Free The Humming of Numbers by Joni Sensel

“Backtrack? Go around?”
    â€œNo time,” she whispered. Her eyes fixed on a large oak tree as though it were a raft that might save her from drowning. She jumped to it.
    â€œWhy don’t we just hide for a moment and see if we hear anything?” He tried not to let impatience sharpen his voice, but he thought her imagination had slipped loose.
    â€œNo. We’ve got to climb,” she insisted. When she turned her wide eyes back to him, a quake of apprehension
ran through him. It was impossible not to catch some of her fear.
    â€œAll right.” He followed her to the base of the tree.
    â€œI don’t know if I can reach the fork, though. Can you boost me?”
    Aidan glanced around. “That one would be easier to climb.”
    â€œThat one’s not oak. Oak protects best. Will you help me or not?”
    â€œOf course.” He told himself they could simply rest in the tree until she had calmed. “Come on.”
    Lana braced her palms on the tree’s ridged bark and tried to plant one sole against a bulge in the trunk. Her foot slipped off immediately.
    â€œHere,” Aidan said, forming a step with his interlocked hands. “Climb up from here.”
    She obeyed, and he lifted her as she shimmied upward until his hands were as high as his chest and she’d finally found purchase for all of her limbs. He tried not to see her curved calves flashing near his face. She climbed higher onto one of the heavy branches and turned to check the direction of danger, then peered back down at him.
    â€œCan you get up here by yourself?” she whispered, her face stricken. “You must, Aidan!”
    Aidan wasn’t sure, but he vowed not to fail with her watching. Instead of trying to clamber directly into the high
fork without much to grip, he jumped for the nearest branch and hung there briefly until he could swing his feet up as well. Silently cursing the length of his robe, he scrambled and pulled himself atop the branch. Satisfied, Lana climbed as high as she dared toward the top, where most of the tree’s leaves still clung. Aidan followed, the skin along the insides and backs of his legs stinging where he’d scraped them on the bark.
    â€œDon’t fall,” he warned. “This should be high enough.” A patchy curtain of gold and brown leaves, belonging both to this tree and others, veiled the view in almost every direction. Bare spots on the branches opened windows toward the ground near the base of the tree and back the direction they’d come.
    â€œNo, it is not. Third fork or above.” Checking his place, she added, “Come up where I can reach you.” When he drew close enough, she plucked three oak leaves and passed them to him. “Put these under your robe, against your heart,” she ordered.
    His face wrinkled in doubt. “You jest.”
    â€œDo it!”
    He watched her rip another three leaves and tuck them into the bodice of her shift.
    â€œHush now. Be still.” She laid her cheek along the branch between her arms and closed her eyes.
    A nervous smile popped to Aidan’s lips. He didn’t bother
to whisper that she’d be no less visible with eyes closed than with them open. The woods may indeed have hidden a threat, but they’d traveled far enough for Aidan to expect it from behind or alongside them, not from ahead.
    Then he heard someone approaching.

X
    A idan’s smile vanished at the crackling coming toward them through the forest. His hand flashed to the neck of his robe and stuffed in the oak leaves as Lana had commanded. Then he held both the tree and his breath as tight as he could.
    The first creature to burst into view below them was a hunting dog, limping and bleeding. It glanced up at them without interest as it shuffled past. A moment later, the unmistakable patter of human feet crunched below. Ice seemed to form in Aidan’s veins, freezing hard and stiff so he