9:7
“Follow the story! Stay on the path!” The ghost of Dan’s voice rang in Prairie’s ear as she stared at the line of the woods where he and Abe disappeared. She squinted, focusing her Magick, trying to see if it was more than just the ghost of his voice that lingered but she saw no residue of he or Abe.
Good. Good. Better it was just the ghost of his voice and not his ghost speaking in her mind.
Around her the others responded to the loss of Patti, Ben, Dan, and Ben, their voices overlapping and blending into a cacophony that made it very hard for Prairie to think as they did a weird dance that was part darting around and standing still and staring into the woods and along the path and all the other directions five people could go at once, like someone had kicked a bee hive. And she worked as a trauma nurse! That said something about the crazy erupting around her.
“We have to go after them!” Ivan’s deep rumble overlapped Gwen as she pointed at the ground in emphasis, “Dan said to stay on the path!”
“We need to keep moving!” Dempsey declared in a firm tone complimented by his square shouldered, firm-footed stance.
“Panicking is getting us nowhere!” Siobhan stated in an unyielding schoolteacher voice the others ignored or couldn’t hear over their own words.
Kim’s gaze darted up the path. Back. Focused on the line of the path. Switched to flicking between the faces of the group then down at her feet as she murmured, “We have to stay on the path.”
Gwen’s “Dan said…” clashed with Ivan’s “…considering he is off it maybe he might say differently now.”
Dempsey squared his shoulders and spoke louder and with more adamance, “We have to move,” while Gwen turned to Siobhan. “What should we do?”
Siobhan’s eyes widened for a mikro and it was clear she was biting her tongue to not snap. And all Prairie could think to do was repeat, “Follow the story. Stay on the path.”
Instinctively she called out, Kirby?
The response came in triplicate. My one! Prairie! Hello hello hello. Hello!
That was Kirby. Three heads and three distinctive fursonalities. If you took a German Shepherd, a Sheeperdoodle, and a Golden Retriever and placed them in a single body you’d be close to a Kirby. If you added a single giant heart and a fierce protective spirit.
She’d come to think of them as One, Bunny, and Hello. Bunny because Bunny was always ready to hunt and every hunt they started they’d ask if there’d be bunnies. She’d started out calling them One, Two, and Three – yes, she knew, very creative – but eventually they’d settled out into their own fursonalities that demanded their own unique name. One was the center head, Bunny was to the left, and Hello to the right. One had been more than content to remain One when she’d asked if they wanted a unique name so One was One, Bunny was Bunny, and Hello was Hello.
Bunny nudged her with his head and she laid her hand on his haunch, pulling strength from him. Strength enough to take a deep breath, raise her voice, and loudly repeat, “Follow the story. Stay on the path.”
No one listened. The crazy kept going.
Bunny butted Prairie’s thigh again. She raised her hand and laid it near his ear, closed her eyes, then loudly yelled in a cutting tone, “Would you just shut the fuck up?”
Instantly every single person on the path shut the fuck up. Dead silence and bug-eyed staring followed for a mikro in which Prairie nodded and then in her usual quiet tone said, “It’s not like we’ve never been separated. Dan said stay on the path and follow the story and he’s usually right about this stuff. So,” she met each of their bug-eyes and nodded, “we stay on the path and follow the story.”
Several more mikros passed in which the rest continued to stare. Then Siobhan nodded. Kim quirked a small smile. And Ivan calmly replied, “All right.”
“We came here to find Roanne. This,” Siobhan gestured vaguely around, “isn’t going to let us out until we do. We have to have faith that if we find Roanne we’ll get the others back.”
Prairie cocked her head and gave them all a level look. “Thank you.” She paused then waved down the path. “And we’re moving?”
Dempsey shook his head then squared up his shield. “You heard Prairie. Fall in. Two-by-two.”
Gwen gave him a sassy look. “You’re not my dad.”
Dempsey glowered at her then raised his brows to which Gwen heaved a sigh. “Fine. Super. Two-by-two.” She linked arms with Siobhan. “Squishy types in the middle.”
Siobhan raised her brows and pursed her lips. “Squishy?”
Gwen nodded and poked Siobhan’s side with her free hand. “Squishy.”
Dempsey gave a long-suffering sigh and shook his head. “Are you done?”
Gwen released Siobhan’s arm, dropped into a squat with her arms out at the side and her fingers splayed, did some energetic spirit fingers, then bounced back up and looped her arm with Siobhan’s again before saying with abject calm, “Now I am.”
Prairie looked down at Kirby who raised Bunny and One’s heads to give her a look. Or, she frowned, looks. Point was, he totally broadcast amusement such that he didn’t need to speak it into her mind. She gave a very small grin in return then smoothed her features as Dempsey gritted out, “Fantastic,” in response to Gwen’s antics, then pointed forward. “Moving!”
Prairie stepped up next to him. “I’ll walk with you.”
When Ivan made a noise that might have been protest, Prairie clenched her jaw.
Really, he treated her like she was so fragile. She wasn’t. She’d seen things. Definitely. Things. She was a strong, independent, competent woman who dealt with blood and death and things all the time but he made her feel like a stupid little girl sometimes when he said or did something that implied she wasn’t a strong, independent, competent woman who’d seen things. Just because he was so very big and she was so very not big it didn’t mean she wasn’t capable of kicking butt and marching at the front of their group, gosh darn it!
Plus, she was the one with a three-headed dog as a companion so, yeah, she was good. Really good.
Prairie firmed her chin and gave him a Dempsey glower. “Kirby can go at the front. He’ll be able to sense things we may not be able to. So, it makes sense I’m in the front behind him.”
Ivan’s mouth thinned then he nodded. “I have the rear.”
“Me too.” Kim snapped her fingers, shooting a small flame into the air. A very small twinge formed under Prairie’s breastbone as she watched embers drift towards the pine needle covered path, disappearing before they could cause so much as a whiff of smoke.
Sometimes she wished she had a flashy, utilitarian Magick. I mean, she totally appreciated her gift. It wasn’t that it wasn’t useful and she was sure that there were drawbacks to cool elemental powers or being able to make something out of nothing like Ivan did or mixing up alchemical formulas as Siobhan did. Maybe. And really she felt honored to be there for those passing. Being able to ease their transition. It was special and sacred. But, just sometimes she’d like to be able to blow things up. That would be neat. And being able to close her eyes and fall asleep without the voices of the dead seeping beneath her lowered boundaries that would…
No. Prairie shook her head and then delicately patted each of Kirby’s heads. When he looked up at her with all three she gave him a smile and then whispered into his minds, Ready for an adventure, my friend?
One responded. Always, my one. You need only ask.
No one challenged the order further. Kirby bounded ahead. Prairie tracked him with her eyes but also made sure to spread her awareness to the dark path to her right and the stretch of path in front of Kirby. She clutched her daggers in her hands at the ready. Her nerves were strung taught, more so than any other time they’d adventured. Losing half the party would do that, she guessed.
The others seemed in a similar mood. Gone was the casual camaraderie they’d entered the house with. They were here to do a job and they would do it.
Find Roanne. Find their friends. Get out.
The words replayed in the cadence of their steps, marching orders in the purest sense. What little conversations were had were low and muted, the cloying stillness of the woods muffling them further. And yet, perhaps because she was attuned to it, Prairie heard Ivan mutter, “She shouldn’t be in the front,” and Kim’s reply of “She’s a grown ass woman, capable of making her own choices.”
When Kim responded to Ivan’s “I still don’t like it,” with “noted,” Prairie’s lips quirked in a quick smile then turned back to scanning the pitch of the demarcating line between path and woods, ready if something erupted from the dark though so far it was calm. Too calm? It felt like the scant mikro before a surgery when all the clinicians stood at the ready with their equipment in neat, sterile rows, preparation done in the hora before so all that was left was for the surgeon to lift their hands, a conductor leading a symphony of hope.
Dempsey set a steady pace, one step back from exhausting. Prairie had to push to keep to his side. She flicked a quick look over her shoulder, instinctively counting her friends. Siobhan fingered her bandolier of potions as she walked. Seeing Prairie looking at her she lofted her chin. Prairie gave a short nod then looked at Gwen. Gwen focused on the line where path met woods with an intensity most would not credit her with, her gaze flicking to the side then the front then the side again.
Further back Kim held one hand up, a small flame flickering over her flexing knuckles. Ivan caught Prairie’s gaze and lifted his brows. Prairie quickly snapped around to look intently at Kirby’s haunches.
Kirby bound ahead, noses to the ground as he snuffled. Despite his magical origins he acted very much like a dog, albeit one that stood rib high to Prairie and had three heads. So, yep, just like a regular, old dog on a walk in the woods.
From behind her Kim’s voice drifted forward. “That’s weird.”
“What?” Ivan rumbled.
“I’d swear I saw that mushroom before?”
“Really? One mushroom looks like any other to me.”
“Heresy!” Siobhan called out.
“Did you see it, Siobhan?” Kim asked.
“No. Missed it, but I’ve seen a few animal markings on trees that I swear I saw more than once.”
“Pretty sure we stepped over the same fallen tree a bit back,” Gwen added.
“Do you think we’re walking in circles?” Ivan asked.
“I don’t think so?” Kim’s voice rose on the end of the answer. “Do you ever feel like we are characters in a book we just haven’t read yet?”
“Pretty deep thoughts,” Ivan teased.
“Walking in the woods, on a path we can’t diverge from that may or not be some kind of loop that is repeating itself which is very not natural while following a three-headed dog from myth will get you thinking.”
As if summoned by the reference, One’s voice growled in Prairie’s mind, I sense something ahead, my one.
Prairie held up her hand to stop the group’s forward movement. She turned and repeated what One told her, “Kirby said there’s something ahead.”
No one questioned her words; instead they gave quiet acknowledgement in nods and encouraging expressions. It said something how quickly the term “Kirby said,” had lost its ability to shock.
My one! One’s words rang like a warning bark a mikro before a dark form fell from one of the trees lining the path and landed on Gwen who fell over with a squeak dangerously close to the edge of the path. Prairie got a rough impression of a very large wolf before Siobhan smashed a potion vial against the figure. A puff of smoke and the acrid sent of burning fur singed the air as the wolf leaped straight up in the air – clearing Siobhan’s stooped figure before anyone else could respond.
Ivan snapped up his shield arm and stepped over Gwen and Siobhan, keeping back the threat that already departed. Kim looped her hand under Gwen’s arm and hoisted her to her feet while Siobhan rose from her crouch and dusted pine needles off her knees.
“What was that?” Kim asked.
“A wolf,” Dempsey said, making it clear he’d catalogued the threat even as he kept his gaze firmly on the darkness to the left of him. Kirby stood, one foot up in hunting stance, all three of his heads engaging with One firmly focused forward and Hello and Bunny focusing on their respective path boundaries.
“Which,” Dempsey continued in a slow drawl, “makes sense given the story. Are we ready to continue?”
Everyone made some kind of answer in the affirmative and they started back down the path, Kirby in the lead and the others following with tensed shoulders and intense gazes probing the shadows and the sky above them.
“Ivan?” As hyperaware as Prairie was, despite being in the lead focused on Kirby, she heard Kim’s voice like it was right in her ear. She turned in time to see Ivan shambling at a gentle angle towards the edge of the path. He seemed to have made it to the point of passing Siobhan who was, or had been, directly ahead of him.
Kim lunged and grabbed Ivan’s arm, “M’Dude, what?”
Ivan didn’t stop or shake Kim off. He just kept moving slowly on a diagonal to the edge of the path where the woods encroached. Big as he was he dragged Kim with him as her feet slid on the heavy pine needle cover of the path.
Prairie threw herself in front of him, pressing her hands to his chest. He kept moving and she too skidded across the pine needles with him driving her towards the edge of the path.
“Ivan!” she snapped and punched the heel of her hand into his chest.
Ivan slowly lowered his chin and stared into her face. The gaze that met hers wasn’t a dark brown so deep it was hard to tell iris from pupil. Instead the eyes looking down at her were a very light yellow with a flare of red along the edge of the overlarge irises and there was no visible sclera.
Foreign eyes. Animal eyes. Not Ivan eyes.
An inadvertent “Crap!” popped out of Prairie’s mouth and she took a short hop back. Ivan kept ambling towards the edge of the path.
“Ivan! Stop!” Kim yelled.
Ivan didn’t stop.
Kim jumped up and looped her arm around Ivan’s neck, throwing her weight backwards. Ivan kept shuffling towards the edge of the path.
“Help!”
Prairie ducked and grabbed Ivan’s legs around the knee, turning her head so her cheek smashed into his groin instead of her nose. She met Siobhan’s startled gaze. “His eyes!”
Gwen skittered around and pressed her hand into his chest while looking into his face. “That’s not normal.”
“Ya think?” Kim asked from where she continued to hang off Ivan’s back like a spider monkey.
Between Kim, Prairie and Gwen’s intervention Ivan’s shuffle slowed to almost a stop.
“Excuse me.” Siobhan stooped and looped her arm around Ivan’s middle. Well, mostly around. He was really big.
Siobhan yanked back to the left, directing Ivan in the direction of the center of the path. Dempsey dropped back to the rear, his shield at the ready, and scanned the darkness and the sky while Kirby braced his feet and held the front. Now would be the perfect time for another wolf attack, with most of the group focused on Ivan.
Gwen cupped her hand around Ivan’s pectoral above his heart and closed her eyes. She tilted her head, wrinkled her brow, took a deep breath and dropped her forehead against his chest. Then she reared back slightly and banged her forehead against him. And Ivan gave a full body shake that Prairie felt in his knees.
“Wha…?”
Prairie tipped her head way back and searched Ivan’s face, focusing on his dark brown eyes. She kept her hold on his knees a mikro longer before accepting Ivan was “home again”. Then she released her arms and dropped back to her heels.
“Prairie?” Ivan’s tone was low, his expression confused.
“Ivan?”
“Why were you, ya know?”
“Pressing my face to your groin?”
“Uh, yeah, sure. That.”
“You don’t remember?”
“Remember?”
Gwen stepped in. “Remember that you had weird animal eyes and were trying to seppuku via path?”
“I did?”
“You did. But, I don’t think it was you, you.”
“Me, me?”
Gwen nodded.
Kim let go of Ivan’s neck and slid to her feet and Siobhan released his middle. She patted his tummy then stepped back and smoothed her hair. “We should keep going.”
Dempsey, for once, didn’t immediately fall into the “moving out!” thing. Instead, he looked at Prairie. Looked at Ivan. Looked at Gwen. Asked, “What happened?”
Ivan brushed his hand over the top of his head. “I don’t know.”
“He had animal eyes.” Kim said at the same time as Prairie said, “He had wolf eyes.”
“Wolf eyes?” both Dempsey and Ivan asked at the same time.
Kim shrugged. “Wolf eyes. Can’t put it better and it makes sense, you know? Red Riding Hood?”
Dempsey gave her a narrow-eyed look. “He became the wolf?”
Kim shrugged again. Dempsey looked at Siobhan. She shrugged. Gwen. Shrugged.
Dempsey focused on Gwen. “You were feeling him up.”
“I was not feeling him up. I was,” she held her hand up, index fingers touching, them drew them out, down, and around, making a square, “feeling him. Not up. Feeling him.”
“And what did you feel?”
Gwen’s expression darkened as she looked inwards a mikro, then focused back on Dempsey. “There was something there but it dissipated too quickly. It felt like… not quite like another entity in him because that’s gross but there was a fixation that didn’t feel natural.”
Dempsey looked at her hard. Blinked. Then gave her a more intense look. “Why is another entity in him gross?”
“It’s subverting someone’s free will to override their mind or feelings. For someone with my Magick? That’s gross.” She cast a quick look at Prairie, swirling her hand vaguely around, “Not that ghost inside you thing that you do. You do you. That’s your Magick. But someone overriding another person’s will is just yuck to me.”
Prairie gave a grimace that maybe passed as a smile, covering the sting that Gwen’s words had elicited in her momentarily. “The difference is that what I do takes consent. What is happening now is a violation.” She pushed to lift the corners of her lips into a more passable smile.
Gwen looked contemplative. “That would explain why when you have, how do you call it? A Rider? When you have a Rider I don’t get any ick.”
“Perhaps. Perhaps it is because I have good intent and whatever did that to Ivan does not?”
“Perhaps.”
“Do you still feel it?” Dempsey drew the conversation back to the topic he was clearly interested in.
“Not in him.” Gwen turned her head and glared into the darkness beyond the path. “But, yeah, still feel it.”
Dempsey gave a sharp nod. “Okay. So, we know that’s a problem. We can prepare. Let’s get going.”
Gwen saluted. “Yes, sir, Sir!”
Dempsey shook his head. The movement did not completely hide the small indulgent smile tugging at the corner of his lips. “We need to keep moving. Everyone keep a closer eye on your partner.” He looked directly at Kim, who raised her brows and gave him a look beneath half lowered eyelids. “Fall back into formation.”
Enter The Woods 