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The Girl and the Wolf

Page 9

by Nicole Yek


  Mathis held up both his arms as though he was surrendering to the boy and with the smirk still intact, he said, "I didn't say anything. I didn't do anything. I am completely innocent."

  The wolf boy rolled his eyes at the smug squirrel and kept on walking. Although his blush had calmed down, his heart continued to drum wildly in his chest, threatening to burst out at any given moment. He shook his head, attempting to rid himself of the memory of what had happened only moments before.

  "Hywel!" he halted in his tracks at the sound of Garnet's voice calling out to him and Button and Mathis stopped along with him.

  "Mathis! Button! Everyone! Come over here!" she cried out and they obliged to her request.

  Within minutes, the three found the girl standing with her back bent slightly down next to some shrubs. "Look what I found!" she exclaimed when she caught sight of her companions and stepped away from the shrub to allow them to see what she was going on about.

  The three's eyes grew wide at the sight before them. There, growing out from one of the small branches of the shrub, was a vibrant red rose, the same color as fresh blood. They were stunned speechless while the brunette was excitedly fawning over her discovery.

  "I found a rose! I didn't even know that roses grew in woods!" she said, her tone bright and enthusiastic.

  "That's because they don't." Hywel murmured, staring at the rose in disbelief. He took a step towards it and cautiously reached a hand out to touch it. "It's real…"

  Garnet gave him a strange look and put her hands on her hips. "Well, of course it's real."

  "We've found it…" Mathis suddenly mumbled and then screamed aloud, "We've finally found it!"

  The brunette was left extremely confused by this, her eyebrows knitted together in bafflement. "What are you going on about-"

  "There's another one over there!" the squirrel exclaimed, jumping off from Button's back and running to another blood red rose that grew out from the ground a few steps away from the shrub that had the first one.

  "And another over there," Button observed, referring to another red rose on the ground a few steps away from the one that Mathis had spotted. Both Hywel and Garnet followed the rabbit's gaze to find a whole trail of roses leading up to what was most likely another part of the Wood. Mathis let out an exuberant cry and started jumping up and down excitedly, making Garnet chuckle despite her lack of knowledge on the reason as to why the squirrel was so happy.

  "I never thought that you would all love roses so much," she chuckled and reached out to pick the vibrant red rose in the shrub. "Roses are Grandma's favorite, I might as well pick a few for her."

  Hywel watched the girl as she plucked the red rose and carefully put it in the weaved basket that she carried in her hand. When Garnet noticed his stare, she gave him a questioning look. "What's wrong?"

  "Do you smell that?" he asked her, sniffing the humid air around them.

  "Smell what?" she became confused once again.

  "There's this metallic smell in the air, but I can't pinpoint exactly where it's from." The wolf boy said.

  Mathis' body stiffened all of a sudden and his hazel eyes were fixated on the bare forest ground in front of him. "Um, Master Hywel, I think you should try looking down."

  Both the girl in red and the wolf boy glanced down towards the ground beneath their feet upon hearing his words. Garnet's hands instantly flew over her mouth and their eyes were both wide in horror.

  There were footprints on the ground, but they weren't ones that would belong to an animal.

  They were human footprints, and they were bloody.

  Chapter Eleven

  “There’s another outsider in the Wood.” Hywel said. He was bent down into a crouch as he examined the bloody footprints on the forest ground. The footprints were undoubtedly a human's and it seemed as though they appeared to be barefooted and had either injured themselves or they were the one who harmed someone, or rather, something else.

  "The blood is still a bit wet so whoever made these had passed by here not too long ago." The silver-haired boy glanced at the brunette whose green eyes were still wide in shock and her body as stiff as stone.

  "Garnet," Without thinking, he clamped both of his hands on her shoulders, instantly snapping her out of her trance. Her eyes blinked and looked at him, her lips parting slightly and she looked as though her soul had left her body for several moments and was only then brought back into the real world. "Are you alright?" the boy asked, his concerned blue eyes boring into her appalled green ones.

  She swallowed the lump that had formed in her dry throat and nodded slowly. She wanted to speak but her voice had already abandoned her, leaving her mute and helpless.

  "Good," he sighed, relieved. He removed his hands from her shoulders and looked at Mathis, whose attention was still transfixed on the bloody footprints, and Button, who was staring up at the wolf boy with an expectant look.

  "Listen," he began. "I have a very bad feeling about this, I've patrolled through most of the Wood during the past few nights and I've neither seen nor sensed a single outsider besides Garnet in here. We have to get back to the others."

  His words seemed to be enough to snap Mathis out of his daze and the squirrel's head jerked towards him. "But what about the path of roses? What about escaping the Wood? We've been searching for a way out for nearly four years-"

  "Now," Hywel growled at Mathis with an animalistic glare, immediately silencing him. "We're going back to the others now, no exceptions."

  Mathis paused for a few seconds before muttering, "Yes, Master Hywel."

  The three began to walk back towards whence they came while Garnet followed hurriedly behind them with drawn brows and a deep frown. "Wait, can someone please tell me what's going on?" she snapped at them, switching between Hywel, whose face was hard, and Mathis and Button who both looked guiltily down at the ground, obviously trying to avoid her gaze.

  When it became apparent to her that neither of the two small animals was bold enough to tell her, she jerked her head towards the silver-haired boy. "What did Mathis mean when he mentioned the path of roses? And what does it have anything to do with escaping the Wood?"

  He simply ignored her and kept moving forward, but that only fueled the brunette's curiosity and determination to get answers. She continued to pester him throughout the walk back while the squirrel and rabbit remained completely silent until the boy couldn't take her incessant badgering any longer and gave in.

  "Fine," he hissed, shooting a glare in her direction but it didn't affect her satisfaction even a bit. "I'll tell you, just be quiet or else whoever that outsider may be might hear us!"

  Garnet tilted her head to one side and raised an eyebrow at him. "But you're basically a werewolf, and if the outsider truly is human, then why would you be afraid of them? You could rip them apart within a minute."

  He shot her an impatient look and said, "It seems to me that you've forgotten about how I'm only able to Change when the moon is up, and the most damage that I can do in my current state is to give them a few scratches that would neither scare them off nor stop them from pursuing us after they see us."

  "But how do you know that they would go after us?" she inquired.

  Hywel shook his head. "I've already told you that I have a bad feeling about this, and I surmise the blood that you just saw was most likely an animal's that the outsider had slaughtered. I don't suppose any of us have told you this before because it's not quite a comforting fact to tell you in your current situation, but, most people who come into the Wood tend to end up becoming deranged. As though being trapped in an ever-changing labyrinth wasn't tormenting enough, the fear of vicious monsters lurking in the shadows and the utter state of solitude can drive anyone mad. That's why most outsiders tend to be more frightening than the animals in the Wood.

  "Humans forget that they have the ability to become monsters more terrifying than any other creature, just because they don't possess any physical traits that can normally be claimed
as a weapon, their minds are all the weapon that they need," he spared a glance at the brunette walking behind him. "It might just be my opinion but, I think the human mind pays too much attention to emotions, they act on them, they depend on them, and they willingly allow emotions to control them. I imagine you would assume that I'm speaking of the darker ones such as anger, jealously, and wrath, but what I'm saying implies to all emotions. If one experiences too much of a certain one, be it good or bad, they would eventually suffer in the end."

  Garnet's gaze never left the boy throughout his whole explanation. "Is that why you act so cold towards me? To prevent yourself from experiencing too much of one emotion and end up suffering?"

  There was a short pause before he replied. "Well, I wouldn't consider the way that I've been treating you cold-"

  "Oh, my apologies, I meant infuriatingly sardonic and rude." The brunette corrected herself.

  "Once again, I'm not certain as to whether I should feel offended or proud that I managed to make someone as buoyant and carefree as you to loathe me." He said and Garnet could hear the smile in his tone.

  She pouted and stared at the back of his head, hoping that he could feel her hard stare and eventually turn around to look at her. She noticed how his shoulders tensed vaguely and he soon craned his head around to give her a questioning and uneasy look.

  "I don't loathe you…" she mumbled, having suddenly become timid. Hywel's sapphire-blue eyes widened at her quiet words.

  At that moment, Mathis let out a huff, shaking his head. "Do you see that, Nathaniel? We could most likely be in danger right at this second, and these two are flirting! What a disgrace!" he said, his tone practically dripping with sarcasm.

  "I've told you before that I prefer to be called ‘Button’, you deaf squirrel." Button said with a stoic face.

  Hywel opened his mouth to speak but a loud ‘bang' halted him in mid-action. The noise was brief but it was enough to cause the four to freeze in effect. Silence quickly filled the air around them as they stood as stiff as statues with their feet rooted to the ground.

  "That was a gunshot," Garnet was the first one to break the uneasy quiet of the Wood. "That was a gunshot!" her head snapped towards the wolf boy with green eyes wide in panic.

  The apparent worry in the boy's blue eyes only made panic rise within her and she suddenly felt her throat turning dry and tight. Mathis was awoken from his trance by the brunette's unexpected cry and his hazel eyes narrowed as a thought occurred to him. "Wait a second, isn't that…" he trailed off, his eyes widened as realization struck him like a slap in the face.

  "We have to get back to the others." Hywel wasted no time grabbing hold of the girl's wrist and dragging her after him as he ran.

  She turned her head to glance back at the squirrel and rabbit who were hopping after them hastily. "Wait for us!" Mathis called out, gripping tightly onto the white fur on Button's back to prevent him from falling.

  She returned her attention back to the silver-haired boy who was pulling her forward by the wrist. She couldn't see his face but she could tell from his viselike grip that he was panicked, extremely panicked, and since Hywel wasn't one to grow concern of something easily, it made Garnet all the more terrified.

  All of a sudden, he came to a stop, causing the brunette to knock into his back and the squirrel and rabbit hopping behind them to knock into the girl's calves. "Ow!" the three who had knocked into the person in front winced in unison.

  "Keep quiet!" the boy hissed at them and swiftly dragged the girl to an empty spot behind two large trees.

  He turned around and pulled Garnet down to the ground by the wrist as he crouched behind the thick trunk of one of the two trees. Mathis and Button came hopping towards them moments later, both breathless. "What's going on, Master Hywel?" the squirrel gasped.

  "Someone's coming," he told them and those two words alone were enough to keep their lips sealed shut.

  As if on cue, the faint thumping of footsteps sounded from the other side of the trees. The four kept silent and endeavored to remain as still as possible, not wanting to give away their hiding place. The footsteps stopped for a moment and a rough male voice spoke up. "I could've sworn that I've heard something," he said.

  Garnet's green eyes widened and she looked as though she was about to speak but Hywel's hand flew over to cover her mouth before she could mutter a word. The girl's big green eyes darted onto the boy in front of her; he held up a finger with his other hand, signaling for her to stay hushed. Hesitantly, she gave him a light nod in understanding.

  "Maybe they're hiding from me!" the unknown male voice continued and they heard him move around.

  Hywel's panicked blue eyes glanced down at Mathis and Button who were either trembling or curled into a small ball in utter fear. They heard some more footsteps and the boy could sense him. Whoever the man was, he was standing right in front of the tree where the four of them were hiding behind. The wolf boy could feel his intimidating presence through the tree between them, and even though it was huge in size, it didn't feel much different than having a thin piece of paper separating them in that moment.

  "Or maybe I've misheard," the man said.

  Hywel exhaled a silent sigh when he felt him step away from the tree and heard him walk further down the path on the other side. The boy could see a hunched old man from the corner of his eye. He shifted his focus in that direction, and Garnet, Mathis, and Button all strained their necks to see what he was looking at. In his hands, he held a gleaming black rifle and the boy didn't miss the hilt of a dagger that he had tucked under his belt.

  "Either way, I'll catch them," the old man started cackling, an awful ear-piercing laugh that sent shivers down their spines. Garnet grimaced at the horrendous noise and so did Mathis whose vigorous trembling could very well be mistaken for a seizure. "I'll catch them and I'll kill them! I'll kill all of them!"

  The old man's spine-chilling cackling slowly began to fade the further he walked on. Hywel made it certain that he was long out of sight and earshot before he removed his hand from the girl's mouth and cautiously stood up from his crouch, pulling Garnet up to her feet as well. He released his hold on her wrist but his gaze was fixated on her.

  Mathis ceased his trembling and shook his head as though the action could discard the horrifying image of the man from his memory. "What a petrifying old man, I swear that from now onwards, he would haunt my every nightmare."

  "What were you going to mutter just now?" Hywel inquired Garnet, completely ignoring the squirrel's comment.

  "That man's Mr. Jenkins!" she exclaimed, and when she took in the boy's confused face, she decided to clarify further. "William Jenkins, he was a well-known hunter back in my village, he went into the Wood a year ago but he never came back out. Everyone in the village assumes that he's dead, but he's still alive!"

  "Yes, he's alive and a murderer!" Mathis cried out. "I-if he'd seen us just now, he would've killed us! We would all be dead right now!"

  "You're exaggerating, maybe if I go talk to him, he would remember me and-" the brunette started but Hywel cut her off.

  "No, absolutely not," he said, his voice authoritative and urgent. "Don't be a fool, Garnet, you've seen how he was, he's gone completely mad! If you go to him right now, I can assure you that you'll be dead before you even reach within a foot of him."

  Garnet wanted to deny his claim but she had heard what William Jenkins had said, heard the difference in his voice. The Mr. Jenkins who had given her treats and played with her when she was still little was no longer there, the Mr. Jenkins who she had come across minutes ago was violent, bloodthirsty, and undoubtedly insane. She bit down on her bottom lip and tried to comprehend the new information, allowing it to sink into her mental horizon, allowing herself to accept what the cruel reality had done to the man who was loved by everyone back in her village.

  Hywel felt a wave of guilt wash over him at the sight of the girl's sad and lost expression. He wanted to comfort her but when he opened h
is mouth, no words came out. He didn't know what to say, and so, he closed his mouth and clenched his jaw. "Come on," he said to all of them. "We have to get back to the others. I'm still worried about that gunshot."

  Without another word, he turned on his heels and moved forward. Mathis and Button followed him after, and Garnet, who remained unable to collect her thoughts, went last. They weren't far off from the two trees with the familiar curtain of leafy vines draped over their thick branches and the brunette surmised that it took them less than five minutes to arrive. Hywel pushed aside the vines, allowing her to go through before entering the place himself. Immediately upon returning, Atticus was hopping at a remarkable pace towards him.

  "Hywel!" he cried. "You're back!"

  "Atticus, there's another outsider in here, and he has a rifle-" the silver-haired boy began but the frog interrupted him before he could finish.

  "We know, he came here," Atticus said and Hywel tensed. "Something... something tragic happened."

  Hywel must have had an idea of what he meant because instead of asking what had happened, he said, "Show me."

  The frog said nothing more and guided him and the rest to the stream. There was a fallen tree branch half-sunken in the glittering clear water of the stream and there was a small bird's nest on the other end which was on the dry grass. Next to the nest was Rutherford who was staring grimly at it. As they neared the part of the broken tree branch, incessant high-pitched chirping filled their ears and Garnet realized that it was Biff who was making all that noise.

  She was perplexed as to why the little wren was chirping so much, but when they reached to the side of the nest, everything became clear. Garnet's hand flew over her mouth and she felt tears beginning to swell up in her eyes.

  The mother wren was dead.

  Chapter Twelve

  With weak and shaking hands, Hywel crouched down next to the nest and took the mother wren's limp and bloody body into his palms. Crimson blood slid down in beads from the small body his open hands down to his wrists, but it didn't bother him. There was a bullet hole right in the middle of her stomach and there was no doubt in the world that the hunter had shot her with his rifle.

 

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