by Janean Worth
Chapter Four
Taking advantage of an agility that she did not know she possessed, Kara turned and shimmied quickly up the nearest sapling. It was difficult to do with the lamp held in one hand and the heavy bag upon her back trying to pull her back down to the ground, but fear made her stronger and faster than normal, and she quickly climbed as high as the thin tree would allow.
She’d chosen a narrow, young tree to climb because it had been easy to get her arms around and the branches grew low to the ground giving her footholds, but now, she wished she’d have tried harder to climb one of the more massive, taller trees that surrounded her. The tree she was in didn’t seem high enough to put a safe distance between her and the set of glowing red eyes that now hovered at the base of the tree.
Kara whimpered in fear as a scrabbling noise came from below her, as if the creature below was clawing at the tree she had just climbed. Fear made her careless, and she almost dropped her precious lamp as she tried to scrabble higher into the young tree even though she could feel the top of the tree beginning to bow sideways under her slight weight. Taking several deep breaths in order to calm herself, she began to recite a passage from the Book that her mother had always read to her when she’d felt scared or had needed encouragement for some hard, but inescapable, task ahead of her, of which there had been many after her father’s death. Though I walk through the valley of the shadow of Death, I shall fear no evil…
The familiar litany of the words, and their meaning, calmed Kara slightly. She looked down at the glowing red eyes of the creature below, which didn’t seem able to climb up the tree after her, and realized that she’d trapped herself there in the sapling until the creature left.
Trembling, she blew the lamp out, deciding not to waste the precious oil after all, and settled herself to wait it out, knowing that, come morning, the Enforcers would easily find her if she remained in the tree.
The minutes passed slowly, and Kara became aware of the soreness of her muscles as she was forced to hug the tree in order to remain in her precarious position, half sitting against a slim branch, half dangling in the flimsy, see-sawing tree. She wasn’t surprised as her muscles began to stiffen and throb, for the morning of the most wretched day of her young life so far had started as it normally had, with chores at the cottage followed by her many laborious tasks for Mrs. Malmont, followed by her flight from the settlement and then the hard run into the wilderness. It was no wonder her muscles were spent and feeling like over-stretched leather.
She glanced toward at the ground, longing to climb down and stretch her muscles, but the red eyes were still below, staring up at her, following the position of her body as it swayed slightly with the motion of the wind in the tree’s branches.
Kara’s own eyes felt gritty with exhaustion as she stared back at the eyes that were staring at her. What was the creature that waited so patiently for her to come down out of the tree? Surely it was a predator, waiting to make a meal of her, for no herbivore would wait so patiently beneath the tree when there was no promise of a reward for its patience.
The stars glittered in the sky above, twinkling merrily in their velvety blanket as if, below them, the world was not a wreckage of destruction, wildness and horror. Kara glared up at them, watching them blur as tears of hopelessness filled her eyes.
She stared up at the stars as the tears dripped silently across her cheeks. Both of her hands were engaged with holding onto the tree, so she couldn’t even wipe the salty droplets away as they trickled across her face.
Sighing, she dropped her face from the cheery lights above and pressed it into the rough bark of the tree. What had she done? How had she thought that the wilderness would be a better choice than life in the House? Had she let Maude’s madness claim her mind as well?
But no, she’d been right to flee. Recalling only a few of the tales that her mother had brought home from her forced service in the House, Kara knew that life as a Stray in the Sovereign’s House would no doubt be just as miserable, or more so, than being consumed by beasts in the wilderness. At least Kara would have hope of survival. The Strays in the House had none, or so her mother had said. Unless, by some turn of fortune, they managed to reach their age of maturity – when they could become an Enforcer or be apprenticed in a trade if a master tradesman would agree to take them – they had no hope at all of a better life. A Stray was disposable. Worthless. Useless. A burden upon the society of the settlement, fit only for servitude to the Sovereign. Dirty, wretched, discarded creatures.
Kara knew that, deep down, she was none of those things. She knew because the Words in the Book had told her so, and so had her mother. The Word told her that she was the beloved creation of a King. She sniffed, rubbing her face on her fabric covered shoulder to clean the tears away, and tried to bolster her determination.
What would a King’s daughter do now? Certainly, she would not sit sniveling in a tree.
Kara checked the ground below her again, looking to see if the red eyes still watched her. They were plainly visible, and, to her horror, another pair had joined them.
She stared at the eyes as they watched her, and thought that she could hear a soft, unintelligible guttural conversation pass between the two creatures. One of the sets of red eyes moved, and claws again scrabbled for purchase against the tree, but the eyes drew no closer.
Kara squinted in the darkness, straining her eyes to see in the gloom. She caught the faint outline of the bulky head and flattened snout of one of the creatures, and a gasp of surprise escaped her. Were those Fidgets down there?
She’d hoped never to see a live Fidget, and had been relieved, when shown pictures of them in a book by her tutor, that they were said to be extinct, like many of the rest of the animals in the world. Apparently, her tutor, or the book, or both, had been very wrong.
Knowing that, if they truly were Fidgets, they would not budge from their place beneath the tree until morning, Kara used one hand to maneuver her bag around so that it rested against her side, then felt around inside it and pulled out her mother’s shawl. Carefully, so as not to dislodge herself from the tree, she scooted more solidly onto the branch that she’d had her right hip balanced upon, and used the shawl to tie herself tightly to the tree. When she was sure she was firmly bound in place, she wiggled around until she could hug the tree and rest her cheek against her arm. Then she closed her gritty eyes and tried to find a few moments of sleep while she waited for the chance to flee again in the morning.