Chapter Two
"What should we do about Scruffy?" My voice is a subtle whisper, ushered solely for the sensitive ears of Raffe. My eyes trail the frolicking wolf's path as he prances around Paige, kicking like a feisty young stallion.
Raffe's spine uncoils, vertebrae after vertebrae visible through his shirt. His head swivels, eyes clashing against mine. The tense bitterness is evident in the twisted sneer he wears. Eyes narrowing, he questions darkly, "Why? I thought he was part of the crew now."
I stare at him blankly. "I never said I wanted him along, and you've made it pretty clear that you don't. He's entertaining Paige, and I'm grateful for that, don't get me wrong, but he'll be hard to travel with."
Raffe cranes his head back to the sky, holding two hands up in a gesture of wonder. Mocking colors his venomous tone. "Is that not what I said earlier? Is that not exactly what I said earlier?"
Anger stirs in the pit of my stomach, irritation prickling over the palms of my hands. I glower at Raffe. "What is with you? You've been acting stingy ever since we've arrived."
Navy blue fire flares to life violently in Raffe's eyes. Agitation twists his mouth further, and his wings unfurl slightly. Every muscle in his body glows with discontent. "I want to leave the ground, Penryn," he snarls bitterly, raking a hand through his hair. "I want to stop all this damned hiding like a pathetic monkey. What I need is to be in the air, what I need are my wings, what I need is my sword, Penryn. I need to confront Uriel as soon as damn possible, and leave this wretched ground."
I stiffen. It's as though he's slapped me. "I wasn't aware that you felt that way. I'll go figure Scruffy out by myself, and you can sit here and mope."
"I do not mope!" Raffe's voice is sharp with rebuttal.
I don't waste the energy of responding, only marching further from him. Do not count me as a fool, I'd never even dreamed that Raffe would want to stay on the ground – but his words bite like a serrated blade, and his bitterness gnaws corrosively upon my respective image of the archangel.
A hand closes around my forearm, jolting me away from my stride. The hand holds firm despite my attempts to dislodge Raffe's grip, yanking me back towards him until I stare into Raffe's eyes. His gaze is intense.
"I didn't mean that," he husks, a weary sigh laced through his words. Raffe's gaze drops to the ground before meeting my eyes again. "I lust for my wings and other precious things that aren't rightfully mine to treasure. That's taken its toll."
Like a beast stirring beneath turbulent ocean waters, I sense a double-meaning in his words – but I can't pick up on it, not in the moment. Certainty is present – certainty that his sentences will return to me, certainty that the twisted phrases will unwind, certainty that they will haunt me late into the star-dappled night. My eyes rest upon the imploring gaze of Raffe for a few seconds more.
Yanking my arm from his grip, I grumble, "Any ideas for Scruffy, then, big guy?"
Raffe relaxes, straightening again, his intense stare returning to its regal indifference. The archangel seems a tad less stressed than he'd appeared to be earlier. "Well, the tag says to throw that stick as far as we can," points out Raffe, melodic voice a balm to my still prickling nerves. "We should be able to simply toss the wolf away."
"Are you sure?" I hedge. I'm not that much better at throwing than my lame sister. "I mean, it's coming from Hugo, king of fangirls. Doesn't seem like a reliable source."
Raffe's sigh is melodramatic. "Throw the stick, Penryn. If it doesn't work, we'll go from there."
Reluctantly, I glare at him, and then approach the wolf.
Currently, Scruffy and Paige are caught in a brutal battle of tug of war – it seems like the wolf's only half-trying, his fangs the only things gripping the slender stick. Paige tugs on it with all her might. Before, she'd popped a few stitches throwing the stick to him, so the two had found a compromise in playing less trying games.
At my approach, Scruffy's coppery red eyes roll up to meet mine. His tail thrashes a little more wildly than it had before, thumping against the ground repeatedly. A long thread of drool traces between his fangs, swaying above one of his paws.
"Scruffy," I coo, patting my thighs in invitation. "C'mhere, Scruffy! Here, boy! Scruffy!"
He drops the stick in my sister's lap, rising from the ground and pricking his ears. With a lively step, Scruffy pads over, eyes bright. The whuff, whuff, whuff of his nose travelling up my arm and into my hair tickles. Apparently, the scent of something very interesting has found it's way to my hair because he doesn't stop smelling my head for a while, no matter how times I pat his neck. Glancing at Paige, I gesture her over.
The taut smile tugging at Paige's stitches fails with one glance in my direction. Her hand weakly holding the stick in the air pitches. Face crumpling, Paige trudges her way to my side, eyes downcast. Without removing my hand from Scruffy's neck, I take the stick from her, prying her little fingers off the wood.
Raffe's eyes are lasers trained acutely on my back as I lift the stick above my head. Scruffy's pupils nearly swallow his irises. Saliva cascades through his fangs, and the wolf collapses to the ground. His face is painfully alert, ears twitching towards the stick and eyes following its every move.
Attempting to throttle as much strength as possible into my arm, I chuck the stick.
Raffe's boisterous laugh is like a cacophony of thunderclaps behind me as it sails just barely over the trees, clipping more than one limb.
He cuts off abruptly when it disappears amongst the trees and someone cries out in pain.
Scruffy growls menacingly and takes off through the woods. His strides cleave through the underbrush like a dagger, leaving a precise path in his wake. Paige cocks her head, the beginning of a snarl sending trembles through her bruised body. My hand flies to Pooky Bear's hilt, half-unsheathing the glinting blade. Raffe rises from his leisurely slouch, wings unfurling like two leather-bound scrolls.
A tense silence follows the disappearance of Scruffy, as fragile as a pane of glass and as silent as a night when the wolves forget to howl. My breath is stolen by the quiet of the second. The sun beating overhead seems to glimmer, its golden rays flickering hypnotically in the air, with just the hint of bronze riding the light's wings.
"Good going, Penryn." Raffe's voice is quiet. "If I'm right – and I usually am – you've just hit an old man upside the head with that brilliant throw of yours."
Worry sings in my heart, terror preying pitilessly with my anxiety. "What do you mean? There's an old man creeping around?"
"Hobbling, actually." He nods, almost to himself. "He's been hobbling around on the outskirts of my hearing. But his breathing is labored and his footsteps are obnoxiously loud – he's nothing I wouldn't be able to take care of if he stumbled too close."
Something slams into me like a ton of bricks. Guilt plucks my heartstrings like a musician at a harp. "You're telling me that I've just hit an old man?" My speech catches. "An old human man hobbling through the forest?"
"There's no saying he's not hostile, Penryn," lectures Raffe. "It'd be unwise to –"
A strangled bay sounds from through the trees. Scruffy sounds like he's desperate, calling for us.
"If he's hostile, you'll take care of him," I conclude. "If not, I'll go apologize."
Raffe's sigh is saturated with disapproval. "Penryn–"
I shove Pooky Bear back into her scabbard, glancing only once over my shoulder before I plunge into the shadows of the forest. "Just because I live in hell doesn't mean I have to act like a savage."
Once emerged in the woods, a primal instinct nestled deep within cowers. The bloodcurdling sensation of being watched is only amplified amongst these trees, the ones that have watched the centuries tick by. Each shadow quivers with the slightest wind. My skin prickles, hairs standing on end. Despite my noble claim about rejecting savagery, a primitive kernel of ancestral terror is awakened by the sway of the leaves in the breeze.
Though the sound his footsteps make over the crackling blanket of leaves is somewhat softer than mine, I can hear Raffe begrudgingly tailing after me – I do not need to see his face to know that is has been chiseled from disapproval.
Paige, however, is a ghost through the trees. Her animalistic lope beside me makes not a sound, leaving not a leaf out of place in her path. Her shadow is the only notion of her having passed at all. With one hand, I wave her back to the clearing. To my surprise, she obeys.
Over the small dent in the hills, a little ravine cutting apart a mountain, we find Scruffy, and a man crumpled on the ground beside him.
Scruffy enthusiastically bathes the man's faces in licks, burying the man's muffled complaints beneath his fleshy tongue.
As I study the pair of them, Raffe's breath tickles the back of my neck. I start in surprise, my body slamming against his. One hand steadies me, landing at my shoulder, but he seems more annoyed than generous.
The man shoves Scruffy's nose away with a thundering chuckle, the kind of laugh forged in the deepest pit of the chest. Rocking unsteadily, he clambers to his feet, hooking two fingers through Scruffy's saddle to heft himself off the ground. Leaves spiral from his clothing. Smiling broadly from ear to ear, the man waves at me, but he does not utter a word.
He's not a heavyset man, not in any terms, but he's not scrawny like many of the people wandering the streets today; no, any largeness is contributed to veined muscle. Not much of his skin is showing, but what is bared is deeply tanned.
A roughly handled off-white shirt sheathes his torso, frayed cuffs at the wrists. Each pocket of his cargo pants is filled with various items like multiple pocket watches, spare gears, and rusted wrenches, all of them giving him an aura like he belongs in a different century. A threadbare apron covers most of his clothing – it's so discolored and filthy with oil and grease I can't really tell what color it used to be. Adorning his head is a pair of mechanic's glasses that look like they'd been pickpocketed from a World Before cosplay.
That's what this man looks like. A steampunk mechanic.
He lifts a massive hand, revealing that the fingers are short and the pads of his palms are heavily calloused, the flesh seemingly shielded beneath layers of skin.
"Uh, hi," I greet. He beams at me, encouraging me to go on with a swooping gesture of one hand. "Did I hit you with the stick?"
His swollen cheeks blush scarlet. With one hand, he taps his forehead – already, a small lump is bloating beneath the surface of his wrinkled skin.
The man's face is far from beautiful. His smile is broad and his lips are thick. Grey eyebrows creep over his face like caterpillars. His forehead is large, large and long. Though they glitter like miniature stars, his brown eyes sit on his cheeks. His nose is round and too bulky for his face. Only a few scraggly grey hairs keep him from being labeled as bald, and they stick out every which way, much resembling Albert Einstein's famous haircut. A thick, bushy beard is tucked beneath his greasy apron.
"Sorry," I apologize, trying and failing not to stare at his bizarre appearance. "I was just trying to throw a stick to Scruffy." I jerk a thumb to the wolf, who'd promptly sat at his name. "You know Scruffy?"
The man beams at me, nodding so hard his head could go flying off. Chuckling, he pats Scruffy twice on the neck, before pointing out the stick. Stooping low, he scoops up Scruffy's stick with one massive hand. He lifts it high above his head, raising it like a sword.
Scruffy is trying to recreate Niagara Falls with the amount of drool oozing from his lips. Eyes wider than tennis balls, he squirms anxiously, whimpering pathetically. With a casual flick of the man's wrist, the stick flies through the woods, Scruffy hot on its heels.
"You would be Hugo?" guesses Raffe, his tone lazily arrogant. Raffe leans against a tree at the crown of the ridge, shadowed by the leaves.
This time, the man shakes his head remorsefully.
My eyes are wide with fascination. "Can you speak?" Cautiously, I inch down the little hill, the slick leaves proving to be treacherous.
The perky eyebrows reigning above his eyes sink. The man shakes his head again.
"You're mute?" I verify, watching his lips.
The man looks away bashfully, nodding again.
Glancing once back at Raffe, I slide down the hill a little more. I hit the pit of their ravine with a thump. Raffe, on the other hand, scowls from atop the ridge, watching me go with a tart bitterness buried in his eyes.
"Is there any way you can tell us what your name is if it's not Hugo?" I question politely. If I get any closer to him, I'd appear threatening to an old man walking alone in the woods, so at a ten foot distance is good for both me and him.
The man's shy nature evaporates as Scruffy returns, panting. First, the man kicks out a clear patch of leaves, ignoring Scruffy's whimpered pleas. The wolf practically shoves his stick in the man's face as he tries to clear the leaves. He wrestles the stick from Scruffy's mouth, shoving a fist between the wolf's fangs. With a playful growl, Scruffy releases the stick. Instead of throwing it, though, the man leans down and carves something into the unearthed soil with the tip of the stick.
I cast a glance back to Raffe's discontented figure. He glares at me in response.
Eventually, the man rises from his hunched position. He lifts the stick over his head, waits for Scruffy to sit, and then chucks the stick again. Scruffy races off, kicking up leaves behind him. Spreading his hands wide in welcome, the man backs away, steps crunching over the fallen foliage. He leaves a fair amount of distance between him and the wet dirt he'd drawn in.
My hand rests on Pooky Bear's hilt as a formality more than anything; if the man should pounce, Raffe will be on him before I get Pooky from her scabbard. The leaves hinder each step I take, their hisses of displeasure echoing obnoxiously through the woods. Once I reach the bare spot, I crouch down slightly, squinting.
"Og – Ogden. Is Ogden right?" I look up at him questioningly.
Ogden smiles, shooting me a double thumbs-up.
"What are you doing out here, Ogden?" inquires Raffe sharply, his voice like a razor. "All alone, in the middle of the forest?"
Ogden's eyes widen at the sight of Raffe, his stance faltering. It's as though, before, he'd never taken into account the demonic wings framing Raffe's broad shoulders and cutting blue eyes. Raw terror consumes his face for a second. But before I can fully comprehend his change in moods, Ogden seems to switch from horror to the adept curiosity of a puzzled scientist.
Turning to me with a question in his eyes, Ogden jerks a thumb towards Raffe, cocking an eyebrow quizzically.
"Answer the question." Raffe's voice is as hard and cold as a slab of marble, unamused by Ogden.
Ogden raises his hands in mock surrender, bowing his head. He proceeds to scratch his bearded chin, staring up to the sky with exaggerated acting. Then, brandishing one finger high, he grins.
Ogden makes the signature two-legs out of his index and middle finger with one hand and has them walk across the palm of another. It's like a game of charades, which, even in the World Before, I sucked at.
"You were walking," I guess stupidly.
Ogden raises a hand in the fifty-fifty signal, pursing his lips leniently.
"Were you walking somewhere, or merely wandering?" asks Raffe coldly.
At the last word of Raffe's question, Ogden beams and shoots a thumbs-up. He seems proud to have gotten his point across, childish grin too young for his weathered features.
"Ogden, do you know where Hugo is?" I wonder. "Or where you are in this forest? Can you navigate?"
To each question, Ogden nods a hearty yes.
My stomach releases a particularly ferocious growl, hunger wailing like a demented dolphin. I blush self-consciously, as if the etiquette rules of the World Before matter around Ogden. "Sorry," I apologize hurriedly, clapping a hand on my grumbling stomach as both Raffe and Ogden turn to me. "I haven't had much to eat in a while."
Ogden's bushy eyebrows pinch together sympathetically. A friendly smile pulls at his lips, and, with one hand, he circles over his own belly. Then, he lifts both hands in unison to create an upside-down V.
"Camp," I guess. Hope flurries like a trapped bird in my heart, my pulse spluttering. "You have food at your camp?"
Scruffy pads up while Ogden nods. He pulls the stick from Scruffy's mouth, and turns his back to me. Glancing back encouragingly, he waves me to follow him as he hobbles off with mismatched strides, Scruffy padding steadfastly by his side. An air of nostalgic mystery seems to depart with them.
"Penryn!" snaps Raffe crossly the moment my first footfall hits the leaves.
"What harm can he do us?" I call over my shoulder. "He's terrified of you!"
"And if he leads us into a trap?" The radical edge in Raffe's voice is dripping with disapproval. "What then?"
"That's why we'll leave Paige and your wings here. If things turn out bad, you can scoop me into the sky. We'll grab everything and go." Smug with my plan, I grin over my shoulder at him.
"What if I refuse to follow you?" challenges Raffe rebelliously. "Your back-up plan would be nullified."
"I'll either have a nice, tasty dinner with my sister or I'll be sitting alone in a coffin," I speculate. "I never said you had to come. I suppose I could always run back if things are nasty. And besides, you have all the makings of a brilliant babysitter."
Raffe sighs hollowly. "You'd better catch up to Ogden before you lose him. I'll secure my wings and lecture your sister, and then I'll be on your tail."
New character! Yay! Still no Hugo. Hmm.
If you see any spelling or grammatical errors, let me know!
POLL: Do you think that Ogden is legitimate or that he's leading Penryn to a trap?
Ciao,
~wolfluvermh