Page 37 of Entangled in the Woods
Sitting cross-legged next to the sapling, I unzipped my backpack and removed my journal and pencil. There was enough light from the sky that I could see the tree clearly and got to work sketching and taking notes about the foliage surrounding it. The sounds of my drawing mixed with the sounds of the forest, the rustling of the leaves in tune with the scratch of my pencil against the paper of my journal. A warm gust of air juxtaposed the coolness of the forest, lifting the hairs on the back of my neck. My pencil paused, mid mark.
“You shouldn’t be out here alone.” Everett’s voice filled my ears.
I stood, turning to face him. How had he known I was out here? Had he come looking for me in my tent, only to find it empty?
He stood beneath the light of the moon. It highlighted his dark features, casting shadows beneath his eyes and accentuating the bulges of the muscles in his arms. I swallowed, my throat visibly bobbing. My mind flew back to Thursday night and the feeling of his fangs dragging over my neck.
“Do you need something?”
“I just wanted to check on you,” he said.
“Check on me? I’m not the one who was unconscious yesterday. How is your arm?”
Without thinking, I stepped in front of him, grabbing onto his arm to examine the injury, tiny zaps danced over my fingertips as I touched his skin. Maybe I wasn’t imagining them because Everett recoiled slightly at my touch.
His wound was healing beautifully. Only a small line of open flesh remained, surrounded by new pink skin. “Amazing,” I murmured.
“I heard you had a run-in with my father,” Everett said.
Someone from the tent last night must have told him. Did he thought me weak for not being able to speak or even move in front of his father? I shuddered, remembering of his presence, looking away.
Everett reached his arms out and rubbed my arms up and down in a soothing motion. His hard, calloused hands felt rough against my smooth skin. “I don’t want you to even think of my father,” he said. “He’s nothing but a sad man who uses his power to intimidate those with less. Let me handle him.”
I let out a breath, releasing some of the tension that I had been holding since last night.
“I brought something for you.” Everett pulled a small, clear bag of brown dust from his pocket.
I reached out for it, and holding it up at eye level, I immediately had an idea what it was. I knelt down and dug through my backpack, finding the jar of similar brown dust Ihad collected Friday before I’d gotten stuck within the wards. Holding the two side by side, there was no debating that they were the same plant.
“How did you know I was collecting samples of this? Where did you find this?” My curiosities overrode the tension for a moment.
He squatted down next to me. “I saw the jars of the plant in your bag when you were digging for water in the forest yesterday. It looked the same as the plants I’ve been seeing dying all over my territory.”
“Yourterritory?”
“Yes, my territory. This is all my pack’s territory. We’re hosting the Deca Tournament this year.”
“See, I thought this was a national forest—you know, owned by the government.” I had never heard of land owned by the Cedar Moon Pack, let alone any other shifter.
“We let them use the land, as long as they take care of it.” Everett seemed to have an answer for everything.
I held up the jar and bag. “Looks like someone isn’t taking care of it.”
“For the last two years, the brown rot has spread,” he explained. “My father didn’t believe the extent of the problem until he came here for the tournament and saw it himself. He claims that there’s an imbalance. Too much death and not enough life present in my forest. I don’t know what’s causing it.” A look of desperation came across his face as he spoke. “The land is slowly dying.Myland is slowly dying. Thepack’sland is slowly dying. And I can’t figure out why.”
Everett didn’t have an answer for this one. Even I didn’t know what the cause was, and I was supposed to be an expert on these things. Professor Robinson had my samples, but I wouldn’t get those results until the next time he visited.
“I’m looking into it,” I said. Everett nodded, accepting my answer. “Can I keep this?” I held up the plastic bag as he nodded again. I tucked away the samples in my backpack. Standing back up, I found he was only one step away from me, his foot on top of the red-mulberry tree.
“Everett!” I screamed, pushing his chest with both of my hands. His body didn’t move. “Get off my tree!”
Everett looked down at where his boot was pressing down on the sapling’s trunk. “Shit!” He lifted his foot tree taking several steps back. “I didn’t mean to step on it. I wasn’t paying?—”
“All this talk about saving your land, and you go around squishing baby trees under your foot.”
I went into damage control, assessing the situation. The tree hadn’t snapped under the pressure of Everett’s boot because its root system was undeveloped. But the roots of the tree stuck out from the dirt exposed to the elements as the tree lay on horizontally on the ground, and the bark was missing where Everett’s boot had pressed. My fingers ran along a three-inch oval of raw tree. Less than twenty-five percent missing. This was good. Anything over that would be a death sentence. The tree still needed help, though. My hand dug deep into the earth, re-digging the hole that Kleio had previously made with her claws.
Warm hands wrapped around my wrist. “I can help,” Everett said, his golden eyes looking into mine.
