THE TEACHINGS OF DOÑA DARIA
by Galen Hardesty
Part 2

~*~

Daria coiled three of the four lengths of rope and stuffed them in her jacket pocket. As she walked along the trail, looking and listening as she went, she tied a slipknot in the end of the fourth piece. She got it right on the third try, and proceeded to tie a slipknot in the other end. When she had a loop in each end that could be slipped over a person's wrist or ankle and pulled tight, she coiled it up and put it in another pocket, then started on the next piece.

Daria hadn't been in this part of the forest before, and she was about as far from the last familiar landmark as she was comfortable getting. She should have started marking her trail as soon as she stepped off the well-worn main trail. She stood still and listened.

Behind her, there was silence. From her left came the call of a mockingbird. He seemed to be rushing through his repertoire of imitations so he could take a coffee break or something. Ooh, did that sound good. She would about trade her birthright for a cup of coffee and a doughnut right now. Especially a filled doughnut. Just then, far off to the right, she thought she heard faint voices and sounds of running through leaves. Turning her head in that direction, she cupped her hands to her ears and listened intently. Yep, that sounded like a stampede of lunatics, all right. Daria arranged some handy pieces of dead limb in an arrow shape on the ground to mark her change of direction, and headed toward the sounds.

Stopping frequently to mark her way, and to look and listen, Daria made her way through the woods. It was mostly easy going, because wherever the canopy of foliage overhead was intact and dense, there was little or no undergrowth to impede her movement. Where a tree or several trees had fallen, though, and sunlight reached the forest floor, there would likely be a blackberry thicket or a canebrake, or some other underbrush that she might have to detour around.

Easy as the going was, though, there was little to indicate whether any of her wayward family might have passed that way. The carpet of leaves she trod might have spoken volumes to an Indian tracker, but the occasional disturbed-looking patches she could see told her nothing. They could mean that Quinn had just run past, pursued by wolves, or that a bird had recently turned the leaves over looking for grubs.

Up ahead there was a sizeable patch of bare earth. Perhaps she'd find a recognizable footprint there. Daria stopped at the edge of the dirt, surprised. There were indeed recognizable tracks... it looked like a herd of a thousand deer had been through here. She wondered if she should climb a tree before they came back and trampled her with their pointy little hooves. But by comparing them she noticed that most of the tracks were not fresh. Some, indeed, were from last winter; there were obvious frost marks inside them. The tracks that were the freshest looking, with the sharpest edges, were few in number, probably made by only two or three deer. Daria looked over the bare earth again. Aside from the deer tracks, there were a few tracks of a large bird, and a set that might belong to a possum or a coon. No human footprints that she could see. She sighed. Somewhat interesting, but not useful.

Suddenly, Daria straightened up. A sound like a squawk, or maybe a quack, had come from ahead and to the right. She caught a flicker of movement, and a sound of leaves or brush rustling. There was a clearing ahead in that direction, so Daria found another limb, made another arrow, and pressed forward.

As Daria drew closer, she could see that Helen was in the clearing. She seemed to be searching for something. She was saying or chanting something in a singsong voice that Daria couldn't make out. Daria guessed that Helen and Jake were into some Native American mysticism or folklore, if you discounted Helen's detour into Clan of the Cave Bear and Jake's ravings about pirates. Actually, they probably weren't all that selective in their present condition. The way they seemed to see each other's hallucinations indicated that they were pretty suggestible. There had to be ways to use that to her advantage, Daria thought. If she could just get inside Helen's head enough to get some idea of what hallucination to play to. Daria crept up behind a large, smooth-barked tree and watched and listened, hoping she'd get a useable idea.

Helen was working her way closer to the tree Daria lurked behind. If Daria could tie her to this tree, she'd be safe and fairly comfortable till the berries wore off. Too bad Helen wasn't a tree-hugger. Daria could just... hmmm. If she could get Helen to put her arms around the tree, fitting the loops onto her wrists was the work of a second or two. Daria pulled one of the prepared pieces of rope out of her pocket. But what would make Helen hug the tree? Daria could think of nothing. What did Helen want? What was she searching for? Daria thought a minute. Maybe she could just ask.

Pitching her voice higher, she softly called out, "Helen."

Helen turned and looked in her direction, but didn't see her for the bushes. "Who's there?"

"I am a wood nymph. What do you seek?"

Helen took a couple of steps in the direction of Daria's voice. "I seek my spirit animal."

Daria wondered if that meant they'd already caught Jake's spirit animal. A rumble from her stomach made her wonder if they were good to eat. She forced her mind back to the business at hand. Get Helen to hug the tree.

"I can tell you how to find your spirit animal, but only you must hear. Embrace my tree and I will whisper it to you," she said softly in her non-threatening wood-nymphy voice.

Helen came over to the tree. "Is this your tree?"

Crouching behind the tree, Daria held the loops ready, one in each hand. She'd only get one chance at this. "Yes. Embrace my trunk tightly and I will whisper the information you seek."

Daria saw Helen's hands coming around either side of the trunk. Quickly, she slipped the loops around Helen's wrists and tightened them. Startled, Helen tried to jerk her arms back, but she was now bound to the tree. She had a fair amount of slack, but she couldn't quite reach the knot on one wrist with the other hand. "Hey, what's going on? What are you doing, wood nymph?"

Daria recalled a scrap from her meager store of Native American folklore. She dropped her voice and tried to make it sound rough and sneaky. "I am no wood nymph. I am Trickster Coyote, and I have tricked you. If I see your spirit animal, I'll tell her you're looking for her. Heh heh heh."

She crept quietly away, staying on the opposite side of the tree from Helen, leaving her alternately swearing and pleading for help from various supernatural entities. She felt badly about pulling such a dirty trick on her mother, but at least she would stay put until the effects of the berries wore off. Now if she could just do the same for Jake and Quinn, and maybe somehow get them gathered in one place where she could watch them...

Yeah, right. Then she'd cure cancer, old age, and tooth decay. Well, she had gotten Helen. That was something. One down, two to go. Daria headed back toward the campsite, making sure Helen didn't get a look at her.