intruder
A bright moon shone overhead, illuminating silver pockets of darkness as we moved through the wood. We were on high ground, and the trees were sparser than in most places, but I did not fear that anyone would see us coming. The Giant wore dark clothes as he always did, and I had long since traded my traveler’s garb for furred buckskin. I was as grey and drab as an aging deer; and if I did not move with his grace, I had at least learned the deer’s trick of silence.
The Giant stopped abruptly at the edge of a low ridge overlooking a wide path. It was the road I had used when I first entered the wood, the remnant of what had once been a well-traveled drive. The forest had encroached much upon it, but it was still clearly distinguishable as a man-made path, and it led straight to the castle.
Something was coming down it, something too clumsy and careless to belong to the woods, though quiet enough for a man. I peered down into the gloom of the road, and then I saw him—a small, hunched man, who moved with many a furtive look in every direction, and clutched his cloak to him against the night air. By the moonlight I could see that his skin was sallow, and his hair was long and thinning on top. I supposed him to be a gypsy, and I did not like the look of him.
The Giant stepped down into the path without a word or sound of warning. The little man gave a cry of astonishment and threw up his arm as if to ward off a blow. The Giant simply stood in the path with his arms folded over his broad chest, glowering down upon the intruder.
“Why have you come here?” the Giant demanded.
The man bowed, his hands tucked inside the front of his cloak. His face was a mask of terror. “Please,” he said in a high-pitched, whining voice, “have mercy on me; have mercy, guardian of the woods…”
The Giant was unmoved. “State your business,” he said.
The man began to babble, something about being lost and a merchant seeking fortune, but I did not hear his words. My eyes were fixed on his cloak. I did not like the way he kept his hands hidden. There was something wrong in his whole manner, something… feigned. My time in the woods with the Giant had taught me to trust a great deal to instinct, to pay attention to what my other senses knew that my eyes did not. What warned me first I do not know, but I became suddenly aware that the man had a knife in his cloak, and that he was carefully sizing up the Giant to determine how he would aim before throwing it, deceitfully and skillfully.
I shouted as loudly as I could and leaped from the ridge. I slammed into the man, knocking him to the ground, and punched him as hard as I could in the face. He shrieked with terror the whole while, and I grabbed him around the throat. I felt the Giant’s hand on my shoulder, and turned to see him glaring at me.
“What are you thinking?” he asked.
In answer, I reached into the man’s cloak. My fingers closed around the hilt of a knife. I pulled it out and held it up to the Giant triumphantly. “He is a treacherous worm,” I said. “He would have thrown it in a moment.”
The Giant reached out slowly, and I handed the knife to him. My knees were still firmly planted in the dust on either side of the little man, and my hands were still around his throat, though loosely enough to let him breathe. The Giant examined the knife. He seemed shaken. I had never seen that look in his eyes. Itt frightened something deep inside of me, even as I felt wildly triumphant—I had saved the Angel of the Woods.
“Let him up,” the Giant said. His voice was deeper than usual. Whether anger or some other emotion deepened it, I did not know. For a moment I considered disobeying him. But another look at the cowering weasel beneath me, his face smeared with his own blood, subdued the fire in my veins. He was not worth bothering over. I stood, wiping my hands together in a vain effort to clean them of dust and blood.
The Giant glared down at the intruder. “Get up,” he said.
The little man scrambled to his feet, bowing and scraping and falling over himself as he backed away.
“Get out of my woods,” the Giant said. “Never return. Do you understand me?”
“Oh yes, master,” the man said, still bowing. “I understand.”
We stood together and watched him hurry away into the gloom of the night. When at last the Giant turned to go, I thought his shoulders seemed stooped. For a moment he seemed to be a very old man.
“It is time to go home,” he said. His voice was weary. I did not for a moment understand him. I thought he meant to return to whatever den he slept in—I never knew where it was—but as he continued down the road to the castle, understanding dawned.
“Do you mean that we’re to go back to the Castle? I asked.
He looked back at me and nodded.
I felt a moment of elation. Back to the castle, place of beautiful mysteries. Back in the company of this man who had taught me so much, in whose defense I had proved myself—to myself—a hero. But elation was dulled by the sting of regret. I stood still in the path and closed my eyes, taking in the sound and feel of the night woods. They had become a part of me. Without realizing it, I had almost thought to stay within them forever. Yet another emotion overtook me at the thought: a pang of loneliness. Of fear. No, I could not stay here. It had been too long since I had spent much time in human company.
I opened my eyes. The Giant had also stopped, not much ahead of me. His eyes were lifted to the treetops and the moonlit sky above them. He turned back and looked at me from beneath his great black brows.
“Winter is coming,” he said. “We will stay in the castle till spring.”
Without another word he started down the path again. All in a confusion I followed, driven on by excitement and the fear of loneliness even as a part of me stayed behind to haunt the forest forever.