New Birds

Thirst For Soup Part 7

Louis was gone only a few hours when the gate bell rang. Tilly sighed and stood, knitting in hand. She was making Louis another watch cap out of wool she reclaimed from two of her father's cardigans. A cap with black and blue horizontal stripes. Not that Louis wore the last cap she made him, or the one before that, but they were easy to knit, and it was better than fixating on her recent loss. She added her signature with stitch or label to most everything she made. Just before the gate bell rang, she had finished knitting a simple white T into the side of the cap. It looked odd alone like that and could have stood for anything. For Tucker or Tree or Truth or even Tired. She was tired. This was true.

She sat her knitting down on the chair, went down the steps and grabbed the handlebars and seat of her bike to turn it around. It was only then that it dawned on her that she had completely forgotten to lock the gate after Louis left. This realization now ran through her like a spasm. Hopefully, she could get down there and bolt it before whoever waited outside tried pushing it open. She hoped it was Keitin, failing to ring twice. Although, he would subject her to a tirade of what ifs if he found the gate unlocked. But just in case it wasn't him, she raced back to the chair to fetch the knitting needles.

She sped down the path, ignoring the rocks that lifted her tires and rattled her teeth. When she arrived at a partly opened gate, she braked hard. The gap was not wide enough to drive a vehicle through but was enough for a person or persons to have entered. Between the inner wall and where her tree line started, there was approximately forty feet of cleared space. This space was necessary, so the view along the south wall from the watchtower was never obstructed. She looked in both directions as far as the curve of the wall would allow, flashing back to the gate. She listened intently, hearing nothing. She then dropped her bike and rushed to the gate, slamming it shut, and sliding the bolts home. To prevent anyone else from entering.

"Is anyone here?" She called out. With her back to the gate, she now faced her trees.

A low moan sounded from the larger pines, near the path, where her bike lay. Whoever this was could have easily jumped her. She held the needles out in front of her and waited. She would go straight for the eyes if she needed to.

As she waited, posed to strike, all remained quiet.

"What's your business here?" she asked, keeping her voice level and deep, while taking slow careful steps towards the trees and their many shadows. "This is protected land and you have no right entering without permission."

"I wasn't aware that I needed permission." It was a male voice. Young.

"Come out here so I can see you," she said, taken another tentative step forward.

"I'm trying but I'm having trouble standing up."

She cautiously followed the voice, still holding the knitting needles out in front of her. She found him a few trees in, near a mature pine, one of her oldest. He was sitting in the brown needles and pinecones that littered the ground. The ones she had yet to collect. He was a young man, perhaps still in his late teens. When he looked up at her, she dropped the knitting needles and brought her hands to her chest. "Oh dear," she whispered.

The boy was so absent of colour he looked close to death. He moaned again and closed his eyes. Etched pain showed up in the tight-held skin around them.

"There's a physician of sorts down in Smoke Junction. You should ... I mean, I could try to help you get down there." She had no true intentions of taking him to Smoke Junction, but if she could coax him back outside the gate that would solve her initial problem of having him inside the gate.

"They can't help," he said.

"Then I'll mention for your own safety, that this is private land and I have the right to dispose of any trespassers as I see fit." She looked about, peering around the skirts of needle rich branches, still expecting an ambush. "Is there anyone else with you? They best show themselves right now if there are."