by Leia Stone
Great.
I could still hear the drumming faintly.
“Someone will play the drums every hour on the hour for five minutes every day that you are gone to help you find your way home,” Astra told me.
Wow, that was … a commitment. I nodded to her in thanks as Sage stepped forward.
“And I’ll wait a week before I come in after your ass,” Sage announced.
Rab’s eyes widened. “Don’t do that. These woods are cursed. Only a Paladin alpha can survive them. You wouldn’t last a day.”
Sage crossed her arms, glaring him down. “Cursed how? Some trees are going to know that I’ve stepped foot inside and kill me?”
Astra shared a nervous look with Rab, her eyes tracing the scar along his cheek.
“I was dared to go into the Dark Woods when I was younger.” Rab swallowed hard and then reached up with one finger, tracing the line of his scar. “Let’s just say the trees didn’t appreciate that. They attacked me.”
Sage stifled a laugh. “A tree attacked you? Sounds like you fell.”
Rab shook his head, casting an irritated glance at her. “It moved, whacked me across the face the second I entered. Right over there.” He pointed to a pile of rocks just behind the warning sign.
“Okay, no need for this talk,” I assured everyone as Sage stared at the stack of rocks with a frown. “I’m coming right back.”
“Of course you will,” Sage agreed, and I loved her for her positivity in that moment.
I cleared my throat. “But first, Rab, I wanted to talk to you about something…”
He gave me a side-glance. “What is it?”
I could feel Sage and Astra’s attention shift to us. There was no way of hiding this conversation, so I decided to just come out with it: “It looks like Sawyer is going to have to surrender in order to save everyone. He’s going to take the rest of the city wolves into a large underground bunker that’s hidden from all eyes that aren’t wolf.”
Rab frowned. “That’s a hard call, but a strong one to make.”
I nodded and faced him. “You should take everyone there and get them in the bunker too. Join the city wolves and regroup. Then when I get down there, we can all come up with a—”
“Join the city wolves? Leave our land?” he scoffed. “Is this the kind of alpha you will be? One that runs underground at the first sign of trouble?”
I narrowed my eyes at him. “First sign of trouble! You saw what happened last night. We nearly got a bomb dropped on us. Then the Ithaki attacked us. If it gets like that here, you need to get our people into the bunker!”
He sighed, and something dark crossed his face. “I’ll leave it as a last resort. I sent three thousand more men to help Sawyer this morning. Surely we can win the war with that.”
Three thousand more? That was great, and a lot, but I just didn’t know if it was enough. “Maybe.”
Rab placed two hands on my shoulders. “It will be my honor to call you alpha when you return. Just remember … giving up isn’t an option.” He squeezed my shoulders and I smiled.
That was all I was going to get out of him.
Astra hugged me as Rab stepped aside. “I’ll pray for you every day.”
I wrapped my arms around her, holding her tightly as love and respect filtered through our bond. When she pulled back, we both wiped our eyes, and then Sage was standing before me. I’d thought about this moment, this goodbye, all morning. Reaching onto my left hand, I pulled off my wedding ring and slipped it onto Sage’s ring finger. “Keep it safe for me?”
Her lips pursed into a thin line as tears ran down her cheeks, and she nodded quickly.
“Hurry back, bitch. I love you.” Sage pulled me in for a tight hug and we both broke into small sobs.
When we pulled away, I wiped her eyes and she wiped mine. “Sage … If I’m not back—”
“No,” she growled.
I sighed. “Just take care of Sawyer, okay?”
She nodded, and I knew that I couldn’t delay this any longer. Backing slowly into the Dark Woods, I raised my hand and waved to them.
“I’ll be back in three days!” I shouted to everyone. Rab just gave me a look that said: Yeah, right, but Astra and Sage nodded, waving me off.
I got this. Anyone could endure three days of hell.
Right?
Three months later…
Today marked three months of being in these godforsaken woods, trying to find that damn magical cave. I had underestimated this task. Rab was right, these woods were cursed, haunted, alive. Every night while I slept, the trees rearranged themselves so that I couldn’t memorize any path or visual markers to get out of here. I missed Sawyer so fucking much. Sage, Raven, my parents, the Paladins, people in general. Was the war over? Did we lose? Was Sawyer dead? My mind went wild all day long. The second I’d walked into the woods, I’d lost my ability to talk to him or even sense anything through our bond. I was completely cut off, but that was the least of my worries.
I looked down at my slightly bulging belly and whimpered.
My period was late. It was so fucking late that I was pretty sure I was about three and a half months pregnant. I think I’d pinned it down to when we’d made love after Sawyer proposed. We’d had sex on the kitchen counter, on the bed and then in the shower. The condom probably broke in the shower. Neither of us would have noticed. It didn’t matter now; what mattered was that I was three months freaking preggo and lost in some magical ghost woods that hated me.
Alone.
Being pregnant, alone and lost in creepy killer woods, was not ideal, but by some saving grace I’d stumbled upon a bushcraft cabin on my fourth night here. It was full of handmade tools, clay pots, a small cot, and a fireplace. There were letters too, tons of little notes written on hand-pressed papyrus and scrolled with a burnt charcoal stick.
Run, Red Moon, Buffalo, and many before them had all added to this special place in the hopes that the next alpha would find it during their trial and have a place to stay while looking for the cave.
The notes kept me sane, made me feel like I wasn’t alone, like I was just on a vacation reading a diary. I ran my fingers over the black chalk and read the note in my hands for the fiftieth time.
To my future kin,
The woods seem to change at night, don’t go looking for the cave without a sure way to trace your way back to the cabin.
We are one with this land, don’t forget that. When you feel frustration, so do the woods.
-Red Moon
Then he had scratched something later. A hastily written note.
Does the cave hide from us? Only show itself when we are worthy?
I wanted to go back. I wanted to see Astra and find the beating of the drums and forget this whole thing. And I’d tried, twice. Once, on the twenty-sixth night, and once just last week. Both times I got lost and almost couldn’t find my way back to the cabin. I wasn’t proud of wanting to give up, but clearly this wasn’t working. What I was doing wasn’t working.
But even so, I had to keep trying or I’d go crazy.
“Okay, baby girl. Ready for a little hike?” I patted my belly and then went to the far wall of the bushcraft cabin. It was still slightly exposed to the elements, made with intertwined branches and a thatch roof. I’d worked on covering it with mud, and after four attempts I’d found the right consistency to make a thick paste that was dry enough to be strong, yet wet enough to have good coverage.
“Leave the cabin better than you found it. Improve for the future generations,” I told no one, remembering the line Buffalo Moon, my great-great-great grandfather had written on one of the papyruses. Grabbing my roll of twine, I started the task of tying it to my right ankle.
I’d chucked my underwear on day five. Now I wore a skirt made of an extra animal skin I’d found, and a top made of the same. They had puncture holes and ties so I could expand them as my belly grew, but I didn’t plan on staying here much longer.
Today was the day I w
as finding the cave and getting out of here. I walked over to the place I’d mud pasted the most important note I’d found. From Run, my biological father.
Once you find the cave, the woods open and lead you home. Good luck. -Run
I stroked the cursive writing and smiled. Thanks, Run. This one single note kept me from going insane. It gave me hope, and hope was a powerful thing.
Walking outside, I tied off the end of the large ball of twine to one of the sticks I’d planted in the ground like a post. This was my true north, my safety net, my way home. I double checked my water canteen was full, and stashed some of the smoked rabbit meat I’d made this morning in my carrying pouch. Tapping my knife, which was tied to my inner thigh, and then the poison darts which I’d stashed in a satchel at my lower back, I nodded to the wind.
“Ready.”
Heaving the endless loops of twine over my shoulder, I set out to find the magical cave. The morning sun had just risen, and I would do my customary four to six hours of cave hunting before catching dinner and heading to the cabin well before dark.
As I walked through the thick trees, I unwound the twine from my shoulder and let it fall behind me. I started out by singing Adele, then as I made my way up the mountain I shifted to Taylor Swift, and finally ended with the Jonas Brothers. Something about singing radio songs from my life at Delphi in Spokane made me feel normal. It also hid the weird sounds that came from deep within the forest, sounds that scared the crap out of me. Soft whistles, creaking wood, wet, slimy thwacks.
I shivered thinking of it. Nights were the worst. I tried to get all my sleeping in from about four p.m. to midnight. Or what I thought was four p.m. to midnight based on sunrise and sunset. Then I would stay awake listening to the trees rearranging themselves while I clutched my knife and tried to stay sane.
“Today is the day, baby girl. You’re going to meet Daddy soon,” I told her, the incline of the mountain getting steeper as I hiked.
If Daddy is still alive, I thought, and then scolded myself. I couldn’t think like that. I needed to focus on getting out of here, restoring the magic to the Paladin people, and then finding Sawyer and my family.
Sweat dripped from my forehead as the morning sun rose high in the sky. The no underwear thing was kind of cool because once you got a good breeze going up there, it was refreshing. Add that to things I never thought I would think.
Pulling out a hunk of the smoked rabbit meat, I chewed it and then chugged it down with water. I was worried I wasn’t getting my folic acid or whatever was in those giant prenatal vitamins but I hadn’t lost any weight thanks to finding the cabin and notes and all the tools. I had plenty of fish, rabbit, wild dandelion salad, small potatoes like tubers, and blueberries.
Take that, you paleo bitches.
I just hoped that was enough for my kid to be healthy. There were no pesticides or GMO’s out here in the wild, so that was a step in the right direction, right?
Run had drawn a map to an artesian spring, where I hauled all of my water once a week. There was a creek where I caught the fish behind the cabin, but I thought I remembered reading that artesian water had vitamins and minerals in it, so I made the extra trip to haul that and drink it. I just told myself it was a folic acid artesian well and then stopped thinking about it. Nobody ever did their unborn baby good by worrying about things they couldn’t change.
In a few more long strides, I reached the top of the mountain, the place that Run, Red, and every other alpha before me said the cave was, and my rope pulled taut as usual. The mountain didn’t change, only the forest floor. I was okay to unhook and explore the mountain so long as I could make it back to this point. Untying the twine from my leg, I hooked it onto the peg stick I kept at the top of the path, then I sat down for a water break and planned out today’s strategy.
To cover more ground, I’d call out my wolf and we’d both go hunting for it separately, something I’d been doing from the beginning to save time. The downside to that was that I found that too long with her outside of my body made me feel weak and exhausted. I think she was helping my body feed the baby or something, because once she rejoined me I felt better. I didn’t want to affect the baby’s development, so I only pulled my wolf out for cave hunting or emergencies.
Shoving three more large strips of smoked rabbit into my mouth, I chewed quickly. I had no salt, no garlic, no pepper. It was just plain old gamey rabbit, but when it’s all you had, it might as well be a gourmet burger with all the trimmings.
Calling my wolf forward, I watched as she crawled out of me in her semitransparent form and then looked up at me, tail wagging, when she was solid.
“Love you.” I scratched her ears, knowing full well that telling her I loved her meant I was telling a part of myself I loved myself. I’d come to rely on these moments when she was outside of me, like having a loyal dog. It made me feel less alone.
“Go left, I’ll go right, focus on smell. We haven’t done that in a while,” I told her.
‘You got it,’ she responded, and took off toward the well-worn path that led to the left, nose to the ground.
I took off to the right, stopping to scan the horizon, frowning at the dark mist that covered everything. Trees and mist as far as the eye could see, keeping me from seeing the Paladin lands or anything else.
Stupid haunted Dark Woods.
Inhaling through my nose, I took the path, skimming my fingers along the mountain wall to the left of me. I pressed in as I passed, looking for indents, or hidden handles, or anything suspicious. This path wound around the mountain all the way to the very top, where a single tree trunk stood with its branches shorn completely off. On the trunk were a bunch of names carved in deeply with a knife.
Red. Run. Midnight. Buffalo. East. Wind. I remembered them all by heart. I’d started adding my name and then stopped. I decided I would add it the day I found the cave instead. Leaning into the mountain wall, I inhaled. I was smelling for magic, those hot wires that I always smelled when I was near it. If the cave was full of magic, then surely it would smell of it, no?
“Your dad is going to be so excited when I tell him I’m pregnant.” I spoke to my baby a lot. I had to or I feared I would go crazy. I didn’t know it was a “her” of course, but calling my baby “it” felt weird. “Like he seriously will run out and buy fifty onesies the second I break the news.” I grinned and rubbed my belly, which popped out slightly over the suede skirt I wore. “And obviously we’ll have to get you some custom t-shirts to match mine.” I pressed my fingers into the mountain, sniffing and even getting low in some parts in case it was a crawl-in entrance.
“‘If poopy, get Daddy.’” I chuckled. “Ohh ‘werewolf in training.’ No. ‘Alpha in training!’” I told her, and then stopped as the hairs on my arms stood.
Nothing had happened, I mean not really, but … something felt different here. I spun around, sniffing the air and looking all over, trying to identify what had caused me to perk up. Was it … colder in this spot? I hadn’t noticed before because it was winter, but … maybe it was the cool-ish breeze that had made me stop and given me chills. Leaning forward, I dug my fingers into the mountain, pulling away at ferns and soil, doing so wildly as I had many times before when I had a hunch I’d found something. Rocks and clumps of dirt rained down on my legs as I ripped at the ground like a maniac, feeling my sanity crawling on a knife’s edge.
“Come on!” I screamed, desperate to find the cave and leave this place, to go back to Sawyer and tell him I carried his child. My desperation was so strong I couldn’t help the sob that left my throat. “Please! Help me!” I yelled at the mountain.
The creaking below got louder and I froze, turning and looking down. There, in the thinnest parts of the mist, the trees … moved. Like possessed chess pieces, they ripped across the ground slowly, churning up soil. I closed my eyes, facing the mountain once more. I couldn’t look at them moving. It unhinged me with fear.
We are one with this land, don’t forget that.
When you feel frustration, so do the woods, one of the letters had said. I had memorized them all.
I inhaled deeply through my nose, and then exhaled slowly.
I sang a song my mother used to sing when I was a child to get me to sleep or calm me down: “Hush a bye, don’t you cry, goooo to sleep, little baaaaby.”
The trees stopped rustling and I opened my eyes, looking at the hole I’d dug in the side of the mountain like a lunatic. My fingernails were packed with dirt and there was no cave entrance.
Nothing.
I’d had some dark thoughts in my three months here all alone. But none so dark as the one I was having now: What if I just stopped looking for the cave, if I just lived in that little hut and raised my baby in the woods, alone forever?
The act of searching for the cave each day and not finding it, of trying to search for a way back to the Paladin lands and not finding it, that was what caused me so much stress. But what if I decided to stay? What if I let go of the idea of being stuck here and just made it home?
I whimpered.
No.
Too many people were counting on me. I shook myself, smacking my face lightly to snap myself out of it.
“Come on, Demi, pull it together. Be strong.”
Ironically, thinking of Rab yelling at me and being disappointed in me spurred me on.
Shaking off those feelings, I trudged forward, working my feet into the well-worn footpaths, walking the same trail I walked every day. Some days I scaled up the side, but I had to stop once I realized I was pregnant.
One bad fall and…
Besides, one of the notes from Buffalo said…
I found it! It’s right off the well-worn path. Plain as day once you trust.
“Plain as day once you trust.” What in the fuck did that mean? I didn’t know but I thought about it every night before I went to bed. It looped around my mind until I drifted off.
