Page 11 of Earth-Bound

I held myself still, listening and feeling out along the ground as Joe stood and moved about.

He reached out and patted the trunk of my tree and I felt the same jolt of energy that I’d felt the last time he touched my trunk. It rushed through me, lighting me up. I’d never felt anything like this and it confused me, left me jangling with turmoil and pleasure.

A feeling grew steadily at the centre of my chest. I didn’t know what was happening but my body knew.

It was as though my body remembered this from a long time ago, even though I knew for certain I’d never felt it before. It was a deep, primal feeling, something as strong and inevitable as the very earth beneath us.

I was so startled that I didn’t get a chance to think what I would do next. One moment he was there and the next he’d walked off, over the hill and across the field. His footsteps faded away as they reached the edge of my senses. I was growing stronger but it was slow progress. Frustrating. I’d once had the kind of power that meant I could sense every movement in the earth around me for five miles in every direction. Now, a few hundred yards and I’d lost him.

For a long time, I sat inside my tree and brooded. I was sure I knew what that feeling inside me was, but I couldn’t for the life of me name it. Whatever it was, the realisation stayed just out of my reach.

I must have brooded for longer than I thought. The sun sank below the horizon and my tree furled in, the vixen woke and slipped away and then the sun rose again. The leaves around me strained towards them with a sort of baffled pleasure, half-remembering the feeling of warm sunlight from all those years before but not used to it yet. I mentally caressed the tree. I could relate.

Before I could decide what to do about Joe and the mysterious feeling I had that he was somehow important, I became aware of two sets of footsteps walking towards me. The smaller step was human and vibrant, whilst the longer step was so unmagical that it squashed the teeming magic of the earth. It looked like I was getting another visit from my friends.

Sure enough, both of them stopped at the tree and Randall began to talk.

“Good morning. Look Broadmire, I told you the tree was blossoming again. That’s a blossom, right there.”

The troll grunted.

“It is,” insisted Randall.

I felt along the branch towards the place Randall had pointed and there was the tiniest bud, barely formed. My tree wasn’t flourishing yet, but she would be.

As Randall chatted, I began to feel awkward. Before, I’d stayed out of sight because I hadn’t been strong enough to come out, and then I hadn’t been sure of them. Now, though? I wasgaining strength by the day and I didn’t want to wait any longer to meet my friends.

I stepped out of my tree, round the other side of the trunk, so they wouldn’t see me emerge. That might give them too much of a fright.

Smoothing down my shirt, I stepped away from the tree and circled round it.

I gave a polite cough. Randall and Broadmire both turned and Broadmire was in front of his mate in an instant, blocking him from my view and curling his large hands into fists.

“Good morning,” I said, hoping to circumnavigate any nastiness.

“Who’re you?” growled Broadmire.

“Terrund Earth, how do you do?”

“What are you?”

From behind him, Randall’s voice cried, “Broadmire! You can’t ask people that.”

“Yes, I can. I want to know.”

“It’s not polite,” insisted his mate.

“Don’t care. Want to know.”

I interjected quickly. “It’s quite alright, I assure you. I am an earth spirit. And you are a troll,” I said, pointing to Broadmire. Then I leaned to the side to peer around him. “You are a witch?”

Randall stepped to the side so he could look at me but Broadmire stepped back in front of him, blocking him from myview again. Randall gave a huff and said, “You know, you can’t stand in front of me all day.”

From Broadmire’s pulled-back lips, I gathered he disagreed. He looked rather alarming, if I were being honest. My instinctive reaction to trolls was fear, a squirming sensation in my stomach. I’d not felt it around Broadmire before because he seemed so… unthreatening, but now that feeling simmered inside me.

Trolls killed things. They destroyed.

I backed towards my tree as though I could protect it. I couldn’t. Not yet. When I was stronger, yes, I could protect the whole field, even the hills and plants and creatures around me for miles. But not right now. I was too weak.

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