Another Fire
Chapter 10
(A/N) Old readers who have stuck with this story by some miracle, you may want to check out chapters four and five again. Some major changes were made :) Hope you enjoy this long, long overdue update.
"And that's the last sack," Essa said, handing me a bag of flour. I stumbled slightly under its weight, and Essa stacked three carton of eggs to carry herself. Today and yesterday, everyone had been running back and forth between the grocer's, my house, and the newly renovated bakery, getting it all stocked up and ready in time for its reopening in a few days. My punishment was lifted yesterday, mostly because my parents were distracted by all of the bakery business, and partially because they genuinely thought I would 'behave myself' again.
Only a few hours ago, I had been in the woods again with Ray, although now he started bringing his father's old bow so that I wouldn't have to smuggle out my mother's bow. My aim had improved, but only slightly. Even now when Ray carved a target into a wide tree trunk, I always missed the giant circle by one or two inches. Ray always laughed and told that I was sure to shoot straight by the end of the week, and I always reminded him that there was only four days.
The bakery's back door was already propped open when Essa and I arrived there to drop off our last delivery. I stuck the flour in a cabinet where all of the other bags were, and Essa opened the refrigerator for the eggs. My father was working to clean sawdust off of one of the counter tops.
"Thanks for your help, girls," he said, looking up at us. I stifled a smile when I saw his face was already smudged with flour.
"No problem," Essa said, smiling. We both headed back out the door, starting to walk. Our feet automatically took us to the Meadow. I looked back at the bakery a few times, thinking that maybe everything would be better now. My dad would be occupied with his baking again, and my mother would keep herself busy by helping him.
Essa sat down in the grass, gesturing for me to do the same. I plopped down next to her, absentmindedly playing with the grass between my fingers.
"Guess who I talked to today," she said. I looked up at her, curious.
"Who?"
"Evenna Field," Essa replied, her eyes bright. Evenna Field was a girl in our class, exactly one year older than us. She was probably the prettiest girl in our school, maybe even the whole district, with her red hair, bright green eyes, and delicate features. Essa, being social and on good terms with everyone in our grade, talked to Evenna fairly often, so it couldn't be that talking to Evenna Field was special.
"And?"
"She invited us to a party. She said that everyone in our grade and the grade above us would be there," Essa said.
"And you're planning on going?" I asked her. "We'd be the youngest ones there."
"But it would still be fun."
"No," I said, "my parents just let me off the hook for the last time they caught me. If they catch me going to Evenna's party, I'll be stuck in my house for all of eleventh grade."
"It's next week," Essa said, as if I'd just agreed.
"But-"
"Don't worry, I'll think of a cover for us," she said, waving me off.
"Are you-"
"I'll think of something."
I was extremely wary of Essa's plans for us to sneak off to Evenna's party. I didn't even want to go and it wasn't worth risking disappointing my parents again when the bakery was just about to reopen and after they'd just ended my previous punishment early. It was unlikely that they would catch me going into the woods early in the morning everyday, but Essa's plans usually have more than one flaw in them and in my mind, hunting seemed like a smaller offense than sneaking out to go a party.
As I quietly changed to go hunting, I decided to tell Essa I wouldn't be going. She would try to convince me otherwise, obviously, but she wouldn't push me.
I cracked open the back door and started to set off towards the woods, the path there quickly becoming one as familiar as the way to the Meadow from the bakery. Treading fairly quietly through the woods, thanks to Ray, I arrived at what I now considered our meeting place. Ray was already waiting there on the rockwith his abck turned to me, his father's bow resting at his side. I smiled and crept towards him from behind, planning to scare him, but at the last moment he whirled on me and yelled, "Gotcha!"
With a small, "Oh," I stumbled backwards, one hand on my heart.
Ray grinned. "You can't sneak up on me with those elephant steps of yours."
"I was not that loud," I said defensively, one hand on my hip.
"For someone like me, it was loud enough," he replied, patting the spot next to him. I climbed onto the rock and settled myself at his side.
After a brief silence, Ray asked, "Did Evenna tell you about her party?" I jerked my head towards him.
"What? You know her?" I asked him.
"Yeah. Her family invited me and my dad for dinner. Our parents know each other," Ray said, shrugging. "She told me about the party after we ate."
"Where did I come into this?"
"I told her I might come if she invited you, too," Ray said shrugging. "I mean, you're the only person I actually know in 12. The last time I came here, I was probably only six or seven."
"Oh, so you've visited here before?" I asked him, trying not to linger on the topic of the party too much.
"Yeah. With my whole family -aunt, grandmother, uncles and all," he replied. I saw how he always managed not to mention his mother.
"Your dad's siblings?" I asked, hoping his mother might come up.
To my disappointment, he said, "Yeah. You know, Evenna reminds of my aunt Posy."
"How?" I asked, curious.
"Red hair, green eyes. Boys wrapped around her finger, talkative," Ray said.
"You don't make her sound very old," I said, smiling.
Ray laughed. "That's because she's not that old. She's fourteen years younger than my dad." Ray paused. "So, are you planning on going to the party?"
I was hoping that the subject wouldn't come up again. I thought for a moment, hesitating slightly before saying, "Yeah, I guess so." Maybe it would worth going if Ray was there.
We fell into our routine of Ray hunting and me attempting to with Ray's help. We set up a line of six snares, set apart at thirty to fifty foot intervals, stretching from just outside of our meeting place to deeper into the woods. After that, Ray carved some more targets for me into some of the wider trees trunks, and helped me work on my shooting skills. This time, with some positioning adjustments from Ray, I was able to shoot just inside of the circle, and then halfway to the bull's eye.
"See?" Ray said, pulling another arrow out of a tree. "I told you you'd be able to shoot straight by the end of the week. Look at how far you've already gotten. You'd better be up to skinning that rabbit." I shoved him playfully, laughing.
"Why don't you go check on the snares? I'll finish taking out all of the arrows," he said, gesturing to the remaining four tree trunks. I nodded, heading off towards where we had set up the snare line.
The first two hadn't caught anything, but the third one had caught a small rabbit. I tried to carefully take it out of the tangled wires, but I just got it more deeply embedded into the coil and gave up, moving onto the fourth snare. At the fourth one, there was a small animal trapped inside, and I bent down to look at it, when I saw a wild dog eyeing the snare from a thicket of trees across from me. I tried not to panic as I carefully brought the hand I had set on the animal back to my side. Not making eye contact with the dog, I slowly walked backwards, but I stepped on a patch of fallen, dried leaves, and the rustling sound seemed to irritate the dog and it came barreling at me.
Trying not to scream, I ran as fast I could in the other direction, back towards where I had come from. I could hear twigs snapping and leaves crunching as the dog followed me, and I ran blindly, starting to scream for Ray after the dog caught up with me enough that I could feel it's murky breath on my ankles. I could hear Ray calling out to me from somewhere, but he was too far away for me to make out what he was saying. I dodged branches and rocks as best I could, and I even took a few random sharp turns to get the dog off of my back, but it didn't seem to tire and was certainly not giving up its pursuit for whatever reason.
I screamed for Ray until my voice was hoarse and I was sure my throat was bleeding. I swallowed and stayed quiet for a while, trying to focus on keeping my feet moving one in front of the other. When I felt like I was surely going to collapse, I could hear Ray clearly calling my name, sounding worried. I shouted for him one last time and I heard a small whoosh. The dog fell to the ground behind me, and I stopped running, my legs flying out under me. I lurched forward and Ray caught me, holding me close to him and supporting me. I would've been extremely nervous and uncomfortable with our close proximity if I hadn't been so utterly terrified and tired and dizzy.
"You okay?" he whispered into my ear, sounding genuinely concerned.
"I'm...good..," I managed to get out, my cheek pressed against Ray's cheek. "Some water... would...be nice." Laughing shakily, Ray gently set me down on the ground and got a water bottle out of his pack.
I couldn't see completely straight and when I grabbed at air instead of the bottle a few times, Ray sat down beside me and held the bottle up to my lips. "There," he said, tipping the bottle slightly. I drank greedily, and after a few minutes my dizziness ebbed and I felt better enough to walk back to the clearing. With Ray at my side but not quite touching me, we slowly made our way back to the clearing, and when we got there, Ray sat me down against a tree insisted that he take me home.
"No," I said, knowing exactly what would happen if I came home with Ray at my side. "My parents'll ground me for life."
"But you look like you're going to pass out any second," Ray pointed out.
"No. If I go back now with you, I'll never be able to come back here."
"We could always meet up in town or something," Ray said, and for the first time I realized this had become more than just hunting lessons. Ray and I had actually become friends.
"It wouldn't be the same. I like the woods, besides. I'd rather not get banned from coming here," I said, and Ray nodded hesitantly.
"Fine. But if you pass out on me, I'm going to have to carry you home," Ray said, smiling slightly.
"You wouldn't dare, Hawthorne," I said, leaning my head back against the tree.