Pluck (The Woodswalker Novels)

by Emilia S. Morrow

  “You don’t have to leave the forest. You just have to know what you want,” Pepper said, pulling away from the embrace. “If you do decide to stay, I’ll be glad to see you. If you don’t, I understand.”

  “I don’t know what I want,” she replied.

  Briar wanted the hug to last just a little bit longer. They did not know each other well, but what she did know she enjoyed about her. She was the kind of girl you’d see on the first day of class and think ‘That girls going to be my friend’.

  “That’s fine,” Pepper said, “Just don’t let him decide your life for you.”

  “I’ll be fine. I really appreciate you checking on me,” she said. The rat woman did not seem to want to leave, but her startling pink eyes kept darting to the darker treeline.

  “Be safe,” Pepper commanded. With a wince she leaped back into her old skin and scurried off into the darker forest.

  The thought should be worming its way through her, setting every fiber of her being ablaze. She should be planning how she will demand to be taken to society. She should be packing her hiking bag back up to leave.

  She should be afraid.

  ***

  Just as the sky began to darken Briar went back inside to lay down. She should have made a harder effort to fall back asleep. Just as his wingbeats sounded his arrival Briar shut her eyes and pretended to sleep. Without a word he climbed into bed. He moved so softly as if not to wake her.

  She cannot stand to lay there, pretending she wasn’t mad at the sight of him. She pretended to wake up, as he followed her lead. If she didn’t get any sleep, he won’t either. They both fake a yawn.

  “Good morning,” he said with a careful smile. She tried to replicate it but her face fell short. He pretended not to notice.

  “Good morning,” she said in return.

  He grasped her hand in his. She noticed the dirt under his fingernails. He lifted her hand to his mouth, placing soft kisses on the skin. All the while she could not stop staring at his hands. It twisted her stomach up in ways she did not understand.

  “Is everything alright?” he asked, pulling away from her. She felt cold.

  “I don’t know,” she answered truthfully.

  His smooth hands go up to cup her cheeks. With him so close, so real in front of her the glow of his second soul was unbearably bright. She could smell the damp earth on his hands.

  “You look so tired,” he remarked.

  Unsaid words pass between them. They both knew something was wrong. They both pretended things were fine. For now, it was all they could do to stay together. His hands finally drop from her face.

  “I should check on your leg,” he said. He slid to the floor in front of her. He gently spread her legs and pulled the fabric away from her knee. Briar looked up towards the ceiling.

  “How does it look?” she asked.

  “You still have a lot of healing to do.” he said.

  She thought of the way Pepper inspected her leg. Briar really was beginning to function on an acceptable level. She would need help if she was expected to walk, but she would definitely not die if left alone while other help was brought.

  “I feel much better,” she said in a small voice.

  “A lot of healing to do,” he said as if she had not spoken.

  ***

  Again she awoke to the sound of wings. Where was he going? She tried to go back to sleep but the thought of it was like a bad tooth in her mouth. She just had to keep tonguing it.

  It wasn’t that long until sundown this time, so she decided to wait. Not like she had much of a choice. Had she decided to wait or not, the outcome would be the same. She couldn’t leave anyway.

  She was so sure that when the sun went down, he would sneak back in to lay down with her. She waited in the dark like a thief until it was clear. He was not going to pretend it wasn’t happening. He was gone. It felt like she was back in the beginning, when he would fly out without a word.

  There was a heavy sort of anxiety in her chest, as if there was a belt tight around her. There was too much darkness, too much forest in the cabin. It no longer felt as if a human should be there. She did not belong in this tomb.

  Briar worked to click on as many lanterns that work, scattering them around the cabin until there were no more dark corners. The open holes in the walls stared back at her, no matter how much light she brought to this place.

  Back home when she felt this worried she would take a very hot shower, until her skin was bright red and the whole room was filled with thick steam. Here there was no such thing. Even if she could manage to stumble to the creek in the dark there would be nothing but cold water awaiting her.

  She was more worried about him being in danger than him not getting her out of the forest. Something told her if he was running it had to be for a good reason. How did she get feelings so soon? She was uncomfortable with this level of desire. They hardly knew each other.

  She walked out into the clearing with some effort. Despite the growth pulsing around the clearing edges, scarcely a leaf rustled in the wind. It was as if his whole world held its breath for his return.

  It was too damn quiet here. She was sick of the isolation. She was sick of the silence. It ate away at her. She screamed, quietly at first as if a child given permission to cuss and choosing a respectful ‘damn’.

  Her voice halted, listening afterwards for any response. Nothing. Not one animal, not one person. Nothing in between, for that matter.

  So she screamed louder, longer. She did not know how loud she could get. She had never tried. She screamed until her own ears were sore. It was the most thrilling thing she had done in years. The largest act of rebellion she had undertaken since cutting her own hair in the sixth grade.

  In return a howl sounded. It was far away, but with a power that suggested they were screaming too. She hoped their scream filled them with as much joy as hers did. Briar did not know if it was a dog, a coyote, a wolf, or even a frat boy.

  She screamed once more in response. She screamed until her voice slipped away from her. Her ears rung with the deafening silence left to her. Whatever it was, it was done talking to her. For all she knows it could have been telling her to shut up.

  This was true isolation.

  She’d like to think that if she screamed that loud, that many times, that something would come for her. A friendly woodswalker doe, perhaps. In the silence nothing came for her. Even Pepper stayed away.

  She crawled back inside the cabin. All hope, all energy taken from her. She turned off all of the lanterns as the wispy light of dawn made its way through the slats above her head. There were so many reasons to stay up. She fought each slow blink, jerking upwards in defiance.

  Blowing Out a Candle

  “I’m sorry,” he said.

  She awoke with a jolt. She was lost. Was it still the same night, or the next? Her head was throbbing. She assumed it was the next by now.

  “I should have told you I was leaving,” He offered, standing in the doorway. The only thing she could see was the familiar flicker of his eyes. She reached over to turn on the lantern by her side.

  “Where were you?” Her voice was embarrassingly high, like a child frightened by a shadow in their room. She realized she was relieved to see him again. Her heartbeat quickened not from fear, but relief.

  He walked over to the bed and sat down next to her. He seemed to be preparing himself for a big conversation. Her mind raced with the possibilities. Was he dying? Was she dying?

  “I broke a lot of rules by saving you. I had to meet before the council to make my case for keeping you.”

  She froze, her hand almost on his knee. She withdrew like she had been stung.

  “Keeping me?” Her heart felt like it was going to burst right out of her chest.

  She could feel it, the moment that she would go from a house guest to a prisoner. Her eyes darted around the room, willing herself to get up and run. He placed an arm around her.

  “Keeping you al
ive.” He clarified, his voice cracking. This was the most emotion she has heard in him. “I know you’ve been here longer than you expected. You probably want to get back to your family.”

  Why did she immediately think that way? What made her go to the worst case scenario?

  “I didn’t want to worry you about it but I don’t know if I can get you out of this forest safely.” She released the tension throughout her limbs. He was shaking, as if he was sobbing but without a sound.

  “What is the council? What did they say?” She asked. He grasped her closer.

  “The council is a group of all of our oldest beings. They deal with all matters of the forest. They saw me bring you her,” he said. “I hoped they would mind their own business. But they called me in when we were sleeping last night.”

  Last night, only. He must not realize she noticed the previous night's absence as well. She wondered what his excuse was for that one. She didn’t bring it up.

  “What did they say?” She repeated. He finally turned to look at her, his eyes more human than owl.

  “They told me they don’t think you should leave,” he said in a low voice. “Ever.”

  “Ever,” she repeated.

  Visions of fresh coats of paint and owlings at her teats flooded her mind without consent. Then she remembered her family, her job, her cat. Oh fuck, her cat.

  “Even that was a mercy. Usually they do not even allow that,” he said.

  “Couldn’t you lead one of the search parties here so they can carry me out? They couldn’t possibly stop every person there right?” she asked. It seemed logical to her. If they went about murdering every group of humans in the forest they would be found out pretty quickly.

  “What search parties?” he asked.

  Briar attempted to speak a few times, each time opening and closing her mouth. She was stunned. It didn’t seem like real words to her.

  “I’m missing. They have to be looking right?” she whispered to herself. She did not realize she was shaking until he reached a hand out to steady her.

  “There were some at first, but they stopped weeks ago.”

  “Weeks,” she whispered. She could feel the word rattle through her skull.

  He placed delicate kisses on her forehead as if she wasn’t receiving life altering news.

  “So everyone thinks I am dead,” she said.

  He nodded wordlessly. She did not know how she was supposed to react. She felt pretty indifferent to it. That surprised her more than anything. Briar really was dead. She truly died that day.

  “You can do whatever you want now,” he said. “You are free. No more society, no more responsibilities. Just trees and sky and fireflies.”

  “Just trees, and sky, and fireflies,” she whispered to herself. It felt like a spell. She found herself drawn closer to him with each heartbeat.

  Magic had to exist, and this was it.

  They laid back in their bed, leaning to face each other. She could feel his breath hot on her face. He smelled of campfires and damp leaves. Literally the whole forest did, but he did too.

  Being so close to him, she felt almost drunk. The same sort of giddiness she would feel as a child staying up until sunrise without her parents knowing.

  He closed the gap between them, stealing her breath as quickly as blowing out a candle. They kiss, tumbling around in a release of emotions. Briar was equal parts angry at him for leaving, and ecstatic that he came back. Her lips were feverish against his.

  Something itched at the back of her mind. Her movements became more sloppy with every passing heartbeat. Some sort of instinct told her beware. The scent of fresh dirt wafted by. She pulled away as if she had been stung.

  “There has to be a way around this.” She insisted with what little breath he left her. Something told her she needed options. His eyes seemed to dim.

  “You’d want to go back?” he asked slowly. Briar closed her eyes, uncomfortable saying more. “We could try, but it would be too dangerous to attempt while you cannot run. And even then, we may not make it.”

  “Alright,” she whispered. Her stomach twisted with bile.

  “I would have to find a new place to live, another forest somewhere else,” he continued. “There aren’t many places left for my kind to hide.”

  He seemed either entirely ignorant of her shift in mood, or he simply did not care. She spiraled from a strange sort of excitement straight into despair.

  “Alright,” she repeated. “I get it.”

  Despite their glow his eyes seemed glazed over.

  “Once you are able to take care of yourself I can find you your own home, if you are so averse to staying here with me,” he continued.

  She rolled onto her side, feeling the heat of his eyes against her. It was all too much. All his words poured like molten metal into her ears.

  “We can’t do anything at all until your leg is better,” he said as certain as someone reading rules in a handbook. He reached out to grasp her leg, giving it a painful squeeze.

  “You aren’t going anywhere anytime soon.”

  The Wisdom Behind It

  The flesh passed through her lips without tasting. The lantern to her left buzzed ceaselessly. The owl perched silently on his table amongst stinking guts. This was forever. This would be her life from this point forward.

  She laid back against the warm furs. Her eyes unfocused on the barely illuminated ceiling.

  “I want to meet the council,” she said. Wingbeats stirred her hair in the small space. His presence in the room grew.

  “You don’t just meet the council. They request you,” he said with his newly formed mouth.

  “I’m not going to sit around and wait to die,” she said. “I want them to tell me themselves if they are forcing me to stay.”

  “You will not change their minds. This is not some human affair. They are stubborn,” he warned. That sounded like a human affair to her. Still, she did not look at him.

  “I want to state my case,” she responded.

  “Well you also want to leave here and that probably isn’t happening,” he said. Briar recoiled at his harsh tone.

  “That’s uncalled for,” she said.

  Briar turned to look at him. His rage boiled beneath the surface of his skin. She was grateful to have some distance between him and his tense muscles.

  “Don’t you realize you could be making it worse?” he shouted.

  Tears burned unshed. She would not let him see her cry when she was this angry. From her perspective, nothing could be worse than being screamed at in the silence of the forest.

  “What, for me or for you?” she asked, her fists clenched against her sides.

  He hesitated. He looked down at her fists with a peculiar expression. He did not unclench his jaw to respond.

  “The way I look at it, my entire life has already changed. If that inconveniences you then,” she trailed off.

  Something finally seemed to get to him. His mood evaporated quickly, as it commonly did. All tension let go like a balloon that lost it’s string. She still did not trust the look in his eyes. She closed her eyes.

  “Fine,” he sighed. “Maybe I can get you in front of one of the elders.”

  “Thank you,” she said despite herself.

  “If it goes well the rest will ask to see you,” he said. “Although most don’t speak your language.”

  “And if it does not go well?” she asked, finally getting the courage to look at him once more. His amber eyes sparked wickedly.

  “If it does not go well, it may not be your choice if you get to live in these woods,” he whispered as if scaring a child at bedtime.

  “I thought it already wasn’t my choice,” she said.

  ***

  “You have your audience,” he whispered in her ear as she slept. Briar groaned, stretching her arms high above her head.

  She had tried to stay awake for him. The sunlight streaming through the cabin would tell her she failed. Under his own personal sun
light his face was creased with stress.

  “Tomorrow at dusk we will travel,” he said.

  Her stomach growled at the idea of leaving before breakfast.

  “Is it far?” she asked.

  “Farther than I’ve taken you before,” he said. “Quite a long way for him to confirm what I told you.”

  “What did he say when you asked?” Briar asked.

  “He was very upset that you would challenge him,” he said.

  “So you are saying my chances aren’t very good?” Briar asked.

  “As I told you,” he said. “Just asking made your chances worse.”

  “But I wouldn’t have any chance at all if I didn’t try,” she pointed out. His brow furrowed.

  “They don’t see it that way,” he said.

  Briar wondered exactly how much the two woodswalker differed.

  “What should I do to better my chances?” she asked.

  “You should wear no clothes,” he said.

  “Excuse me?” She glanced down at his nude form for a moment before turning away. She silently congratulated herself for not doing so sooner.

  “Clothing is a tool of the empty. He would be more receptive to your plight if you kept yourself from reminding him of that,” he said.

  There was that word again. Empty. She absently rubbed one of her dull eyes.

  “If you think it will help,” she appeased.

  Now, as they crossed a strangely familiar landscape Briar hoped it would. She had copious amounts of time within her own skull to worry. What would the councilor be like? Would they be willing to hear her out?

  “We are close now,” he said softly.

  He leaned down to let her slide off of his back. She clicked on the lantern she insisted on bringing. The forest around them was absolutely still, a photograph made living. It gave her the same sort of feeling his cabin did that first night.

  He slipped his shorts off to thump against the hard ground. She was surprised that he had put them on to begin with. But she was grateful to not be the only one stripping down.