by Leia Stone
Plain as day once you trust.
Trust what! My wolf? The land? The Paladins? God? I mean, I’d racked my damn mind for days on that.
‘Find anything?’ I checked in with my wolf and pressed on, winding higher and higher up the mountain until I reached the wooden tree stub at the top.
‘Nothing.’
I collapsed at the base of the tree trunk, pulling the canteen to my lips, and took a long swig. My heart raced and my legs ached, and admittedly I was feeling extra depressed today. Hunger pangs tightened my gut and I shoved the last two hunks of rabbit meat into my mouth and swallowed them. Not a moment later and I heard the padding of my wolf’s paws.
‘You’re going to need to start taking it easy. I think you’re burning too many calories.’ My wolf looked at me from her place perched before me. I was hungry all the time. My belly was definitely growing, because I’d had to poke another hole in the waistband of the skirt, but my arms did look a bit thinner … my thighs too.
My wolf was right.
“I’ll cave hunt every other day starting next month,” I told her, and then winced at the fact that I was making plans to be here for another freaking month!
I was so tired, I just lay there for a good thirty minutes watching the clouds go past. I dozed off a few times, but my wolf licked me awake by mid-afternoon. She knew we couldn’t be caught up here after dark, and I still had to catch tonight’s dinner and tomorrow’s breakfast.
“Okay. Time to head back down. I’ll take the trail you took and you take the trail I took,” I told her.
It was what we always did, to be sure that we both covered each area twice. She cocked her head to the side. ‘You seem more tired than normal. I’m going to join you. One day without double checking both sides of the mountain won’t hurt—’
“Yes it will!” I snapped, and then frowned. “I’m sorry, but we have to check both sides each like we always do. What if you missed something, or what if I did? We have to.”
I’d had a wild thought recently. What if the cave only opened one day a year? What if on that day Run had decided to go another path and that’s why it took him three years?
I was going to check both sides of this mountain every single day so long as I was able.
She walked over and nuzzled my belly. ‘Okay. But soon we stop pushing so hard.’
“Soon, I promise,” I told her.
As I stood, we split off, and I gathered a few tubers and mushrooms on my way down, as well as a quail I found in one of my traps. It would make an amazing soup. When my wolf and I both reached the twine tied to the stick, I put it around my ankle and she joined my body, giving me an immediate boost of energy.
‘Thanks, girl,’ I told her, and headed back to the cabin, winding the twine around my shoulder and elbow as I went.
I hummed a little tune all the way back to the house, where I set into my normal dinner routine. Filling the clay pot with artesian spring water, I suspended it over the fire to heat the water for my soup, and then set about making the mud mixture for the outside of the cabin to keep me busy while I waited.
Leave it better than you found it. This would keep bugs out and insulate it from the cold winter winds. It also gave me something to do, which I think was part of why all of the alphas before me did the same.
There was a main cabin with a single open space about twelve feet by twelve feet, and then a bathhouse, which was essentially a tiny four-foot-square hut with a thatched roof. Suspended from the roof was a clay pot with holes in the bottom that trickled the water I poured inside when I took my nightly shower.
I couldn’t think up a better system, so I left that as is since it did the job. Anytime I needed to go to the bathroom, I just went in the woods. It was a simple life, but it worked.
Once my stew was done, I gulped it down greedily, moaning at the flavor the mushrooms and tubers had given the quail. Defeathering a bird and ripping out its guts had horrified me my first week out here, but then I just become so hungry I no longer cared. Now I did it on autopilot, completely desensitized to the whole thing. Same with fish. I didn’t go for big game like deer and such yet because I wasn’t sure what to do with all that meat and this was working just fine for one person. I could smoke it, but that would only last for a day or so. I could try my hand at dehydrating, but you needed low heat for that, and I wasn’t sure I could control the fire that well.
A problem for another day.
Before I knew it, I’d eaten the entire large clay pot of stew…
So much for breakfast tomorrow. I’d have to hunt in the morning, or at the very least gather some berries.
After rinsing the pot in the clay sink with some of my stored water, I set it outside the window and let it dry on the sill. There was still plenty of light out and I was exhausted. Better get some rest before the night shift of listening to creepy noises as the forest moved around me. I drank some water and peeled off my suede skirt and top, slipping into the cot naked. The sleeping pad which sat atop the cot was mercifully packed with thick cotton buds and not too bad comfort-wise. I slipped my hunting blade under the suede pillow packed with cotton, and then pulled another suede blanket over me. Everything here was made of some type of animal skin, but I was thinking with all of this cotton growing out in the wild that I might be able to make a loom with some of the twine…
I rolled on my side and stroked my belly, trying not to think of raising a child in this small hut. Should I start weaving a basinet? Or did that mean I was giving up? Maybe I should give up. Maybe I should just go tomorrow and search for the Paladin lands until I ran out of food and water. I shook my head to try and shake off the dark thoughts.
No. I could do this. Find the cave, go home and get back to Sawyer.
My eyelids grew heavy, and then…
Boom.
A kick bucked against my hand and I gasped.
She kicked.
She kicked!
“Is that you, baby girl?” It felt like a troop of butterflies had taken flight in my belly and then knocked. Another one!
It was such a joyous moment that quickly turned to dread as I had no one to share it with.
‘Sawyer,’ I reached out for the millionth time. ‘Sawyer, we have a baby girl and she just kicked for the first time,’ I told him.
His silence was the most depressing part of each day. I was afraid that one day the loneliness might actually consume me.
With a deep sigh, I thought about the line Buffalo had written.
I found it! It’s right off the well-worn path. Plain as day once you trust.
Trust who? I just wished he’d told me who I needed to trust.
Trust.
Trust?
I drifted off with little hope that I would make it out of here. I just had to trust.
Three months later…
“Walking in the woods, going to find the caaaaave,” I sang as I waddled through the bushes and up the mountain. I was so preggo I couldn’t see my feet anymore. My hips and back hurt and I was down to weekly cave searches. It was too exhausting, and I was starting to have contractions on cave hunt day, which I knew it was too early for, so I had to take it easy. Walk slow: one trip up the mountain with my wolf inside of me and hope for the best. I’d become completely numb to the fact that I’d been here six months. I’d tried one more time to find the Paladin lands last month and got lost coming back. It took me five days to find the cabin.
Five days alone in the woods with no shelter and no sure source of running water was terrifying, especially when pregnant, but I’d learned so much in my time here that I was able to find food and water pretty easily. Now I’d resigned myself to the fact that the woods would not let me leave until I had found the cave. So I had two options. Find the cave, or stay here and live out my days in nature forever.
I sighed, trying not to fall into a depressive episode. Last week I’d just lain around the cabin only getting up to hunt or wash, and I recognized symptoms of what was probably dep
ression.
How the hell was I going to raise a baby here, alone, possibly forever? I was a social creature, I needed human interaction and Instagram and people to talk to. The baby would help. I could talk to her, but … Sawyer, my parents … what were they thinking and doing right now? Were Sage and Astra losing their minds? I’d bet Rab was like “I told you she would take forever.”
“ARGH!” I yelled at the mountain as I reached the top and bent to untie my ankle string.
A female moan ripped through the woods and I froze, fingers hovering over the knot on my ankle as goosebumps ran up my arms.
No. No. No.
The day had finally come. I was hallucinating, hearing voices. The noises from the woods were tricking me.
“Hello!” I shouted as I pulled my hunting knife from my thigh holster.
It wasn’t real, probably just a tree moving, not—
A distinct feminine moan, similar to an injured animal, called back to me.
What the hell?
My heart leapt in my throat, and I looked up the mountain path where I was supposed to go, before glancing out into the darkness of the woods where the noise came from.
Was it a trap? Was it a person who needed help? How was that even possible?
You’re not real. It’s not real. I chewed my lip, feeling the nervous breakdown threatening to consume me.
There was another moan that gave way to a whimper and I froze. If someone was out there, I had to know for sure. Diverting from the beaten path that would lead me up the mountain, I went sideways and to the left, slowly. This led away from the cabin, away from the cave, but nearer the direction I thought the Paladin lands were.
Would someone have come looking for me? I didn’t allow myself to hope such a thing, especially since Rab said whoever crossed over into the Dark Woods and was not of alpha bloodline would be cursed. But … maybe it was a fey or a troll or someone else. Anyone else would do. If they were hurt, I could nurse them back to health and then I’d have a friend here. I’d best friend the shit out of a dark fey right now, I was that desperate and lonely.
Spurred on by these exciting thoughts, I slowly trudged through the thick forest bramble, coaxing the twine behind me so that it didn’t get caught on anything and tear. My belly was large, but the baby was sitting pretty high, so I was able to move with ease across the mountainside without too much trouble. One thing being in the Dark Woods had done was get me in shape. You either got in the best shape of your life out here or you died. I didn’t mean that I was skinny, I was strong, with endurance and mental aptitude I just didn’t have before I came here.
“Hello?” I called again, wondering if I was leading myself into a trap. So far for six months I hadn’t seen another soul, but that didn’t mean that people didn’t travel through here. I’d seen bear, deer, fox, rabbit, elk, a whole host of animals, but no people.
“Hephgmn.” Someone tried to speak, but it was muffled, and there was a sick gargling noise to it that made the hair rise on the back of my neck.
The female tone to the voice was the only thing that spurred me forward. It reminded me of Marmal and how she’d saved me from being near death.
What if I could do that for another?
“I’m coming!” I shouted, and ran faster, holding my belly with my right arm to keep it from jostling the baby too much, and gripping the twine with my left. I was running so fast, so focused on the sound of the woman, that I didn’t realize the string was getting shorter until it pulled taut, yanking my ankle out from under me. With a hiss, I threw both hands out and caught my fall as I stumbled onto my knees.
That was close.
I needed to slow down or I could hurt the baby. The twine was pinching my ankle and I knew that if I wanted to go after whoever this voice was, I needed to leave it and venture a bit farther … blind. The thought scared me, but I couldn’t leave a woman out here to die and miss out on my chance at having a companion.
“I’m coming!” I shouted one more time as I untied the twine and ripped a nearby branch off, pinning the twine into the earth like you would stake a tent. The trees might move while I was gone and yank the twine away, so this was the best I could do.
I popped to my feet and got my bearings. “One more sound! Just one more and I’ve got you,” I called out into the woods.
“Mmmmm!” they grunted deeply, and my hands shook as I spied a naked leg peeking out from beneath a tree trunk. Pulling my knife, I stalked slowly toward the leg, wondering where the hell the rest of the person was. Then I realized what I was seeing. The tree had fallen on her, and she was hanging down the hillside, where I couldn’t see the rest of her body obscured by the large trunk.
“I see you!” I cried out, and then looked back over my shoulder to make sure I had a good sense of where I’d left the twine rope tied off. I could see it; I had a good sense of direction. Turning back around, I scrambled the last fifty feet with my heart in my throat.
The one exposed leg was wearing a familiar black Nike tennis shoe … and I really wondered if I’d gone insane and was hallucinating. I didn’t think so, because everything about this encounter was terrifyingly real.
Peering over the top of the log, a sob ripped through my throat.
A shock of red hair splayed out in a fan. It was Sage lying face-down in the dirt, the heavy tree pressed across her entire back, pinning her into the ground. I’d know that red hair anywhere, and I stood there for a moment in complete shock that she’d come looking for me.
“Sage!” I half sobbed. “I’ve got you. I’m getting this off of you,” I screamed as she began to weep, her whole body shaking with sobs. I scrambled backward and looked for a large, sturdy walking staff or branch that I could use as leverage to roll the log off of her. I was over six months preggo and there was no way I was going to try to deadlift that thing and have my baby come early.
I’d made a lot of improvements to the cabin land over the last three months, building a small nursery addition to the main cabin, and I’d done so by using a lever and pully system to move heavy logs.
There! I spotted the perfect fallen tree limb and grabbed it, quickly snapping away useless branches until just the large staff was left. Running back over to Sage, I tried to mentally work out whether I should roll the log down over her head using gravity but risk hurting her brain, or over her legs and risk breaking an ankle…
You could heal a broken ankle in the woods but not a broken brain. Positioning myself at her head, I wedged the staff under the log and she screamed in pain, until I realized I’d stabbed her arm, which was trapped beneath the log as well.
“Shit, I’m sorry.” Moving a few inches over, I tried again and got a good firm grip on the staff. “I’m going to roll it off you … but it might hurt.”
She didn’t say anything, and I took that as a sign that she’d either passed out or consented. One. Two…
“Now!” I shouted, and jumped up into the air, bringing all of my weight down on the staff. The giant log popped free of her back and rolled over her butt, slamming down on the backside of her knees.
A wail of complete misery ripped through the forest and tears rolled down my face. I’d unpinned her arms, but she hadn’t moved them, and I didn’t know if that was because she was scared to or paralyzed.
“One more and that’s it,” I told her. “Hang on.” Wedging the wood under the log again, I leapt into the air and came down with all of my weight. The giant log popped up and then rolled off of her tennis shoes, barely missing her ankles.
She was free.
Panting, I fell to my knees and brushed the red hair off of her face, before bursting into quiet sobs as I barely recognized my bestie.
She had three thin scars running from her eye to her chin, dirt and blood caked her eyebrows, and her once fierce look she always wore was now dull and hopeless.
I took in her dirty, torn clothing, and her handmade suede backpack. She’d been here a while … maybe even months.
I was hav
ing a hard time believing this was real. Maybe I was imagining her because I’d been so lonely … but why would I imagine Sage hurt like this?
I wouldn’t.
“You came for me.” I cupped her cheek, getting onto my elbows so that she could see me at her odd angle. Her neck was bent weird and she hadn’t moved and I didn’t know what to do.
Her vacant eyes searched my face, and she chewed on her lip before looking past me at nothing. “Rab was right. I’m cursed. This whole place is cursed.” Then her entire body shuddered and she went limp.
It took me nearly three hours to get Sage back to my cabin. I had to take off my large suede skirt, lay her on it, and then fashion a harness with the twine so that my wolf could drag her like a pack mule. Every time we went over a rocky area, Sage would roll off my skirt, and twice the holes in the suede just ripped and the twine flew out. I had to braid it to make it thicker, and it was digging into my wolf’s shoulders, but she didn’t complain.
Once we’d finally gotten her back, I threw on another skirt, a short one that sat under my giant belly, and lay Sage in front of my cot on the floor. She was too heavy for me or my wolf to lift into my bed, and I wasn’t sure moving her more than we had to was a good idea.
She looked … near death. Her body was covered in scars and bruises, ranging from blue to yellow, and I wondered if her werewolf healing could handle a broken back or internal bleeding or whatever might be going on.
I sat there, chewing off all of my fingernails, wondering just how long she’d been out here looking for me—surely she didn’t come in a week after I left like she joked she would.
She was joking, right?
And what in the hell had she meant by being cursed? I stared at her, wondering what in the hell to do, when my survival mode finally kicked in.
I hadn’t hunted today. I had no refrigerator, and other than some mushrooms, dried dandelions for tea, and a few sweet potatoes, I had nothing to eat. I couldn’t help Sage right now. I wasn’t a doctor and I didn’t have an MRI, but I could hunt so that when she hopefully woke up, there would be a hot meal for the both of us.