Rosie & The Forest King (5 of 9)
Trapped
The man had a strange look in his eyes—something like pain, intermixed with bewilderment and fear.
“Whatever is the matter?” Rosie asked, moving closer.
A strange feeling came over her as she neared the shadows. She thought she heard voices in the woods and paused. His once-fine black clothing was in tatters. The area around him had been dug up.
“I am caught,” he said.
“In what?”
“A trap,” he said. “It’s got a locking mechanism, and I lack the strength.”
“Oh my!” Rosie dropped her backpack and closed the distance to him, falling to her knees.
His ankle was badly mangled, clamped in the toothed jaws of a leg trap.
“I’m weak right now,” he said. “I don’t know if you can even see the lock.”
“Don’t need to,” she said, standing back a pace.
She sang for the first time that day:
One, two, buckle my shoe Three, four, knock at the door Five, six, pick up sticks Seven, eight, lay them straight
The trap glowed. The lock turned under her fingers. It clicked open and fell away from his leg.
Rosie picked it up and tossed the sprung trap deep into the woods.
“How did you do that?” he asked, astonished.
“Spellverse,” she said. “Enchants that come from singing.”
“Seems like more than enchants,” he muttered. “That was transmutation. Or evocation.”
“The songs don’t make a distinction like a sorcerer would,” she said.
“I’ve seen only one other who could do that,” he said. “But her voice was not—” He stopped, groaning. “Do you have any cloth that’s relatively clean I could use to bandage this?”
“A bandage isn’t going to help you,” she said. “That will be infected by tomorrow. Probably already is. Wait right here, okay?”
She looked into his eyes—too large, maybe a touch of jaundice, but something about them twinkled.
“I will do as you say,” he said, looking around helplessly. It was not as if he had a choice.
Rosie returned to her backpack, opened the side pocket, and retrieved her leatherbound charmbook. She knelt beside him and flipped through the pages.
“What are you doing?” he asked.
“I don’t have every charm memorized,” she said. “I keep working on it, but I just need to read for a moment.”
“Okay,” he said, and let her finish.
When she looked back at him, his expression had changed. Not just strange—he always looked strange—but something different. Something she couldn’t quite name.
“Okay, ready? It might hurt.”
“It already hurts,” he said.
She nodded, weaving her hands as a song rose out of her like a nightingale, sung in D Minor. He stared at her in wonder.
Humpty Dumpty sat on a wall, Humpty Dumpty had a great fall.
She sang it over and over, and his leg glowed in response. He groaned, pain coursing through him—but by the second time through the song, his breathing slowed. He rested more comfortably now, though still lying, unsuitably dressed, in the snow.
Rosie continued to hum the tune as he watched, fascinated, while the flesh stitched itself back together.
“Can you stand?” she asked.
“I can try,” he said.
She extended her hand and steadied herself with a tree. He grasped it and pulled himself to his feet.
“Thank you,” he said.
He took one step and fell.
Rosie helped him again, humming as she did, and got him to his feet. Then, supporting him, they made their way back to the trail.
“You’ll need to rest,” she said. “It is Luke, right?”
“You remembered?” he asked.
“Of course,” Rosie said. “I’ve been on this journey three days, and you make up one-third of the people I’ve met.”
He gave her a small, pleasant smile.
She sang again—Ring Around the Rosie—creating a warm and comfortable campfire for them.
Luke just stared at her.
Then she unrolled a sleeping bag and placed a pillow at the foot.
“Sit,” she said.
He did.
She knelt, lifted his leg, and placed the pillow beneath it.
“You really need to be off this foot for a couple days, but I’ll do what I can.”
She hummed again. His face relaxed. The tension slipped from his body a little at a time.
“What are you doing out here?” she asked.
He looked at the ground, paused, then back at her.
“This is where I live,” he said.
She laughed a little. “What, out in the forest?”
“Yes,” he said. “In the forest.”
“Do you have a cabin nearby? Maybe we could get you there tomorrow.”
“No,” he said.
“Well, where do you live?”
“In the forest.”
“Yes, I know that. But where’s your house? Shelter?”
“I don’t have any,” he said. “The forest is my home. I sleep under the boughs of the trees.”
“All night? In the winter?” she said, shocked.
“I stay warm. It’s fine.”
“How? You don’t even have decent clothes.”
“It’s complicated,” he said.
She studied him, really looked this time. It was the same black clothing she’d seen days ago—now shredded. He had a shock of black hair, not well-groomed. He had those strange eyes and ears, and an unusually wide mouth. But there was something pleasant about his face. Not homely after all. Just… different.
What struck her most was the beard. In only two days he had grown not just stubble, but a real beard and mustache. His arms, legs, and chest were far hairier than his age should allow. She was sixteen, nearly seventeen. He couldn’t be more than nineteen or twenty.
“What are you looking at?” he asked.
She picked up her charmbook and flipped through its pages. Her eyes lifted to him now and then as he watched her.
“I thought so,” she said.
“Thought what?” he asked.
“There’s a rhyme—which I shan’t sing right now—that speaks about you.”
“About me?” he asked. “Why would there be a rhyme about me?”
“Well,” she said, “I doubt it’s about you, personally. But it’s about your kind.”
“My kind?”
“You are a werewolf, aren’t you, sir? You chased off my horse, didn’t you?”
He said nothing.
“Not going to answer me?”
Rosie pulled a dagger from her boot. It glinted in the firelight.
Luke pulled back. A low growl rumbled from his throat.
“Yes, I thought so,” she said. “You know this is a silver dagger, don’t you?”
“Yes,” Luke said. His voice had dropped an octave. “What do you plan to do with that?”
“Nothing at all, unless you decide to grow that hair any faster. You’re the first werewolf I’ve met,” she said matter-of-factly.
He stared at her, stunned.
Luke managed a dry smile. “When did you know?”
“I had my suspicions when the wolf chased off my horse. Did you kill her?”
“No,” he said. “I didn’t do anything. It did.”
“It?”
“What I become. What I can’t control.”
“So you don’t know for sure?”
“Your horse headed east—back toward your home,” he said. “To my knowledge, she’s alive.”
“Thank you for not killing my horse.”
He shrugged. “I would never kill a horse. But it would. Or at least try.”
She paused. Then: “Are you hungry?”
He looked at her, a sad look on his face. “I suppose I am.”
She opened her basket. “I have sausage. Bread. And cake.”
“Cake?”
“Yes.”
“I can’t remember the last time I had cake.”
“It has chocolate frosting,” she said, giving a small smile.
He watched as she cut a slice—with the silver dagger. She laid it carefully on a napkin and handed it to him.
“I’d give you a fork,” she added, “but the only one I have is made of silver, so… I think you won’t want it.”
“I’ll use my fingers,” he said. “And thank you for helping me.”
She handed him her canteen and watched as he made a mess of his hands and face. But she smiled—he thoroughly enjoyed the confection.
When he was done drinking, he handed the canteen back to her.
“I can’t thank you enough,” he said, shifting, trying to stand.
“Where do you think you’re going?” she demanded.
“You’ve done enough,” he said.
“Sit right back down,” she ordered. “You’re not healthy enough. You’re going to stay right here while I continue to hum some healing into you.”
He blinked at her. “You… want me to stay.”
“Yes.”
“After knowing what I am?”
“Yes.”
“Why?” he asked.
“That way I can keep an eye on you,” Rosie said.
He nodded. It actually made a little bit of sense.
“Okay,” he said, sitting back down.
“So,” Rosie said, “tell me the story. ‘I became a werewolf because…’” She made a spiraling gesture with her wrist to prompt him.
“I wish I could tell you,” he said.
“Nothing stopping you.”
“There is, in fact, something stopping me.”
“What?”
“The same thing that prevents me from telling you what.”
She squinted. “Is this a werewolf riddle?”
“Of sorts, I guess.”
Just then, Dan appeared, poking his head out from behind a mound of snow.
“Excuse me,” he said. “Am I hearing correctly that this—ahem—gentleman—has a curse?”
Luke said nothing.
“He won’t say,” Rosie replied.
“Can’t say,” Luke gently corrected.
“Sounds like a curse,” Dan said. “And probably hasn’t read a lick of Shakespeare.” He sniffed, twitching his nose as if he were an estate butler discarding a panhandler.
“I’m game to solve the riddle,” Rosie said. “Okay—so something prevents you from telling us how you became a werewolf?”
Luke nodded slowly. “It’s not just resistance,” he said carefully. “It’s… woven in. I can speak around it, but not through it.”
“What happens if you try?” Rosie asked.
He looked at her. Really looked. There was sorrow there. And something else—something wild flickering behind his eyes.
"Oh, wait," she said. "You become more like the wolf!"
He nodded.
"And less like a human?"
He nodded.
"And you can't just come out and say it because then it will happen to you?"
“I lose more of myself,” he said.
“What does that mean?” Dan asked.
Luke hesitated. “It means that every truth I speak about—things—pulls me closer. A piece at a time.”
Dan narrowed his eyes. “That sounds suspiciously like exposition.”
Luke didn’t answer. His ears had grown slightly longer.
“I’m serious,” he said softly. “If I just told you everything—the whole truth—" He shook his head sadly.
"You'd vanish?" Rosie asked. "I mean not vanish, but the human part of you would be gone?”
He nodded and held up his hands, showing them.
They all looked. His fingertips had darkened—coarsened just slightly. His nails, if one cared to notice, had thickened.
Dan muttered, “Oh, bother.”
“So if I ask too many questions,” Rosie said slowly, “and you try too hard to answer… you’ll turn.”
Luke exhaled, shaking his head yes vigorously.
“Fully?”
“Fully.”
“And forever.”
He nodded again.
Dan turned to Rosie, whispering sharply. “Do not get this man talking about his childhood. Or his mother. Or his father. Or his cousins. Or whatever abomination did this to him!"
Luke winced. His teeth were just a little too sharp when he closed his mouth again.
"So why do you think you chased off my dapple grey?" Rosie asked. "I mean the other you."
"Hard to say why it does what it does," he said. "I'd like to think that if I'm in there somewhere the wolf has a purpose, but I have no memory of it, so I can't say. And even if I could, I probably wouldn't, just to stay me longer."
“What’s going to happen when the moon comes out?” Rosie asked.
Luke grimaced. “All I can tell you is that I need to be miles away from you before then.”
Stephen B. Anthony is the author of Transmigrant, an epic science fiction thriller, available on both Amazon and Audible. The first seven chapters are available on this website for free.
Ooooh this is getting so interesting!