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Chapter 2
Once outside the store,I shut the door behind me and feathered the red cloak around my shoulders. I glanced left and right, the hair on my nape shifting. No signs of the guardians. Time to collect wolfsbane. I’d do this fast, as it was still midday, so I’d be back before the sun went down. But why couldn’t I move? Mr. No Pants’ words still whirled through my mind. I hadn’t closed up shop when Grandma had died. And I hadn’t been scared or run away when the townsfolk had protested that I performed the devil’s work. All because I had insisted herbal teas could cure certain illnesses. Thankfully, the priestess hadn’t demanded an investigation or trial. Regardless, a guy who’d lost his trousers to wolves wasn’t scaringme.
Grandma used to say having a soft heart in a cruel world meant you had courage, not weakness. And that motto had gotten me through the months after losing her and inheriting hershop.
Ahead of me, sunlight kissed the tops of the enormous beech trees with moss growing on their trunks, yet I rubbed my arms, fighting the chill that had settled in my bones. Brown and green hues covered the field, and a dirt track snaked toward the forest thirty feetaway.
With a glance back, I waved to Santos through the window as he continued packing the tobacco pouches. The bag over my shoulder bounced against my side in rhythm with mystride.
Trees surrounded me as I stepped into the forest. The sky vanished, and a red-crested woodpecker hunted insects across branches. The squirrel dashing up a trunk stopped and stared at me.Cute. A few leaves tumbled from overhead, and everything about the landscape reminded me of home. Safe. Familiar. Even a gurgling brook hummed in the distance, whispering in my ears. Grandma used to take me out hiking and hunting as a child, teaching me how to live off the land, and all about the freedom such a lifeoffered.
Still, the earlier niggling concern about the wolves in our woods coiled in my stomach. I drew my cloak tighter around me and quickened my pace. The air grew still, broken only by the occasional birdsong. Woodsy smells calmed me, but regardless, the pestering uncertainty remained, demanding I returnhome.
But what about Bee? If giving her wolfsbane meant she got paid and could help put food on the table for her and her father, then nothing was stoppingme.
My steps sped down the sloping land. The dried foliage beneath my boots gave way, and I lurched backward, yelping. I snatched a low-hanging branch and pulled myself to my feet. “Crap!” I’d slipped down this hill before and worn bruises forweeks.
In the valley, a small creek gurgled, and the sun’s heat beat onto my shoulders. Using the stepping stones, I hopped across, captivated by the pinesmells.
Up ahead, the abundant trail of herbs came into view in a path dividing the woods and drenched in sunlight. The line of wolfsbane spanned the entire border between Terra and the Den, where wolves lived. People had sowed the vegetation to deter the canines from coming into our land decades ago. The line of plants reached my armpits and was crowded with long, dark violet flowers, each shaped like a helmet. Others were yellow and morepotent.
A crunch of twigs caught my attention to myleft.
I flinched and twisted around, expecting a deer, but nothing was there. “Stop being a chicken.” Everything moved in the forest, from animals to vegetation. But when Mr. No Pants had run from the wolves, had they leaped over the wolfsbane and follow him? Unlikely because they hadn’t done so for years, so why risk getting sick now? It made no sense, and wolves were nocturnal, so they’d be hunting at night, not during the day.Geez,relax.
With a deep exhale, I turned back to the shrubs and glanced past them to the trees in the region called the Den. The wolves’ homeland. The forest stood thick like soldiers ready for war with the sun barely penetrating the canopy. Each time I visited this location, I swore someone watched me. After all, I lingered near the border between our two territories. The wolfsbane kept them at bay… Yet my pulse banged in my veins as if I had made amistake.
Refusing to think about anything else, I dug into my bag and plucked out the fabric gloves before sliding them on to avoid getting wolfsbane on my skin. Broken skin or wounds absorbed wolfsbane poison for both humans and wolves, but it killed wolves, while it made people very ill. I also took out the pouch where I stored the wolfsbane to keep them separate from my otherherbs.
Okay, time to get started.I yanked the first plant out of the ground and dusted soil off the roots. A snap at the base and I tossed the top part of the flower down, as I only needed the roots. With a single thought, I called my energy and the faintest crackling of power sizzled down my arms. White sparks leaped from the tips of my fingers, through my gloves, and curled around the tuber. I placed the root into the bag and gathered three more from various spots to avoid thinning out the barrier in one area. Two to go. Bee always insisted on six for her spells, but since I was here, I might as well stock up my supplies. I trailed along the shrubs, searching out the yellow ones amid the hundreds of purple flowers, when a loud creak sounded somewherenear.
Ifroze.
Then someoneshrieked.
I rocked on the spot and squeezed the bag in my hands.What wasthat?
Branches and leaves thrashed in the breeze, grating andrustling.
Another screech. Louder. An animal in distress? With my belongings packed up, I threaded my arms through both bag straps and trailed to the sound. Yeah, the opposite of what I ought to do, but the noise would haunt me for weeks if I didn’t do anything about it. I pictured a hurt deer with a broken leg caught in a hunter’s trap. I couldn’t bear to see any animal hurt and would heal them ifpossible.
Or was a wolf attackingthem?
I halted, chewing on my cheek, and removed my gloves, stuffing them into my bag.What should I do?I rushed forward and stopped again, swinging my gaze from side to side. Which direction was it coming from? Home was on theleft.
Another scream, definitely a human wail. I darted right, targeting whoever was in trouble. Had wolves corneredsomeone?
Rushing closer, I spotted movement between trees in the distance. A man was on his knees, and another person whipped him. The victim cried, and I couldn’t take anotherbreath.
What’s going on?I slid the knife out of my boot and crept nearer, using the enormous trunks to conceal myapproach.
The weeping echoed, leaving me covered in goose bumps. I pressed my back against a tree twice my width, my heart racing as I listened to each dull whack. Every whimper andscreech.
I peered out from behind my hiding spot. At least fifteen feet away stood a thin and lanky person dressed in black from neck to toes, complete with gloves. In her hand, she gripped a branch stripped of leaves and spiked with offshoots. I squinted for a better look, only to get a glimpse of her face: a long pointy nose and jagged cheekbones, along with thinned lips twisted into agrin.
Thepriestess?
Hair black as the night was pulled into a tight ponytail. When she smiled and brought down the weapon across the poor guy’s back, I cringed. In front of townsfolk, she presented herself as a lady, who at sixty years old, needed a hand climbing the steps to her podium. Yet I’d heard rumors of her torturing people. Then again, all kinds of lies circled about her from mating with aliens to bathing in milk most nights. Okay, maybe the last one wasn’t that far-fetched, but at every monthly town gathering, others spread more gossip. So I didn’t pay attention to them. But…what if they were right about the priestess? Grandma would always say there was no smoke without a fire when unpleasant things were said aboutsomeone.
