Chapter 2 #4
My feet, having tread this ground thousands of times, found the deer path of their own accord.
It would’ve been so easy to relax, simply marvel at the early afternoon sun dappling the ground in gilded droplets, at the leaves of the ash trees already tinged with lemon yellow, at the flash and glimmer of bird wings as they swooped from branch to branch.
Instead, I kept all my senses open and attuned.
It was never wise to let your guard down in a wild place, but today I wanted more than watchfulness.
I was searching for something, some clue that nature had fallen out of balance, some sign of the wrongness I felt looking down at the doe.
The forest was humming with life, vibrant with abundance; no matter what happened in the world outside, the magic made it so.
If the rest of the region suffered from drought, I could draw in rain clouds.
If crops were hit by blight or fungus, it did not find its way here.
Prey would always be prey, and the circle of life would always include death, but pups and kits would never starve here.
Adults would never be reduced to skin and bones to keep their litters alive.
There were hollows and burrows aplenty, and deep in the woods, the winter wind was never so cruel.
When I reached my vulnerable new border, I found everything just as I’d left it—the young trees, mere sticks at a year old, stretched eager and green toward the sunlight.
The blackberries and wild grapes I’d planted to accompany them wouldn’t produce fruit until next year at least, but their foliage was glossy with health.
I bent down, pressed my hand to the base of one of the trees, and felt the warmth in the soil.
These trees were planted in the ashes of last year’s Yule log, and deep in their roots was a charm of my making, knotted three times with my own hair.
It joined them to the other trees I’d planted here, to the roses at the borders of the town, to the table decorations and potted plants I’d gifted to my friends, and they were all joined to me.
Each one created a tether like a silver line of spider silk, and through them I could feel when something was not quite right, and where.
I sensed nothing amiss here on my own land, but the doe was an anomaly. I wished I could protect the whole of Burrsville with the same rigor I’d given my sanctuary, but as I’d told the devil, I simply wasn’t strong enough to manage it all.
Just as I was standing up to return to the house, the death scream of a rabbit blasted my ears.
Immediately my thoughts turned to hidden snares, trappers that had somehow evaded my defenses, dogs set loose in my woods, and I ran toward the sound without another thought.
The rabbit screamed three more times, each one like a knife in my heart, and my feet flew over the hidden paths.
I stopped short when I came to the rose and berry thicket.
There were wild roses and berry brambles all throughout the woods, but here they’d congregated, a furious tangle of white petals, midnight black fruit, and long spikes of thorns that climbed the trees and the surrounding shrubs.
I planted it ages ago, back when I thought I could put a barrier between myself and the pond that lay beyond.
There were paths through the thicket, if you had the time to look and the plants were feeling generous, but as I ran up to it with my heart racing and blood hot in my veins, it was an unbroken wall.
I whirled around, searching for the source of the sound—the snare, the trap, the trespasser.
Instead, I saw a fox weaving her way out of the thicket, her head lifted high to keep her from tripping on the body of the rabbit in her jaws.
She paused just long enough to make eye contact, and with the angle of the dead rabbit’s head, it seemed for a moment that they were both staring at me, delivering their own judgments.
This was the way of things here. There was a good chance this rabbit was one of dozens I raised this spring, a small life that I fed and cradled in my palm, but I was guardian of death as much as life.
My calling was to be an intercessor between people and animals, not between the animals themselves.
Suddenly, I felt tired. The paranoia and what I realized now was a long sprint through the woods were taking their toll. I found a stump and sat down to catch my breath, which was when I heard a giant, gulping splash.
The sound was worse to me than the rabbit scream.
I stood up again, sweat breaking out on the back of my neck, my hands suddenly clammy.
It could’ve been anything—a frog jumping, a raptor diving for a duck, the overlarge snapper surfacing.
It didn’t matter what it was; every time I came this close, the pond did something to make its presence known.
I saw it in my mind’s eye, dark and still as a mirror.
I turned for home, forcing myself not to run.