Chapter 6 – The Forest House
Several minutes and about a billion interruptions from the talkers later, the voices finally ended. We sat amidst the prickly pine needles and waited for Lunae’s verdict on our sanity or lack thereof.
She was silent, her eyebrows having long since disappeared into her hairline. Her bow lay unheeded on the forest floor as she tried to figure us out. Finally, after we’d despaired of her doing anything more than gaping, she spoke.
“If it were not for Selene, I would call you all liars. But…” she gave a small smile, “…that is one of the better stories I’ve heard in a while. So…you three actually come from the future?”
“Yep.”
“You have no idea how?”
“Yep.”
“And you have no idea why?”
“Short answer? Yep.”
“Lovely.”
Silence again. Lunae suddenly stiffened. The reek of alcohol met our noses. Oh crud. We four stood up and glanced backwards.
Only two soldiers this time, different from the previous ones, but their state of inebriation was pretty obvious. They each carried longbows and arrows dangled from the quivers on their backs. Lurching in the pine needles, they could barely walk straight. As they stumbled, they pointed toward the squirrels mocking them in the trees. Even from this distance, we could see their growing annoyance with the chattering creatures.
Acorns started raining from the tree limbs and poked of the soldiers squarely in the eye. He cursed and drew an arrow, fitting it onto the string of the bow with difficulty. Then he aimed, squinted, and let loose.
But it never hit.
Even drunk, the guy was a pretty good shot. But as he was preparing to shoot, Lunae had also drawn an arrow and pointed her bow towards him. And as his arrow fired, hers did as well, meeting his in midair and causing both arrows to fall to the ground with a whistle of air. The soldier who’d fired was furious.
“You dishrupted my shot!” he stormed, marching toward us with his companion following.
Lunae didn’t blink an eye. “Decimating the wildlife just because they are vastly more intelligent is pathetic. Particularly when you are invading their territory.”
The soldier’s companion blanched as he ran his eyes over Philipia, Alye, and me. He tugged his buddy’s shirtsleeve. “Linush…don’t you recognishe them?”
“Linush” just growled and shoved the other guy away. He raised his bow and arrow and pointed it straight towards us. Crud.
“No one inshults me…” he snarled and drew the string back. Philipia couldn’t change fast enough, Alye didn’t have any pointy objects at hand, Lunae didn’t have time to get her bow ready and the guy was too close anyway…
…Which left only me.
With a feeling of unreality, I watched the bowstring tighten, almost in slow motion. I concentrated, willing the stupid arrow to simply shatter in the guy’s hands. It worked.
Tendrils of blue energy wrapped themselves around the shaft, cracking and wrenching the wood. With a snap, it shattered, spraying splinters all over the man’s fingers and even getting a few in his eyes. He shrieked and dropped the bow, which also got covered in azure ribbons and split into pieces of polished timber. The guy’s friend yanked on “Linush’s” arm and pulled him away, and they staggered through the brush, their footsteps finally fading away.
Lunae gave a surprised smile. “So the villagers’ reports were only slightly exaggerated. Shall we go on?”
The woodsgirlperson led us to a tree house, and I literally mean a tree house. Up several yards in the air was a carefully built, (hopefully) sturdy wooden creation that somehow managed to support itself on three thick branches. A tall rope ladder was the only way we could get in, and after some minutes of struggling (I nearly fell off several times; stupid fear of heights), we managed to hurl ourselves through the trapdoor and finally get a glimpse of what kind of place this strange girl lived in.
Plain and simple, yet somewhat quaint in its own way was the best way to describe her tree house. A couple stems of delicate blue flowers lined each windowsill, and there were many of those windows. Light constantly spilled into the little room, which had a bed, table, three chairs, a few cupboards and a fireplace. Lunae wasn’t one for plain old comfort. Several bows lined the walls, including an intricately carved longbow.
Lunae gave a quick nod and then darted toward one of the windows, bow in hand and arrow at the ready. Her bow twanged twice and she scrambled down the rope ladder, returning within minutes with two rabbits dangling from her hand. She smiled and sat near the fireplace with a large knife in her hand. But before she could start the not-so-pretty business of…skinning the rabbits, she halted and pointed to a ladder.
“If you don’t want to watch, you can investigate the attic. I think you’ll find it interesting.”
I felt my stomach churn and chose the ladder.
Philipia was the first up and so she had the duty of shoving the trapdoor open. A small amount of dirt and dust trickled down on us, but mostly on her (hah!). Sneezing, she pulled herself through and helped Alye and me up. Finally, we managed to stand on the wooden floor, the trapdoor leaning back but wobbling in an effort to stay open.
At first, pure black. This little attic had absolutely no windows. But gradually, our eyes adjusted. Not because of candles or anything like that, but because something was glowing. And it surrounded us.
And of course, the trapdoor chose that moment to close itself.
“Heck,” Alye muttered as she stood stock-still. Philipia shuddered slightly.
“Smell it,” she said. “It’s like…moonlight.”
Obligingly, I sniffed. She was right. A clean and clear smell flowed into my nose, and as I relaxed slightly, the glow increased. At last, we could see clearly. Circling us were small heaps of herbs with five stems each. A small yellow bulb was on the end of each stem, while little silver circles covered the stalks. That was what was making the glow, those small circles. Incredible. Vaguely familiar as well.
“Didn’t Selene mention some funky herb?” Alye mused, echoing my thoughts.
“Inosital, I think,” I replied. Philipia arched her eyebrows.
“You memorized it?”
“I tend to pick up funky trivia, yes,” I retorted. Bending down, I grasped one of the herb things. As I rubbed my fingers over the yellow bulbs, the glimmering from the circles grew brighter.
A rapping at the trapdoor jerked us out of our puzzlement. Lunae wrenched the little wooden plank up and the miniscule amount of daylight that chose to come through the trapdoor startled us.
“Do you need any help?” she asked, amusement inching into her voice. We shrugged and clambered out; I clutched the herb.
“So…what exactly is this?” Philipia ventured, ignoring the scattered bits of fur on the floor.
Lunae didn’t need to answer because Selene chose that moment to come barging through the trapdoor.
“Lunae, tonight’s the full…oh.”
“Glad you’re happy to see us,” Alye smirked. Selene gave a similarly evil grin.
“You’re quite welcome.” She turned away towards Lunae. “As I was saying, tonight’s the full moon and we need to start getting ready. You three can come if you like.”
Lunae stared, thunderstruck. “We barely know them!” Her friend gave the medieval equivalent of the “like I give a care” gesture.
“We can always leave them in the forest if they try anything.”
That sounded encouraging.
Scratch. Scratch. Scratch.
“You have no idea how irritating that is,” Philipia muttered.
Scratch. Scratch.
“Ask me if I care,” Alye snapped back.
Scratch. Scratch. Scratch.
“Do you?”
Scratch. Scratch.
“No.” And she kept sharpening a knife against a wet stone.
The grinding noise was nigh unbearable. Thankfully, the smells of cooking food blocked out the rest of my senses. We hadn’t had food since that morning but Lunae repeatedly noted that it took a while to properly prepare fresh rabbit that wouldn’t kill us because of some deadly plague we hadn’t noticed. So we all sat around the room. Selene was fidgeting with a sprig of the herb stuff while Lunae focused on whittling her arrows and checking the roasting meat.
But questions were bugging me still. And since Philipia and Alye didn’t seem to have any inclination to speak up, it fell to me.
“Selene?”
“Hm?”
“Um…this has been bugging us for a while now.” I paused, trying to think of the right words to say. “Why…why did you help us? When we were…”
“When you were about to die a flaming, extremely painful death?” she interrupted. With a sigh and a hint of a smile, she leaned back against the windowsill. “Because I knew you weren’t malevolent witches come to wilt the crops and suck the blood of children.” A slight laugh escaped her. “It has to do with my powers. Because of my exposure to the Inosital herb, I’ve gained a permanent awareness of fire. For example, at this moment, there are…” she silently counted, “…sixteen fires burning in the village, fourteen in fireplaces and two in candlesticks. The candlesticks come from the inn. So when I sensed a single moving fire in the center of the town, I knew exactly what that was.”
“You mean they’ve executed people before?” Philipia inquired.
“Yes, ME. Well, almost. I felt the exact same thing when I was the one tied to the stake and watching the torch approach the straw. Of course, I’d managed to eat several bits of herb already so the fire didn’t harm me.” A chuckle burst out. “You should have seen the villagers’ faces when the flames died out. It was rich.” Her face grew serious again. “So I bolted down some Inosital and came to see exactly who was going to die. And…I knew you couldn’t possibly be witches. Too young.”
A sudden exclamation broke Selene’s dialogue. With a clatter, Lunae jumped up, scattering her arrows, and frantically pulled the rabbits away from the fire, which was rapidly deciding to eat them by itself. She seized a knife from one of the cupboards, as well as a few roughly hewn plates, and scattered them across the table with the rabbits in the center.
“Enjoy.”
I’ve never eaten rabbit before but those were some darn awesome-tasting bunnies.
“Tanya, wake up!”
I groaned and turned away, but that made me smack my face against the wall. Even with the five or so windows, the room was still quite dark, except for a splash of white/blue light on the floor. Moonlight, I guessed.
Selene was already pacing while Lunae collected stuff: canvas bags, one of her hunting bows, several small knives, etc. Basically, the perfect items for collecting glowing herbs on a full-moon night.
Philipia looked out down the ladder. “I can’t do it.”
“Why not?” Alye demanded.
“I can’t see, duh! Our glasses broke and I’m blind without them! I can get around in the daytime, sorta, but at night, I’ll just be walking into junk or I’ll fall down the ladder and break my neck!”
Alye and I exchanged glances. The same thought was running through our heads: but if she’s a shapeshifter…
Philipia’s face creased into a frown. “Oh God, what are you two planning?”
“Nothing…” I answered innocently, “Just, if you can shapeshift, then you can just turn into an owl or something and then you’ll be fine.”
“Um, excuse me, but I’ve only managed to do it before because OUR LIVES WERE IN DANGER!”
Alye gave a Chihuahua-in-a-blender laugh. “Precisely.”
“Oh no. No no no no no,” Philipia groaned, backing away as fast as she could. Too late. Alye managed to get behind her and pinion her arms. I ran over and helped to pull her to one of the windows. Lunae and Selene watched with smirks edging onto their faces. Kicking and screaming, Alye and I managed to shove Philipia, headfirst, out the window. Stupidest thing I’d ever done…but one of the funniest.
“AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!” she screamed as she hurtled toward the ground. But even in the dim light, I could see a change. Wasn’t she…shrinking? And her arms…they looked tan instead of the dark browns and greens she wore. My suspicions were confirmed in the next thing she hollered. “AAA-HOOOOOOOOOOOOOT!!” She was hooting. Screaming-hooting but hooting all the same. And sure enough, the next minute she was swooping up through the window as a barn owl (a.k.a. Tyto albyto), a light tan and white with massive golden eyes. The first thing she did was land on Alye’s shoulder and soundly peck her. Then she flapped over and pecked me. That’s gratitude for you.
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