sounding cry.

Or a bark, to be precise.

Winter's face suddenly lit up and she motioned for him to follow her slowly towards the trees. They stalked quietly forward until the sound grew louder and he could finally see where the sound was coming from.

At first it looked like just a normal box under a maple tree, but then he noticed that there was something white poking out of the top of the box.

Something white with big eyes, buttoned ears, and was very much alive.

"A puppy?"

Winter gave a squeal of happiness and half-ran towards the box, petting the puppy that was jumping in excitement at her, asking to be picked up. She lifted and cuddled the white furball affectionately for a few happy seconds before putting it back down in the box. 'I knew there was going to be one here,' she turned and gave Rohan a large grin.

Rohan raised his eyebrows and knelt next to her in front of the box. "You were hoping that someone would throw away a puppy?"

Winter rolled her eyes. 'No, genius. I knew from the start that there would be a stray animal left here,' she gestured, smiling affectionately at the panting puppy that was wiggling its tail. 'The path that we walked through just now is called Path of Abandonment by the locals,' she started, 'because you can find an abandoned pet being left around here by its owner almost a few times a week.'

Rohan knitted his eyebrows in confusion. "But I don't understand. Why don't people just bring them to the animal shelter or the pound?"

'Well, the nearest animal shelter here is about six miles away...' Winter tapped her chin with a finger, 'and the mayor is actually utilising this place as a tourist attraction. Sometimes there are too many animals being left here that he could just direct some tourists here to adopt them. You'd be surprised at the number of people that would actually come to Lakeside just to look at the stray pets.'

Rohan looked at the puppy with amusement. So the mayor of Lakeside Town was clever and efficient, he decided.

That still didn't solve the question of why exactly Winter was showing this to him.

She seemed to have read his thought, because soon enough she turned and smiled at him. He noted that the smile was different from her usual ones; it just seemed brighter, and contented somehow.

'You know... caring for a pet is not much different from caring for a child,' she gestured slowly. 'You need to give them both a lot of your care, attention, and love for them to be able to grow and develop.'

Rohan nodded in agreement, though he still couldn't figure out where she was going with this conversation.

'You mentioned that your mother died when you were born...' she looked apologetically at him, 'I can't even begin to imagine how that must be like — never knowing your own mother. I have my mother with me my entire life; but you never know what having a mother feels like, or how much your mother must have loved you, even though she lost her life when she had you.'