While Dan was starting a fire the next morning, Phil did his best to try keep both of them safe. He walked around the edges of the perimeter of their camp and put in his greatest efforts to swipe around the area to make a forcefield. It would allow anybody to pass through, but would make Dan and Phil and their belongings invisible to anyone else. This would make the area less suspicious and would allow Dan and Phil to go about their day as usual without having to hide or keep watch. The only issue would be if any passer by touched Dan or Phil, their belongings and them would become visible.
Once Phil felt safe, he climbed up a tree and passed through the foliage to see the sky. Following the curve of the branches, he jumped onto the next tree and caught his arms onto a branch to swing from tree to tree. He could see a group of mushrooms below and scaled his way down, plucking six from the ground and putting them in his bag, all of them quite large. The last thing he did before going back to Dan was approach a small garden he had originally come to the forest to find.
Surrounding the garden was a low white fence with a gate at the front, which had roses painted onto the wood. Between two lawns of grass ran a cobblestone path with flower beds lining each side. In the deep brown soil there was an assortment of beautiful flowers planted, in the repeated colour code of blue, blue, red, white, white, yellow. Phil supposed the owner liked everything to be organised, not a trait Dan lacked as he had observed. At the end of the path was a small rounded door with a large golden knocker on it. The locker was shaped like a roaring tiger with silver teeth which reflected light onto the ground. Just below the knocker was a peephole, and the house was painted white with red bricks along the edges. But the reason that Phil was so interested in the house was that by the left side of the house, there was a small chicken coop containing about eight chickens. Quite strangely, there were no windows on the house but Phil assumed it was because windows cost money to have because of light taxes, and they often cost even more to get due to the expensive glass.
Phil hopped over the fence and crept over to the chicken coop, where he found a small bed of straw with fresh eggs laid on it, feathers stuck to the shells. Very cautiously, he lightly picked up five eggs and stepped yet again over the fence and returned to Dan at a slightly fast pace.
Dan had started the fire when Phil arrived, and greeted him with a drink of water from the tin cup. Phil then told Dan about the house and handed him the eggs as and mushrooms, telling him to cook the mushrooms and mind the eggs while he searched for something. Dan jokingly shook his head at Phil's vague description and placed the mushrooms on his fire, which he was very proud of.
Phil left in a light jog back to the house and thus time entered through the gate and knocked on the door. A woman answered it, her greying hair scraped back into a tight bun, which was tied with a green ribbon. Her eyes had crow's feet by their edges, at their thinnest point. Her cheekbones were prominent and ended at a sharp jaw which seemed to widen her face. Her eyes were an icy grey which blended out into a jet black colour at the edges, though with speckles of yellow at the edges of her iris. Phil opened his mouth to ask her a question and she beckoned him inside with her hands.
"Hello, dear. What are you doing out there?" she asked, her voice soft with a light crackle. She led him to her kitchen and sat him down at the table.
"Hello Phillip," she said, her eyes squeezing shut when she blinked.
"Hi, Granny"
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Strangers In A Wood | Phan A U
Acak"It was like a world of ghosts that had been wrapping themselves around Phil's throat had suddenly evaporated, and he could breathe again" A Fantasy A.U. set in an old-world, magical version of England.
