Beech - Legend of the Dryads, Book 2

Chapter 10

Fabien stretched out in his sleep, only to groan in pain when his foot struck something solid. He blinked his eyes open, wincing at the bright light that hit his eyes. The surface he was sleeping on was soft, but it was bristly, and definitely not a mattress. His fingers moved, feeling the crispy leaves beneath him. He bolted upright with a start, only to have his face contort once again in agony when a pain shot through his back where he had been lying awkwardly.

His eyes finally adjusted, and he looked up to see Jayne standing right in front of him.

No, not Jayne. Beech. He had to get used to that.

Fabien heaved himself into a more comfortable position, and the beautiful ghost set down a plate of cold, buttered toast topped with leaves from the forest.

"Is this what humans eat?" she asked him. He cringed at the sound of Jayne's voice coming from her lips. "I'm never sure."

"It's fine," groaned Fabien from behind a yawn, and scraped off some of the inedible greenery when she turned away. "Where did you get this?" he asked.

"From a cottage not too far from here," told Beech, keeping her gaze glued to the dry forest floor below. Fabien swallowed down a mouthful of the toast.

"The Lumber Lodge?"

"Yeah." She looked sheepish.

"Don't worry," Fabien smiled, "one less breakfast for them is a minor victory for us."

Beech sank down next to a tree and held her head to the side, deep in contemplation. Fabien couldn't help himself. He had to look away; the resemblance was too much for him to handle. Beech had explained how she and Jayne had once been parts of the same being. How they were still, essentially, the same person. Theoretically, this was Jayne.

But at the same time it wasn't.

The real Jayne was somewhere else. Heading directly into a dangerous trap.

Beech watched him as he ate, her mouth occasionally opening, only to close again. She waited until Fabien had finished his final mouthful before she spoke the words that had been weighing on her mind that morning.

"Fabien," she began quietly. Fabien looked up. "Jayne is in Gloucestershire."

Fabien froze at the words he least wanted to hear. It was already too late.

"How do you know this?" he asked slowly to the plate on his lap, refusing to meet her ghostly eyes.

The spirit of the beech tree hovered a little closer to him. Her transparent hands were clasped in front of her. "She is a part of me," she reiterated a point she'd made earlier. "Since she first saw me in the woods, I've been able to sense where she is. What she's thinking."

Fabien swallowed down a lump of horror that had risen from his stomach.

"We need to stop her!" He stood, dropping his plate to the floor as he did, and scraped away the dead twigs and needles that had clung to his clothes as he slept.

Beech grabbed his arm as he strode past, forbidding him to move any further. Her ethereal fingers were icy cold, causing Fabien to pull away with a shiver.

"We can't!" she proclaimed. Eyebrows drawing together, Fabien filled with anger.

"What do you mean, we can't?" he demanded.

Beech dropped her head. "I don't know where she is," she admitted. "I can only sense that she is close. We could spend days searching for her, but without her exact location, we won't find her."

Fabien strangled his hair with his clenched fingers and dropped himself back down onto the fallen log he had stumbled upon the day before. What was he going to do now?