6.

Amelia spasmed upwards from where she lay on the ground like a drowning woman emerging from the water. She swung in all directions as she sat up and nearly struck Boon, who had been dutifully waiting beside her. All about her were the endless rows of crooked trees and the gnarled leaf-covered forest floor. A quick frantic survey told her there that the pale man and his shadows and bugs were gone. So was the vivid recreation of her own ancient history. The wolf-man looked at her with confusion and frustration. His eyes were saying Just where the hell have you been?

Her relief at seeing Boon once more was immeasurable, but she couldn't focus on that comfort now. She was too damn angry. She drew her gun and aimed upwards into the treeline.

"BASTARD!"

Bang She fired the rifle.

"FUCKER!"

Bang She fired again.

"YOU SOULLESS MOTHERLESS LEACH!"

She very nearly smashed the rifle against a nearby tree just to feel something break, but retained enough of her senses to withhold at the last moment.

"What game is this?! Did you wish to make me your pretty doll again? To see me as I was before I knew what a SHIT-EATING PARASITE YOU ARE?!"

It was her past, but it was more than a memory. It was like she was re-living the same events but damned to repeat everything exactly as it was; as if her mind was reset to that particular moment in time. It was all so vivid, much more than any dream or recollection. And it made her feel it again. That agonizing terror of forgetting oneself. Of losing everything she had done and struggled through to find herself. She had lived multiple lifetimes to discover who "Amelia" was and that venomous bastard took it all away again with a wave of his hand. She would finally find a way to kill him for that.

He was nowhere to be seen. Amelia knew however that in no way meant that he wasn't there. She slung the rifle over her shoulder and let out a final frustrated groan. She turned and saw Boon sitting calmly and staring at her. Still haven't answered my question.

"Jesus, Boon, I'm sorry." She rubbed her temple and walked over to him, plopping down on a fallen log next to where he squatted. "He… did something to my mind. Made me relive a time from long ago. Before I knew you. Before I got better. It was back in that town, Hallowed Weed. The first time I visited there, not too long after I was born."

What did he want you to see?

"I don't know. I think he wanted to make me feel foolish for coming here. To remind me I don't deserve to find what I'm looking for." She thought of little Maria and her broken little body. "Maybe he just wanted to piss me off."

Well he certainly accomplished that. So, did it work? Are you going to give up?

She gave a wry smile that was filled with gratitude. "C'mon, old dog. We need to pick up the trail again."

"Finished with your little tantrum then, ehhh?"

Amelia and Boon both turned with a start. She chastised herself. That was twice now that someone had crept up on her in this damnable Wood. The blow to her pride was lessened considerably however by the fact that this individual had snuck up on Boon as well. Now that was an accomplishment.

Roughly twenty feet away from them, perched atop a moss-covered boulder, was a tiny creature with scaly skin and wide bulging eyes. It was humanoid in shape, but no more than a foot and half in height. Its face was almost froglike, with its large domed mouth and noseless nostrils. It sat on its haunches with its head craned forward in curious observance, but its legs were ready to spring in retreat at a moment's notice.

Amelia stood cautiously and slowly moved towards the creature. Her palms were presented in a gesture of peace.

"I apologize if I have disturbed the tranquility of your evening. A great many things have been disturbing mine this night. What name may I know you by?" The creature made a nervous twitch, as if about to flee, and Amelia halted in place.

"Names are for friends, and I see no cause to label ye as one," said the creature with an accusatory pointing of its tiny finger.

"We mean no harm to you, nor to anyone else here that would return us the courtesy," said Amelia as she gestured behind her to the thankfully still calm Boon. He showed no signs of hostility, but was clearly scrutinizing the creature intently.

"Said that to the sisters, did ye? Before ye used that human thundercracker to put 'em to pieces, did ye?" it squeaked with an agitated yet comically high-pitched tone. "You just keep your distance, says me, and keep that thundercracker and your beastly mate behind your back, ye hear?"

Amelia liked this little one. She smiled warmly and plainly sat down on the ground where she stood. She looked at her new friend with a knowingly patient look, one that said "Is that more to your pleasure?" Behind her Boon's rump also plopped onto the ground as if he'd been told to sit. They both remained still while the frogling jittered in place, making up its mind as to the nature of the gesture.

"Hmph. All right, all right. A proper plea for parlance, it is." The creature hopped down from its stone highpoint and hopped along the ground before landing several feet before Amelia with its arms crossed and its head cocked. "I come out when I hear the boom-cracks. Wanted to see, I did, if it the same brutes that boomed those youngins was on my doorstep. Thought you was one of their ilk, seeing how humie you look, no offense meant. Then I sees the beast and I wonder other sorts. Now I sees your face and it's clear if you was humie then it was long long time past, eh? But still, you carry thundercracker. Why be that if not humie?"

"I carry it in hope that one day I can return it to the man it belongs to. Until then, well… it proves to be useful in a variety of situations." Amelia was taken back by her honesty, but the truth had just flowed from her without her intention. "What-what is it you say about 'youngins'? Do you mean the werewolves killed three nights ago? I seek the ones responsible."

"Do ye now?" said the creature in a voice deeper than it had previously used. It flashed a knowing grin, highlighting sharp needle-like teeth underneath its flapping lips. "And do ye seek to punish them… or to join them?"

"I… I seek a man. He was a slave in the town just outside the Wood; one of the many humans who were kept there in the days before the war. He was… my enemy. There was a great deal of spilt blood between us. I had every reason to believe he had died but out of some foolish notion I came back here to- to…" She stopped herself and rubbed at her temple. She hadn't even gotten the name of this frogling but here she was laying out secrets to it that she had never uttered to another soul. She felt the cold tendrils of someone else's control slithering at the corners of her mind. The familiar bloom of cold wrath began to unfurl within her.

"What are you, creature? I would have your name and your intent. And I would have them now."

"So your 'enemy' brought you crawling back to the forgotten realms of Calamity, eh? Heheheh, I think not." The adorable squeak had vanished. The creature now spoke with the controlling, wise tone of a mature woman. "I would wager the never-blushing bride is here looking for a mate. You stink of love, dearie. Love for the humans. You carry their filthy totem upon your back, no doubt a gift from this 'enemy' of yours. You seek him, and mean to find your mate by finding the mate of that hunk of metal. Perhaps your 'enemy' will be the one still carrying it, eh?"

Amelia didn't move a muscle. She didn't so much as twitch. She merely let one syllable escape her clenched-shut mouth.

"Boon."

With a speed that human eyes could not perceive, the man-wolf had pounced and was soaring through the air. He flew over Amelia's head and crashed into the ground atop the frogling. He snarled and clasped his great clawed hands around the throat of… nothing at all. The creature was gone. The wolf shuffled in place, checking to each side of himself for a trace of the slippery thing but there was nothing to be found. He turned back to Amelia with frustraition and confusion in his eyes. I swear I had it…

Amelia was watching the spider web of tree branches that clawed their way across the sky above their heads. She saw the wide yellow eyes of the frogling blinking down at them both from one of those branches. A laughter broke out. A cold, booming woman's laughter that came from more places than just where those eyes stared down. Suddenly a matching set of those amphibious orbs appeared several feet to the right of the first pair. Then another began blinking farther along. Then another. And another. Within moments Boon and Amelia were being watched by dozens of eyes. Then those dozens became hundreds. And with each new blinking appearance that horrible laughter echoed louder and louder.

The wolf leapt up into the tree line and began to furiously slash at every bulging peeper. He lunged from tree to tree in a fury of claws and destruction. Amelia watched as limbs, branches, twigs and leaves crashed or drifted down to the forest floor. But no living thing came raining down. The wolfman's claws never touched flesh. And the laughter only grew. Amelia's eyes darted from one pair of eyes to another as they blinked away back into the shadow.

She sensed something behind her, and twisted around shifting her gaze from the Wolfman's frenzied attack to the forest floor and saw something on the ground.

"Hey. Look." she said without raising her voice. The Wolfman immediately landed beside her. He was making a shrill whining sound, and his shoulders were slumped in disappointment. The laughter was fading away, and the last sets of eyeballs were shutting and vanishing. Amelia pointed low. A message had been carved into the cold hard ground like a finger would in sand. A message she was sure hadn't been there before the frogling appeared. There was an arrow pointing north, and below it the words "BEYOND THE VALLEY".

"You have any idea what the hell that was?"

Boon looked at her. She read him.

"No, I've only ever seen him do the whole one-into-many trick. I'm not entirely certain that little thing was even real. I felt the presence of suggestion in my mind. Plus it avoided your attack, and you never miss."

Boon replied with a somewhat haughty ruff.

"Either way, we can't kill it, and it's not yet trying to kill us. So maybe it isn't a trap." She glanced momentarily in Boon's direction, then quickly pulled her focus away. "Maybe. For once. And, yes, I know you think that's idiotic of me to assume. That's why I'm not looking at you."

Boon was indeed beaming with a cynical gaze.

"It's either that or we wait around for more gunfire. And I don't care to see what else finds us if we remain in place for too long."

With a low growl that was full of complaint the Wolf turned toward the direction of the arrow and began to trudge in its indicated direction. Amelia stood in place for a moment, contemplating the strange creature's words.

She called me 'bride'.

Even in a place as isolated and cut off from the world as Calamity Wood, Amelia's past and the reputation she had so long tried to shed dogged her more determinably than the pale man himself. Fine. She would suffer each painful reminder. She would endure any accusation or condemnation. She would relive every horror that was perpetrated against her and that she had brought upon others.

My past will not be used against me. Not when I am so close to atoning for it.

She turned and followed along after Boon, ignoring the faint sound that was coming from the darkness of the Wood from whence they came. It was laughter. Not booming or maniacal, as was the voice that emanated from the frogling. This was a chuckle. The quiet sobering delight of a pale devil in full knowledge that he'd already won.