Free Out of The Woods by Patricia Bowmer Page A

darkness.
    Instinctively, she took a step backwards, slipping his hands quickly from her shoulders. Her mind worked fast – she still needed his help – she must not offend him. “Thank you,” she said. “That’s very kind of you. I’ll be much warmer now.” She shuddered and fought to control it so he wouldn’t guess at her revulsion.
    Trance slid his canteen back over his shoulder. He did not tuck the braid away again, and it hung whitely down his back against his grey shirt. She thought to question him about it, but instead kept carefully quiet. He led the way again through the woods, she heavy in his jacket, he utterly silent.
    As they walked on, she found her eyes fixed on the white braid. It blinded her to everything else around her. She pondered why it was important, what it said of his character. She was frightened of him, but couldn’t decide why. Is it me? He seems so kind, so concerned. So familiar. I really do need his help. He hasn’t done anything wrong. And yet…
    She couldn’t place her finger on what was wrong, couldn’t explain her intuition. The small hairs on the back of her neck stood out alertly; they had done so since she had heard him following her the day before. The wild-flowers on the forest floor were suddenly too bright. They were glaringly bright, their colors jarring. They looked illusory, as if they had been colored unnaturally to add a false brightness to her world. To seduce her into following.
    She tried again to discern the source of her unease. The word came suddenly, causing her stomach to lurch: Evil . There was nothing to pin the word to, no reason for it to occur to her just then. He was handsome and smiled so well and yet there was a sense of evil about him. As if his ears and the braid he had hidden down his shirt collar were marks of his nature. Even more than anything physical, it had much to do with the way he had entered her life, in the dead of night. His feet crushed the leaves as he led the way. Even that was awful. And he was only walking, tramping along in his heavy black boots. The evil she sensed walked there with her, chilling her. She tried to shade her eyes from the brilliance of the wildflowers. Her heart beat like a wild animal, newly captured. It’s like waking at three-thirty in the morning all alone in the dark, and noticing a light has been left on and thinking, but I remember turning that light off… that’s how he makes me feel. She shuddered.
    “Ah, here it is. The river.” His words broke the long silence. He turned to face her with his perfect smile. “There’s my boat…”
    She wasn’t listening; she was down on her hands and knees, scooping water into her cupped palms, gulping it down fast, letting its fresh taste wash away the lingering flavor of his water from the night before. Splashing her face, she rubbed her cheeks with the palms of both hands, as if to remove the past two days. She longed to keep her hands over her face and not have to see Trance again. His voice interrupted her thoughts.
    “First, we’ll eat,” he said. “We won’t be able to once we’re on the river – the current is far too strong.”
    “I don’t have anything left,” she admitted quietly.
    He lifted his eyebrows in what might have been a mocking expression. With a fast and unexpected movement, he spun towards the river. A knife flashed in the sunlight, and he thrust deep into the water, spearing a large, big-bellied fish. He heaved it out onto the riverbank. It thrashed on his knife, desperately sucking at the unfamiliar air. He smiled as he pulled it off the jagged knife. Holding the fish tightly in both hands, he smashed it on the rocks, smashed the life out of it, slamming it again and again. All the while his lips were raised in that terrible smile.
    “What’s wrong, Sparrow?” he said sharply, looking up at her only when the fish was finally still. “It’s only a common carp, not some fish on the endangered list.”
    She stared at the