Hungry Heart - Book #3 - Ch. 3 (Patreon)

Chapter One / Chapter Two 

Chapter Three – Not Dead, Not Yet Alive

“Maybe that is something we should share with Duril and Toru,” Varg suggested as he walked behind Claw. “The dead leaves that are no longer where they are supposed to be, the voices in the wind… If there is something strange going on, I bet the fur on my back that those two will want to be a part of it.”

“That’s why you’re called adventurers above all,” Claw replied with a chuckle. “Nothing keeps you in one place for long, does it? And I thought The Quiet Woods would make you believe in having a longer rest before facing your next challenge.”

“Are you trying to tease me, flea bag? Just admit it already. You want to know what’s going on, and it’s eating at you as much as the adventure bug might get to me, as you say.”

“It’s true,” Claw confirmed without seeming bothered for a moment that Varg was calling him out on it. “My home is… prey to something, and I’d very much like to learn what. Whether it is a labor of malice at work, or something benign, it doesn’t matter. I still want to discover why The Quiet Woods seem so stuck in time that nothing changes from one day to the next.”

Time, the wind whispered, and Claw and Varg stopped at the same time.

“Did you hear that?” Varg asked softly, his entire skin prickling with apprehension.

“Yes, I did. Let’s get to our companions and share what we’ve found so far. As ambivalent as I might feel about what’s going on, it’s a mystery worthy of being unraveled.”

***

Toru stood once he noticed Varg and Claw approaching. “Have you two been out in the woods all night?” he demanded to know, while his inquisitive eyes moved from one to the other. “Doing naughty things?”

Varg laughed and grabbed him fast into a tight hug. Claw just moved past them, with an all-knowing smirk on his face. “What’s cooking?” the bear asked and sniffed the aromas rising in the morning air from Duril’s pot.

“You’ll know once I start serving breakfast,” Duril replied and offered the bear a cup of jasmine tea. “It’s so hard to imagine now that, not long ago, I had to strive to put together a meal from our meager food reserves. Here, the only conundrum one faces is what to choose from so many foods readily available. You were born in a blessed place, Claw,” he added while looking around, his gentle eyes filled with wonder.

“Are you already giving the bear food?” Toru complained right away. “While I’m starving?”

“You can have tea, as well, but you said ‘no’ when I offered it to you,” Duril said promptly.

Toru scrunched up his nose. “Tea isn’t food.”

“So there’s a reason to stop complaining. Claw, as you can see, enjoys his cup.”

Toru pondered for a moment. They were all so grownup around him. “Fill one for me, too, then,” he said.

Duril obliged right away and gave him a cup of steaming liquid. Toru smiled when he felt the healer’s lips on his temple. Maybe it was a bit true that he was spoiled, but he couldn’t help it; he just enjoyed it too much.

“It’s ready now, so come eat.”

They sat around the campfire and accepted the food with eager hands. Toru was dying to know about Claw’s and Varg’s nightly adventures, but he didn’t want to sound too immature by nagging them with questions. So, he waited patiently while everyone ate. Everything Duril cooked was so tasty, even when it had herbs and vegetables Toru didn’t normally care for. The part of him that was human liked it even so, although maybe his tiger would never let his tongue touch anything without meat in it.

“Claw has noticed a few things that don’t seem to be quite right,” Varg began.

“What things?” Duril asked. “About the forest?”

Toru was suddenly all eyes and ears. The lightning bugs around here were a strange bunch, itching for a fight, so he wasn’t so surprised to hear others thought that some bizarre things were afoot.

“Yes. It is a beautiful and magical place, don’t get me wrong, but there is also something eerie about it.” Claw paused for a moment.

“Tell them about the dead leaves,” Varg urged him.

“Dead leaves?” Toru asked. “What about lightning bugs?”

“What about them?” Varg looked at him with questioning eyes. “Have you noticed something strange, Toru?”

“Just the one. It tried to sneak into my nose. And my ear.”

Varg laughed, making him pout right away. “Maybe it was a loving bug. It fell in love with you so it wanted to kiss your nose and ear. But seeing how they’re so big, it just fell in them.”

Toru touched his ears, then his nose, self-consciously. “They’re not that big,” he protested, feeling a bit wary of being the owner of some abnormal body parts.

Varg ruffled his hair. “Don’t worry, kitty. It’s not that they’re big; but maybe the bug was really tiny. Was it tiny?”

“Any tinier than it was, and you would no longer see it,” Toru confirmed, happy that his nose and ears were normal.

Varg kissed his ear with a loud smack, making a small shiver of pleasure course down his back. When he turned to say something, Varg kissed his nose, too. “And they’re so kissable,” the wolfshifter said, making Toru forget all about being upset over tiny bugs wanting to get under his skin, one way or another.

“If you two are finished fooling around, maybe we could continue talking about the important things,” Claw scolded them, but in a playful voice that contradicted the severity of his words.

Nonetheless, Toru and Varg stopped their little byplay and sat side by side, ready to hear what the bear had to say.

“About the dead leaves, what did you want to say?” Duril asked, bringing them all back to the thread of conversation that had started right after they finished their meal.

Claw scratched one ear and looked down for a moment, as if he were trying to decipher some important details in the cracks in the ground, dried by the fire Duril had used for cooking only earlier. “The forest doesn’t change,” he started. “Trees shed their leaves, and by nightfall, you’ll see the ground covered in them here and there. Yet, once the morning is here, you won’t see any dead leaves where they had been before.”

“You two were up all night,” Toru intervened. “Did you see the leaves rising from the ground and going back on the branches?” He would have loved to see something as magical as that.

“No, we cannot say that we did. And it was only this morning, as we came back, that the thought struck me as odd. Varg wonders if this old bag of fleas is all right here,” Claw said and patted his temple, “but he cannot deny that there are no dead leaves anywhere you look.”

“I agree with you, and don’t make me the villain,” Varg retorted and smacked his fist against Claw’s shoulder. The bear pretended to be hurt and made a move like he was about to fall on one side, but regained his balance right away.

“I wouldn’t dare, but I cannot help but tease you now and then,” Claw replied.

“Do you tease Varg because you love him?” Toru asked. “Duril teases me because he loves me,” he added with emphasis.

Claw threw Varg a look loaded with significance and smiled. “That must be it. Kitty, why do you keep fishing for things concerning me and puppy here? Wouldn’t you rather fish for fish?”

Toru felt like it was a good moment to show that he could be a grownup, too, wise like them. He puffed out his chest. “Anyone can fish for fish. I want to fish for something else, too.”

Everyone burst into laughter, much to his dismay. Wasn’t that a grownup thing to say?

“Then fish to your heart’s content, but later. Now, I feel like we should talk about this,” Varg interrupted the collective laugh. “Dead leaves are buds on the branches at dawn, and I hear the wind speaking--”

“Duril and I also hear the wind speaking!” Toru exclaimed, amazed by that revelation. “What does it say to you?”

“First, it happened when I was talking to Duril, and it just repeated a word he said,” Varg replied, pointing at Duril.

“I didn’t hear it that time,” the healer intervened. “But I heard it this morning while I was gathering herbs with Toru.”

“What did you two hear?” Claw asked, his eyes wide with curiosity. “It appears that we are all hearing it!”

“Like you said, it just kept on repeating a word we said here and there. But I cannot help but think that it is not by accident that the wind chooses the words it says. Should we remind ourselves of what words we heard it say?” Duril suggested.

“That’s not a bad idea at all,” Varg confirmed. “So, the first time, I heard it say the word friend.”

Friend, the wind repeated right away.

“Did we all hear that?” Claw asked. He raised his head, his nostrils flaring, while trying to catch something that his other senses couldn’t.

“As a whisper, but clear as the blue sky above us,” Varg confirmed.

Toru and Duril agreed without hesitation. A new sense of excitement rose inside them. Toru could feel it, in each and every one of them, the scent of an adventure announcing itself like a promise that for some time now they must have been waiting for.

“All right, what was the next word the wind said to you?” Duril asked.

“The only other word I heard was time.”

They all waited, but the wind chose to remain mute this time around.

“How come it doesn’t say anything now?” Toru asked, a bit unnerved by the silence.

“I don’t know,” Claw replied for all of them. “Now, what did you and Duril hear it say?”

Toru scratched his head. “I don’t remember that well, but I think it repeated the word alive.”

Alive,the wind echoed.

“The order has to be important,” Duril said. “I was taken by surprise, but I know that it also repeated the words wind and play.”

They waited again, but nothing happened.

“Hmm, are we maybe forgetting something?” Claw wondered. “These words seem to have an essential meaning that we should be able to put together once we get them right.”

“I know!” Toru exclaimed, after racking his mind for the recent memories of that morning. “It said us.”

Us, the wind repeated dutifully.

“Wind,” Duril said with conviction. “No, that isn’t quite right. Wind?”

Wind?The wind’s reply didn’t hesitate to let itself be heard. And, with it, a swish came, as what no longer could be called a breeze wrapped itself around the trees and made everyone’s shirts billow and fall back for a moment.

“We must be on the right path,” Varg said. “So, what was the next word?”

“Play,” Duril replied quickly.

Play,the wind confirmed.

“That is all we heard it say,” the healer added. “Nothing else.”

“Then that leaves us with the last word Claw and I heard,” Varg said. “Time,” he stated, and right away, the wind followed suit.

Time.

“We have the right succession of words, it seems,” Duril commented. “But what could their significance be?”

“Let’s just say them all,” Claw suggested. “And I have a hunch we should let puppy do it. After all, he was the one to hear the wind, before the rest of us.”

“It might have been nothing but happenstance,” Varg said courteously. “Why shouldn’t it be you, who is part of this forest and were born here?”

“Mutt, just say the words.” Somehow, Toru felt that Claw was right. Varg had heard the wind first, and it seemed natural that he should be the one to summon whatever creature was hiding behind that secret voice in the wind.

“All right, if you all insist.” Varg stood and looked around. He appeared lost in thought for a moment, and Toru wondered what he could be thinking about. “Friend. Alive. Us. Wind? Play. Time.”

They tensed, necks stretched, ears perked up, for the wind to speak again, but for a few moments, everything was still. Unnaturally so, Toru noticed, as no sound could be heard, not even a bug flapping its wings.

Until it did, and it was, indeed, the flapping of tiny wings belonging to no one else but his foe from the previous night.

“You!” Toru exclaimed, narrowing his eyes. “You’re the one who wanted to get inside my nose! Are you the one talking to us?”

The lightning bug flew around his head and then landed on his hair. Toru made a move to brush it out of the strands, but Duril stopped him. “Toru, I think your little friend wants us to follow it.”

“Follow it where? It’s just tickling my head.”

“From where I stand, it looks to me like it’s trying to pull you by the hair to get you moving.”

Toru stared at the faces of his other companions and read the same thing in their eyes. They all seemed to agree. “All right,” he said, “but it’s not my friend, just a pesky little creature.”

The bug hummed and circled his head, then bumped against his nose.

“Just look at it, itching for a fight,” Toru complained. “Look, it’s landing on my nose!”

Duril moved closer. “Wind spirit,” he said gently, “guide us where you wish to take us.”

The lightning bug seemed keener on listening to Duril’s gentle words and it flew away from Toru’s nose. They all stood and followed the bug that stopped now and then, as if to wait for them on a path toward the unknown.

***

Toru walked in front, side by side with Duril, while Varg and Claw followed closely behind. Varg’s head was teeming with thoughts, not all of them carrying the shape of coherence, something that seemed a reason for both exhilaration and subtle fear that moved under them like a river current. It hadn’t been out of mere courtesy that he had offered Claw to speak the magical words the wind seemed to know. That sense of wrongness was with him, although it didn’t appear enough to make his gut instincts kick in and take over. Unsettling was the first word that came to mind if he were to describe what was going on inside him.

He turned the words of the wind in his head, over and over. Friend? Could it be that the wind spirit considered them friends, or was it offering its friendship to them? Alive. Was the forest alive, or did it want to be? What was the meaning of the falling leaves? Were they back on the branches at the break of dawn, as Toru imagined?

Uswas the simplest word of them all, and yet, it seemed to Varg that it had to be the one with the most significance. It could mean the forest as a whole.

Are you struggling to become alive and you could use a friend? Varg asked with the voice of his mind, but unsurprisingly, no reply came.

What was the point of the question mark after the word wind? The wind spirit created the forest, so why would it be, above all, put under that veil of doubt thrown over it by that sudden abrupt rise at the end?

And then came the word play, and Varg couldn’t figure out why it was there because it felt like it shouldn’t be part of the magical incantation that had finally summoned their guide to an unknown place ahead of them. It suggested the nature of a child, and what had a child to do with anything happening to a forest that had been around for centuries, if not longer?

Time. That was the last word, and Varg couldn’t explain it, but somehow it made the most sense to him, as if they were there right on time to witness something that, while remaining beyond their comprehension for now, had to be important.

“I’m not jealous that the forest chose to reply to your call, not mine,” Claw interrupted his train of thought with a friendly nudge.

“The forest? All I did was make some tiny bug appear,” Varg returned in kind. “And, according to Toru, that bug is no stranger to our kitty.”

“You’re not the kind to accept compliments with ease, are you?” Claw commented. “I might have to fight you until you admit how amazing you are.”

Varg chuckled. “Compliment me on my strength and abilities on the battlefield, and I’ll graciously receive every word. But magical, or a speaker to the spirits, that I am not.”

Claw gestured for him to look ahead. “It looks to me like you might be wrong about that.”

Varg stopped for a moment. So far, as strange and a keeper of secrets as it appeared, the forest had been a place of wonder. Yet, nothing could have prepared him for what now lay in front of him.

Lightning bugs of all colors played in the crown of an old oak. Moss grew on the ancient bark on all sides, as if the tree turned its face from the sun on purpose. Yet, streams of translucent green crossed the trunk from its roots up to the highest of its branches and back again, life flowing from it and feeding straight into the ground.

“Are we at the heart of The Quiet Woods?” he asked, as he remembered the tale Claw had told him only the night before.

“We might well be,” Claw confirmed as he stood there, watching the old oak in wonder.

***

Duril was at a loss for words. They had been through a lot lately, and yet he had encountered nothing like the scene in front of his eyes until now. If a reason for the word ‘magic’ had to exist, it could well be whatever they were seeing right now. Magic manifested in the world in many ways, but somehow, Duril felt that he was witness, along with the others, to something truly wondrous. The colors of the bugs and leaves were so bright his eyes couldn’t rest in one place for long without beginning to sting. Whatever the old oak stood for, it had to be extremely powerful.

An impulse from within nudged him to move forward and place his hand on the bark. It was so warm under his touch, and that revelation halted his decision to have another go at using his gift from Lady Amethyst. Only for a moment, though, because the warmth under his fingertips spread along his arm and filled him with reassurance. “Who are you?” he whispered, and the symbols on the back of his hand glowed radiantly. That had never happened before.

“Duril,” Varg whispered in alarm.

He couldn’t understand the cause for the apprehension apparent in the tone of those words. He was allowed no time to ponder it as Toru turned toward him, his eyes widened in shock, and then rushed to him.

“Duril! What’s going on?”

The tigershifter grabbed his shoulder and tried to pull him away, and it was only then Duril realized that his feet were planted firmly in the ground, and his entire body was as tough and rigid as the trunk of a tree, although on the inside, he could feel life flowing from the center of his heart down to his toes, fingers, and even the crown of his head.

He tried to move his head to get a good look at Toru and assure him that everything was all right, but he couldn’t move. Fluent like a river on the inside, but made of bark on the outside. Toru’s face appeared in front of him, and it was easy to see that the young tiger was prey to great agitation. Duril looked into his eyes, hoping that he could convey the same assurance to his lover that he found in the roots growing from his feet and burying themselves deep into the heart of the earth.

***

“Claw, what’s happening?” Toru shouted after another desperate attempt to pull Duril away. The healer had the same warmth in his eyes he knew well, and it felt as if he was trying to speak, but his mouth didn’t move, or any other part of him for that matter.

And he was turning into something else before their very eyes. The tree moved to keep him captive, soft tendrils of newborn branches wrapping around Duril’s hand and wrist, aiming to reach higher, growing thicker with each passing moment.

Toru tried to shake his friend and lover, hugged him and used all his strength to lift him from the ground, but it seemed that his body had taken root so deep that it was impossible to move him from his place.

Varg and Claw hurried to help him, prey to the same frenzy, but all their efforts were in vain. Toru gave up and smacked his fists against the bark of the old oak. “Let Duril go free, now!”

Claw grabbed him and pulled him back. “Toru, stop!”

He struggled against the other’s hold, but the bear was superior in might, and he was finally dragged away. Even if Claw was stronger, Toru’s fight managed to topple them over together, making them fall on the grass.

Friend well, someone whispered, and Toru stopped his struggling to look up. The lightning bug hovered above him. “What do you know?” He lashed at the bug, trying to swat it with one open palm, but it was Varg who caught his arm this time.

“Toru, stop.”

He recognized the authority in Varg’s voice for what it was. Care and a hint of worry, but Toru could tell by now that the wolfshifter was considering possibilities in his mind, those that usually stemmed from the wise part of him that wasn’t from his nature as a warrior, but that of a pack leader.

“What’s going on with Duril?” he asked in a much softer voice now. “Is he turning into a tree? Because he knows how to talk to them?”

Varg helped him to his feet and then did the same for Claw. The three of them stood and looked at Duril, as froze in place as he was. Toru couldn’t say what made him think that the healer looked nothing like a statue. If anything, he looked as alive as he always did, only that he seemed to have been caught in a moment in time, time that had been brought to a halt by a mysterious and invisible hand.

“Your little friend here,” Varg pointed vaguely at the place where the lightning bug had hovered only earlier, “tells us that Duril is fine. My gut tells me that we should believe it, as tiny as it might be.”

“It’s not my friend,” Toru protested, but right then, the bug flew in from his left side and bumped against his temple.

Friends, the voice in the wind whispered, but this time with just a slight tinge of exasperation.

“I don’t believe in bugs,” he said stubbornly but didn’t try to swat the lightning bug away as before.

“It doesn’t look like we have much choice,” Varg pointed out. “We need to find a way to talk to it. And I think what we need the most is patience and to find the right words our friend can recognize and use.”

Patience wasn’t his strongest suit, Toru thought and crossed his arms. Why did these adventures have to show him all his weaknesses he didn’t like at all?

***

Duril could hear what Toru, Varg, and Claw were saying only a few feet away from him, and he wished so much that he still had a voice to tell them that they had nothing to be afraid of. Why he knew that to be true was beyond the realm of comprehension, but it still was the truth, and it was something he sensed with his entire being.

Your gift is strong, a voice whispered, right into his mind.

You talk, Duril thought since he couldn’t move his lips or let his throat form any sounds.

I do.

Even though the voice came from the old oak as he could clearly sense it was doing, in his mind, it didn’t appear keen on giving him any of the information he needed to discover. It appeared he needed to coax the words out of the magical being trapped in there.

Who are you?

I lost my name a long time ago. I don’t remember.

What are you? Duril knew somehow that was a more important question than the first.

Not dead, not yet alive.

Alive. But to him, the forest seemed as alive as it could be. Varg and Claw had seemed to differ when they talked that very morning about the strange things happening there, at The Quiet Woods.

Life courses through you. I can feel it, he replied. This entire place is alive because of you.

But it cannot age. The life you see comes back, ebb and flow. Why is this happening?

Duril pondered over this, following the words carefully. I’m a stranger here. I was hoping you could tell me more.

I don’t know much. Each new day promises, but by nightfall, when everyone sleeps, it’s back again. It’s tiring, but I cannot stop. I must keep trying.

The spirit in the old oak had no memories, it seemed, except for the arduous labor of creating everything over and over again.

I tried to talk to you. But the trees were silent.

They’re too young to know how to do so.

For him, they looked like a fully grown forest, but nothing surprised him anymore.

My friends are working themselves mad because I don’t move,he pointed out as gently as he could.

I’m not the one keeping you, if that’s what you’re asking. The only thing I control is this. Ebb and flow… ebb and flow…

Even though the voice he could hear was young, the tiredness he’d noticed earlier saturated each inflection.

It has to be because your gift is so strong. I don’t think I’ve ever met someone like you, but I don’t meet many people.

Duril wanted to laugh at the joke. The young voice had taken a turn that suggested it was capable of humor.

This place is called The Quiet Woods. Does that tell you anything?

The Quiet Woods? That’s a beautiful name. But why are they so quiet? Is it because of the young trees I’m making?

Duril wished he had an answer to that. I must be here because I can help.

I could use some help. And a friend.

Is that little lightning bug part of you? Or a friend?

It’s someone who comes and goes. I know that I should know it, but I forget. There are so many trees, and birds, and bugs, and blades of grass that need to be born again. Why cannot I keep them alive? Is there something wrong with me?

The voice sounded anxious, unsure, and like it belonged to a child.

I don’t think so. Maybe there is something keeping you from reaching your full power and keeping the forest alive for more than one day.

I do feel that may be correct. But it’s a part of me, I think, inside this body of wood.

Duril wished he could see inside the tree and offer help, but he was there, outside, and he couldn’t even begin to fathom how such a thing would be possible. It was wondrous enough that he could talk to the heart of a forest as magical as the one around them.

Would you like to look? The voice asked, now eager to get help.

Of course I would, but how?

Leave that to me.

Duril felt his hand moving, the one resting against the old bark. But no, it wasn’t moving, it was sinking, and his entire body was pulled through the bark. He tentatively moved his fingers and then his entire hand, realizing that he once again had control over them. His body sank into the body of the tree, and all of a sudden, he found himself in complete darkness.

***

“No! Duril!” Toru exclaimed, but it was too late. The old oak was pulling the healer inside it and its bark then closed behind him, making it seem as if Duril had never even been there.

He stopped, bewildered, and didn’t even attempt to slam his fists against the trunk. “Why is this forest so mean?” he shouted.

Friend well, the lightning bug bumped against his forehead. Toru turned all his frustration on it. “You,” he hissed. “You got us into trouble!”

Claw and Varg seemed as dumbfounded by Duril’s disappearance as he was. Varg moved suddenly, and his palm swished dangerously close to Toru’s face, making him take a step back. Only then, he realized the wolfshifter had done that with a clever aim in mind. From Varg’s closed fist, he could hear a buzzing sound.

“You got it!” Toru exclaimed. “Are you going to teach it how to talk to us?”

“More like I intend to ask it a few questions,” Varg said with determination. “Now, tiny bug, tell us? Where is our friend? And say more than that he is well this time.”

The bug buzzed a little more, but it appeared that struggling to get out of Varg’s hold was taking a toll on its power.

“Maybe we should give it a few more words to help it,” Claw suggested. “Can Duril talk to the oak?”

Oak talk.

That was a bit of a relief, Toru thought. Trees were supposed to be Duril’s friends.

***

He blinked hard, trying to adjust his eyes to the darkness, but without any source of light, no matter how weak, it appeared impossible to see anything. Something was swarming at his feet, and a sensation of unpleasant unease gripped him all of a sudden. Tiny teeth began to bite his ankle, and Duril released a loud and clear shout of pained surprise.

TBC

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