Chapter 3
Isprint towards the sound of the river rising ahead, louder with every stride, until the dark waters appear through the last trees on its bank.
I pause on the edge, looking to the flowing water. The currents aren’t at their strongest here, but they could carry me downstream, and I could make ground. If I could just hold my breath long enough through the exposed parts, I could slip through the broken bars where the river leaves the estate.
That’s where they’ll expect me to go. They’ll expect me to know I can’t outrun them, but that I can use the river to push me downstream.
I pull one of the sandals from my bag.
I watch the patterns of the water, the way the current divides around stones, curls along the bank, and pulls back towards the roots. I’ve spent years learning these movements while fishing. I wait until I know exactly where the sandal will travel.
I toss it into the current.
It spins once, carries twenty feet downstream, then catches between two exposed roots.
I don’t wait to see if my sandal holds between the roots and step forward into the river, knowing exactly how cold it is going to be, and still gasping before I clench my mouth shut to kill the sound.
It bites into my bare feet, but I force my way forward, the line of cold splashing up my calves, my knees, then my thighs, ripples in the currents grasping at me and chilling me before I am prepared.
I hold my tunic up until my legs are bare, wishing I could take it off so it would be warm and dry for when I come out a shivering mess, but some instinct tells me not to hide it.
He would find it.
Those grey eyes would search, as if drawn to it, or perhaps he would smell me on it.
By the time the flow reaches my waist, the cold has raised goosebumps across my skin, hardened my nipples and driven the breath from my lungs. I take short, gasping breaths, forcing myself deeper until my feet leave the riverbed, and turn upstream.
My muscles burn against the slow-moving current as I swim, staying as close as I can to the shadowed bank, making slow, gradual progress towards where the river has eaten beneath the earth, leaving a dark hollow under a web of exposed roots.
I reach for them and pull myself into the muddy, icy hiding spot, pressing my back beneath the bank and crouching until only my eyes and nostrils remain above water.
My teeth begin to chatter. I clamp them shut until they ache, and wait.
A branch snaps.
Then another.
Closer.
The bearded one steps out from the trees and stops at the bank. The ground starts to give way under his massive bulk, and he pulls back with a grunt.
Then his eyes whip upstream, as if drawn towards me by some alien instinct.
I freeze. I don’t move, not even blinking as the river splashes up over my lips and into my eyes, and those grey eyes pass over my hiding spot and up the river as he considers.
Then he follows the river’s currents down until his eyes find my sandal caught between the roots.
He strides into the river, not reacting to the cold, and grabs it, pulling it free. He lifts it slowly to his face and breathes in, his nostrils flaring.
Then his gaze follows the river further downstream. Every second he considers, the cold seeps deeper into my bones.
His head turns back towards me. Slowly. Searching every shadow, every hiding spot, and I know then it’s not that he’s easily fooled, but that he’s chased me long enough that he suspects a trick at every turn.
I grip the roots harder under the water, take a silent breath, and sink beneath the surface.
The icy waters close over my head. The current is stronger below, and I grip the roots tight, my eyes closed against the river’s swell.
The burning comes in waves. First, this pressure in my lungs, this pressure building, building, until I have to exhale, and then an ache, more urgent, that I fight to override.
Second after second, each won by pain, but I can’t last any longer.
I pull myself up, taking a huge gasp of air, not trying to hide the sound, because if he’s close enough to hear, it’s too late anyways.
I jerk my head, looking for him, searching, but there’s only a trail of heavy bootprints leading downstream, the space between them showing that he started to sprint.
The cold grips me. I don’t have much time.
But I know exactly where to go. I rush through the forest with my clothes sticking to me, not even trying to cover my tracks.
Right now, I need warmth. With every step, I can’t stop myself from imagining the roaring fire in their home that I see most nights, their estate lit warm against the dark.
I never dared to get close enough to hear it crackle, never dared to try to sidle near its warmth.
Now I can’t think of anything else, and my brain feels foggy. It’s only instinct that keeps me on the right path. The tree split by lightning. The boulder with a bump that looks like a man with a huge nose. Then the clearing with the big stone set in the middle.
I get close and freeze.
The stone no longer sits cleanly inside the deep indent it pressed into the dirt.
Has someone been here? The hard-faced one, or an animal rooting around?
I can’t waste time. I push the stone aside, grunting with exertion, and underneath is the hole with the blanket wrapped around dense ration cakes of dried meat, rendered fat, crushed nuts, and dried berries.
I strip off my soaked tunic, flinching as it pulls from my too-sensitive skin, and shake it out, then use the blanket to dry the river water from my skin.
Then I pull it tight around my naked body.
It’s damp, but warmer than the tunic. I wish I had more clothes, or a fire.
I glance longingly at the flint and bundle of tinder unearthed when I unravelled the blanket, but lighting a fire now would be the height of stupidity.
Even a small one, trying to conceal the smoke, would draw them to me.
I look around and bite my lip as warmth slowly returns to my body, enough to think, and I pull on the pair of huge woollen socks I tucked away in the hole. At least it’s something.
They’ll be watching the walls instead of sleeping in their cozy, giant beds.
It’s too risky. I need them to think I’ve found a way out, because no one would be stupid enough to spend the night here with them hunting me.
The bearded one didn’t look like he wanted to give up easy, but he always has that look.
I’ll leave tomorrow, but for now...
An idea pops into my head. That tree with the huge, wiry roots, only a few minutes away.
The one with the pale, supple strands hidden inside one of its split runners, the same thread I used to repair my tunic after it snagged while I crossed the wall.
There’s a hollow under it, protected from the wind, and I’d survive a night there.
I slip my remaining sandal over the woollen sock. My other sock presses directly into the dirt as I walk, and I’m more offended by being ever so slightly off-balance than I am by the dirt staining the grey sock brown.
The tree is close. Thankfully, because night is coming on strong, and the temperature is making its precipitous drop.
I breathe out a sigh when I see it, an old, gnarled thing that, despite its age, has a particular grace to it, as if every twist and branch bent with age has a rhythm to it, a design.
Those huge roots spread out like the folds of a vast skirt pooled around its trunk, and I duck under one to find the hollow.
I wriggle my way in deeper, my face near the dark earth, feeling rather like a mole.
It’s strangely cozy, but I’m cold from deep inside, the river sunk into my bones.
There’s nothing to do but wait and pull the blanket closer against myself, wishing I’d splurged on one of the blankets made by the woman who knitted me several pairs of thick woollen socks in return for a fat duck, instead of cheaping out and getting the mass-produced one from the nearby textile plant.
I close my eyes and try to find sleep, but it eludes me. I roll deeper into the hollow, shivering, rubbing my hands together and trying not to think of the flint and tinder bundled inside my bag.
Somewhere between waking and dreaming, I feel a gentle touch, like something from long ago.
Warmth gathers around me. A caring warmth.
My thoughts grow hazy. Sleepy.
I let my eyes close.
“Do. Not. Move. An. Inch.”
His voice is pure command, and I freeze, totally and suddenly awake.
I’m caught.