by Candy Rae
CHAPTER 2 (Northern Continent)
The hardwood door slammed shut behind Tara. It was raining hard.
I’ll be soaked through within minutes, she thought with a jaundiced look up at the sky. Like last night when I was dreaming.
They were the strangest dreams she had ever had. There was a peculiar compulsion about them, a compulsion to find out more about where they were coming from. Over the last few nights the compulsion had grown stronger, to that of a most foolhardy one – to leave the safety of the settled area and venture out into this exciting new world, to explore, to find out why she was dreaming in this way. She also felt a tenuous sense of belonging, to whom or what she did not know, but she wanted to find out.
Pulling the hood of her grey cloak over her head, she shivered.
A crotchety voice called out. “Don’t forget to bring back enough firewood to last us until tomorrow.”
Tara sighed again. Still, it was good to be out.
The cabin at the edge of the small hamlet that housed the orphaned youngsters was cold and dismal this early in the morning. The nights were getting colder. Snow had already appeared on the tips of the mountains in the north.
The voice continued. “You can fill the water cask when you get back.”
Like Tara, Mrs Mackie had been the only member of her own family to survive the cosmic storm. She was somewhat rambling and incoherent on occasion, but this was not surprising as the old lady was over eighty years old.
Marion Mackie liked Tara, associating her with happier times when both their families were alive and she had, unknown to Tara, stopped more than one family from taking the girl in. The main drawback for Tara was that because Mrs Mackie was old and not able to move around easily, the majority of the heavy tasks fell to her. Firewood gathering was one of them. It was becoming hard to find manageable branches of burnable softwood close to the inhabited areas. Tara had to go further away each day and that was hard on the legs, especially when she was pulling a heavy sled full of wood, was only twelve years old and slightly built at that.
Dragging the sled behind her, Tara started her trudge towards the copse of trees that was the hamlet’s designated wood gathering area. She kept her eyes on the ground, the better able to see any of the many potholes that could trip up the unwary.
It was still strange to see grass that wasn’t green.
Her mind wandered as she progressed up the incline towards the edge of the wood. It could have been worse, but not by much, she was thinking as she pulled the sled behind her. Old Marion Mackie did her best, but Tara was used to the love and companionship that came with being part of a loving family. She missed her parents and little brother who had died during the space storm with a terrible anguish and it seemed that nobody cared overmuch about how she was coping with it all. It was all very worrying.
As she walked she thought again about the dreams. Over the last few days it had become difficult not to think of them, often at the most inconvenient times and places. Last night’s dream had been different, more intense than the ones before. For the first time an image of a large wolf-like creature had appeared. In the dream Tara had not been afraid, had been convinced that the wolf was friendly and was welcoming her in some strange way.
When she reached the wood’s edge she stopped for a moment to catch her breath, turned round in her tracks and surveyed the scene that met her eyes. She almost smiled. How her Mama and Papa would have loved it here. Shrugging her shoulders, it did no good to dwell on what might have been, she turned and dragged the sled under the branches and into the clearing.
Good, plenty of softwood here. This shouldn’t take too long and then she could explore a bit, perhaps find some of the greenfruit to take back. The little ones would enjoy them, with their peculiar sweet-tart taste.
She bent down and hefted the nearest fallen branch on to the sled. This action she repeated for some time, packing in the larger pieces first then fitting in the smaller bits and kindling, but as she toiled she grew more and more uneasy and this feeling grew apace when she heard a number of crackles from the undergrowth. She straightened up and looked around, feeling for the steelwood knife she kept in her belt.
Another sharp crackle and Tara shivered. Gone was her idea of gathering the greenfruit. All she wanted was to finish her task and get home as fast as her legs could carry her. Placing the last of the wood on the top of the load she turned to fit the pull straps up and on to her shoulders.
She looked round and caught a flicker of movement. There was something out there, an unknown something, a scary something, a very scary something.
There, no, yes, there it was. There it was in the thick undergrowth to her right. She would go left. She began to haul the sled in that direction. The sense of being watched ceased for a moment and Tara breathed a deep sigh of relief.
This relief was short-lived. Now to her horror she sensed rather than saw movement right in front of her. She was getting really scared now. This area had been declared safe. There were no large predators in this part of the continent. An unknown something was stalking her. She stood frozen to the spot. She wanted to scream but found that her lips wouldn’t open so she stood there waiting, her heart hammering.
A shadow was forming.
Tara regarded it in stupefied horror.
It was too big to be a man and it was the wrong shape. It was larger for one thing and had four legs rather than two.
The shadow began to solidify and a large creature loomed out of the undergrowth. She gasped in surprise, half enthralled, half terrified. Strangely, she was becoming less afraid.
The events of the previous night’s dream came to her. This was nothing to be scared of. She was perfectly safe. This was what she was waiting for. This was the culmination of these dream-filled nights. They had been the preparation; this was the reality.
The creature that emerged was large, taller than Tara at the shoulder. Even though the dreams had prepared her, she was still nervous. The creature was big, three or four times the size of the pictures of Earth wolves shown in the wildlife datdiscs. This was a coloured animal whose pelt was a mixture of variegated light brown and blue hues. There was intelligence in its eyes; intelligence and a certain questioning look as if it was trying to communicate with Tara in some way the girl could not understand. Tara recognised the creature; it was the same as in the dreams. In her mind the creature was telling her not to be afraid, that he, how did she know that it was a he, was not going to hurt her. She believed him. He hunkered down, looking at her out of his deep blue eyes, eyes that matched the blue stripes on his coat.
She started to relax, just a little bit, and took an involuntary step towards him.
He looked at her encouragingly as if daring her to step nearer.
Tara couldn’t help it; she took two more steps.
The creature raised himself up to his full height and padded towards her, one careful step after another. Once he had placed himself directly in front of her, he stopped and gazed down at her again.
Her mind was a mixture of emotions, confusion being predominant.
Kolyei, for that was who he was, gazed even more deeply into Tara’s eyes. His mind was filled with regret about what he was about to do. He had to do this, take her away. The Eldas had decreed that he must. It was his duty to do so. He uttered three distinct sounds.
“Come with me.”
Tara jumped. Why, that sounded almost like the wolf was talking to her.
A picture formed unbidden in Tara’s mind, a moving picture showing her leaving with him, leaving her sled and its contents behind.
Kolyei’s ‘words’ became more insistent.
“Come with me.”
In a daze, Tara found herself doing just that, following him out of the clearing and into the deep undergrowth. The sled remained, mute testimony of her presence in the clearing. No other clues were left for the search parties to follow when they arrived some hours later.
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