Seven

Chapter Three

I had come to a stop and tied Absinth loosely to a tree trunk nearby. Ahead of me stretched everything. The entire forest lay there ready to be explored and discovered, but my heart pounded at the thought of leaving the trail. This is as far as I had ever gone. This little trail ran about eleven miles into the woods, and then it just ended, leaving me wandering what had happened to the person who had blazed this trail.

I shivered and wrapped my cloak around my arms as a wind blew over me. Leaves stirred around my feet, bathed in afternoon sunlight. I had to decide if I would go forward or head back. I had been to this very location so many times before, that I knew Ma was nowhere around, but perhaps she was forward. I just had to have the courage to take that step.

But the woods beyond this point grew denser and darker. There were so many branches hanging down low I would most likely have to walk Absinth or risk getting ripped from her back and left behind. Teeth chattering from nerves more than chill, I grab a red apple out of the saddle bag and munch on it until Absinth nuzzled her head against me, begging.

I fed her the apple and rubbed in between her eyes. "I've come to this place too many times to turn back now, haven't I little lady?"

The mare simply munched on her apple.

But I knew I was right. I knew I had to travel forward, that was the only way I would ever find my Ma, whether she was dead or alive.

"How do you know she went into the Great Barrier, Jade?" The voice of Milicent Varheighs echoed in my head.

Milicent was the daughter of Wondermere's only silversmith, and someone who considered herself my friend, although I had only ever thought of her as an acquaintance. I knew much, much more of her than she knew of me. That was how most of my relationships seemed to be.

We were walking down the market square one morning a week or so after Ma's appearance. The whole village had ladled me as a loon after claiming that my Ma had disappeared into the Great Barrier Forest. The idea had only cemented in their heads after I told them I had been in there searching for her.

"My father reckons she just ran off, back after your father."

I had turned on Milicent with my hands shaking and hot. The familiar feeling of anger burning through my chest only pushed me on. "Well your father's a judgmental prick and a terrible silversmith, so what does he know?"

Milicent looked more than taken aback. My words in fact had barely seemed to faze her. She had simply pointed at my hands and whispered, "You're glowing."

And my hands were, in fact, glowing. They were bright white with hints of orange like heated glass. The color stretched into my veins, glowing beneath my skin. A hot feeling had stretched over my body, causing my heart to race and my mind fog. This was a sight I hadn't seen since I was a child, and my fear of my reaction to anger had stopped the heat in my veins from flowing. My hands returned to their regular color once fear replaced the anger in my mind.

Without another glance at Milicent, I ran all the way back home, with tears in my eyes.

I took a deep breath of the forest air. Milicent didn't know then, and she didn't know now. Even though I had been combing the forest for any sign of my mother for over a year, I couldn't say I had tried my hardest to find her, when I wasn't willing to face the fear of what may lay ahead of me. Uncertainty always frightened me.