"I'm not sure what an uncultivated forest should look like," Lucius said slowly, as he gazed up into the treetops. "But I can't believe it should look like this."
"What exactly is wrong?" There was a nervous edge to Ivy's voice. "You've been awfully quiet since we got in here. Even for you."
He chuckled at the even for you line, but at the same time, he tightened his grip on her hand. Despite their knowing what they did, it had taken courage for both of them to walk deep into the woods without so much as safe-color cloaks for protection.
"It's April. Back in the village, there are buds, new greenery, flowers everywhere. Here..." Turning his head to survey the bleak landscape, he shivered. "All the trees seem to be dead, dying, or stunted. The plants on the ground look just as bad. I've only spotted patches of one kind that's thriving. It may be the one that bears those bad-color berries Noah picked--they wouldn't be in season now."
Ivy sucked in an audible breath. "You walked into the woods by daylight once before," she reminded him. "Were the trees dead-looking then?"
The men who'd deserted her hadn't mentioned anything of the sort--and Lucius guessed her father hadn't, either. But that didn't mean much.
Nodding, he said, "Yes. But I only went a few yards past the border. To the extent I noticed it, I took it to be a problem in one small area. Last night I began to suspect it's not." He gave a sour smile. "The other time, of course, I was mostly concerned about nonexistent forest creatures."
"We may have been too quick to conclude they don't exist." Ivy sounded uneasy. "I've been thinking...didn't you say you'd been observed by them? We've been assuming the elders staged the scary 'creature response'--"
"I know they did," he said flatly.
"You said you'd been aware of someone, in the woods, watching you! It's hard to believe one of the elders happened to be prowling around at just that time."
"We don't have to assume a 'prowling elder' was there by chance," he pointed out. "They could have been shadowing me, spying on me, because I'd asked permission to go to the towns.
"But it's also possible that all the sounds I heard were made either by branches brushing against each other in the wind, or by small animals like squirrels. That near the border, the squirrels may have been visitors like me.
"And I'd been with a group touching up the paint on our border markers. One of the others could have seen me go into the woods, and told the elders." He sighed. "At the time, I might have been just as quick to inform on a friend who'd done it."
Ivy nodded thoughtfully. "All those possibilities make sense." She'd picked up on something else. "You said the squirrels could have been visitors...I haven't heard any animal or bird sounds in here. I'm realizing now that I didn't hear them when I walked through before, either, until I was nearing the wall. I just didn't dwell on it, because I had more pressing worries.
"Have you heard animals or birds? Or seen them?"
"Nothing," he said in a strained whisper. "Not so much as an insect."
They stood very still for several minutes, listening. In his case, watching as well.
Their fingers twined more tightly together.
At last Lucius said, "I think we can be sure the forest creatures don't exist. There's a word for what I sense in here. Emptiness."
Ivy gave a slow nod. "I agree. It's as if, except for some unhealthy plants, we're the only living things for miles around."
"Can I...ask a favor of you, Ivy?"
"Of course." Then, a bit uncertainly, she added, "Er, what?"
He took a deep breath. I know there are no "creatures" to molest her! "Where we're standing now, I can see the watchtower through the trees. Are you willing to wait here alone while I do some exploring?" Ivy opened her mouth to protest, and he explained quickly, "I don't want to risk our getting lost. We can keep calling back and forth--I won't get out of earshot. If I lose sight of the tower, I'll be able to get back here by following your voice."
"So...you aren't suggesting this because I'm blind? Because you think I can't manage rough terrain?"
"No, I swear it!" He smiled in spite of himself at that being her main concern. "I know you're a tomboy, remember? But even if you were sighted, I'd think one of us should stay here."
"All right." She pulled her hand free and stood determinedly erect, like a sentinel.
Trying hard not to show she's afraid.
Lucius planted a soft kiss on her head. Then he began carefully picking his way through the tangle of tree roots and blighted bushes. No forest should be like this...
.
.
.
.
.
He checked out the woods in all directions, for as far as he could safely go. When he'd finished and returned to Ivy, she laid a hand on his arm and said, "You're trembling."
"I--I found things I didn't particularly like," he admitted. "Normal enough, I suppose. I just have no experience with forests--"
"What did you find?"
"Animal skeletons. Scattered here and there. What may have been squirrels, rabbits--and one larger one, a fox or coyote."
Ivy needed a minute to absorb that. But when she spoke, her voice was steady. "So there are no living animals," she mused, "but we have skeletons to prove they once did live here. Why did they die?
"And what should we do now? We can go still deeper into the woods, you know, if we get to the stream bed and follow it."
If they followed the stream bed, he realized, they could make it all the way out of the woods--on the other side.
He hesitated. "I'm not sure. We've been missed by now...I've begun to wonder what your parents must be thinking. Did they know where you were going this morning?"
Ivy grinned. "Not when I left. But they do now! I tried to sneak out, but I couldn't get past Peggy." An especially inquisitive little sister. "I told her I was headed to your house, to camp on the doorstep till you came out. And I said we were almost certainly going to reconcile. Peggy was thrilled."
Then her face fell. "Of course, when Mama and Papa heard that, they must have realized I meant to tell you everything I knew--without swearing you to secrecy." Struck by another thought, she said, "I haven't asked you this. Did you leave any sign in the Quiet Room that you'd found the tunnel? An open trapdoor, a lamp missing?"
Lucius shook his head. "No, nothing. I walked around the perimeter of the village, but then I went back through the tunnel. I knew I should leave the Quiet Room as I'd found it--and also, I didn't want the guard in the tower to spot me.
"But my mother knows I was out most of the night, and I think she suspects I was in the woods. Where else could I have been? Mother knows that if you and I had reconciled, we wouldn't have been making love. Not before our wedding night."
Ivy's disgusted hiss told him what she thought of that.
Long engagements were almost unknown among village couples deemed old enough to marry. If not for Noah's attempt to kill Lucius, they would have been wed--in a gala, if hastily arranged, ceremony--two weeks after declaring their intentions. They'd thought about having a quiet wedding as soon as Lucius was on the mend. But they'd talked it over and decided, out of consideration for Noah's parents, to wait until after a six-month mourning period.
Unfortunately, that had bound them to the same rules of conduct the village imposed on lovelorn 14-year-olds.
"As long as our parents know we're together," Lucius said now, "I think we can stay in the woods without their being concerned for our safety. They'll guess where we've gone, and they won't like it. But however much they think we know, they'll know we aren't in danger from either 'forest creatures' or wild animals. If we're in here all night"--he hadn't brought a lantern, or any other supplies--"we can settle down in one place."
"And if we go on to a town..." Ivy pondered that, then said firmly, "No matter what happens, our families will know we weren't spirited away. We're adults who've claimed the right to think for ourselves."