Aquinnah

Day 1: Chapter 1

"Shhh. Someone's listening," they said. The trees spoke to her through the whispers of their leaves, soft on the back of her neck.

She listened, perched along the trailside.

The girl crouched and touched the soil between two fingers and felt the earth between her toes.

Her nails were short but clean.

She brought the soil to her nose and sniffed. The ground smelled wet and bountiful. The rains had come for weeks on end, but finally the sun, heavy and hot, pressed through the treeline.

Behind her a twig snapped, and her ears pulled back against her skull, quick and feline-like. She could feel the eyes on her before she knew where they peered from, whether they were of man or beast.

She kept moving forward with no trepidation, her feet light and quick on the forest floor. She seemed to fly across rock and roots, for she knew every part of this trail. These woods were her home, and she felt no fear from who or what lay within them.

She reached the bank of the river where her boat met the shore. It was a small canoe, perched belly up like a beached fish. She eased the vessel into the placid water, no wider than a stream, no deeper than her knees. Little fish darted through the reflection of the sandy bottom.

The canoe eased silently through the water, and as she paddled, she listened. The sun was low in the sky and the forest was quiet, save for the growing hum of insects returning to the nest. Her eyes skimmed the riverbank, where the forest depths were dense and shadowed.

Another sound.

This time closer.

She sat still, letting the current take her silently down stream. Her ears perked, and she listened as the rustling grew closer.

Twigs snapped, and her hand went instinctively to the hunting knife hidden against her breast. But she did not unsheath it. She knew she was safe on the river.

Instead, she drew her paddle, and pushed forward towards the mouth of the stream. Beyond it was the glistening bay where the white tips of sailboats dotted the horizon.

But the sounds came closer now.

The trees rustled heavy overhead, and from deep within the forest, she heard a howl, high pitched and feral.

She froze, heart thumping.

What was that? The call was of no bird or beast she had ever heard.

She pulled her paddle expertly through the waters with fast quick strokes, ignoring the burn in her arms. She only stopped once she cleared the stream and was well out into the sound.

As she stopped to catch her breath, she turned back from where she came.

And there, she saw him. Standing alongside the riverbed, at the edge of the mangroves.

A small pale boy.

She saw his white chest, thin and gaunt. A swath of dark hair. Hollow light eyes staring back at her. For a moment, neither one of them moved, intrinsically connected for one fleeting moment.

Then suddenly, the boy fell to his knees as if struck from behind, swaying there for a moment. His pale eyes rolled back into his head, orbs white. And the girl cried out as the child fell head first into the deep waters of the bay.