We smiled and embraced, and then I watched her head down the driveway to where she’d parked her little red Mazda against the curb. Putting on a smile, I waved goodbye as she pulled out, hoping my impatience didn’t show.
The second she was gone, I turned around, my back to the street, looking out past the big oak with its tire swing as well as the old wooden playset nearby with its slide and bars and another swing. Beyond the shed with the garden tools and lawn mower. Past the edge of the grass and into the depths beyond. I looked left and right, peering as deeply as I could into the cover of undergrowth, searching incessantly for-
What the hellwas I searching for?
Blue and gold circles. That’s what.
I’m losing it. This is nuts. There was a rabid bear the last time you went in there. Only the random kindness of a wolf saved you.
A wolf that had tackled me out of the way. It hadn’t attacked me. I’d suffered no wounds, no cuts from its claws, no bite marks. The wolf had intervened on my behalf.
A guardian?
Theguardian?
“Lead paint in the walls,” I said, trying to justify my imagination. “Asbestos maybe, in the kitchen tiles? Has to be. Maybe toxic mold somewhere. A carbon monoxide leak?”
I frowned. My grandmotherhad died unexpectedly to everyone around her. Was it possible it was something that simple? Other than the encounter with the wolf, nothing else around me was proving problematic, but I made a mental note to replace the fire and CO2 monitoring system in my grandmother’s house anyway. I’d rather be safe than sorry.
And it would explain a lot.
But if it wasn’t that, what explained the wolf? The blue-and-gold-eyed wolf. Nothing explained it.
My feet started toward the forest on their own. I could never recall making the decision to head there. The pull was too great, a maelstrom I was being sucked into.
“Crazy,” I muttered, my feet still moving. “I’m crazy.”
The trees grew nearer.
“Muttering about muttering about being crazy actuallymakes me sound crazy,” I pointed out to nobody but myself, which probably meant I was crazy.
I laughed, high-pitched and tight.
Nervous.
Arms around myself, hugging tightly, I followed the siren-like call of the deep woods, lured in like sailors of old. I couldn’t resist. I’d come to accept that.
“But that doesn’t mean you need to be stupid about it either,” I countered loudly, interjecting some logic.
That same logic detoured me from my beeline and to the shed. Pulling it open, I rooted through the various tools there, eventually landing on a medium-sized hatchet. The wooden handle and rust-free but dusty blade showed little use, butthe weight in my hands provided a reassurance to what little remained of my sanity.
Five steps from the forest line, the breeze picked up, whisking me into the embrace of the forest on a trail of warmth. Shrubs swayed peacefully, while boughs sighed, reaching up for the warmth of the sun, eager to drink it all in. The forest welcomed me, tiny swirls of wind and leaves spinning up around me, like some sort of fairytale.
This happened last time.
Two squirrels darted round and round a tree trunk as they raced up to its heady heights, locked in a dance as old as the trees and then some.
Remember that this feeling didn’t last. If the breeze turns cool, leave. Don’t wait around. You’re just here to …
Whatwas I there for? To see a giant wolf, hoping it was friendly a second time?
“Stupid. You’re stupid. Your little hatchet won’t do a damn thing against a wolf that size.”
Yet Ihad to see it again. I had to. There could be no negotiating with the call.
I hadn’t gone more than a few hundred feet into the forest before the hairs on my arms stood on end. A second later, those on the back of my neck joined in.
Pausing mid-step, I slowly lowered my foot, inch by inch, trying not to make a sound as I balanced myself out before looking around. Just like at the cemetery, my body was screaming at me. I was being watched.
Someone, or something, was out there, and it had its eyes on me.
“Hello?”
The instant the word left my mouth, I blushed red, despite the lack of audience. “What an idiot I must look like, talking to the trees. Good thing nothing out here can understand me.”
“I can understand you just fine,” a calm, deep voice said from directly behind me.
I spun so fast my back cracked from top to bottom, the sound vying with my shriek to see which was louder.
Standing in the middle of the forest was the man from the cemetery. Feet comfortably spread apart, fingers tucked casually into the pockets of jeans that fit his hips and hugged his impressive quads to a degree that drew the eye, he stared back at me with the casual manner of nonchalance that boasted of a confidence level bordering on arrogance.
And why shouldn’t he be that confident? His tanned skin had that natural, effortless look to it that spoke of a man who worked outside, and his soft black facial hair was streaked through with just that right wisp or three of gray to appear seasoned without being too old yet.
Brown-blond hair fell from his head in waves that was somehow both shaggy and unkempt and perfectly styled all at the same time. An impossible paradox, yet this man pulled it off. Perhaps it was the way it framed his face, a strong, squarish look centered with a pair of eyes that stifled my breath. They were mismatched. One bright blue … the other a bright amber-brown.
Just like the wolf.
“Hello,” he said.
Something about his tone told me I’d been staring overly long, making an already awkward encounter even worse. He was prompting me to speak, to say something, and not just admire his face or the way his rolled-up sleeves revealed the thick, brawny forearms of someone who wasn’t afraid of manual labor.
Or the way his jeans, when he shifted, pulled just the right way that I could see a bit more than I should notice.
He knows you’re staring at his junk. Stop it. Speak up. Say something!
I couldn’t. I should, but I couldn’t. I couldn’t speak, I couldn’t look away, the man-and that was it, he was aman-had my full attention. There was no fighting it. No struggling against the pounding of my heart in my temples or the rush of blood to parts of me that would continue to tingle long after he was gone.
“Are you okay?”
That was three lines in a row for him. All while I stared-no, gawked-at him, wishing my body wasn’t reacting the way it was to his presence. Like a magnet, I was drawn to him.
“I’m okay,” I finally managed to eke out, hoping I didn’t sound quite as much like a mouse being strangled as my ears said I did. “Who are you? Why are you following me?”
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