Chapter 8
Amaya
A dull thumping invades my dreams, rhythmically shaking me as I dream of myself in a shop I own, trying to place items on a shelf just to have them fall off with each thump.
Dim light pierces my eyes, and I drag them open.
Through my lashes, I see the towering trees and feel the deep breaths of Sylvain under me.
He insisted I sleep draped over him, promising me it felt soothing and not suffocating. I had to take his word for it.
Thump, thump, thump.
I sit straight up, pressing my hands into his strong chest, and look wildly around for the source of the noise.
It’s so hard to tell if it’s coming from in town or somewhere else, as the creek is amplifying it strangely.
Which is when I notice the creek's water is a sluggish slate grey, its usual cheerful burble gone.
I roll off Sylvain and tiptoe to the edge of the water.
No fish. Glancing over my shoulder, the new desert peach tree leaves are starting to curl and brown, littering the ground in a soft carpet.
My paddle cactus is drooping, with a few of the prickly pear looking decayed and shriveled. Alarm bells ring in my ears.
Kneeling next to Sylvain, I shake him by the shoulder, panic gripping me. “Sylvain, wake up. Wake up! Something is wrong.”
His hand flies up to shield his eyes from the sun, and just then, the thumping is back, shaking the ground harder this time, causing him to sit up, wide-eyed.
“What the fuck is that?” He exclaims. He is on his feet in seconds, looking around the garden, his face getting darker and wilder by the minute.
Understanding dawns on me why ancient humans would worship the very ground this god walks on for a good hunt and abundant food.
The alternative is too scary to imagine.
The dirt under my feet feels dry and hard, very unlike the spongy black soil I’m used to seeing. It’s as though the very soul and vibrancy of the space is being sucked out with a straw, bleeding it dry. “Sylvain, what is happe–”
My words are cut off as a crash sounds in the distance, and seconds later, we’re flung to the ground in a heap. Heart hammering in my chest, I gather the things from our dinner at top speed, pushing it all into a bag, heaving it onto my shoulder.
Meanwhile, Sylvain is strapping a shiny metal bow and arrow over his back, complete with arrows so sharp they could probably impale an entire man to a tree.
His usually soft brown eyes have turned to a red-bronze glow, hardened with anger.
He seems to have grown several inches since, with spiky branches sprouting from his back, arms, and calves, with the vine and leaf pattern in his tattoos deepening.
He steps to a nearby tree, peering out from around it, and it's then that I notice that he is nearly completely camouflaged by his transformation.
“Wait!” I whisper. “I’m coming with you.”
I’m just stepping around the log, curiously empty of its usual colorful display of mushrooms, when Sylvain is next to me in an instant, towering over me. His red-bronze eyes stare into my soul, setting my backbone shivering.
“You must stay here, Amaya. It’s too dangerous to follow me. You’ll be safe in here.”
I can feel my eyebrows knot in defiance.
“No. I’m coming with you. The garden is sick; it can’t protect me.
Only we can do that, so let’s go.” Shoving myself out of his grip, I start walking toward the source of the noise, but before I can take more than a few steps, I’m yanked into his arms and roughly pushed up against a tree.
His lips are on mine, stealing my breath and setting my head spinning. “Wait, wait, wait, we have to go!” I murmur earnestly, while also melting into his coarse grasp.
“You’re right.” He growls in my ear, before plunging his tongue back into my mouth, as though desperate for one last kiss. He finally pulls away, leaving me breathless and throbbing, before placing me gently back on the ground.
“Alright, time to concentrate. To battle we go.” In one smooth motion, he pulls an arrow from his quiver, notches it in the bow facing the ground, and begins to crouch around the tree.
The entire scene is too much for me, and unfortunately, I catch a case of the giggles, rooted to the spot with both hands clapped over my face. He spins around, eyebrows in his hairline. The entire garden seems to be giving me the most serious staredown ever, and it only makes me laugh harder.
“What are you doing?” Each word of his is punctuated with irritated silence.
“I’m sorry!” I mouth. My face is so hot that I could probably fry an egg on it. “You said ‘to battle’ very seriously.”
“It is serious.” He stares me down, still crouched by the tree.
I try to nod as solemnly as I’m able, shaking my body back to serious mode as I step behind him.
We creep along, and every so often, I must look away from Sylvain as he hops from tree root to tree root as though he is making his way across an agility course for military personnel.
I have to remind myself that in his mind, the intruder might be a monster or half-crazed god.
But that thought stops me short, since it very well could be an actual monster or half-crazed, lonely god.
We come around the bend in the path, the crashing in the earth growing more insistent, shaking the very leaves of the trees surrounding us until we stop, hearing voices just ahead.
Sylvain motions for me to follow into the dense underbrush, and we peek out to see the jaw of a massive excavator wedging its way under the root system of a tall tree.
The machine seems to whine under the weight of the tree before getting purchase, and with a mighty groan, the tree falls gracefully to the ground, sending birds skittering in all directions.
Sylvain grips his heart, eyes wide and bow slack in his hand.
We look out to see tree after tree felled, the landscape stripped bare.
Three trucks are parked in the wide swath that has been cleared of lumber, men dressed in bright orange vests head out to the tree that was just felled and begin to work on it with chainsaws, the grating noise shattering the silence.
To our right, at the very edge of the new treeline, are a man and woman clutching official-looking black folios bearing the crest of a wolf.
Both are dressed in sharp black suits. How they are managing to keep them clean in this environment is a wonder to me.
As I watch them taking sips of their coffee from paper cups and laughing with one another, I can feel my pulse pounding in my neck, my lungs expanding rapidly in my chest.
“I’m going over there,” I say, throwing our bag of dinner from last night on the ground.
My foot doesn’t even lift a millimeter before Sylvain drags me to his chest, pressing my back against him.
I glance up to see that his eyes are still trained on the men with the chainsaws who are actively hacking into the poor tree in an effort to free it from the ground completely.
I have to look away, the sight bringing tears to my eyes.
Deep inside my soul, I feel like a part of me is being sawed in half, and I can’t bear to look.
He slings to bow over his back and lifts the bag in one hand, taking mine in his other. “Let’s go.”
“What?!” I whisper shout. “We can’t leave, we have to stop them!” I attempt to pull my hand from his grasp, heels digging into the earth.
“We are not doing anything right now. I am going to take care of this later.” He tugs on my hand, urging me forward.
“Why can’t you stop this now? I don’t understand!”
He stands there, silhouetted against the shadows of his forest, the very thing for which he is named.
I can see more branches have sprouted from his body, twisted and gnarled.
He turns his face to mine, so otherworldly and very inhuman in its sharp relief, the red-bronze eyes glowing in the dim light.
Bending down, I can feel the anger emanating from him in waves.
“You really want to be witness to what I will do to these intruders of my land?” The vibrato of his voice sends a shiver down my spine, and instinctively, I back away, the tree blocking my path. “You’ll never want to speak to me again, much less be with me, Amaya.”
“You don’t know that,” I whisper, hating that my voice is shaking. The truth is, there is nothing he could do that would stop me from being here with him. From the moment he stepped into my hotel room and showed me that my feelings and needs could come before his own, I was hooked.
He pauses, staring at my chest rising and falling out of sync with my heartbeat.
“Oh, but I do.” He tugs on my hand once more, and I fall in step behind him, throwing one last glance behind me.
I close my eyes to murmur a prayer to the universe, hoping that someone is listening.
Protect this land, this forest, from anyone who wishes to do it harm.