Page 3 of Enchanted
She’d look it up to be sure, but it had been a dog. She was positive now. Belinda hadn’t mentioned anything about neighbors or other cabins. And how odd, Rowan thought now, that she hadn’t even asked about it.
Well, there was a neighbor somewhere, and he had a big, beautiful black dog. She imagined they could allkeep out of each other’s way.
***
The wolf watched from the shadows of the trees. Who was the woman? he wondered.Whywas the woman? She moved quickly, a little nervously, tossing glances over her shoulder as she carried things from the car to the cabin.
He’d scented her from half a mile away. Her fears, her excitement, her longings had all come to him. And had brought him to her.
His eyes narrowed with annoyance. His teeth bared in challenge. He’d be damned if he’d take her. Damned if he’d let her change what he was or what he wanted.
Sleek and silent, he turned away and vanished into the thick trees.
***
Rowan built a fire, delighted when the logs crackled and caught. She unpacked systematically. There wasn’t much, really. Clothes, supplies. Most of the boxes she’d hauled in were filled with books. Books she couldn’t live without, books she’d promised herself she’d make time to read. Books to study, books for pleasure. She’d grown up with a love of reading, of exploring worlds through words. And because of that great love, she often questioned her own dissatisfaction with teaching.
It should have been the right goal, just as her parents always insisted. She embraced learning and had always learned well and quickly. She’d studied, taken her major and then her master’s in education. At twenty-seven, she’d already taught full-time for nearly six years.
She was good at it, she thought now as she sipped tea while standing in front of the blazing fire. She could recognize the strengths and weaknesses of her students, home in on their interests and on how to challenge them.
Yet she dragged her feet on getting her doctorate. She woke each morning vaguely discontented and camehome each evening unsatisfied.
Because her heart had never been in it.
When she’d tried to explain that to the people who loved her, they’d been baffled. Her students loved and respected her, the administration at her school valued her. Why wasn’t she pursuing her degree, marrying Alan, completing her nice, tidy life as she should?
Why, indeed? she thought. Because the only answer she had for them, and for herself, was in her heart.
And brooding wasn’t thinking, she reminded herself. She’d go for a walk, get a sense of where she was. She wanted to see the cliffs Belinda had told her of.
She locked the door out of habit, then drew in a deep gulp of air that tasted of pine and sea. In her mind she could see the quick sketch Belinda had drawn her of the cabin, the forest, the cliffs. Ignoring her nerves, she stepped onto the path and headed due west.
She’d never lived outside of the city. Growing up in San Francisco hadn’t prepared her for the vastness of the Oregon forest, its smells, its sounds. Even so, her nerves began to fade into wonder.
It was like a book, a gorgeously rich story full of color and texture. The giant Douglas firs towered over her, their bushy branches letting the sun splatter into a shifting, luminous, gilded green light nearly the color of the moss that grew so thick and soft on the ground. The trees chilled the air with their shade, scented it with their fragrance.
The forest floor was soft with shed needles and ripe with the tang of sap.
At their bases, ferns grew thick and green, some thin and sharp as swords, others lacy as fans. Like fairies, she thought in a moment’s fancy, who danced only at night.
The stream bubbled along, skimming over rocks worn round and smooth, tumbling down a little rise with a sudden rush of white water that looked impossibly pure and cold. She followed the wind of it, relaxed with its music.
There was a bend up ahead, she thought idly, and around the corner there would be a stump of an old tree on the left that looked like an old man’s worn face. Foxglove grew there, and in the summer it would grow talland pale purple. It was a good place to sit, that stump, and watch the forest come to life around you.
She stopped when she came to it, staring blankly at the gnarled bark that did indeed look like an old man’s face. How had she known this would be here? she wondered, rubbing the heel of her hand on her suddenly speeding heart. It wasn’t on Belinda’s sketch, so how had she known?
“Because she mentioned it. She told me about it, that’s all. It’s just the sort of fanciful thing she’d tell me, and that I’d forget about.”
But Rowan didn’t sit, didn’t wait for the forest to come to life. It already felt alive. Enchanted, she thought, and managed to smile. The enchanted woods every girl dreams of, where the fairies dance and the prince waits to rescue her from the jealous hag or the evil wizard.
There was nothing to fear here. The woods were hers as long as she wanted. There was no one to shake their heads indulgently if her mind wandered toward fairy tales and the foolish. Her dreams were her own as well.
If she had a dream, or a story to tell a young girl, Rowan decided, it would be about the enchanted forest … and the prince who wandered it, searching through the green light and greener shadow for his one true love. He was under a spell, she thought, and trapped in the sleek, handsome form of a black wolf. Until the maiden came and freed him with her courage, her wit, and with her love.
She sighed once, wishing she had a talent for the details of telling stories. She wasn’t bad at themes, she mused, but she could never figure out how to turn a theme into an engaging tale.
So she read instead, and admired those who could.
