Chapter 22 #3
But instead I pulled my ill-buttoned shirt closer against the wind and went back through the trees I ran past only an hour ago, following my own trail of bruised grass and trampled ferns.
Despite having a clear path, it took me far longer to find the thicket than it did the first time, and when I finally caught a glimpse of pearly petals through the leaves, the coils of tension in my stomach began to release.
But the hollow in the thorns was empty. I squeezed my eyes shut and took three blind steps closer, willing her to be there when I opened them again. Let it be some trick of the light, I thought. Let her be here, where I left her. Can I not have even this?
It was no trick of the light—my fawn was gone.
I sank to my knees and traced the outline she’d left in the dirt, the faint angle of a shoulder and a bent knee, the shallow divot from when she’d stood.
A breeze moved through the otherwise silent forest, and one of the blackberry canes reached out for me, its oblong leaves rustling.
I swatted it away. “I should burn you to the ground,” I said.
I got to my feet again, casting about for any sign of which direction she went or why she would’ve left the hollow, but the only disturbances in the forest floor were mine.
If she had started for home, she would’ve most likely followed my scent and we would’ve run into each other.
She would avoid the pond, of that I had no doubt.
With my most likely options being east or west, I headed east, hoping she moved farther into the sanctuary rather than toward the farmland.
Through the trees, I could trace the sun’s path, and it wasn’t long before the gilded light of autumn took the forest. The birds began to sing; they sounded hesitant to my ear, their internal rhythms disturbed by the protracted darkness.
More signs of life appeared—a glimpse of a ringed tail disappearing up a tree, the chittering scold of a squirrel somewhere above my head, a doe standing like a breathing statue as she watched me pass. Have you seen her? I wanted to ask.
But with each rustle in the leaves, each flash of a tail or a button-bright eye, my heart sank further. I suspected these animals all would’ve avoided the fawn, which meant she passed through long enough ago that they’d come out of hiding, or she never came this way at all.
I reached the eastern border, and there was no sign of her, so I turned north.
I walked for hours, stopping to examine every snapped twig and bruised leaf that caught my attention, but there were no little cloven hoofprints in the dirt, no tufts of copper fur caught in the bushes.
It had been weeks, months, since I’d had time for such a walk, and in the past it would’ve rejuvenated me.
I would’ve felt the slow reanchoring of my own roots in the soil, would’ve remembered my place here, would’ve embraced the magic of every birth and death and hunt and escape and flight and fall.
Instead, I felt like an alien organism, disconnected and resentful of the life around me.
For the first time, the forest seemed to mock me with its beauty, dangling mirror-still puddles and crimson leaves and glistening berries like shiny baubles to distract me.
The wide avenues between the oaks taunted me with their emptiness.
When I reached the northern border I went west. I could feel the magic of the wards thrumming stronger here, more effortfully, and I paused at my row of new ward trees out of instinct more than intention.
Across the scalped cornfield, I saw that my neighbor’s house was empty—no car in the driveway, weeds grown up so tall they nearly reached the windows of the house, the front door hanging open and bumping gently in the wind.
He’s gone, I thought, this blow hitting with a faraway sting. He’s sold the land to someone. I’m losing this fight.
I stepped into the field, my feet too numb to feel the scrape of broken cornstalks.
Here especially, where the land wanted to be swamp, the soil sucked at me.
The bottoms of my jeans were filthy by the time I was halfway across, and it was there the prints appeared, suddenly, as if she flew here and dropped back down.
I crouched onto my haunches to examine them, trying to remember exactly the size of her feet; I placed my upturned hand alongside one, seeking the sense memory of the last time I held that sharp little hoof in my hand. Yes, these were about the right size.
Why would you come here? I asked, suddenly wild with hope and fear and fear of hope. Why would you leave the sanctuary?
I was half running now, jerking to a stop occasionally when I lost the track, hurrying on when I found it again.
In a damp cornfield it should’ve been easy to follow, but there were great swaths of standing water that swallowed my prints back into the earth as soon as I left them.
I couldn’t stop myself from glancing around anxiously, willing there to be a flash of copper in my vision.
The track continued when it reached the neighbor’s overgrown lawn, a little trail of mud that eventually became a clean line through the heavy dew. It looped through the yard before curving around the shed, and I shortcut it, leaving my own trail of blood and mud to the small outbuilding.
As I came around the corner, I heard the unmistakable sound of a buck blowing.
It was a sound I heard often this time of year, when whitetails were in full rut and bucks were constantly challenging each other for breeding rights.
There had been mornings when I woke to the rattling of antlers and the crash of bodies through the orchard.
Even when my magic was at its height, I knew to watch my back around a buck in rut.
This buck was a monster to my eyes—only eight point, but with a height and heft that rivaled an elk.
At any other moment, he would’ve been a magnificent sight to behold: head high, antlers wreathed in autumn leaves, each snort producing a jet of vapor like dragon smoke.
But in this moment, my fawn was before him, caught in a shaft of sunlight.
Unlike bears or lions or primates, whitetails were not known for killing their young, but the male of any species could not be trusted.
I let loose a wild, banshee scream and surged forward.
The buck’s ears flicked back, forward. His legs braced, stilt-like, a precursor to flight. His eyes were as dark and shining as the surface of the pond.
The fawn turned at the sound of my voice, and she didn’t see when the buck charged toward her instead of away.
I had no hope of outmatching an adult whitetail at full tilt, let alone this beast, but I met him anyway, terror racing through my limbs like wildfire.
My hands miraculously found the branches of his antlers rather than the points, and the instant it took for his bowed neck to take my weight and hurl me away was an instant long enough for the fawn to bolt out of his path.
I crashed against the shed and blacked out, coming to seconds later in a heap on the ground.
I was on my feet again before I could fully see, adrenaline moving me like a puppet.
My right sleeve fluttered in the wind, torn from shoulder to wrist, and I could see blood streaming down my arm but I felt nothing.
The fawn had fled to the edge of the yard but was frozen now; a normal fawn would’ve collapsed into a ball, knowing that was their best chance, but she was caught at the edge of that instinct.
The buck crept forward, neck low and straight, not ready to let this rest. Even though I was clearly the bigger threat, his eyes flicked between the two of us, undecided.
I would just have to make his mind up for him.
I screamed again and ran at him, hair flying loose, hands bunched into fists.
Every muscle in his body tensed, and for a moment I thought he would call my bluff, almost felt the sensation of antler piercing flesh.
But then his head jerked up, and with a last, violent snort, he wheeled and fled into the woods.