[An Epic Fantasy 01.0] Skip

by Perrin Briar

  Jera opened her water bamboo container, put it to her lips and tilted her head back. Nothing came out. She ran her tongue over the edge, savouring the final few drops. She bent down to refill her bamboo canister in the stream. A fox trotted out in front of her, on the other side. It leaned down to drink, and then saw her. It growled deep in the back of its throat before turning and disappearing into the underbrush. She peered into the hole in the forest where the fox had gone. Something flashed – eyes she thought – glinting in the dying sunlight, and then they were gone. She backed away from the hole, turned, and walked along the stream.

  She hadn’t taken two steps when she felt another rumble in her stomach, only this time it came with a stabbing pain. Clutching her stomach, Jera ran into the forest. She looked around, and found no witnesses. She pulled down her underwear and crouched down. Ten minutes later, after feeling like she’d dropped five dress sizes, she returned to the stream and washed her face.

  She heard a noise, squeaking like a mouse caught by a cat. Jera would have ignored it, but there was such a sense of pleading and distress in its tone that it could have come from a child’s throat. Jera followed it.

  She came to a small clearing. Thick green moss covered the ground like a carpet. There were a few patches of plants, their petals closing up tight for the night. And standing in the centre, a creature she had ever only seen in storybook illustrations.

  Its fur was black and scruffy. It was small, about the size of a large resting hamster. He had ears that hung down to his waist, which was no wider than Jera’s wrist. He had a short thin tail that hung halfway to the ground. He stared up at Jera with golden eyes like a cat’s, but the pupil wasn’t slitted, but round. He was roughly human shaped, but his head, feet and hands were a little large.

  Upon seeing Jera, he got up onto his back two feet. He stood up on his tiptoes, the hair on his back rising to make himself look larger and more fierce.

  Jera took a step toward him, and he stepped back, but there was something snared around his front hand-like paw. The trap pulled away from the earth, revealing it was attached to a spring, and as hard as he pulled, and the farther he pulled away, he snapped back to his original position.

  “It’s okay,” Jera said. “I’m not going to hurt you. Can you understand me? I’m not going to hurt you.”

  The creature snarled and growled in his high-pitched tone and made an aggressive expression, which was no doubt meant to be scary, but was actually rather cute. When he opened his mouth and spoke, he made squeaking noises, half filled with whistles and clicks of the tongue.

  “I’m not going to hurt you,” Jera said. “Calm down. I’m not going to hurt you.”

  The creature hissed. Jera reached for the trap, but the creature swiped at her with his front paw. Jera hissed at him and crossed her arms.

  “I’m not going to help you while you’re like this.”

  Jera sat down in front of him. He calmed down and approached Jera, sniffing her. He smacked his lips.

  “Would you like some water?” Jera said.

  She opened the bamboo container and poured some water into her hand. She extended it to the creature, who approached her hand, and sniffed the water, but kept an eye on Jera at all times. He lowered his giant tongue and lapped it up. He wiped his mouth with the back of an oversized paw.

  “Better?” Jera said. “I’m Jera. Can you say that? Je-ra.”

  He stared at her, making no move.

  “You’re adorable,” Jera said. “You’re a puca, aren’t you? Yes, I’m certain of it. You’re a puca.”

  The little Puca turned its head to one side.

  “Puca,” the little puca said. “Puca.”

  “Yes. You’re a puca. What name shall we give you?”

  “Puca. Puca.”

  “All right,” Jera said. “Your name is Puca. The books all said you can shapeshift. Can you? If you can, you might be able to change into something smaller and you can get away. Can you? Can you shapeshift?”

  Puca stared up at her with his big eyes.

  “Shapeshift,” Jera said, miming herself changing shape. “Can you change shape?”

  He kept staring at her.

  “Never mind,” Jera said. “I’ll have to figure out another way to get you out of there. Let me think for a minute.”

  The trap was made of metal and had wrapped around Puca’s tiny arm. Jera pried at the trap with her fingers, but it was no use. She looked around and found a stick. She picked it up and approached Puca, who pulled away. The trap extended, and the spring was visible. Puca turned his face away and shut his eyes.

  Jera put the end of the stick into a little hole on the side of the trap. She pulled the stick to one side to leverage it. The stick snapped. Puca opened his eyes, surprised to find he hadn’t been skewered.

  Next Jera got two rocks. She put the larger one down next to Puca, pulled the trap so it stretched out over it and brought the smaller one down. The rock tinged against the metal, the sound piercing the air. She inspected the metal and found there wasn’t a mark on it. Jera tossed the rock aside.

  “I’m sorry,” she said. “I can’t get it off.”

  Puca sighed and hung his head. He raised his hand and tapped Jera’s knee as if to say, “It’s all right.”

  The moonlight caught the gold at Jera’s wrist and winked at Puca. He sniffed at it with his broad flat black nose. He touched it with his free paw. Jera pulled up her sleeve and showed it to him.

  “See?” she said. “I’m trapped too.”

  She looked around at her surroundings.

  “In more ways than one,” Jera said.

  Little Puca’s belly rumbled. He put his hand to his stomach and blushed.

  “You poor thing!” Jera said. “You must be hungry. Wait. I’ve got some food.”

  She rifled through her pockets until she came out with some purple berries.

  “These are the only good ones,” she said. “Trust me, I’ve tried them all. Here, take some.”

  With hesitation Puca reached out and took one of the berries, keeping his eyes on Jera at all times. He sniffed it, took a bite, and then chewed. He swallowed it, and seemed content that nothing adverse had happened. He ate the rest of the berry in one go and swallowed. He licked his paws.

  “I have more,” Jera said.

  She dug into her pockets and came out with a handful. She held out her hand, and Puca ate from it.

  “You’re a cute little fella, aren’t you?” she said.

  Puca paid her no attention and continued to munch. He had purple juice all around his lips.

  “It’s nice to talk to someone,” Jera said. “Even if you don’t understand and can’t talk back. There must be a way to get you out of there. There just must be.”

  Jera leaned back on her hands.

  CLACK!

  A trap had snapped around her wrist. Jera pulled at it, and though it rose, it snapped back to the earth. She laid down and put her free hand on top of the trap and pushed at it, but it did nothing.

  “Well, this is just great,” she said.

  Jera collapsed back onto the moss. It was soft like a thick carpet. Puca yawned, his mouth opening wide. He climbed onto Jera’s stomach, curled up into a ball and fell asleep. Jera smiled at him, rested her head back and followed him into sleepy darkness.

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Puca started awake and shifted his weight onto two feet. He stood up, looking into the dense dark forest. Jera awoke, her eyes heavy and laggard. Puca’s ears perked up in one direction.

  “What is it?” Jera said, following his sightline.

  Twigs snapped and plants were pushed aside somewhere in the near distance, the instigator’s shape hidden by furry brush. Puca ran, but was pulled back by the trap. Then he ran in a different direction, but again was brought back. Finally, he ran and hid behind Jera’s shoulder.

  “We won’t have caught anything yet,” a husky voice said, dampened by foliage. “We only put the traps out
this afternoon.”

  “I know,” a weasley voice said, “but we’re hungry now.”

  “Walking through the forest like this is only going to make you hungrier. Not to mention we’re scaring all the game away.”

  “It doesn’t hurt to go check.”

  “It does if I beat you.”

  Jera got to her feet, inflated her chest, raised her pointy chin up, and stood her ground. Puca hid behind her leg, shaking. Two figures pushed through the foliage and stopped. One was large and hulking, the other small and unassuming. They looked at Jera, and then at one another.

  “‘We won’t have caught anything,’ you said,” the smaller of the two men said with a superior smile on his face.

  The large man took off his hat and held it between his thick hands.

  “I’m very sorry about this, Miss,” he said. “If you’ll permit me, may I remove that trap from your leg?”

  Jera nodded.

  The man stepped forward, bent down and after a moment, Jera felt the trap loosen from around her leg. She looked up at the figures, illuminated only by a weak ray of moonlight.

  “Is this little creature yours?” the small man said, working Puca’s trap loose. “We get allsorts trapped in these things. There you are, little fellow, all done.”

  Jera looked from one man to the other, and then snatched up little Puca, turned and ran.

  “Wait!” the large man said.

  But Jera didn’t stop, and took off into the foliage.

  “Well done numb nuts,” the small man said. “You’re supposed to speak to them first and then let them go. Mac is going to be really happy to hear you did this again.”

  Jera’s feet crunched on the dry grass and slipped on exposed rocks. She ran until her legs felt weak and her lungs burnt and she could hardly breathe. She came to a stop and leaned against a tree trunk. It was slimy and wet. Jera felt something pushing against her hand. When she looked down she saw it was Puca.

  “Oh! I’m sorry,” Jera said.

  She sat him down. Puca’s hair was dishevelled, a mild look of annoyance playing across his features. He rearranged his fur into a style he liked, and then looked around at their surroundings. He scratched his head, turned, and ran up the tree Jera had her back to, his claws never slipping or losing purchase. He disappeared into the tree’s upper reaches.

  “You’re welcome!” Jera said, shaking her head.

  She looked out at the forest around her. Moonlight streamed through the canopy and highlighted patches of wildflowers. Birds tweeted their end of day vigil, and then there was silence. Jera looked up at the tree Puca had disappeared into. Jera had never felt more alone in her life. She hung her shoulders and began to walk away into the darkness.

  Chit-chit-chit-chit-chit! Chit-chit-chit-chit-chit!

  It was a sound like an angry bird issuing a warning to a predator approaching her nest. But Jera couldn’t identify where the sound was coming from.

  Chit-chit-chit-chit-chit!

  She looked up at a tree several metres away and saw Puca with his head poking out through the canopy. He climbed down the trunk in a spiral, got halfway and then leapt, flying through the air and striking Jera in the stomach.

  “Oof!” she said. “Be careful!”

  But Jera grinned, thankful not to be alone again. Puca climbed up her dress to her shoulders and pointed with his finger.

  “You want me to go that way?” Jera said.

  Chit-chit-chit-chit-chit!

  “What for?”

  Chit-chit-chit-chit-chit!

  “You can stop making that noise. I don’t understand what it means anyway.”

  Every few hundred yards Puca leapt from Jera’s shoulders and climbed a tree. He would disappear from view, and then reappear on another tree trunk, always pointing in a direction for them to go.

  Shadows stretched between pillars of moonlight, clawing at the earth like Death’s skeletal fingers. Puca climbed down Jera’s body, jumped to the floor from her waist, and ran through a hedge. Jera followed.

  Her dress snagged on a bush. She pulled it from its clutches and stepped into a clearing with trees that grew in perfect straight lines, as if they’d been planted that way. She approached one of the trees and noticed it had windows every three feet, facing different directions. Jera peered in through one and saw the tree was hollow. She took a step back and saw all the trees in the area were the same.

  Hundreds of Puca-like paw prints darted all over the place, each going in a different direction. Puca dived into a small hole in the side of a big hill that had an oak tree growing on top. The hole was wide enough for Jera to get her head into, but she’d never get any further inside.

  Jera knelt and pressed her fingers against large claw-like scratch marks along the bottom of the hole, as if something larger than a puca had attempted to get inside. Puca’s excited chit-chit-chit-chit-chits echoed up from a dozen other holes. Jera tried to follow the sounds as Puca ran about inside, but she soon gave up.

  Tiny chest heaving, and with a big smile on his face, Puca appeared from a separate hole further along the embankment. He looked down at the clearing, at all the tiny paw prints. His eyes fixed on one location, and his smile began to fade.

  He ran down the side of the mound, his paws losing their grip. He hit the ground awkwardly, but he wasn’t hurt, and walked over to a paw print ten times larger than the pucas’. He walked to another large paw print, and then another. There were dozens of them. Tears glimmered in his eyes and he turned to look at the empty clearing.

  “Puca…” Jera said. “Puca, I’m sorry.”

  Puca looked so small and helpless with his slumped shoulders. Jera sat down behind him, crossing her legs. She picked him up and put him in her lap. She wrapped her arms around him. She felt his warmth on her arms and legs.

  After ten minutes, he pressed against her arms, and she released him. He stood before her and dried his eyes, the yellow sclera thick with red blood vessels.

  “Do you want to stay here, or come with me?” Jera said.

  Puca turned to look back at the grassy knoll, and then turned back to Jera. He climbed up her body and perched on her shoulder. Jera smiled, guilty at her relief at not having to travel alone.

  “Which way shall we go?” Jera said.

  Just then, there was the snap and crunch of undergrowth.

  “There’s more than I expected, I’ll grant you,” a familiar husky voice said, “But we still haven’t caught one of these mystical deericorns you keep going on about.”

  “I didn’t say they were mystical!” the weasel voice said. “I only said there are bound to be some here.”

  Jera crouched down and crept over to a broad-leafed plant. She lifted a leaf to see the two men in the clearing. The small man was on his feet keeping watch, the large man on his knees disabling a trap. The man standing stiffened, and then he relaxed, his head turning to one side. Each man had half a dozen rabbits tied about his waist with a piece of old rope. The large man put the traps into a large sack. The figures stumbled through the darkness, Jera following at a discreet distance. They were so noisy she could have followed them with her eyes closed.

  They came to the edge of the forest, the warm glow of a fire winking between the trees. The stream bent around the area and peeled off into the darkness. There were three horses and one mule, all tied to one tree. Their tails swished side to side more out of boredom more than at pests. A third man stood beside a small fire. The two men from the forest removed the rabbits at their waist and handed them to the third man.

  “What kept you so long?” the third man said. “I’m starving.”

  “We ran into a little unexpected trouble,” the large man said. “One of our traps caught a girl.”

  “We’ve got to put up signs or something,” the small man said. “One of these days somebody might get hurt.”

  “We chased after her,” the large man said, “but she was too fast for us.”

  “That’s because you’re c
arrying a little extra baggage,” the third man said, poking the large man’s ample midriff.

  “You can talk,” the large man said, eyeing the rolls at the third man’s waist.

  “Was she hurt?” the third man said.

  “You can ask her yourself,” the small man said. “She’s over there beside that tree.”

  The small man pointed at Jera without even turning around.

  “She’s been following since we disabled the last few traps,” he said.

  “And you let her follow you here?” the third man said.

  “I didn’t see the harm.”

  The third man stepped toward Jera, on the fringes of the fire’s light.

  “Come out, little lady,” he said. “We mean you no harm.”

  Jera’s stomach rumbled so loud she thought all the men must have heard.

  “You don’t have to sit with us,” the third man said. “I understand we could be intimidating. But there’s no reason you can’t enjoy this meal. Why don’t you sit over there on that rock, and we’ll bring the food halfway, and you can come get it when you’re ready?”

  Jera looked over at the rock he mentioned. It jutted from the ground, leaning over at forty degrees like a finger pointing at the sky. It was twenty feet away from the men and their camp, maybe more. Jera edged back from behind her tree and skirted the darkness to the rock. She perched on top of it, one foot on its surface, ready to push off and dart into the darkness at a moment’s notice. Puca was similarly coiled.

  The third man took out a knife and sliced the rabbit open. He removed its entrails and stuffed them into a bag made from weaved leaves with practiced ease. Next he cut off the rabbits’ fur. It came away like it had been wearing a glove. The man inserted two rabbits onto a long stick and put them over the fire, the flames gently licking the rabbits’ flesh. Thin tendrils of smoke wafted from the rabbits, and Jera could feel her mouth watering at the smell.

  The large man was reading a book, lying on his blankets beside the fire. The small man was darning his socks. The third man kept an eye on the rabbits, continuously turning them. After a few more minutes he took the stick off the fire and slid the rabbits off and onto a large doc leaf. He licked the grease off his fingers. The large man put his book down, sat up, and rubbed his hands together.