Page 77 of Monsters and Beauties

She walked right past me and toward the front door of my cottage.

“Everything okay?” I asked as I followed her inside and snorted at how brazen she was as she walked into my home.

“Issues with my roof,” she said almost sternly. “A few of the village boys are working on it, but it’s uninhabitable.” She set her satchel down on my kitchen table and turned to face me. “I can stay here until it’s fixed. With the storm coming and all….”

For a moment, I was dumbstruck at the audacity of her inviting herself to stay. But I wasn’t heartless or cold. I would never turn away somebody who needed a place to stay, least of all a neighbor.

“Of course, you can stay. As long as you need until it’s fixed.”

She made a gruff sound and nodded, as if that was it. A done deal. “I’ll help with meals, cleaning, and of course taking care of the minuscule amount of animals you have.”

I bit my tongue at her snarky tone but kept any opinions to myself and just forced a smile.

I made my way toward her as she started gathering ingredients I knew were for bread. Flour, yeast, sugar, eggs.

“Go, go, dear.” She shooed me away as if I were an annoying fly. “Tend to the animals, and I’ll prepare dinner.”

I blinked a few times, then gathered my composure. “Okay. If you insist.”

I hadn’t been used to help of any kind since my parents passed, and although Lorna had a crusty disposition, I couldn’t deny it was… nice to have someone here.

“I have to check some traps at the strea—”

She waved me away before I even finished, and that was my cue to get the hell out of there.

I finished securing the animals just as they started really getting anxious. While I closed the chicken coop and latched it, I glanced up at the quickly darkening sky, wrapping my arms around my waist and shivering as a gust of wind picked up.

I knew I didn’t have long before the weather was so bad I wouldn’t be able to venture anywhere far from home, so I quickly gathered my supplies, gave one more look through the kitchen window to see Lorna at work making the bread, and headed into the forest.

Although the sun hadn’t set yet, because it was overcast and the weather was becoming treacherous within the forest, it appeared much darker. The trees blocked the chilly wind, and there was this eerie silence surrounding me as I made my way farther into the woods and closer to the creek.

It was a good twenty-minute walk, and I was cursing myself for waiting so long to get this over with. The weather was becoming angrier looking with each passing moment.

Once at the creek, I checked the traps, pleased I caught three large fish. I quickly took care of them before putting them in my basket and standing. It was only a moment before I felt that tingling on the back of my neck, that tightening of my skin that told me I wasn’t alone.

I was being watched.

I didn’t bother looking in any direction to find the source. I knew who—what—it was.

Instead, I started making my way across the slippery rocks and to the other side of the creek so I could check the last trap. It was right when I was about to make it to shore that my shoe caught a moss-covered rock, and I twisted my ankle, falling forward. The basket flew out of my hand as my arms swung outward to steady myself.

I braced my palms forward as I fell, and when I hit the ground, my hand bent at an odd angle, and I heard a sickening crack as my temple came in contact with an uprooted tree stump.

I lay there for a second, groaning, my head instantly aching, and a fogginess surrounded me. I didn’t move for long moments, my eyes squeezed tight, my fingers dug into the earth as I tried to wait until the throbbing in my temple and wrist subsided. It was only when several passed that I finally opened my eyes and pushed up, only to gasp as the feeling of blood rushing to my head—increasing the throbbing—pulled a groan from me.

I squeezed my eyes tight and placed my fingers on the goose-egg-sized lump on the side of my head. It was tender to the touch, and the warm wetness that greeted my fingers told me the skin had been broken.

A wave of dizziness washed over me, but I shook it away. I hadn't survived this long to let a minor mishap in the woods make me vulnerable. So I forced myself to stand, weaving slightly, and focused on the forest floor to stop the spinning. It was only when I lifted my head that the world started spinning for a whole other reason.

Standing only ten feet from me were creatures I remembered seeing once so long ago. The ones I’d seen when I’d gotten lost in the woods as a child.

The monstrous beasts the villagers whispered and warned about.

And all three of them were watching me intently, their golden eyes seeming to glow in the shadowy forest surroundings, their bodies so inhuman I wanted to take a step back on instinct and self-preservation.

But my inner strength and common sense to not flee from predators kept me rooted to the spot.

For long seconds, I just took in every part of them.

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