* Interlude – Roanne *
She’s walked this path at least a hundred times, maybe a thousand, the path to her Granny’s house. For the first time. though, she’s doing it in the almost-dark. She’d meant to come earlier but a book distracted her with its captured story calling to her to release it into her mind.
Normally she isn’t that poetical; she considers herself a fairly practical kid – ignore the books she secretly read, all full of malls and shopping and boys who flirted with the heroine and made her feel pretty.
She doesn’t often feel pretty. She feels practical. She feels smart. She feels like she has a purpose. She supposes that was what came from having her Granny take one look at her at 6 years old and declaring she could see the touch of the Wild upon Ro and she would be Trained to be a Wild Woman.
Her parents had looked a little concerned, a little askance, a little unsure at this declaration but she, at six, had seen nothing but that her Granny said she was special and that made her special and who could turn from that light that shone from her Granny’s faith?
It is knowing that Granny is expecting her that has her walking the woods in the almost-dark, driving her feet forward when the shadows encroach, brushing her like questing fingers that whisper along her skin and in her mind that there is something there in the dark that finds her… interesting.
Shaking off that whimsy, she hitches up the basket of supplies her Granny was expecting in one arm and tugs the cord on her hoodie. The hood closes around the edges of her face, not quite smothering the feeling but blunting it, as if her Granny, who’d made the red hoodie for her, is quietly wrapping her in safety and purpose.
Her sneakers, taken from the back of her mother’s closet, make little noise on the pine-needles carpeting the path, just a little ‘shush, shush, shush’ that wraps around the sound of cicadas waking from their naps beneath the earth for their few day dance with life. A smile curves her lips, thanking Granny for the knowledge imparted that lets her appreciate the sound of the cicadas as the lesson they taught of cycles to those who would listen.
Perhaps it was because she is focusing on the shush of the pine-needles and the song of the cicadas that she forgets, for a moment, the subtle tension of the forest. Perhaps she is a little too in-her-head. Whatever the reason she jumps like a doe at a stream, hearing the hunter’s steps one moment too late, when a voice calls out from the woods to her right.
“That’s a cool tattoo.”
Her feet freeze on the path, she twirls towards the sound, to see a boy emerge from the shadows, pushing away from the pine he’s been leaning against. No wonder she hasn’t noticed him, separate from the distraction of the cries of the almost-night the area off the path is shrouded in shadow, making it seem that he emerges from dark water that falls back as he moves towards her.
“Jeez, Dude, you scared the Squee out of me.”
Meeting strangers in the woods. Yeah, that is a recipe for disaster. She knows better. Knows she should have been like, ‘Dude, creep much?’, and kept on moving. But, the lingering call of the story about malls and boys who flirted clings to the back of her mind with little kitten’s claws and keeps her from surging on.
As he emerges onto the path her eyes widen. Dang, but he’s cute. Like, really cute. And she, marked at the age of six to be a Wild Woman, was all about study and discipline and stay on the path to get to Granny’s because she’s expecting you and that had been her life for nine darned years and maybe just once she wants to be fifteen and a girl who talks to boys.
Looking mildly sheepish, he puts his hand to the back of his neck and doing so he flexes his arm and for a moment she is transfixed by the sight of dark skin contrasting with white t-shirt sleeve. He is dressed like she is, in retro gear, but his doesn’t look like he’d unearthed it from his older brother or dad’s closet. No, what he’s wearing, jeans that were frayed at the knee and heavy shit-kickers, looked like they fit him just right.
And… Granny was waiting. And… she should move on. And the woods are deep and getting darker and… for the first time since stepping onto the path tonight she feels the subtle, oppressive sense of being watched draw back, not so much that whatever she’s been aware of is gone but that her awareness is being pushed back by her deeper awareness of the cute, cute, cute boy.
“Yeah, sorry. I kind of fell asleep. I woke up when I heard a sound, guess it was you. Then I saw the tatt and, I guess, you know, I’m still sort of asleep so that just popped out. But it is cool. Is it henna or a real tattoo?”
“This?” Almost of its own volition, her hand rises, displaying the dark mark that covered about 2/3rds of the back of it. “I’ve sort of always had it, I guess. It’s a birthmark.”
“Weird,” he says.
She draws back, instantly affronted and thinking, ‘Gee, thanks, Dude, quite a freaking compliment’, but before she can take a step along the path he adds, “Super Weird, in like a Weird with a Y way.” He makes a face. “And I sound totally like a dope. Blame being mostly still asleep.”
He pushes his hand through the hair on his forehead, drawing her gaze to the intensity of his dark eyes. A stray ray of late day light spears through the tree cover and hits his face from the side and she sees a glint of amber in the depths of those eyes and for a moment she’s transfixed. Like wolf eyes, she thinks, then shakes her head and lowers her gaze before he catches her staring like a dork.
“It kind of looks like a sun.”
She finds herself scrubbing the back of her hand idly against the leg of her jeans, like she can rub the mark away.
“Yeah,” she shrugs, “I guess I’ve always had it. I don’t know.” She tilts her hand up and gives the mark a look. “It does kind of look like a sun. Weird. Guess I never really thought about it.”
“I’m an artist,” he waves a book at her, one she hasn’t noticed before in his other hand, and she blinks because usually she’s more observant. Especially when she’s walking through the woods, alone, and it’s almost-dark and the shadows are creeping in with intent.
She needs to get back on task.
“Cool. Uhm….” she lifts her basket for emphasis, “I need to get to my Granny’s house. Nice meeting you.”
That said she finally is able to move feet that felt like they’d become part of the forest floor and she’s about to step smart down the forest path when he cocks his head and makes a sound of disappointment.
“Yeah, not sure I’d want to talk to a super creepy stalker-type stranger who just, like, came creeping out of the woods and started babbling about my super-cool not-tattoo. It’s cool.”
He shrugs. A little smile quirks at the corner of his mouth. And she’s thinking, ‘Well, another minute won’t matter, will it?’
“I really do need to go. My Granny is waiting.”
Was she trying to convince him or herself?
“What’s in the basket?”
His words have her tightening her grip on the handle and lifting it up a little.
“This basket?” Is that her voice, light and girly? Geez! “Goodies for my Granny, why?”
“Can I see?” He reaches forward as if to lift the basket’s lid.
Twisting the basket to the side, she says, “No one touches Granny’s goodies.”
It’s instinct behind the words. She’s been taught the knowledge is sacred. Sure he isn’t trying to take it, he’s just teasing, but the instinct is still there.
He closes the distance between them. His chest is that close to touching hers. She has to tip her head back to look into his face and what she sees there makes her breath catch.
“How about your goodies?” He toys with the zipper pull of her hoodie, the promise implicit. The timber of his voice gets her in that place that has lain dormant within her, deep down below the pit of her stomach, and for a moment she thinks ‘Why not? Why can’t I be like other girls? Why can’t I take a walk on the dark side for once?” Or… her subconscious whispers, overlaying her screaming hormones, a Walk off the Path?
That sort of snatches her back from the edge. She takes a step back, but no more than a step, sort of hovering still in reach. “Uh, no! Do you always coming creeping out of the woods trying to snatch a girl’s goodies?”
Well, where did those words come from? They felt provocative, something really not in her standard day-to-day, and she can tell by his quick grin that he caught the gist.
“Uh, yeah, only if she’s cute.”
She blushes and takes a real step back, reaching up to toy with her hoodie drawstring.
“Yeah, totally out of line.” Another look aside and then he’s looking at her again and she understands the term “captivating gaze” because for sure he’s got that going. Then he’s pushing his hand out to her, “I’m Cas, by the way.”
“Roanne,” she grimaces at the name which has always seemed a mix of weirdly-old-fashioned and also kind of cool in being weirdly-old-fashioned. She doesn’t take his hand, instead clutching the drawstring of her hoodie and looking down to the side before looking back up to meet his engaging gaze. She bites her lip and almost looks away again.
“I’m Roanne.” She gives a self-depreciating grin, “And I really am late. Nice meeting you Cas, the not-stalker guy.”
She turns and heads down the path, quietly kicking herself. Why’d she say that? Gar! Not-Stalker Guy. Yeah, seriously witty there, Ro.
Now when she feels eyes on her she figures it’s him watching, a fact that she confirms by looking over her shoulder quickly. She bites her lip again and then turns her face back, stopping just shy of giving a little wave.
Granny’s. Right. Going to Granny’s. With her basket. Wearing her red hoodie, which Granny insisted on when she walked in the woods, saying that the bright color will tell hunter’s she’s not prey. Because, yeah, that’s what hunters thought. Sometimes her Granny was way dramatic and spooky and stuff. Came from being a Wild Woman, her Granny would say when Ro would teasingly point it out. And, yay, look at her, on point to be the next dramatic and spooky and crazy woman in the woods.
Whee!
Well, at least she got a moment to be a fifteen-year old girl in the woods before she had to be The Woman in the Woods. That was something.
That thought lightening her steps she moves on down the path to her Granny’s cottage.
The woods grow darker, muffling the sense of shadows and enhancing her sense of being watched. She even stops a few times and looks around, her hand tight on the handle of her basket, but there’s never anything there.
In that heightened sense of awareness, she manages the rest of the trip to Granny’s in about half the time she normally would. Nothing like a creepy feeling between your shoulder blades and jumping at every sound to drive your feet forward.
“Took you long enough, kid.” Her Granny’s familiar cigarette and whiskey voice wraps around her like a subtle homecoming as she opens the door of the cottage to Ro’s knock.
“Yeah, you know,” Ro hitches the basket, waving it for emphasis, “I hear there’s this thing called a telephone I could have called you on but… Magick is the best!”
Her Granny snorts and opens the door wider, “Get in here.”
The light from within hitting her Granny’s back casts a long shadow that settles over Ro. For a moment her eyes are drawn to the creeping darkness and she almost steps out of its grasp, but then she shakes off the thought and steps around her Granny. She slants a quick glance to the side and smiles.
“Yeah, yeah, I’m an ungrateful grandchild and should be smacked. But you have to catch me first!”
With that playful statement she pushes past her Granny, hesitating just next to her when the light catches her Granny’s eyes from the side when she turns.
“Granny,” she mutters, the words kind of just coming out, “Are those new glasses? They make your eyes look really big.”
Those eyes narrow slightly and Ro thinks she sees a hint of amber roll across the surface but before she can lean in to confirm, her Granny bumps her with her hip and closes the door, blocking out the night.
“The better to see you with, my darling girl.”
Enter The Woods 