Into the Forest Shadows (11 page)

And it wasn't helping. Not at all. Instead of
feeling soothed and the center of attention, she felt annoyed and
angry. The emotions confused her.

"I would feel a part of the family. My late
brother and I are a direct reason for its success the last few
years."

Mary snapped her attention back to him.
"What?"

Travis smiled, his eyes soft, "You've said
the same thing yourself many times. I'm willing to buy the
partnership. It would be nice to be a true part of this company and
family. Truly a part of it."

Mary's mind flew to catch up. She set down
her fork after an unsatisfying bite of the fish, "First a
partnership with a company on Sirius 7 and now you?"

"It's only fair."

"This was not the time to bring this up,"
Mary snapped. She rose from the chair, nearly causing it to fall
over. "My daughter is missing, my Mother is not answering, and you
keep pushing? What is wrong with you?"

She pushed her way out of the restaurant, her
face burning from the stares following her.

She found her way outside to a balcony
running the full length of the building. A part of her felt relief
Travis didn't follow her, another part angry he didn't try.

The line of trees at the edge of the
settlement glowed in the moonlight, making her realize she'd come
out on the forest side. The glowing movements of the trees mocked
her.

The forest. Sitting there, so innocent
looking, the hills covered in fog.

But she knew better. She knew how it moved,
how it could change people. How it changed her mother.

The moment she had her daughter safely in her
arms she planned to take them both as far from it as possible.

#

Kate checked the ties of her cape. Good, all
tight.

At some point in the night she'd fallen into
a deep sleep. As a result she felt much better to handle the day.
The trees looked like trees should, moving only in the breeze.

Or were they? If she really looked closely
she could see them moving against any breeze that might be pushing
at them. The sounds continued, but she didn't mind so much this
morning.

The radiating emotions was what bothered
her.

She didn't even try to convince herself that
her over-active imagination might be the blame. She could feel it
everywhere. Each tree she looked at had a slightly different
variation.

The Trailing Willow held itself tight, weary
despite the good feeding of the night before. The trees with the
halo of branches slashed the air with the tips of their branches,
frustrated.

But all the trees felt one thing similar.

Sadness.

Ayden clipped on his backpack, pulling off
the staff and extending it to its full length. He stepped out of
the veil of leaves.

Bunts ran in and out from under the trees.
Bunbun played for a short time and then limped back to Ayden. Ayden
picked him up and pulled a few small leaves out of his fur.

Dappled sunlight illuminated his face as he
turned towards her, "We don't dare head back towards the city. Who
knows how many Shadow Creatures are in that direction. That means
we head towards the mountains."

"We have two problems. Warning the city and
the death of the Watcher," Kate said, moving out from the
protection of the Trailing Willow.

"First the warning. Then we can see if we can
find out what to do about the Watcher." He stepped forward with the
walking staff. "That means Delta Camp. It's the farthest one out
and won't be easy to get to, but they have a high-powered
communications relay."

Which meant more hiking. Her feet were going
to be so unhappy with her.

Ayden set out at a fast pace, but she didn't
complain. She wanted out of the area as fast as possible, just in
case any Shadow Creatures decided to come back.

Kate found no remnants of fog in the clear
air of morning. Through the trees she could see the tips of the
mountains. Heading towards them felt right, for some reason, and it
didn't have anything to do with the Shadow Creatures. Or the fog
that might build on their slopes the coming night.

She was supposed to do something up
there.

All of it bothered her. Why didn't Grandma
pick someone else to do all this? She didn't like the idea of
anything or anyone playing around with her mind. Not even
Grandma.

They hiked up a small incline where Ayden
stopped. Kate sighed with relief.

Ayden grinned at her, "I just wanted to get
out of the grove as fast as possible."

"And kill my feet in the process. Hungry
feet, I might add. The dried fruit didn't last long."

He plucked a small pod off a nearby bush and
handed it to her. "The nuts inside are edible."

Ayden pulled off a few more and put them in
his pockets. Kate followed his lead. Then they were off again. Kate
peeled open one seed pod and devoured the small dry nuts
inside.

But by the end of the second seed pod she
found herself with a different problem. A thirst that built with
each nut.

"Thirsty?" Ayden asked as he climbed over a
log.

"How did you know?"

"The pods do that to a person. And there is
the solution," Ayden said pointing ahead of him.

Kate caught up with him and looked where he
pointed. At the base of the hill a sliver of blue and silver cut
through the forest floor.

She smiled, "A stream? Is it safe to
drink?"

"It is with a filter, which I have."

As they grew closer she heard the sound of
moving water. The air cooled, giving welcome relief from the
blanket of warm moist air of the forest.

Ayden swung the backpack to the ground and
opened it up. He pulled out a short tube. "Here, suck through this
like a straw."

Kate knelt next to the slow moving water.
Cool fresh water filled her mouth. Bunbun appeared on the ground
next to her, lapping up the water. She drank a long time, when she
realized Ayden was standing patiently next to her.

Feeling guilty, she stood up and handed the
tube over to him. "I'm much better now. Thank you."

"Wow, a thank you. I might faint in shock,"
he said with a grin.

He took his time drinking. Trees across the
stream had their boughs dipped in the water as if sucking it up
through a straw, as well. Maybe they were.

Kate pulled another nut pod out of her
pocket, munching while Ayden finished drinking and put the filter
away. A soft whistling filtered through the scrub upstream. Ayden
turned towards the sound but didn't tense.

Kate frowned, "What is that?"

A wicked smile crossed his face. "Something
very good."

He swung the backpack onto his back and
tucked BunBun into his coat. He pulled Kate after him. Through a
line of bushes she could see a group of barrel chested four-legged
creatures drinking from the stream and grazing nearby.

Ayden pulled a small length of cord out of a
pocket and slowly approached one of the animals.

"No way," Kate said, looking at the large
animals and then back at him. No way was a piece of string going to
help them with something that big. "You aren't thinking?
Seriously."

Ayden threw a grin back at her, "Prepare to
jump."

He surged forward before she could say
anything else. The animals closest to the water ignored his
approach. The two closest trotted across to another group of bushes
to continue their grazing. Ayden followed, doing his best to get
close to one. Each time he got close, the animals would calmly move
away.

With a sudden jump he was on the back of one,
the string wrapped around the two small horns on top of its head.
With a tug, Ayden swung the head towards Kate.

"Time to jump!" Ayden shouted to her. The
creature veered off to a nearby shrub to take a big bite of the
leaves. Ayden extended a hand down to her, "It's an Oburos steer,
not a Shadow Creature. You want to walk the rest of the way, or
what?"

Kate groaned. No, her feet definitely did not
want to walk the rest of the way. She crept up, grabbed his hand,
and let him pull her up behind him. With a tug of the string, the
steer moved towards the water. It splashed through the water to the
forest on the other side.

The rest of the herd followed. In a short
time they led a strange caravan through the forest. The steer
picked up its pace, moving in a fast smooth trot through the narrow
paths between the trees.

Thankfully Kate found it easier to stay on
top than the creature the night before. As she found the rhythm,
she let herself relax. Her feet swung easily back and forth, the
pressure gone from her soles.

Time melded together as the steer moved down
the path. Through breaks in the trees the mountains slowly grew
closer. No sight of the fog, either, which thrilled Kate to no
end.

They moved through a rough area of big rocks
and uneven ground, but the steer picked his way nimbly through the
area. The sun peaked in the sky. Still the creature moved forward
at a steady pace.

The occasional wind blew along the tops of
the trees, causing some of the tree dwellers to protest. But other
than that, Kate didn't see any other creatures except a few bunts.
In fact, she couldn't recall seeing so few animals around. Even in
Grandma's orchard, there was always a creature or two about.

A seed husk hit the top of her head, bouncing
off to hit the back of Ayden's arm.

"Oh no, not again," Kate muttered.

Sure enough, the thin limbed tree lemurs had
taken up position along the high branches. A flurry of seed husks
rained down.

One of the husks bounced off the middle of
the forehead of the steer they were riding. The head came up with
an alarmed snort. She felt its legs kick underneath. The forest
raced by as the steers trumpeted and bawled.

"Hang on!" Ayden warned.

The forest blurred as the steer took off in a
full run. The nice easy gait she'd found so easy to ride
disappeared into a thrashing, bucking, jerking terrifying ride. She
strangled Ayden's middle trying to hang on.

Why didn't the trees stop the annoying
attackers? They'd reacted with the Shadow Creatures the night
before.

"How do we get off?" Kate shouted.

"Don't jump or you'll be trampled by the ones
behind us!"

The thought of that was enough to give her
the added strength to hold on. Too bad the cape couldn't help in
this situation.

The steers continued, showing no sign of
exhaustion. Ayden shouted a warning just before it ran under a low
branch. Kate ducked. The branch caught her shoulder, and only her
tight hold on Ayden kept her from being swept off the back.

They crashed through a small stream, throwing
water over them.

"No, not there!" Ayden shouted, pulling so
hard on the string that it snapped.

She could only see trees along another
stream. "What is it?"

The image of the trees wavered. Kate closed
her eyes and shook her head.

She opened them, finding herself in the
middle of setting the dinner table. Her eyes flew to the clock.
Dinner was late. Maybe he wouldn't notice.

"I work hard for this family and this is the
thanks I get?" her father's voice roared from the kitchen.

Kate groaned. She set down the last of the
silverware and flew back to the kitchen.

Mother stood by the oven, mitts on her hands,
holding a steaming hot casserole. She had her head down, looking
down at the casserole.

And doing nothing. Saying nothing.

Her father, still in the precisely pressed
dark suit towered over her, yelling, "I ask for so little. A clean
house. Dinner set by the time I get home. What have you been doing
all day?"

Kate grabbed one of the baskets of bread,
stepping between him and Mom, using it as a buffer, "Mom didn't
feel well today."

"Then you should have finished dinner. We're
fifteen minutes late dining!"

"Because I was taking care of Mother! Like a
good daughter should!" Kate said right back.

Her stomach twisted at the sight of a tear
rolling down her mother's face. Why did Father do this? He'd known
the night before that she wasn't well. Some perverse part of it
hoped her father would come down with it, but then it would mean he
would be home from work. No, she didn't wish that on her
mother.

"Katherine, I will not have you talking back
to me in such a way," her father said. Kate cringed at the full
version of her name. A version she hated with a passion. "This
isn't the way to run a household. Mary, aren't you teaching her
anything?"

Helplessness welled up in her. There was no
way to win the verbal battle, and she knew it.

But with it came fury. How dare he do this to
them. Why couldn't they have peace in the house?

The angry face of her father shifted, growing
blurry. Green, red, and brown appeared, taking the shape of a
forest. A forest they were still running through at top speed.

She brushed away the tears on her face, the
other hand still having a death grip on Ayden's belt. Where did
that memory come from? She hated the memories, hated to even think
of him.

Ayden rode with his body low on the steer,
his shoulders shaking as he hung onto the neck. He wrenched Kate's
hand off his belt. "Go away! Leave me alone!"

Kate grabbed the backpack instead, but the
fury in her made her reach up and slug him in the arm. "What do you
mean leave you alone? You're the one who insisted we ride this
crazy thing!"

A twig snapping her in the face didn't help
her mood any. Ayden turned his head towards her, his face confused.
"What?"

"The thing we're riding on! How do we stop
it?"

A tree twisted, moving a wall of branches
into the trail in front of them. The steer bawled, turning off the
path. Another wall of limbs appeared.