Chapter 106
The young faun emerged from her hiding place, her dark eyes peering about while her long, deerlike ears strained to catch any unnatural sounds.
Even her well formed nose came into play, searching for any hints of danger.
The scent of man lingered over the huge old tree she had nested in, along with the scent of a huge wolf and oddly, that of a wood elf, to her puzzlement.
Then she recalled the huge old house and those that dwelled within it.
They had left their scents at her home tree.
The faint rumbling in her tummy reminded her of her hunger and neither seeing or hearing, or even smelling any danger.
She stepped out of the wild rose thicket she had hidden in for the last two days, while that man had climbed into her home tree with a long pole that had a wicked looking, hook like, iron thing on one end.
She had watched as clump after clump of the pale green, waxy looking growth had fallen out of the tree.
She had seen the aged tree spirit flinching as the man had maneuvered his long metal pole about, cutting away the greenish growth while perched high on his long thing made of a metal that was not iron.
She had seen the huge wolf that was always with the man, sitting in the warm sun, basking in its rays.
She saw the house spirit clad all in pale shades of lavender bring the man his food and earlier today, she had seen the young giantess and the wood elf join him at his mid day meal.
Then they did a strange thing, he piled his things into that thing he'd ridden up to the old tree in and with the smell of oil and hot metal, they all rode away in it.
Once more her tummy rumbled.
Once she had caught the cloying scent of ripening fruit, her tummy's demand for food now outweighed her innate sense of caution.
With all the caution of the timid woodland creature she is, she ventured closer to the huge old house.
Drawing nearer, her deerlike ears picked up the faint tittering of tiny sprites playing on the roof of the house.
She hadn't seen them before and she smiled at their antics.
Any house that had sprites playing on its roof, had to be safe in her mind.
Keeping the yellow fruit laden trees between herself and the house, she stealthily approached until her delicate hands could reach up, tease the ripened fruit from their stems and place them against her full lipped mouth.
Oh, did they taste good! She thought as she noshed on the soft yellow fruits and tossed aside their hard pits.
The sweet juices ran down her chin and dripped down her childish bosom as she ate greedily.
Having sated her appetite, the young faun cautiously explored her new home.
She had slipped through the door into summer when it had been left slightly ajar and found a whole new world to explore.
With the old iron fences now gone, she had ventured into this area at the edge of the city and found the huge old tree and its hollow place.
Her nose had picked up faint traces of a faun that had lived here before, a faun that had disappeared during a wild hunt led by the dark god.
Lost in her thoughts, she barely heard the faint crunching of coarse gravel under tires as the tall, boxy thing returned from its jaunt away from home.
Straightening up from her splashing water on herself to wash off the juices from her face and chest, she faced the source of the crunching sound and saw the tall, boxy thing coming to a stop in front of the huge old house.
Like a flash, she turned and holding herself low to the ground, bolted from the scene.
Her long, slender, deerlike legs carrying her away from the house in a flash of tanned bare skin and a deerlike posterior, complete with a black tail to match her hair.
She left behind only her cloven hoof prints and a scattering of apricot pits to show she had been there.
Roger paused before exiting the van and said, "Did you guys see something move over by the rain barrels, just now?"
"Which one's?" Asked Freya.
"The one's near the apricot trees, I thought I saw something drop down and take off up the hill."
"Nae, Ah didnae see onie movement, Ah wasnae payin' attention." Replied Freya.
They exited the van and Dena went to round up some 'volunteers' for Roger's project.
He called after her, "Be nice now, no twisting anybody's arm!"
Dena just grinned in reply as she trotted off.
Deciding to investigate, Roger walked over to the row of mature apricot trees and began looking them over.
Before long, he found what he was looking for.
Cloven hoof prints were scattered about in the soft ground around the trees and a trail of hoof prints led back up the hill, and towards the wooded area.
Whatever it was that left them there, it left in a hurry.
The tree farthest from the house had a fair number of still wet apricot pits scattered about it, indicating that their visitor had enjoyed a dozen or more of the ripened fruit.
At first glance, the hoof prints looked like those left by deer hooves.
Roger knew that black tailed deer lived in the area as both he and Freya had seen them browsing among their tomato plants and the grape vines.
In an attempt to discourage them, Freya had planted a number of Jalapeno and Scotch Bonnet pepper plants.
Her theory was that a burned mouth from a nip on a ripe pepper would be enough to discourage further encroachments into their gardens.
They were still waiting for it to work as intended.
Roger, old softy that he is, had planted several large berry bushes in the wooded area to encourage foraging deer to stay in the woods.
Right now he wasn't so sure that had worked either, as he looked down at the scattered pits.
What was puzzling him was the fact that each apricot had been entirely consumed and the pit discarded.
Deer, being browsers usually took bites out of whatever they sampled and left the rest behind.
They almost never polished off the whole fruit.
"Whit is it yoo're lookin' at?" Said the voice beside him, causing him to start slightly. Freya for all her size at well over eight feet tall now, was incredibly light on her feet and had a way of seeming to materialize out of thin air, another jotun trait he'd had to adapt to.
He responded to his towering companion by pointing at the discarded pits and saying, "At first glance it looks as if a deer had done this, what with the cloven hoof prints and all. Now I'm not so sure."
"Why?"
He looked up at the youthful giantess and said,"Deer are browsers, they take bites out of things such as tomatoes and peaches and the like.
"These apricots were entirely eaten by something that picked them, ate them and discarded the pit."
Still looking at her he remarked,"I'm not sure of what I saw, I didn't get a really good look at it. I do remember seeing a black tail like the one's on our local black tailed deer as it disappeared up that hill."
Roger pointed out the trail of cloven hoof prints going up the hill, past the nearly completed barn and its resident big horse.
"Whaddaya think?" he asked her.
"Ah cannae say reit noo, Ah need tae look at e'erythin' afore Ah mak' me conclusion." She replied.
The young faun peered out from under the large thorn bush she was hiding under with utmost caution.
Had they seen her? She wondered.
With a start, she noticed her hoof prints leading straight to where she was hiding.
In her haste, she had forgotten to hide her tracks and now they threatened to give her location away.
There was not a thing she could do about it, except pray that no one came following in her footsteps.
She resolved to wait until dark when she could slip out and cover her tracks.
It was nearly midnight when the young faun felt it was safe enough for her to creep out of her hidey hole.
She shivered slightly against the cool night air, it was early spring and winter's chill still lingered here at night.
Even though summer was coming with its warmth, fall would soon follow and after that came winter and its deep cold.
She needed to prepare her winter's den and very soon.
Her slender form crept into the hollow and the aged oak where she took up one of the fallen mistletoe clumps and stealthily approached the big house as close as she dared.
Stooping slightly, she started obliterating her tracks near the apricot tree, where she had eaten her fill of the delicious yellowish fruit.
Then she slowly worked her way back up the hill, past the recently erected barn where the massive horse lived and clear up to her thorny hiding place.
She slept well that night, snug in her hiding place.
Sunday was fairly quiet, so Roger piled his little truck high with the mistletoe he had already removed and hauled it all to the green waste dump and its enormous mulching machine.
This machine could process entire trees and could turn one into little more than wood chips in mere moments, albeit a bit noisily.
He enjoyed heaving the pale green verbage into the growling mulcher and seeing it get turned into a greenish pulp before it got scattered over a compost heap to break down.
In return, Roger picked up several large bags of the organic soil amendment the green waste site had for sale.
Freya was always finding uses for the organic top soil around her growing hobby farm.
Picking up several bags was simply the thing to do after dropping off their own contribution to the green waste site.
Returning home, the bags were placed near the potting shed for later.
Roger then spent some time cutting the dead branches into handy lengths for the fireplace where Salamander lived now.
After having tried the other fireplaces in the large house, Salamander had settled on the one in the front parlour where the two giant wolves tended to sleep and Roger often dropped off to sleep in one of the roomy chairs therein.
The next morning after returning from dropping off both Freya and Anita at Lincoln High school.
Roger looked slightly bemused as Dena figuratively dragged her 'volunteers' before him.
They were the wood elves who lived up by the Karloff Library and took care of the place, sight unseen by most of the staff and all visitors.
Warren Johnson was the sole exception as he was bonded to Astrid, his giant wolf companion and was friends with Dena Greenwood.
Each of the sturdy elves was armed with one of the folding pruning saws Roger had obtained the Saturday before.
Their mission was to climb into the aged oak tree and cut out any mistletoe still remaining in the old tree.
Piling into the back of his tiny truck, they held on as Roger drove up near the old tree and parked his small truck.
After Roger had showed them what mistletoe looked like, the wood elves scurried up into the old tree and soon, clumps of mistletoe were falling like pale green rain.
Suddenly finding himself with time on his hands, Roger left Dena to supervise her 'volunteers' while he took a little stroll.
Having returned to the row of apricot trees where he had seen the hoof prints the day before.
He began looking around and soon discovered they had all vanished, someone or some thing, had carefully erased all of them.
The only evidence he had left was the apricot pits, and who's to say squirrels or birds or even some of the sprites, hadn't eaten them?
After filling his pouch with apricots for the 'volunteers' laboring under Dena's watchful eye, he picked a few more on a whim.
Trudging back up the hill, Roger carefully searched for any signs of their woodland visitor.
He stopped by the nearly finished barn and offered the enormous draft horse named Samson, a lump of maple sugar, which was gratefully accepted and so was his gentle play with the horse's velvety ears.
Continuing his way towards the hoary oak, Roger noticed that a clump of mistletoe had somehow, made its way close to a large thornbush near the edge of the wooded portion of their property.
The bulk of the property was wooded and would remain so.
Freya had no intention of greatly disturbing it and only Roger had encroached in it with his planting of numerous berry bushes, grape vines and other food source plants inside the wooded area.
Leaving his apricot laden pouch with Dena, he held onto six of the yellowish fruit and approached the stray clump of mistletoe.
Drawing near, he could see the unmistakable signs that the thornbush was occupied.
Something was hiding under it.
Which made sense, the sharp thorns would certainly discourage any marauding bears.
Although bears had long since disappeared from the Portland area.
Coyotes were not a problem either as the huge Jotun wolves had scared them off with their presence.
Their human neighbors had long since become accustomed to seeing Sasha and her mate Golden Eyes, patrolling the area now known as 'Wolf Hills'.
"Whit ur ye lookin' fur?"
Squeaked the piccolo of a voice near his knee.
Roger looked down at his tiny wood wife companion Dena, and replied, "Nothing in particular. Yesterday when we got back from the nursery, I thought I saw something over by the rain barrels nearest the apricot trees.
"That something ran up the hill in this direction. It happened so fast that I didn't get a real good look at it, but I could swear it had a tail like a black tailed deers."
"Sae ye 'hink it might be abidin' beneath th' thorns? Ye wish fur me tae tak' a look?"
He smiled at the two foot tall wood elf and said, "No honey, that's not necessary. I'm just wondering what I saw that could leave cloven hoof prints like a deer, eat apricots like a human or an elf and is smart enough to cover its tracks, even though I know I saw them, and so did Freya."
Dena could only shrug and say, "Ah kin 'hink ay oanly one creature 'at coods dae aw 'at an' Ah huvnae seen one in mony years. Ay coorse it gets verra cold up north an' they dislike th' cold ay winters."
"Annnd they would be?"
"Fauns, ur wuid nymphs as Ah've heard them cawed." Replied Dena.
"Fauns, wood nymphs? Aren't those the creatures Titania accused Oberon of being so fond of? I thought they were more Greek or Roman in origin."
Dena could only shrug and reply, "Aw Ah ken is whit Ah've heard tell ay an' whit Ah've heard is they're cawed Fauns."
"Have you ever seen one?"
"Och aye, once when ah were a wee lass, Ah saw one, verra bonnie she was."
Roger smiled at his tiny companion and said, "Hopefully, we'll see it again and we can get an idea of what it is."
Casually dropping some apricots right outside the entrance to the hidey hole beneath the thorn bush, Roger picked up Dena and carried her back to the old oak tree and her 'volunteers'.
The young faun lay absolutely still, relying on her coloring for concealment beneath her thorny cover.
The man and that wood elf had walked right up to her hiding place as if they knew she was in there.
Scarcely daring to breathe, she lay with her eyes half open so she could see what they were doing down by the old tree.
What was that wood elf doing with a man anyway?
Why was she allowing him to see her, let alone pick her up and carry her as if she were a child?
Something about the way they interacted said they were very close.
Could they be lovers? Impossible, he would be way too big for her, no matter which way they tried.
Lying still, she watched the activity down by the old tree.
From her vantage point she could see the movements of several wood elf menfolk clambering about the tree and cutting away at the clumps of mistletoe.
She knew the old tree was weakening because of the invasive plant.
Would taking it away help her to grow stronger?
They would both wait and see.
About 2:30 P.M. Roger left Dena and her crew to their devices while he trotted down to the new van to get Freya and Anita.
Before leaving he let out the giant wolf pair and their coterie of sprite children to get them out of Silky's hair while he was away.
With Sasha leading the way, they meandered up to the old tree and took up a relaxed but alert position to watch over the wood elves at their labors.
Even though it was still light out and the odds were very small, there was always the chance a hungry boggart might try to snatch up a nice, juicy wood elf for a snack.
While Sasha kept watch, Golden Eyes, her enormous mate nosed about while his coterie of sprite children rode on his furry back.
They loved snuggling into his deep fur and often gathered it up during shedding season to line their cubby holes, of which the house had many.
Parking just across the street from the school, Roger waved at Freya who was standing just inside the tall gate of the school yard.
She would have to duck slightly as she exited the gates because even though they were eight feet high, she was even taller at eight-foot-six inches and still growing.
She was indeed a giantess now and out of towners were easy to spot by the way they did double takes upon seeing her with her towering, Norse goddess looks and red-gold hair looming a couple of feet taller than almost anyone else there.
There was a seven foot tall boy on the Varsity basketball team and even he felt dwarfed by her.
Somewhat to his surprise, she was joined by Anita Larsen, their diminutive housemate and nascent author in residence.
She too, waved at him and he waved back at the two of them.
Usually Anita ran slightly late as she would often get interrupted by stopping to answer a question about writing from other members of the creative writing club.
Today she was on time.
He chuckled when he saw tiny Christina approaching Freya and after a brief exchange, she reached down and hoisted Christina onto her shoulders, where the tiny Filipina could watch for her mom.
Standing slightly under four and a half feet tall and weighing around 65 lbs, the tiny girl could easily get overwhelmed by a jostling crowd, while crowds tended to part for Freya.
The faun became concerned when she saw the giant wolf pair arrive with their tittering coterie of tiny sprite children perched on their furry backs.
The female settled herself into a relaxed but alert posture and the male began nosing about.
She knew that there were four of the wolves living in the area and she had seen one of them take down a black tailed deer buck in the wooded area.
The young male wolf had eaten most of it in one sitting, leaving only a few scraps of flesh and bone.
So far they had largely ignored her, but still, she had no desire to test the limits of their seeming lack of interest.
She remained hidden inside her thorny bower.
To her dismay and annoyance, the huge male wolf found the apricots the man had dropped out side her cubby hole and gobbled them up, leaving only the pits.
All she could do was glare at his typical male insensitivity as he nommed on the fruit just out of her reach.
To add to her misery, she realized she had to pee...Oh, joy.
Pulling into their driveway, Roger laughed when he saw Axel, Anita's guardian wolf companion eagerly awaiting her return.
He was now fully grown and Anita sometimes rode on his muscular back as she was slightly built, and was hardly a burden to him.
Hastily exiting the van, Anita happily glommed onto him, digging her delicate hands into his deep fur.
A most handsome young wolf was he.
Freya playfully rubbed his velvety ears and went inside to change before heading off to the recreation center to shoot some hoops.
Giantess or not, she still enjoyed her basketball and often played with anyone willing to test their skills against hers.
Leaving Anita and her giant wolf to their devices, Roger walked up to the venerable oak to see how Dena and her crew were making out.
As he drew nearer he could a lot of new open spaces on the aged tree and two piles beneath it.
One was all the rest of the mistletoe and the other was the dead branches, all nicely cut to handy lengths for the fireplace.
Salamander was going to enjoy this coming winter's season.
Dena as usual, was directing the operation while Sasha lay dozing under her gaggle of sprite children, all nestling in her deep fur.
To a person lacking the 'sight' she looked as if she had a case of bad fur with what appeared to be flattened out areas at odd intervals over her massive body.
To Roger, she had a bevy of tiny, lace winged creatures all snuggled in their little 'nests'.
Nearby lay Golden Eyes, with his own assortment of tiny sprites either snuggled in little 'nests' or flitting about while playing with his velvety ears, making them twitch to their amusement.
Roger smiled.
Ever since Maribel the sprite had chosen to live with Roger and later, brought her own husband to stay.
The house had acquired its own tittering of sprites, many of whom had been born under its generous eaves while being watched over by Old Poe, the huge raven who lived in the towering pine tree in front of the house.
Tiny April rose from her nest in Sasha's fur and with a fluttering of lacy wings settled onto Roger's shoulder.
She had become Roger's spritely companion and enjoyed riding on him whenever she had the chance, her favorite place was snuggled up in his breast pocket.
Her tiny voice squeaked, "Choclit?"
Roger smiled and replied softly, "Sorry kiddo, I didn't bring any with me, it'll melt."
"Awww!" came her squeak of a reply.
"Later?"
"Yes, later. Let's see what's going on here...Okay?"
"Hokay!" Squeaked April.
Dena grinned as he drew nearer and she pronounced proudly,"We ur aw done, th' auld tree is free ay th' blight an' wull recover nicely!"
He smiled and said loudly enough for all to hear, "I thank each and everyone of you for helping me out. I think this is the last of the trees marked by the Green Woman, and now all I have to do is keep an eye on them."
The sturdy wood elves smiled back and nodded in unison as Dena said brightly,"Yoo're welcome ay coorse. Et war uir pleasure, wasnae et?"
She said as she glanced at her 'volunteers' to see if they were nodding in agreement with her.
They were.
Roger chuckled and said, "Come around the house later on and I'll have presents for you guys to thank you for your trouble."
The grinning wood elves nodded at his remark and trooped off back to the Karloff library and their regular duties.
He stooped to pick up Dena and after cradling her in his arm, he called to the wolves, "C'mon you two, back to the house! I'll get this in the morning."
He watched as the ginormous wolves rose carefully so's not to disturb their precious cargo.
The tiny sprite children simply left their nests on the flanks of the wolves, fluttered about for a few moments then made new nests on the deeply furred backs of their gigantic wardens.
The young faun watched them leave, this strange medley of giant wolves, wood elves, sprites and a man.
She waited until they were well out of sight, then she waited a bit longer.
Finally, and at the urging of her aching bladder.
She crept out from under the thorn bush and with all of her senses on high alert, she trotted deeper into the woods to pee.
Finding the tree she wanted to water, she gratefully squatted and let fly.
Emerging from the denser underbrush once more, she cautiously approached the old tree.
The tree spirit looked exhausted from her ordeal, but she looked relieved.
Relieved that it was over and relieved that she would recover.
Not only had the crew of wood elves removed all of the remaining blight and dead branches, they had also slathered a sticky, tarry substance over the wounds to seal them.
Very methodical were the wood elves.
Approaching her nesting place within the hollow that had been burned into the tree's massive trunk.
The young faun noticed a cloth bag had been placed there in plain sight.
It was meant to be found.
Inside it were a few more of the yellowish fruits she had enjoyed recently and a smaller bag containing a mixture of fried fruits, nuts and colorful, berry sized things.
These went crunch when she bit into them and they tasted wonderful!
Maybe this place was a good place after all, she thought.
Maybe the prince wouldn't find her here, let him chase the other fauns still living under the hollow hills.
And maybe, just maybe, the dark god and his wild hunt would miss her.
After all, wasn't this the demesne of man?
She certainly hoped so.