Sanna growled under her breath.
The front of her dress tugged in a weird way, and it wasn’t until she felt the seams along the inside that she realized she’d slipped it on backward. The annoyance might not have been so great, had she not smelled the char of something burning at the same time.
With a shout, she reached for her stick. A hunk of mortega lay on it, carefully pierced through the thickest part of the meat, which had taken her far longer to manage than she wanted. It rotated over a small, crackling fire.
She overreached, knocked it off the spit, and heard a sizzle as it landed in the coals. The tips of her fingers touched superheated soot as she searched for the end with another cry.
“By Drago!” she cried, sputtering. “Just . . . just . . .”
No amount of righteous indignation brought the meat back to her hand. By the time she found the end, three of her fingers smarted and the char of blackening meat filled her nostrils even more.
A summoning spell or two, like the ones that Isadora described, would be helpful right about now.
In fact, she’d give her breakfast to have them.
Sanna felt for a flat rock next to her, set the retrieved meat on top, and gently probed it. Groping around the edges of the makeshift plate, she eventually found the sharp rock she’d kept and sliced into the top of the meat.
Of course.
Black and crispy on the outside.
Cool and raw on the inside.
Suddenly not hungry, she turned away with a huff.
You are having a difficult morning, little one.
“Tell me about it.”
Her toes dug into the ground as she reached a hand over the fire, uncertain whether or not to add firewood. The radiant heat turned mostly to coals at this point. Since her meat needed longer to cook, she groped for a few more sticks.
A ring of rocks around the outside of the fire kept the flames in one area. Luteis had started it, which helped dampen her frustration. Still, maintaining a fire in an open forest was a frustrating endeavor.
Where is your other foot guard?
“My shoe?”
Yes.
“I don’t know.”
She ran a hand through her hair, realized she still had soot all over it, and let out an aggravated raspberry. Today had just begun and already it needed to end. Ignoring what her hair must look like, she shoved it out of her eyes. Later, she’d braid it. For now, her stomach grumbled. She just wanted to eat.
Carefully feeling around the edge of the thin rock where the hunk of mortega lay, she lifted the rock and set the whole thing on the coals.
Let it cook that way.
Minutes later, a satisfying sizzle, and the smell of roasting meat, filled the air. Sanna idly searched around her for her shoe, thankfully finding it within reach.
“We have a busy day today, Luteis.”
Doing what?
“Well, we’ve mapped out trails from the house structure to the stream, you’ve created a basic path that leads to bushes that will likely have berries in the summer, and I just finished lining two of them with rocks yesterday, which helps.”
You do seem more confident walking around.
“And you started to gather lumber.”
She leaned back. A pile of wooden logs rested behind her, forming the eastern wall. The logs would need to be scraped and branches removed, but it was a start.
I don’t desire more searching for perfectly-straight trees that have fallen to the ground, aren’t rotted, and will withhold through decades of weather. Your demands are quite specific.
“I know! I know, it’s boring. But I’m thinking this: what if we have everything ready, then we can ask for help?”
Are you willing to ask for help?
She threw up her hands. “Yes! If we’re ready to go and there’s a way for us to also work on the house.”
Whom will you ask?
“Jesse and Elliot, I suppose? I don’t know anyone else.”
This makes sense. Perhaps we could involve Junis and Cara and Elis in our search for lumber?
Yearning filled her. Oh, sweet Cara! She missed her dragon friend. Rosy, too. Young Junis would be growing so fast . . .
“Would they?”
I’m not sure. Things are . . . strained . . . amongst the dragons.
“Well, it certainly wouldn’t hurt our timeline if they could help. That way, we can see if Jesse and Elis would help us shimmy the walls together. Shouldn’t be too hard, right?”
A dubious pause followed.
Is it truly that easy to build a witch-place?
She shrugged. “I don’t know. If we have all the tools and supplies, it doesn’t seem too complicated. Mam says that Jesse is out in the villages more, trading. He can search for the tools so we don’t have to go into the Network.”
Why would he do this?
“Because he’s my friend.”
Hmm. I have studied the construction of the witch-place that your Mam resides in. It doesn’t appear as if logs have been shimmied together.
His verbatim quoting made her teeth grit.
“Well, obviously we might have to do something a little differently, but if we’re going to ask for help—” she forced the words out, mentally accepting their necessity, “—then the least we can do is to be prepared. It’s etiquette.”
At this, his voice perked up. His strange obsession with witch etiquette and the formation of societal rules around certain behaviors had no explanation. She secretly thought he just liked predictable organization.
I understand, and this seems appropriate to me. For one to ask a favor, one should make it as easy on the helper as possible.
“Exactly!”
I am here to help you always, even as boring and dull as your requests have become.
She ignored the little jab to check on her breakfast.
Wincing, she peeled the pieces of meat off the heated rock. After blowing on one, she bit into it. Juice and blood squelched free, but the inner meat had warmed. Quickly as possible—charred mortega wasn’t all that appealing—she ate the hunks and made her way to the stream. Juice coated her hands, her chin. Her trail led the way, over which she felt quite smug.
Soon, she’d need to bathe in the stream. The last of the soap she’d filched from Mam on their last visit hid in a cubby in a nearby tree.
Once she had a house, she’d figure out soap. And utensils. Maybe a broom, too? Oh, but she’d want a porch.
How to do that?
Shaking aside the compounding needs and questions, Sanna washed her hands and face at the stream. The slick hurry of water past her fingertips soothed as it tinkled by. Ice cold and refreshing.
Carefully, she returned to the fire, not far from the house structure.
“All right! Let’s get back to work. Now, when we left last night, we had the rocks outlining the general layout of the house.”
A pause.
Little one?
She tensed, uncertain how to read the sudden confusion in his voice.
“Yes?”
I have just noticed now, but . . . the rocks. They are . . .
“What?”
Not present in the same fashion.
“What do you mean?”
They’re different. Instead of the rectangular shape of your house, they’ve been . . . knocked aside. As if someone trampled through.
“Impossible,” she whispered. “We were both here all night.”
I agree.
“Tell me what you see in greater detail. Are the lines . . . gone?”
All of them.
Her heart sank into her stomach.
“Really?”
They’d worked so hard to place the rock walls in straight lines. Gathering the stones required days. Painstaking, slow work without magic or sight.
I cannot be certain. The rock lines are gone, yes. Scattered. The evenness is lost. Rocks are . . . everywhere. Now that I look there are . . . strange marks in the ground. Little holes, like miniature feet.
The swish of his tail along the dirt followed. Sanna stood. A crackle of the fire popping startled her.
“Luteis?”
A moment, please.
He sniffed, snorted. His tail no longer swished along the ground. The previously delightful, safe space held a sinister tint.
She counted to thirty before tentatively asking, “What do you see?”
Rage filled his tone. Dots in the ground. Markers, even. They have shifted the rocks. The rocky outline you set out before has been eradicated. I believe half of the stones are missing entirely. But how?
Tentatively, she slipped her boot off and felt ahead with her toes. When her big toe hit a rock, she crouched down. Others scattered around that one, arms length apart. Tossed at random, perhaps. Yesterday, they’d marched in a line.
“Everywhere?”
I’m sorry, little one.
He snuffled again, sending gritty dirt into the air around her feet. She stuffed her foot back into her boot with deepening disheartenment.
I smell nothing unusual, just like last time.
“When?”
When the unknown creature was near. It left the gelatinous blob on you. There were similar prints in the ground.
“There were?” she squeaked. “Why didn’t you say something?”
I thought they were unrelated. Now that I see them again, they hold a great deal more significance.
Sanna shuddered. Monsters and creepy creatures and all manner of who-knew-what lurked. Letum Wood’s nefarious, angry side was nothing to tempt.
“You think that whatever made those marks is here?”
I’m not sure what to think, only that I’ve seen these before. The lack of smell is almost as suspicious . . .
She straightened, eager to be away from the dirt. She recalled the disgusting drip and ooze of tacky substance on her scalp all too well.
“Why would it destroy our house plan?”
I cannot imagine why.
“What about the lumber?”
Still there.
“Why?”
His silence responded. She hadn’t meant for him to answer, anyway. How could they possibly interpret what this meant?
“The creature might have some intelligence, is what you mean. It wants to be rid of us. Trying to eradicate our plans?”
Yes.
“Like a warning?”
Poorly constructed, but yes.
“What if it’s just a coincidence?”
Seems unlikely.
The creature would have followed them here from their previous spot, which might explain why so many days had passed since it acted. The realization only deepened her uneasiness. Luteis’ lack of ideas or counterpoints likely meant he didn’t want to frighten her.
A horrifying thought occurred.
“How close did they come to you last night?”
Strain filled his voice. Close enough to touch.
She let out a long breath. What kind of creature could wreak such havoc without waking a dragon, slip by close enough to touch, not carry a scent, and track them through the forest? Gnomes made too much racket. Mortegas would be too frightened of Luteis. Fairies? No, they’d be more ruthless.
Her entire body felt heavy, like it might puddle at her feet. A scream built up in her throat, but she didn’t give it freedom.
Just when they were making progress . . .
Sanna crouched back down, pulled the rocks together that she could reach. She attempted to force resolution to her tone, though it sounded limp as an old breeze. “This means we must . . . start again. Pull it back together. It’s our home. We’ll stand up for it. Right?”
Little one, I . . .
She paused, hand above a rock. If he said they should go, she’d listen. She’d tear herself away from the dream.
Somehow.
Part of her yearned for him to challenge her. One of them had to break this determination to prove herself, didn’t they? Deep down, she hoped he stopped her and told her to cease this madness and get help, already.
She couldn’t do that on her own. This was the Sanna she had been before, and she clung to that Sanna in all her ferocity. Concerns hung in the air between them while she waited. Time stalled on the edge of a breath.
I will continue to explore and learn. It will not take us by surprise again.
With a sigh, Sanna set her hand on a rock.
Decided.
Time to get back to work.