Lyra-
I was up early like usual. Baine followed me out the door while Nathan slept peacefully. I sat outside, sharpening my knife with a flat rock to prepare for rabbits.
It felt odd, having another human presence here to talk to, to share stories with, to plan with. But I don't think he understands. He doesn't exactly get it.
He wants to run, to find a way out, but risk verses benefit was too high and I chose benefit. Winter in the mountains was brutal, and I knew that. I leaned back against the rock, listening to the birds singing. Just letting the morning mist roll over me.
Baine whined and perked his ears, knocking me out of my peaceful state. I grabbed my spear and held out my knife.
The birds stopped singing and the morning no longer felt natural. Soft, oh so soft giggling hit my ears and Baine whined some more. I couldn't believe my senses.
"Shhh," I whispered to him, straining to hear.
It sounded like a girl my age, yet it was still childish. Melodious giggling bounced off the rock walls. I stood up and looked around desperately, what was I hearing?
Great I'm hearing things now. I'm going crazy.
A flash of white near the crack had my feet moving. I ran towards it, wielding my knife by my side.
Baine's paw steps followed me, but I was after that giggling. I stumbled when I saw it. A young girl, running through the trees in a white dress. That's right, a dress.
Oh my god, I'm going insane, I thought as I chased her.
"Wait!" I called.
She seemed to disappear and reappear in the trees. Flitting left to right, ten to twenty feet in front of me. She giggled and continued to bound through the woods effortlessly like a deer. She made no noise other than her laughing.
Her dark wavy hair flowed out behind her. She effortlessly dodged trees. She'd fade and then come back in my vision. I crashed after her.
"Wait who are you?!" I yelled at her.
'Follow follow, oh follow follow,' she said, her voice light and airy as if it flowed on a breeze. It was in almost a singing voice.
"Follow you where?!" I called breathlessly.
No matter how fast I was going, I never caught up to her graceful bounding.
Her laughter filled the woods, 'oh follow follow.'
I cried out as a deep ravine seemed to jump out in front of me. I grabbed onto a tree to stop myself. Dirt and pebbles skittered over the edge out from under my feet from my quick stop.
I watched the girl fade into the trees, somehow on the other side, still giggling, still quietly singing 'follow, follow.'
"Wait!!" I called after her, but she disappeared and the bird song of the forest continued. I've heard of things like this from tribes in the Amazon....
They're all called different things. Figures that know what you want and try to guide you to safety or to death. They were spirits of the forest or other lonely souls. An old shaman once told me that you see them when there is nothing else to see or believe, when you are open to any option.....
I've never believed in the mumbo jumbo shit that people like to make up, but this was different.
"Lyra!!"
I whipped around to see Nathan, breathing hard he grabbed my shoulders gently.
"What are you doing?! Are you ok?" He asked breathlessly.
"I-I...." I stammered and looked over my shoulder, trying to see the laughing girl.
"Didn't you......didn't you hear that?" I asked him. How could he not have? It was clear as day.
Baine stood erect at my side, his ears and eyes on the other side of the ravine.
"Hear what?" He furrowed his eyebrows.
"The-the giggling, the laughing... I chased her. She was saying 'follow' over and over," I said quietly, stunned.
"Lyra you know as well as I do that there is no one out here," his hands fell from my shoulders to my hands.
"But she was here! Baine saw her too! Look at him!" I pointed at my wolf, who still hadn't budged from his lookout position.
"He's probably looking at a rabbit or something," Nathan shook his head.
"No! I saw her! Nathan I swear! She, she had a dress on. I think she was barefoot. Her hair, um, her hair was dark and wavy. She was like my age I guess, but her voice was so soft. I could hear her so clearly but she was so quiet," I protested and desperately tried to describe the girl to him.
He gave me a weird look and I growled in frustration, "I'm not insane, Baine and I saw a girl and we chased her."
"You're telling me that you basically saw a ghost girl?" He asked in all seriousness.
I didn't know what she was, "Hell, I don't know! But she was there and I saw her, please believe me."
Nathan was quiet for a moment, then to my amazement, he nodded, "I can't find a reason to verify why you'd lie or prank me. And I don't know anyone who would run so fast and so far for no good reason. I don't know what you saw but I believe that you were after something."
"How fast was I going? She seemed to be just fricking bounding through the woods so easily," I grinned at him as he pulled me away from the edge.
"Well I saw you run through the crack in the wall. I followed you because you looked like you were after something. Damn, you were moving. I had to sprint hard to catch up. I never did see that girl but I did hear you yelling," he chuckled.
"She was twenty feet in front of me," I said.
"And you couldn't catch up?" He asked as we started walking back.
"No," I shook my head.
Looking around, I saw Baine wasn't next to me like he usually was. I turned around to see him still at the edge of the ravine.
"Baine," I called and he reluctantly turned to lope over to us.
"I think he's a little freaked out," I admitted, chuckling.
"I would be too if I saw a ghost girl running through the remote forest," Nathan chuckled.
We stopped by my rabbit snares, picked up one rabbit and unset the rest of the snares.
I was going to start alternating with my food so tomorrow, I wouldn't need any rabbits.
"You know, there's mink and surely squirrels in these woods. We could trap them too," Nathan suggested.
"I don't know how to trap mink. I know the basics but nothing too advanced," I shrugged as I set to gutting the rabbit a ways away so I didn't scare off other rabbits. Considering all the rabbits I got, there was probably a warren somewhere.
"I know a way we can try," he smiled.
"Will you teach me? I'd love a variety for winter," I said and tossed the intestines to Baine.
"Sure. Mink meat is a little tough though, I thought you'd like it for the pelts."
"Any meat is good meat. I'll take it," I chopped off the rabbits head and shrugged it's fur off its body.
"Okay, c'mon," he took the rabbit for me and we ducked through the crack.
I threw the rabbit, its liver and its heart into the pot with some water, lemon grass and berries to stew, while Nathan went around getting sticks of various sizes. I watched him tie them into a long box shape. He then made a thick mesh of sticks, grasses and cattail stems. Some sticks stuck out like spikes on one end of the entrance, jutting upwards.
Then he made what I guess was a 'door' and used thick grass and string as hinges.
"Okay, so this is a one way live trap. The mink smells the bait on this end," he pointed to the closed rear of the box
"Then he crawls through this end an the door closes behind him once he bumps a little trigger stick that was holding the door open. These sticks keep the door closed so the mink can't get out," he pointed at the spike like sticks that were like backwards facing teeth.
"Then boom. There's your mink or squirrel," Nathan grinned at me.
"Cool," I smiled and took the trap from him to handle it.
"Strap it to a tree, disguise it, bait it and you're good. Now I just need to make like three more just like it."
"You need more?" I raised an eyebrow.
"Yeah, there is definitely more than one mink out here. You don't seem to have many predators round here."
"I don't. I haven't seen a mountain lion, bear or wolf other than Baine out here since my crash. And who knows how far that mudslide washed him away from his pack. I bet it does help that I take Baine around in a wide circle to mark his scent," I shrugged and was in the process of sharpening another spear for Nathan.
Just because I haven't seen any predators doesn't mean they're not here. I set it a ways above the fire to harden and moved to making another fishing hook.
I was carving it out of a stripped chunk of wood. Hacking off the excess wood, I started filing it down on one end to make a point.
"Whatcha doing?" Nathan stopped making a second mink box to lean over and looked at my work.
I turned to turn over his spear and then went back to him "A fishing hook for you."
"For me?"
"Yes, you didn't think you're going to just freeload around here didja?" I laughed and handed the hook to him to check out.
"No, but I figured you'd let me fend for myself," he joked.
"Nah, you pull your load an you'll live just fine," I grinned at him.
"Yes ma'am," he grinned back at me.
I attached his new hook to a long piece of string from my rope and tied it to the middle of a medium sized stick.
"Here," I said, handing him the new fishing line and his spear. He handled his spear and weighed it in his hand.
"What do you think?" I asked.
"I think you are awesome, what else can you make?" he smiled.
I grinned and looked away from his appraising stare.
"Well I made Baine's little mat for him. I'm thinking of fashioning furs to some of my clothes for this winter to keep warm," I shrugged.
He nodded, "You're quite the smart girl Lyra."
"Don't forget stubborn," I grinned and stroked Baine's fur.
He laughed played with his spear like a little boy with a new toy.
"Wanna go fishing?" I asked after a little while.
"Yeah, why not?" Nathan got up and grabbed his fishing stuff while I grabbed mine.
Baine played with a stick on the shore while I jumped to my fishing rock. Nathan jumped on next to me. I handed him a few grubs that I had stocked away.
"Don't care what you catch, as long as it's edible," I smiled and chunked my line out into the water.
Nathan copied me and sat Indian style on the rock. Ten minutes later, he was almost yanked off the rock in surprise. I grabbed his shirt and laughed.
"Oh wow," he gasped and started pulling on his line.
Since I'd made his hook larger than my own, he pulled in a bigger trout. It was about a pound and a half.
"Nice," I grinned and flicked out my knife to gut it.
"What do you do with your fish?" He asked.
"I dry them in the sun or smoke them, " I pointed to my makeshift drying rack.
"Like an Indian?" He chuckled and took my knife to do it himself.
I laughed, "Yeah, I do a lot of things like an Indian out here."
"You are one wild girl,"Nathan laughed and threw the guts to Baine, who accepted them hastily.
He took his fish to string up and I turned back to my line. By noon, almost six hours later, we had six fish of various sizes that we put up to dry. Now I consider that some weak fishing but whatever.
My fish couldn't even compete with Nate's first fish, to my annoyance and disappointment. I handed Nate a rabbit leg and nibbled on my own, starved after skipping some sort of breakfast.
"Okay, I don't get it," Nathan mumbled around rabbit meat.
"What?" I furrowed my eyebrows.
"We are stuck out here, no spices, no salt, and yet you still manage to make shit taste good. How do you do it?" He took a huge bite of his rabbit leg.
"That's my special secret," I giggled.
"You cook like that at home too?"
"Of course. You think Alexandra would cook for me? Hell no, I got sick of her calling me lazy, so I made just enough good food for my dad and I. Then I'd call her lazy if she wouldn't make her own food," I laughed.
You would think my dad wouldn't know what to do without my mom with food, but he went just the opposite. He learned how to make anything and everything. Dad used to tell me that he wanted my honest opinion on a new dish so if it wasn't good then he could fix it.
Some of it he didn't understand too well, I'd help him cook every time and explain a few things. Like why you could stir mix brownies but you needed to mix cake batter with an electric mixer.
So yeah, I knew how to cook very well. Nathan chuckled and shook his head. I popped a cooked berry into my mouth and savored it. Baine sat expectantly at my side. I gave him his share.
"You dont just feed him scraps? You give him meat?" Nate watched me hand over some thick fat and meat to Baine.
"Of course. Wolves eat a lot and he's a big boy, gotta keep my bestie healthy," I rubbed Baine's ears and he growled to keep me from taking his food.
"Ah sock it, it's yours bud," I chuckled and left him to eat.
I'd give him fish later. A little hunk of rabbit meat wasn't going to tie him over long.
"I think I'm going to go hunting again tomorrow to see if those mule deer are still around. Maybe elk, we could use the meat but that is a big animal," I said after finishing my meat and tossing the bones to Baine.
"I can help. Hunting is what I was going for in the first place," Nathan said and chewed on a rib.
"Well it would be nice to not have to haul everything back by myself," I nodded happily.
"You hauled a deer back by yourself?" He raised his eyebrows.
"You act like that's surprising. I gutted it and everything but yeah, I brought it back on my own, " I nodded.
"I am surprised. We're talking a hundred and fifty, maybe two hundred pounds that you dragged back to your camp by yourself. Most girls I know can't even lift a hay bale," he leaned against the wall in a lazy manor.
I leaned forward to get my point across just a liiiitttleee better, "You're talking to the girl that climbed Mt. Everest when she was sixteen, stood on the edge of an active volcano, spent a week short of a month in the middle of the ocean, free climbed a hundred foot tree more than once for a miniature frog species in the Amazon, played with crocodiles in Australia, and bungee jumped off a cliff a few times for fun. I assure you that dragging an animal carcass two miles or so is nothing to me. I am not like most girls," I smiled sweetly, slightly ticked that he compared me to 'most girls.'
He had the most dumbfounded look on his face I've ever seen. Now I had throughly surprised him.
"You most certainly are not like most girls," he finally agreed.
"And my list can go on and on," I said matter of factly, recalling my adventures all around the world.