Discovery the Forest of Emmitaenu

by Antonia L. Arcella

  “No!” Lara heard Zeftx shout and she screamed in terror as he tackled Jade, barely rolling them both out of the clutches of the beast. Zeftx and Jade both sprang back to their feet in less time than it would have taken Lara to blink if she actually had enough motor function left in her body to blink. Her eyes were wide as saucers and her mouth formed a perfect ‘O’ behind her hands.

  There were now three fearsome gargoyles inside the hut with even more fighting to squeeze through the hole in the wall where a window had been minutes earlier. Zeftx and Jade both unhooked the cloaks they were still wearing, knowing it would tangle them up again if they had to make another acrobatic dive and both ran toward Lara. Before Zeftx cloak could hit the floor, a bolder sized claw seized it out of the air, followed by a growl of frustration.

  “Lara!” Zeftx yelled as a gargoyle thrust itself between them. Lara was hidden from view behind the massive beast that now faced Jade and Zeftx, pitting the two between him and the others at their backs.

  This isn’t happening. None of this is real, Lara tried to convince herself. She flinched as another thunderous bellow rattled the rafters. Zeftx’s eyes sought hers over the shoulder of their intruder. He caught them for just an instant. In his she saw fear and indecision followed by overwhelming regret before he looked away, pulling Jade into his arms and cradling her to his chest. With his guardian held tight, he turned and dove at the wall. Both dematerialized into the solid surface and disappeared.

  Lara breathed in deeply, so insanely relieved that they were safe, but she forgot to exhale as the gargoyle turned to face her with his companions following suit. Suddenly her mouth was dry as a desert and her hands clammy against the sleeves of her cloak. With slow cautious steps she started walking backwards away from the gigantic fiend. The gargoyle watched her closely as it steadily approached her until she was cornered with nowhere left to run.

  Her mind spun with unexpected anger at herself for not paying more attention to Jade’s ranting about gargoyles as the beast huddled closer, sniffing her hair and breathing hot breath on her face. She could see the infestation of moss between its razor sharp teeth giving its breath a dank stench. Would it eat her? She cringed and inched a step further away. Her back hit the wall and she gasped in surprise.

  This was it; this was the end of the line. Lara began to hyperventilate, the adrenaline in her veins running out as time hung suspended around this moment. Just as the gargoyle extended its wicked claws and snatched out at her, two arms emerged from the wall at her back and hugged her tightly. The last shallow breath she took squeezed out of her lungs as she was pulled back and dematerialized into the wall. The reaching claw of the gargoyle hit nothing but solid log cabin interior.

  CHAPTER 12

  Inside the wooden walls Lara found herself wrapped in Zeftx’s arms. Jade was beside them with her eyes squeezed shut and they all appeared translucent. It was an odd hazy feeling, almost like being in a dream and Lara could have smiled if she hadn’t been so afraid. Breathing felt like sucking on a straw as the air traveled in and out of the hut siphoning its way between wood grains and it made her a little dizzy. Walls really can breathe, she thought in astonishment.

  Just as Lara let her eyes slide closed to give in to the urge to sleep a loud bang vibrated all around them. Her eyes popped back open and she could feel Zeftx arms tighten around her shoulders and his posture stiffen at her back. Shuffling her feet in a tight circle, Lara turned to face him.

  Zeftx’s eyes stared straight over her head through the wall to the room within. She hadn’t been able to see anything on the inside but the intensity of his gaze suggested he could. At first she didn’t understand, but then another bang rang out loud and clear, sending shock waves through their hiding place, and it hit her. The gargoyles were beating against the walls.

  When she tried to listen more intently, Lara could make out other sounds throughout the dwelling. The noises made her translucent skin crawl as the gargoyle infestation became clear to her ears. Behind the grunts and growls Lara heard a clamor of shattered pottery resounding from the kitchen.

  She listened harder to pick apart the individual sounds. A thwack slammed against the wall, making Lara jerk. They threw something! She heard it again. Dozens of times the sound repeated until all the herbs had been torn down from the rafters. Something else from far in the back corner of the hut where Jade’s room was located gave a terrible rip, and with it tore apart the last piece of Jade’s reserve.

  The poor woman couldn’t hold it in any longer. She pressed both fists against her mouth as the long and painful wail lurched up from her throat and escaped through her quivering lips. Jade’s cry was followed by a series of tears and sobs, too broken to pair with words. Zeftx wrapped an arm around Jade’s shoulders and pulled her against his side. Lara tried to move out of the way but his other arm held her in place.

  The three of them stayed there like that listening to the racket coming from within while Zeftx held her and Jade to each of his sides. Lara couldn’t imagine the pain Jade was in hearing the destruction of every homemade thing she’d created. What about Zeftx? She wondered. How could he bear it, too? Lara looked up to see his face. Hs eyes were closed and thin ribbons of tears streaked down his cheeks.

  Seeing both of them cry made Lara feel like crying too. The heartbreak surrounding them was as thick as smoke and she nearly choked on it. Carefully she snuggled against Zeftx’s side and wrapped her arms around his waist. His eyes opened in surprise and were red rimmed and glossy but that wasn’t the only reason for the rawness Lara glimpsed in them. Jade distracted Lara by patting her hands comfortingly, even though Lara could tell that Jade’s eyes were still wet with tears.

  From the opposite corner of the hut where Zeftx room should be, another shredding sound echoed the first, this one followed by a loud crack that turned in an instant to a deathly screech. Everything after that was hard to pick apart. Lara’s pulse raced as the gargoyles began their monstrous roar brand new. The frenzy of movement inside frightened her as the crowded beasts suddenly struggled to evacuate. They’re leaving, she realized.

  After the last stone creature departed, they remained within the walls stunned silent and utterly immobile. Lara didn’t know how long they lingered, but at last the three of them rematerialized into the room. At first she couldn’t see anything. The candles had long since expired and the room was pitched into complete darkness. Even the gaping hole in the wall offered zero light where the window had been.

  Zeftx found the discarded flints and lit the only two candles that hadn’t been trampled and crushed beyond functional. All the rest were infused into the rug as crumbs. Glass covered most of the room on the left side and they had to be careful where they stepped. The walls were splintered in various places around the room but no holes were left besides the window. The thick logs that made the hut from the ground up had held strong.

  When they walked into the kitchen Jade let out a sharp gasp and hid her face in her hands. Zeftx kept close to her and rubbed her shoulders. His concern for her was riddled with heartache and he steered her with familial love away from the scene of destruction toward her room, taking one candle with them and leaving the other with Lara who was still staring at the unbelievable mess.

  The chairs were broken into fractions and the table turned on its side with the legs snapped off. The window to this room had also been shattered and glass reflected the dancing flame of her candle from as deep into the room as the center island counter. That too was broken, as if two WWE wrestlers had dove on it.

  As pitiable as the room looked, it smelled that much better. The fragrance around the kitchen was a hundred times stronger than her tea had been that morning. Lara inhaled deeply, then realized why. A parameter of herbs and spices outlined the room in smashed lumps and powdery piles from where the gargoyles had thrown them against the walls and watched them explode. Some of them were so ground up that they had to have stomped on them after throwing to get them into such a fine powder
y consistency.

  The copper spout on the sink was bent into a crooked posture but looked like it might still work. What once were dishes littered the floor in fragments next to the window glass. From this side of the house, the shapely moon could be seen arching its way through the sky to lend some light to the catastrophe. It would be useful now, but by tomorrow night, the window spaces would have to be boarded up to avoid a repeat.

  Lara heard a loud cry cut into the silence coming from Jade’s bedroom and her eyes darted toward the door. She heard Zeftx reassuring voice trying to soothe Jade. Lara sighed, this was horrible.

  It was another twenty minutes before Zeftx returned alone. He walked over to Lara who hadn’t moved an inch and whispered, “They thrashed the bed and pillows. The quilt is shredded but the frame still stands. The dresser was cracked down the middle but the extra bedding inside went unscathed. There’s enough to sleep on, you can join Jade now if you like.” The thought of barging in on the heartbroken woman and forcing her to share her bed wasn’t at all appealing.

  “I’ll stay up and help clean this,” she whispered, glancing around at the product of the gargoyle rampage. Zeftx followed her eyes, taking in the scene for himself. He nodded and stooped to pick up broken clay and shards of glass.

  Lara watched him, awed by his diligence. Although his home was attacked, destroyed, and they were left alone in the world he didn’t fall to pieces. He was being strong. She doubted she could be so strong if this was her home and her family. The muscle in his jaw twitched because he was holding himself together so tightly.

  She wanted to help him more than she could explain. She wanted to drop to her knees, throw her arms around his neck and hug him but she was afraid that would make one or both of them break and then they would be crying all over again and getting nothing done.

  Instead she looked around for a broom, knowing they were going to need one indefinitely for the grounded herbs. Behind the door to the entry she spotted one and proceeded to use it around the kitchen. It was going to be a long night and there was a lot to do.

  CHAPTER 13

  Lara helped Zeftx clean his room after they finished cleaning the kitchen. This was the first time she’d been in it, but from what she could tell it wasn’t much different from Jade’s. His bed wasn’t a canopy bed, but it did have four posts and on the top of each end was a sphere carved out of wood. At least, before there had been a sphere on the top of all four posts but now there were three because one was snapped in half.

  His pillows had also been thrashed and his quilt was torn to pieces. He went to the dresser at the foot of his bed (just like Jade’s) to extract extra bedding from the bottom drawers. The gargoyles hadn’t forgotten it either though. The left side of the dresser slumped lower than the right as if the weight of the world had fallen on its edge and collapsed the stubby legs beneath it.

  Lara walked around the bed, pulling off the shredded strips of cloth as Zeftx replaced them. On the corner where the broken post was, Lara bent to pick up the severed end from the floor.

  “Zeftx?” She called to him quietly. She was frozen with her hand hovering over the broken piece.

  “What is it Lara?” Zeftx asked, already rushing around to her. He pulled her back against his chest and looked over her head into the dark corner for signs of danger. She pointed down toward the broken sphere.

  “Look,” she whispered. On the ground surrounding the wooden shard was a thick pile of grey dust and rubble. The sharp edge of the broken post was stuck in the center with the sphere end pointing up as if it were the sword in the stone. Except this stone was crumbled and this sword was made of wood.

  “I think the bed fought back,” Zeftx observed out loud. “A gargoyle must have landed on it, whether on purpose or not I don’t know, but it broke like everything else with one exception. This time it stabbed the heart of the beast that landed on it… and so returned it to dust.” He picked up the post and turned it in his hand so they both could see it better.

  “No wonder they all took off so suddenly,” Lara realized, “I heard it die.” She shuddered remembering its dying scream. Zeftx sat the post on the dresser and finished making the bed with Lara’s help. Neither spoke again until Lara moved toward the archway to the bathroom.

  “Don’t go in there!” Zeftx piped up sharply. Lara jumped, spinning around to face him questioningly, though with no desire to disobey his command. “Sorry,” he lowered his voice, “but trust me, if it’s anything like Jade’s room you don’t want to see.” She took his word for it and walked a few steps away from the archway to appease him. He seemed to relax a lot more. “I’ll clean it myself.” He explained.

  “Ok,” Lara nodded a few times then added, “I’ll meet you in the entry.” She wasn’t really sure what he called that room or what Jade called it either, but he seemed to understand her meaning so she left him alone and went back to where it all started.

  It was so late it was early by the time the two of them finished cleaning. While Zeftx took care of his bathroom, Lara used the broom from the kitchen to sweep as much candle crumbs out of the rug as she could get. Then she used half of a clay plate (that they picked up earlier in the kitchen) as a dustpan to scoop it up and dump it out the now gaping wide window space.

  Zeftx joined her and she watched as he dematerialized around the room, bending the dents in the walls back into place from within. Lara had to shake herself and wonder how she was accepting everything around her that seemed completely impossible or imaginary just a few days ago.

  If someone told her Friday morning that she would get lost in a jungle and discover gypsies, demons, gargoyles, cupids, and fairies she would have told them they were crazy. Now here she was on Saturday night recovering from her encounters with them all.

  By the time Zeftx finished with the walls Lara was lost in thought half asleep as she laid on her back on the rug. He laid down next to her and sighed. Lara turned her head and met his gaze for the briefest of moments, smiled tenderly, and drifted off to sleep. He watched her for as long as he could like that before he too fell asleep.

  CHAPTER 14

  The next morning Jade was awake long before the other two. After a night full of cleaning, they slept through the entire morning. She found them both dreaming away in the entrance room on the large rug facing each other. Jade appreciated the work they did after she’d gone to sleep. She had been too shocked to do anything after the attack and in her grief stricken lapse Zeftx and Lara had stepped up admirably. She was grateful to them both.

  Retreating quietly to her room so as not to wake them, Jade slipped into her bathroom to fix a quick bath. When she and Zeftx last entered this room she was already too deep in shock from the dismal state of her bed to feel anything but disgust toward her bathroom.

  Those beasts had tormented every furnishing in their home, and that included the claw foot tubs as well. Rather than breaking it like they broke everything else, they choose rather to break the toilet over the tub which left her with a tub full of excrement and urine.

  Well, at least it meant the tub wouldn’t need replaced. Before she could do anything else she had to clean this mess up. Wistfully Jade wished she had emptied the toilet before leaving the hut yesterday as she got to scrubbing up.

  It took Jade a good hour to rid the room of any unpleasantness. Once it was scrubbed squeaky clean she was desperate for a bath. Before she could climb in though, she had to prepare the water first. Going to the kitchen to collect water, she realized all the dishes were destroyed.

  “Snaggle tooth!” She huffed. Then she snapped her fingers. She knew what to do. Climbing out the empty window frame Jade slipped outside to the back of the hut. Her little horna had gone unnoticed and untouched. Thank the Immortals, Jade thought. Inside the structure was her black pot. “Perfect!” She beamed.

  It took her a dozen trips from the crooked copper faucet, to the horna to heat, to the bath where she poured the hot water before the bath was full enough to use. Half the m
orning was over by now but that didn’t stop her from enjoying her hard earned bath.

  After she finished and dried off, she had to wrestle one of her dresser drawers open before she could get to her clothes inside. She was afraid the noise she made yanking the drawer out would wake the other two, but when she checked their auras she found them still sleeping.

  Dressed, Jade made due with charcoal and a strip of cloth to prepare a note to leave on the sink explaining she had gone to get them fresh supplies from the forest. She would return with some things to eat and enough clay gathered from the riverbed for the basic dishes they would need.

  Zeftx was the next to wake. When he opened his eyes, the first thing he saw was Lara’s pretty face. Her eyes were closed and she was breathing deeply. He could see the rise and fall of every breath and knew she was still caught in a heavy sleep.

  He reached out slowly to stroke her hair. It was so soft and rich. The deep burgundy quickly became his favorite color from the moment he saw her. Gently he rested his hand into the curve of her neck, absently rubbing his thumb on her jaw line. Watching her sleep produced a longing in his heart that made him want to be next to her forever.

  He couldn’t remember a pain more real than what he’d felt last night. The decision he had to make to save Jade and leave Lara stranded alone in the room with the gargoyles had been the most difficult of his lifetime. He knew there was no other way but it didn’t change how much it hurt him to abandon her.

  There was the frantic fear of what if when he made his move. What if he couldn’t get around the room to her side in time? What if the gargoyles kidnapped her? What if he never saw her again? His heart squeezed. That was one what if that still existed.

  “What if I never see you again?” He whispered to Lara. She didn’t answer.