When a woman moves into the sleepy town, it rouses everyone's tongues to start wagging. She is strange and distant in her manner. Tia Frost is blissfully unaware of the townsfolk's discomfort with her. With Burt at her side, she wonders about the wo...
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Time slipped away from me as I enjoyed the peace of the forest, and the sun breaking through the dense canopy above me. The trees swayed in the soft breeze, that carried the smell of autumn. The air was cool and watching the forest come alive as the sun came up is one of my favourite pastimes. Every morning we would head out here to enjoy the peace and tranquility of the forest around my home.
Today however it was disturbed by the sudden sound of power tools. I looked down at the large German shepherd lying next to me, just as he looked up at me. I could see the same annoyance at the noise as I felt, in him. "What do you say, Burt, shall we go see what that sound is?"
He yawned at me but stood shaking his fur out. "Then we will go. Can you lead me to it?"
He looked up at me with his big brown eyes and I knew he was thinking. 'You need to stand up first.'
I stood and he ran off a short way before he turned back to check I was following. I was and he trotted off ahead of me. We weaved in and out of the tree's heading in the direction of the neighbour's house. I sighed as we got closer to the sound. Burt stopped and looked over his shoulder at me.
"We are too close to home for that sound to be coming from their land."
Burt sighed and turned back to the sound. He waited for the sound of my footsteps crunching the leaves and twigs, before moving off ahead of me.
We arrived at the new edge of the forest. About one mile from my boundary line the trees had been cut down and a lot of work had gone into the new building that stood in the cleared space. I shook my head and patted Burt watching the hustle and bustle of the building site.
Men carried wood and moved wheelbarrows up ramps. There was a purpose to all the movement and a sense that everyone knew their job. I followed one of the builders with my eyes to two men standing in the middle of this chaos. He spoke to one of them then walked away leaving them to paw over some blueprints.
I tried to wave at one of the men to get his attention. He didn't see me. When I tried to call out to them, they couldn't hear me over the noise of the power tools and yelling. I looked down at Burt. "Get their attention for me please."
Burt barked loudly sounding very aggressive to those that didn't know him.
The men working stopped what they were doing to stare at us. The whole site went silent "Tie that animal up! I won't be responsible for its death if it runs under the equipment." He waved his hand towards the digger that was sitting idling near to us.
"I'm not tying my dog up on, my land. What are you doing here?"
The man who looked to be in charge turned to a worker he had been looking at the blueprints with and spoke to him in a voice too low for me to hear over the sound of the digger engine, the worker darted off as soon as he finished talking. "What do you mean your land?" He asked.
