The Daegon's Challenge

The Petrified Forest

                                    Dedicated to _barbarabennett_

10 years later....

Home.

Sometimes home's not where your family is or even where you live. It's where you feel safe and free to be yourself. A sanctuary you hid away and heal your wounds inflicted by the outside world. Sometimes home is a house or a bar. For me, home was a dead, stony forest devoid of all life.

I stood at the edge of the woods. Engraved in their stony bark were colorful streaks of reds, oranges, blues, and greens. The cold morning air kissed my cheeks as if to welcome me back. I broke into a wide grin.

"Here we are," I proclaimed with both hands on my hip. "My humble workplace. The Petrified Forest."

I glanced over to my audience of two. Calvin carried Abby via piggy back. The walk up here was too much for her weak legs. Both stared past me and at the looming trees. Their faces pale like I just showed them a portal to hell. Damn, I needed a better pitch.

"Now some people in the Capitol call these woods the Devil's Crooked Teeth but there are worse places to work. It's got great fresh air, singing birds."

That was a lie. A pretty blatant one too. There were no birds in these woods. Or squirrels or rabbits or anything really. Sometimes I'd spy a beetle or an ant hill, but really I was the only thing that inhabited this forest. Me and one lonely ghost.

Neither of them said a word, still looking rather nervous. I was beginning to regret letting them come. It wasn't my idea that they tag along. Calvin's here because Abby asked him. That love-struck sop would go to Fomori if Abby asked. As for her, I'm not sure why she suddenly wanted to come, though did I have a sneaky suspicion.

"Okay, I know it looks a little empty and foreboding," I continued, trying to salvage a decent first impression, "but it's perfectly safe and there's hidden gems in these trees. Literally. This is where Abby's amethyst anklets come from. And there's a lake about six miles in that on a clear day, you can see the daegon's country. And-"

"Didn't your mentor die here?" Calvin interrupted.

"Calvin," Abby hissed. I should have seen it coming, but mentioning Gavin still caught me off guard.

"Yeah," I said, my fingers tracing along the three scars wrapped around my forearm. "Gavin did die in these woods. But he broke the number one rule. Never stay after dark. It's perfectly safe during daylight. Which is why I want to get to Jasper Ridge before noon." I decided not to use Gavin's favorite nickname for Jasper Ridge, the Two-Step Tumble.

I adjusted my bag's shoulder strap; the weight of the equipment against my hip felt oddly comforting. Some of these tools belonged to Gavin.

Stepping through the tree line, a sigh of relief escaped me. It had been weeks since I last been here. Ever since Papa came back and decided to move us deeper into the city, finding chances to sneak back here had become increasingly difficult.

Before the curse, the Petrified Forest had once been a verdant forest, pulsing with life. But that changed within a matter of days. The first night all the animals died and by second night their bodies vanished. Plants withered and crumbled to ash. Except for the trees. Instead, their wood petrified and have remained like this for hundreds of years. Frozen in time.

But there was a beauty to the desolation. The curse took everything from these woods and left nothing behind and now it was free. Free from pain, free from worries, and free from memories. The Petrified Forest could now exist in peace, unshackled from the curse that still bound to the rest of us.