Donovan's Desire

Silver Lining

Three days.

Addy sighed out into the night, letting pure rage seep out of her skin and mouth on little clouds. If those damn, cheating, waste-of-space, little ass-turds didn't quit hacking her game she was going to hunt them down and choke them to death with vines. Or maybe bury them alive. Or encase them inside a tree trunk to be found hundreds of years later in one of the greatest mysteries of all time. She hadn't really decided.

Three days.

The little mixture she had steeping was coming along nicely. Stinging nettle, a pinch of belladonna, mary jane, and a little bit of coaxing, was turning the concoction from a trippy syrup, into a trippy syrup that also made you forget all your bad decisions. She had little hope that Charles was going to behave positively to the news she had to share, but there was not going to be another chance to give it to him. Alcohol was the perfect cover.

Three days.

The veil between her world and the other would be at its thinnest. That meant that the spirit would be at its strongest and most likely to strike. However, she would be also. But she felt rusty. Too long hiding her gifts had caused them to atrophy, when she used to wield them with precision. She twisted the wooden handle between her fingers, relishing in its cold and familiar bite. Silver edged malice glinted with moonlight. The axe was an heirloom of sorts, as much as piece of the property as any tree or fence line and its purpose known only to the owners.

Time to vent some steam and prepare. Determined strides carried her to the edge of the driveway and from there to the worn path in the grassy yard snaking back to the thick forest. She didn't have to look down to know that her guardian's paw prints littered the way. Zira occasionally shared the tradition of hunting down Windigos with her, but this year she had not expected her to come, especially not after their disagreement. So it was to be a lonely affair as it had since she was little and went with her parents.

Memories prior to that horrid night loved to escape her. Images of their smiling faces, her mother working beautiful life magic, teaching her how to grow things from tiny seeds and pieces of wood. Her mother had not been quite so gifted with the earth as she was with animals, keeping all manner of injured things in various pens, healing and then coaxing them through rehabilitation. Sure, Addy loved her chickens and they understood whenever she needed them to cooperate, but it was nothing close to the way her mother had been able to communicate with everything. It was part of the reason her father loved her so much.

Too bad Addy only got some of her patient demeanor. For plants and their nurturing? Sure. But for obstinate humans, destroying everything for their ugly box houses in neighborhoods, leaving not a speck of individuality between their residents, and making more of the fart-sucking zit-faced twats that couldn't even play a game with decency.

She glanced forlornly at the barn with its little fences as she past it. She kept it clean and free of weeds, but hadn't gone inside since the last few animals had left.

A half mile out into the woods she heard a worried howl behind her. Doggie had probably noticed she had left her home and was calling out to her. But what was she supposed to do? Howl back? Pft. She was hunting, not trying to get ambushed. He would catch up soon enough.

Placing a hand on a tree, she closed her eyes and focused, melding the connections of her nervous system to the network of roots below the ground. The trees were all asleep, so the usual hum of their living essence was quieted as if they had reduced their conversations to whispers. She was looking for a specific sort of signature, as different from living creatures as electricity is from fire. Not separate, just...different. Technically, the wendigos were alive in the sense that they were made from living people, but the spirits of those men or women had been warped, twisted into something unrecognizable. The flesh was certainly not alive, replaced over and over from whatever poor thing or corpse they feasted on.