When Norabel tentatively stepped in, he cleared his throat and looked back to his drawing on the cave wall.
“Mason, it’s amazing,” she marveled, standing next to him to admire it. “It looks just like their wings.”
“I know.”
Norabel’s eyes flew to him. “What do you mean you know? The Woodland Albatross never comes as far as Breccan.”
A wide grin broke out on his face as he admitted, “I found a man that had a book on them. He let me look through the pages and I…”
“But Mason,” she cut in, shaking her head, “that’s dangerous. You could get in trouble! If anyone found out you were…”
It was Mason’s turn to cut her off as he placed a gentle hand on her shoulder. “It’s alright. No one will know.” His mouth curled up in a smile as he added, “It was worth it if it made you happy.”
“I’m already happy,” she told him, her wide, starry eyes looking up to him.
“You mean I did all this for nothing?” he joked, glancing back to the wings on the wall. “I guess I’ll just have to erase it then.”
He walked up to the charcoal drawing and put his sleeve up as though he was about to start wiping it off, when Norabel gave out a squeak behind him.
“No!” she exclaimed, her thin fingers slipping around his arm to stop him.
Mason laughed to let her know he was only joking. “Come on,” he said. “Why don’t you try them out? See how they fly.”
There was a small fire lit on the other side of the cave, and the light from the entrance was not enough to erase all sign of their shadows. Mason carefully led Norabel a few feet away from the wall and positioned her so that her shadow lined up perfectly with the pair of wings.
“How do they look?” she asked, trying to turn her head to see.
“Like they were born for you,” he answered.
Norabel reached out for one of his hands and clasped it with both of hers. “Do you think they ever talk to each other?” she asked.
“Who?”
“Our guardians. Yours and mine. Do you think they’re friends because we are?”
Mason’s mouth scrunched in thought. “Well, I sure hope so. Because I’m not planning on leaving you anytime soon.”
As he said these last words, he reached out for her waist and lifted her in the air, spinning her around. Norabel laughed when he set her back down and tucked a loose strand of hair behind her ear.
“I suppose they’re just gonna have to deal with it,” Mason said.
“Deal with it?” she repeated, her face falling slightly in disappointment. “I had rather hoped they would like each other.”
“Oh, they do,” he answered confidently.
“You’re just saying that,” she said, narrowing her eyes up at him.
Slowly lowering his head, he rested his forehead against hers. “I’m not just saying that,” he whispered.
Norabel closed her eyes in happiness, but opened them a moment later, asking abruptly, “Do you think they have strange names? You know, like Reginald or Yari?”
Mason chuckled and lifted his head from hers. “Yari? Where’d you come up with that name?”
She shrugged. “I don’t know; it just popped into my head.”
“And what else just pops into your head?”
She thought about it for a moment before nodding and saying, “Mason.”
“Mason?” he repeated, raising his eyebrows. “What? Are you saying I have a strange name?”
She laughed and shook her head.
“No, that’s what you’re saying,” he insisted.
“I only meant it popped into my head.”
He gave her a goofy smile, commenting, “As it should!” His smile subsided, and a forced expression of contemplation crossed his face. “Speaking of names that pop into people’s heads…there is this one name that keeps pestering my mind. Kind of like an incessant, oh, I don’t know, bell that won’t stop ringing in my head.”
“Maybe you should stop pulling on the rope,” she suggested.
“Maybe I don’t want to,” he said, surprising even himself by the tender way it had come out.
Norabel looked down to her boots at that, and Mason cleared his throat and took a step back. “Come on,” he said, trying to sound light-hearted again. “Let’s go see if we can find those marmots that live up on the hill…
Chapter 5
Valor Wood was much more pleasing in the light than it was in the dark. Though it wasn’t as beautiful as her childhood home in the mountains, it still contained the charms and pleasures that any green forest had to offer.
Mason had been waiting for her at their usual tree when she arrived, and with a short, brief greeting, they started forward into the forest. As she was walking, she didn’t let Mason’s stoic, somber mood get her down. It was the way he always seemed to be, and whether or not he found her perpetual happiness childish and annoying, she wasn’t going to let him stop her from enjoying the forest.
Finding a fallen tree on the ground, she hurried over to it and hopped on top. Then, taking each step cautiously, she began to walk across the log, marveling at how different the forest looked from just a few feet higher off the ground. It reminded her of when she and Mason would balance on logs and rocks in their meadow, trying to see who could stay the longest on one foot. Of course, he would never do something like that now.
Hopping off the fallen tree, she rejoined Mason on the road. Looking up to the sky, she smiled, seeing the rays of sun coming through the trees. She held her hand up and watched the beams of light dance with her fingers and cast a pattern over her face.
Her grandfather once told her that the Albatross came from somewhere beyond the skies, far away from this world. He said that every time you looked up to the sky or the clouds or the sun, you were really glimpsing at their home. Yet, even though it was so far away, they would still be able to see even the smallest person should they look up and wave hello.
“Why are you always doing that?” Mason asked from her side.
“Doing what?” she inquired, drawing her thoughts back down to earth.
“Smiling.” He shrugged, putting his hands in his pockets. “What is there to smile about?”
“I was smiling at the sun,” she informed him, choosing to tell the truth while avoiding any mention of the Albatross.
“Why? It’s always been there. It’s not like it’s going anywhere.”
Norabel stopped and looked up at it again. “Maybe that’s why I’m smiling,” she said in deep deliberation. “No matter how long this world is going to go on, each person that comes to pass will look up at the same sun, will live and be alive because of its same warmth, just like us. Don’t you think, if there’s anything worth smiling at, it’s that?”
“I never thought of it that way before,” he admitted, taking a peek up to the sun and squinting his eyes. Then, having had enough, he motioned ahead of them, and they continued forward. Soon they found the spot in the road where they had torched the basket last night. A few charred strands of the basket lay on the dirt, and several Pax boot prints circles around the scene.
“The shot came from over there,” Norabel said, pointing up to the trees on the right side of the road. “Maybe we should see if we can find anything.”
Mason gave a relenting shrug of his shoulders, and she took it as permission. Hurrying across the road, she happily entered into the thick grass of the forest. She bent her arm down low as she walked, feeling the blades of grass with her fingertips as she passed.
Finding a small red bug on the tip of one, she stopped and bent down to watch as it crawled across the long green stalk. Her grandfather told her that her Guardian Albatross was always trying to show her things. Some of it, he said, might seem very unimportant, when in fact it was the opposite. A bug on a leaf, for example, or a half-eaten apple. The downcast expression on a friend’s face, or a stranger across the street. Every day her guardian was trying to show her what she needed to see, and
she wanted to make extra certain that she always received his message.
Norabel studied the bug intently as it paused at the very tip of the blade of grass. Then, coming to a decision, it flew off and landed on a nearby flower.
“I thought we were here to look for clues,” Mason commented from behind her. “Not to stare at bugs.”
“If you don’t stop to look at bugs, then you won’t find any clues,” she reasoned.
She glanced over at him from where she was crouched on the ground and expected to see him rolling his eyes at her. However, when she turned her head, she only had a moment to prepare herself as Mason’s body slammed into hers.
She gasped in shock as his heavy weight fell over her, and she couldn’t remember having ever felt so incredibly small and fragile than in that moment. Her lungs tightened with pressure, and a wave of fear washed over her as she thought a Jotham’s attack might be coming over her. She had had several of them when she was just a little girl, and they had been frightening and horrifyingly painful experiences. What was worse was not so much the feeling of suffocation, but the expressions she had seen on her parents as they were helpless to do anything about it.
Then, before the tension in her lungs could block out her air-supply completely, the pressure on her chest lifted, and she opened her eyes to see Mason staring down at her. His hands were on either side of her now, supporting most of his weight, but he did not move to get off her. She tried to keep her face from heating up as he stared down at her. She wondered why it was he had so suddenly jumped her in the first place.
“What is…” she started to ask him, when he silenced her by placing a finger to her lips.
He raised the finger to his own lips, telling her to be quiet, before carefully rolling off her. Norabel took in a quiet gasp for air as he did so, and watched as Mason crouched low in the grass, reaching out for something that had fallen there. When he pulled his hand away, she saw that he was holding a simple twig from a tree with a couple of green leaves still attached at the end. She didn’t know why he had chosen to pick up this object, though judging by the expression on his face, he looked just as surprised as she did.
Before any more questions could build up in her head, she saw something fly in the air above her head, and Mason swiftly caught it with a jerk of his hand. Bringing it up to his face, he saw that it was the same type of twig with leaves. Only, someone appeared to be shooting them off as arrows.
Placing her hands in the soft grass on either side of her, Norabel strained to sit up, and looked out to the trees where the shot had come from. The branches of a tree a few yards away rustled, and a moment later something dropped down from it. But “dropped” was not quite the right word. More like flipped. A young woman had gracefully flipped out of the tree and landed nimbly on her feet as though she had been exiting trees like this her whole life.
As she stood there, staring at the two of them, Norabel could not help but be impressed by the commanding and graceful presence she seemed to radiate. The young lady’s hair was a reddish-brown color that seemed to shine more like fire in the light of the sun, reminding Norabel of how the ash tree looked in the fall when its leaves turned a beautiful deep auburn. Her expression was static and unyielding, her brown eyes seemed to carry a captivating mystery, and everything about the way she held herself said that this was a woman of confidence.
“Don’t be scared,” the girl said, raising her hands in the air to show they were empty. “I’m a friend.”
There was a bow strapped around her back, and a few arrows stored with it. Unlike most girls in the kingdom, she was wearing pants instead of a skirt, and Norabel looked to the long brown boots laced up her legs, figuring she probably had a weapon stored inside.
The girl took careful, slow steps towards them, approaching them as someone would an injured animal. Behind her, Norabel could hear the rustle of grass as Mason rose to his feet. Norabel did the same, and when she was standing upright, she felt Mason’s hand tug at her arm, pulling her back behind him.
“I’m Ashlin,” the girl announced, holding her hand out in front of Mason. “You must be the Point-Man.”
Mason looked down to the offered hand, and then back to the young lady’s face, his eyes betraying no sign of fear.
Seeing that he wasn’t going to shake her hand, Ashlin shifted her gaze to Norabel, commenting, “And you’re the Shadow.” Noticing Norabel’s wide eyes, she smiled, adding, “It’s alright. I’m not here to turn you in.”
“Why did you help us last night?” Norabel asked, not being able to hold back her curiosity.
“Norabel!” Mason scolded.
“She already knows who we are,” she pointed out. Then, looking back to Ashlin with the wide, silver-blue eyes of innocence that always seemed to reside on her face, she asked again, “So, why did you?”
“You were in danger of losing your load,” Ashlin replied. “And I couldn’t let the Pax have it.”
“Where are you from?” Mason asked suddenly. He raised a hand, pointing to the arrows on her back, and said, “Those arrows weren’t made inside of Breccan. The tails are different.”
“I’m from Noor Summit,” she answered.
“You got a transfer?” he questioned skeptically.
Ashlin shifted her weight and glanced back to the road. “Something like that.”
“Doing what?”
She gave a small sigh. “Something boring and Pax-enforced like everybody else. Look…” She spread her arms out in front of her. “It doesn’t really matter what I do. What matters is that you could do with a fifth person on your team, and I can give that to you.”
Mason looked down to her boots and then back up to her face, asking, “What makes you think we need another person? Or that I’d trust you enough to just let you on?”
“I didn’t turn you in,” she stated calmly, shrugging a single shoulder.
“You have to do more than that to earn my trust.”
Ashlin took a step forward. “Then how about your respect. Gather your team together and meet me here tomorrow afternoon.” It was her time to eye Mason before saying, “Then I can show you just what I can do.”
Without waiting for a response, she turned and swiftly headed for the nearest tree. With one extension of her arm, she caught a branch and swung herself up like a bird taking flight. A second later she disappeared completely from sight, and though Norabel couldn’t see the other trees moving, she had the strong suspicion that, if she were to run over and check the tree she had grabbed ahold of, she would no longer be there.
Glancing back to Mason, she saw that he almost carried an expression of anger on his face. She had known him long enough to know that he didn’t like surprises. Regardless of what he thought about Ashlin, she was certainly a surprise.
“Come on,” he ordered Norabel gruffly with a sweep of his arm. “We’re going back.”
Silently obeying, she followed him out of the forest grass and onto the main road. They travelled in silence for a few minutes, before she chanced to ask him a question.
“What are you thinking?”
“I’m not sure,” he answered tersely, staring at the road ahead of them.
Norabel waited for him to add anything to his answer, hoping for the smallest insight into his head, but found, once again, that he was shutting her out.
Chapter 6
That next day, Mason found Norabel at lunch once more, informing her that he had decided to go back to Valor Wood in the afternoon, and that he was going to tell Logan and Archer what had happened. She silently nodded and said nothing as Mason promptly left her. She wasn’t about to argue with him when he had already made up his mind. She wondered how he could be so sure about something so quickly, when she was completely at a loss as to how to feel about the whole thing.
When work ended for the day, she was supposed to hurry home and then make for the path up the mountain that eventually led into the woods, but she found herself dawdling in thought.
&nb
sp; “Something on your mind?” Hunter asked her when she appeared at his checkpoint.
She had not even realized where she was, and looked up to him in mild surprise. “Hmm?” she asked.
“You seem troubled by something,” he said, his worried green eyes contradicting the smile that was forever on his face.
“Oh, it’s nothing, just…” she was about to leave it at that, but somehow she felt it would be rude not to tell him her thoughts when he had shown so much concern for her. Taking a peek behind her, she saw that a woman named Kaylee was waiting to pass through the checkpoint, and Norabel stepped to the side, saying good-naturedly, “Why don’t you go in front of me.”
Kaylee blinked in confusion for a moment, before graciously moving forward and into the checkpoint. Hunter quickly found her name and put a check next to it before waving her through. When she had gone, Norabel stepped back up to his station box.
“I was just wondering,” she said, looking down at the large ledger open in between them. “What happens if someone is transferred to another village?”
“Transferred?” he repeated.
She looked up from the book and saw even more worry on his face.
“Do you think you’re being transferred?” he asked.
“No,” she answered quickly, before adding, “I mean, a few years ago I was actually offered the chance to move somewhere else. Though it wasn’t exactly a transfer, so much as an invitation.”
“Wow,” he commented with a shake of his head. “That must say a lot about you.”
“What do you mean?”
“Uh…” he stuttered slightly before he explained, “What I mean is, it’s really rare to even get a transfer. We haven’t had one here for the past couple of years. But the fact that they actually asked you about where you wanted to go…”
Chasing Shadows (Saving Galerance, Book 1) Page 6