They had once just called her Fatty Amby. She hated it, but learned to live with it. The song… that song… they had sat down and composed together. Learned to sing it in unison, and planned to hurt her with it— and succeeded marvelously at it.
She only had one good friend in this whole town, Jessica Grey, but she was at home today helping with harvest. Jessica would have stopped them, would have thrown stones at them and cursed them to hell. Though she was meek and pale, she would have stopped them. She was the toughest girl in town. Everyone knew she did all the same chores as her brother and father.
Amber pulled the hem of her dress up and wiped her eyes. Their derisive laughter. Their menacing smirks. They were a pack of wild animals. No better than the wolves who howled from Bowland Mountains every fortnight.
Why did they think it was okay for them to treat her that way? She had never done anything to them. And she wasn’t even that fat! She was just bigger than them. No part of her was unnecessary. She was just a big girl. Round, but solid.
But logic couldn’t stop her falling tears and heaving chest.
Somehow through all the noise she was making she heard him coming tentatively from the woods, walking towards her like a nervous dog.
Dunstan Conner— the town miscreant and orphan.
“Don’t cry, Amber. I don’t know what they did, but don’t cry over them.”
He nervously wrung his hands as he stood before her.
“Go away!” Amber sobbed.
“Please don’t cry,” he said. “They’re not worth it. I promise you they’re not.”
“Leave me alone!”
But he didn’t. Instead he leaned in and gently kissed her on the forehead.
“You’re pretty, and pretty girls shouldn’t care what people say about them.”
She stopped crying and looked at him. He was being sincere.
“Do you want to see something you’ve never seen before?” he asked. “I promise it will make your day.”
Still processing his kiss, she neither agreed nor declined.
“You just don’t know better. This is real spiffing wizard stuff. Come on!”
He dragged her up off the steps and led her down the bank to where Erith Stream snaked through the woods along the southern border of Bruton.
He didn’t elaborate. She just followed. And to his credit, her emotions were suddenly in control.
“See these rocks here going across? I put them there,” he said proudly when they reached Erith Stream. “Took me all summer, but I think it’s a right nice bridge, don’t you?”
She nodded.
The stones were flat and well above water. Dry, and spaced evenly apart.
Amber tentatively walked across holding his hand.
“Where are we going?” she asked, balancing along the rocks.
“Just a little farther,” he said. “I promise you, it’s worth leaving your shed for.” He looked around and whispered, “It’s a town secret.” He held a finger up to his lips and snickered.
He ran with her through golden light, through wildflowers gone to seed, and falling autumnal leaves, to a tree covered drop-off where the land descended so steeply southeast of town that the blueness of the horizon could be seen through the treetops below. Though mountains towered to the west, the town of Bruton was well above sea level itself.
Majestic oaks and pines swayed and creaked. The chatter and daily noise of the town was gone— replaced with rustling leaves and the pitter patter of squirrels scurrying and getting into mischief. It was a quiet, still place.
“Over here,” Dunstan whispered, and led her to a large hickory tree on the embankment. “Careful, watch your step” he said, leading her around the tree. “It gets right steep right here.”
Her eyes widened when she saw what he had led her to.
With a round little hole, the base of the hickory tree was all but hollow. Two full grown men could comfortably sit inside it. Amber looked up and saw that the tree wasn’t dead, its branches were full of yellow and orange leaves like every other tree.
Dunstan laughed delightedly as he crawled in. He turned back and motioned for her to follow.
“Come on, there are no bugs or spiders inside. I keep them out.”
Amber crawled in and leaned back into the tree, quietly afraid it might topple over.
“It’s not going anywhere. It’s a tough tree— alive and well. I’ve tried pushing it over many times. It’s never budged a bit.” Amber stifled a laugh. An eleven year old boy trying to push over a tree? “Watched it during rainstorms plenty, too. Remember the one that flooded the town so bad a few weeks back and blew so many trees down? I watched a lot trees topple over during that storm. This one’s strong, it has been for generations.”
“How do you know that?”
He smiled and replied, “Let me show you.” He brought out a small wooden box he had hidden beneath some roots and removed a candle and a match. He struck the match against the side of the tree and lit the candle’s wick. It popped and crackled to life. He pushed it down into a brass candle holder and handed it to her.
“See for yourself,” he said, grinning in anticipation.
She held up the light and saw letters dancing all around the tree, all carved into the side of the hollowed trunk. They were everywhere. It took her a couple breaths to understand.
They were in a lover’s tree where people carved their love for one another not on the outside but on the inside. Was it supposed to be symbolic? Something else was different, too. All the initials had the same last name.
Which meant…
“CG and VG!” Amber exclaimed pointing above Dunstan’s head. “Clarence and Violet! Those are my parents’ initials!”
Dunstan grinned and peered at them.
“Does everyone do this after they get married?” Amber asked.
Dunstan nodded quickly.
“Want to see mine?” Dunstan asked, meaning his parents. Amber nodded and handed him the candle. He found them quickly. “See. Right here,” he pointed halfway up the tree between them. “Here they are. DC and CC. Daniel and Connie. They were my parents.” He smiled and traced their letters with his finger. Quietly proud.
Amber kept her frown away and managed to smile with him.
Last winter Dunstan’s parents died within a week of one another over some mysterious illness.
To keep it from spreading, the mayor ordered the house burnt to the ground.
Amber didn’t see it, but heard the town men talking about it at the pub that night. They had more than a few things to say about the whole ordeal. Particularly about the mayor. Not about his decision, but his lack of foresight in allowing Dunstan see it and the effect it would have on him.
It took two grown men to keep him from running into the flames, they said.
“That little thing roared like a lion when he saw it go up. Christian and Caleb could barely keep him from putting a stop to it. Tears just a fallin’. ‘That’s our home!’ he shouted. ‘That’s our home!’”
Even John Pritchett, a gruff old farmer with large callused hands and cold, unforgiving eyes shook his head and said, “That poor little thing. That poor, poor little thing.”
“Why do you think everyone does this?” Amber asked, looking around at the tree.
“Don’t know. Just tradition, I guess. Probably to bless their marriage and whatnot.”
He still seemed lost in thought looking at his parent’s initials in the tree.
A strong breeze blew down the hill and sent hundreds of leaves spiraling to the ground. Winter was coming, and it was coming fast.
“Do you often come here?” she asked.
His eyes shifted and he shrugged. “Just sometimes,” he said. “It’s quiet and still. Right warm on cold days— wind rarely comes in from the south.”
Amber frowned. That meant he was there a lot.
Jessica had talked to her about Dunstan a while back. Jessica always knew something about someone. Bruton was a small
town, but because Amber’s parents ran Starlight Tavern, she didn’t get out as often as other kids. Jessica told her that after Dunstan’s parents died, he went to live with his aunt, Deloris Conner. Deloris was a scribe for the court and town meetings, which meant she worked a lot and was rarely home. “Dunstan’s just as alone with her as without her,” Jessica said. “Plus, I hear that when she is at home she immediately gets drunk. To drink away her feelings for the mayor.”
Deloris had loved the mayor well before he ran the town, and the two of them had been an item before he officially started courting Janyce, his future wife.
“My mom says she never got over him, and that working in such close proximity to him has made her mad.”
Amber noticed a bruise along Dunstan’s right cheek. Did Deloris do that?
She pointed to his cheek and asked, “What happened?”
“Oh nothing,” he replied and put his hand to his face. “Just got clipped running around last night.”
“Clipped by what?” Amber asked.
He didn’t answer and Amber chose to let it go.
They stayed there the rest of the afternoon, filling each other in on whose initials belonged to whom. It was only after they had exhausted their knowledge that they walked back to town.
Once he got her past Erith Stream, he whispered, “Don’t tell anyone about the tree, OK?”
Amber agreed.
“But you can go by whenever you want. It’s just that…”
“It’s your magic place,” Amber said and smiled.
He looked to the ground and nodded.
“I swear upon my heart that I won’t tell anyone about it,” Amber said.
He surprised her a third time that afternoon, and kissed her again— this time on her cheek and mighty close to her lips.
Blushing, she watched him run back into the woods.
She was the town’s ‘ugly girl’ and he its lost boy, of course they found each other.
*
That night at her parents’ pub, Rick Backus sat out front telling the town’s children stories from long ago while their fathers sat inside getting a quick drink. They were more than welcome inside her parents’ pub, but they all said no thank you. They followed their fathers purely for one reason— a chance to listen to Rick entertain them.
Amber had heard all of his stories many times over, but she sat down on the ground anyway and waited for him to begin.
Angela Allder and Betty Phippen were nearby, but didn’t notice her. If they did, they didn’t bother to give an encore of their Amber Ballad.
She didn’t care if they did. She had been kissed by a boy twice that day already. They could call her whatever they wanted.
Rick took a puff out of his pipe.
“Aye, I remember Cletus Spratling, young Andrews. He was older than me, but I was your age when ‘e went into the mountains, so I knew and understood things, just like all of ye. It was a big deal for ‘im to do what ‘e did. Seriously, it twas. Turn back time a bit and know that Avondale Road still very much existed. Grass and weeds were growing between the stones, but a wagon could still easily ride overtop of ‘em. Not like it is now where the saplings have become great members of the forest themselves. It was still a visible road, and as such, was feared. Feared, I tell ye. Desperately feared. Everyone wanted it gone. Afraid of what might come down, and who might go up. The mayor in those days, Mayor Young, didn’t want anyone tempted by it. An’ ‘e was right in doin’ so. But in those last days, Avondale Road didn’ even matter. People were goin’ missin’ left and right. An’ they weren’t even anywhere near Avondale or Bowlands. Those were scary days, children. Never found bodies, never heard or saw the wolves, but we all knew who an’ what was responsible.
“To understand what happened to the Spratlings you have to remember that trade between Bruton and Pentworth had been strong, and each town had once relied upon the other. Many men in both towns didn’t accept the change, though. They needed the other for their livelihood. And so, before everything changed, some would on occasion brave Avondale. But not without regretting it. I can’t tell ye how many aren’t buried in the cemetery that should be. Lost to the wolves, no man among us brave enough to find their bodies. I once knew, and kept track how many we lost in those days. But I eventually lost count. Yer generation hasn’t lost anyone— not yet. In my day, we lost people every year to the wolves. Think about that, children. Think about it real hard. We’re a small town. Think about all the fanfare that happens whenever there’s a funeral here. The whole town goes, and I bet ye can name all the people whose funerals ye’ve gone to. But when I was your age, I needed my fingers and toes to remember how many funerals I’d attended. Even so, many men in my day refused to accept the reality of the wolves. The Spratlings high among ‘em.
“Cletus Spratling was the last one. He was the one who broke this town and nailed into everyone’s brains that Avondale should be forgotten and Bowland Mountains eternally guarded against. His death is the one that prompted the construction of the road off of Ivyleigh to Pentworth.
“A tall lad. Strong. Pale blue eyes. He was the town ruffian. Oh, the fights he’d get into. My gods. He’d laugh when someone got a good lick in. Laugh at ‘em. And if he laughed,” Rick paused and shook his head. “Ooh. It was bad. Children it was not good if ‘e laughed. Not good at all. It meant the fellow ‘e was fighting was about to time travel both into the future and the past— three hours one way and ten years the other. He’d be in his little bed, no idea how he got there, with ‘is mommy fawning over him like he was a wee little boy wondering where her child’s two front teeth went.
“But he grew out of it, just like all ruffians do. I’ve found that the rougher they are the bigger their heart is. It’s like a part of them rebels against what’s within. But what’s within always overcomes.”
“Was he as big as they say he was?” Winston Lane asked.
“I couldn’t tell ye just how tall ‘e was— all I remember is ‘e had to bend his knees a bit whenever ‘e walked into a building. We used to call all the Spratling men ‘Barrell-Chests’ because they looked like they all swallowed a barrell. Even as little boys, their rib cages were too big in proportion to their bodies. But there wasn’t a one of them who didn’t grow into ‘em and fill ‘em with muscle. Cletus was a prime example of this. As a teenager he intimidated men twice his age. But I’m meandering.”
“What house did they live in?” Adrienne Meaden asked.
“Cannock Street, if I remember correctly. Where Maggie Miller now lives. She’s changed it up quite a bit, but that’s where they was.”
“Did they sell flowers, too?”
Rick laughed and shook his head. He took a swig of beer and said, “The Spratlings were in the trade business, see. They were one of the families hurt most by the wolves. Cletus’s father was a transporter. He wasn’t loved by the town because ‘e was a bit of a shrewd negotiator, but ‘e wasn’t hated either. What ‘e lacked in people skills his son somehow found and excelled in. Cletus flirted with every girl in town, and managed to be best pals with every guy. Complimented the women, respected the men. The exact opposite of ‘is father, but the two loved each other as well as any father an’ son could. If Cletus hadn’t gone into those mountains, I expect he’d be the mayor of this ‘ere little town. No doubt about it— no disrespect to Mayor Haven, of course.”
“Why did he go in?” asked Elden Andrews, hugging his knees.
“Many reasons. First off, ‘e wasn’t the type of person to be afraid of somethin’. There wasn’t a damn thing anyone ever dared him to do that he didn’t. Secondly, I think on some level ‘e thought it was in the best interest of the town. I know it’s hard to believe, but that’s how ‘e thought an’ the kind of man ‘e was. He acted in the way ‘e thought would benefit us. But the main reason everyone from then wouldn’t hesitate to tell ye was his Pa, the businessman.
“See, ‘is family needed that road open again. Their once full pockets dwindled every m
onth. None of us ‘ere in town would have let ‘em starve, but their income dropped and dropped until they had next to nothing to eat off of. When ‘e’d had enough, Cletus’s father decided ‘e was goin’ to go in. Said ‘e was damned if ‘e was going to let a few dogs running around ruin ‘is family. I remember Mayor Young begging him in the middle of the street not to do it. I was playin’ ball in the Town Square with a few fellows of mine who’ve since passed on. Heard ‘em both clear as day. Mayor said there was talk of a new road being constructed. That ‘e an’ others would help ‘im get through until it was finished. They weren’t goin’ to let ‘em starve, they weren’t goin’ to take away ‘is house. That ‘is business was only in a setback. It’d prosper again.”
“‘I’m not a man who’d rely on the charity of others, nor am I a man who’d wait around for other men to decide ‘is future,’ Cletus’s father said. And ‘e left, just like that. Cletus grieved for ‘im mighty hard. It was clear to everyone with half a wit that ‘is father was stubbornly walking to ‘is own death. An’ that Sunday, the priest had everyone bow his and her head in prayer for ‘im. He asked the lord gods to grant ‘im safe travel, and asked for ‘is safe return. We all knew what it was, though. One final tip of the hat to ‘im. None of us said anything contrary out of ‘spect to Cletus, but we all knew.
“The problem wasn’t just ‘im going, though. He had two of his men go, too. I can’t remember their names. They lived on the outskirts of Edith Road closer to Falmouth River than Bruton. It wasn’t three days they’d been gone that one of ‘em came back. Bruised an’ bleedin’. He came down West High Street screaming and waving his hands. Said that Mr. Spratling was hurt, that they’d been separated. Wolves were everywhere, he said. Toying with ‘em. ‘haps even laughing. Wolves killed the other worker instantly before splittin’ and separating ‘em.
“An’ere’s where I want you to listen up, and listen well, children. Whether it’s this story or ‘nother, where some fool thinks he’s gonna go in and change the name of game: the wolves always, I repeat always, let someone come back.
BOX SET: Shifter 4-Pack Vol 2 (Wolf Shifter, Dragon Shifter, Mafia, Billionaire, BBW, Alpha) (Werewolf Weredragon Paranormal Fantasy Romance Collection) Page 124