Mr. Silas Mcgruffin's Arc

Chapter 3 of 3

Silas walked into the trees with the compass in his hand and the small prints ahead of him in the wet earth. The fog thinned under the branches but did not lift. He kept his eyes on the ground. The tread was clear, a woman's boot, heel deep, toe light. She was still moving fast. A hundred steps in, he stopped. Beside her prints ran another set. Four pads, wide as his palm, claws long enough to score the mud. They had not been there at the porch. Something had joined her trail inside the trees. He crouched and pressed his fingers into one pad. The mud was still soft at the edge. Fresh. Whatever walked beside her was walking now. He stood and moved faster. His knees complained. The compass needle swung and held north-northeast, steady as a hand on his sleeve. Her boots turned that way at a split trunk. He followed. The wood tightened. Branches wove low across the path until he had to duck. Roots braided the ground. The trees pressed in on both sides and made a dark corridor with no room to step wide. He knew this place. He had walked it young. It ate sound. It hid things a foot off the path. A beetle crossed his boot, dusky-winged, slow. He watched it go. It had come from his cellar once, in a jar. He had not seen one out here in forty years. Something had stirred the deep ground. He pushed on. The two trails ran side by side now, close as partners. Then the pad prints veered. They cut into the brush at an angle, moving to get ahead of her. Silas broke into a run. His breath tore. The scar over his eye burned in the cold. He shoved through a curtain of thorns and came out in a small clearing. She stood at the far edge with her back to him. Young. Dark coat. One hand braced on a tree. She had heard something and stopped. The thing was between them. It stood tall as a horse and shaped wrong. Antlers branched from its skull like dead wood. Its fur was black and matted. Blue and orange marks glowed under its skin in shapes he almost remembered. It watched the woman. Its head lowered. Silas did not have breath for a shout. He raised the compass and threw it hard past the beast's shoulder. Brass struck bark with a sharp crack. The head whipped toward the sound. The woman turned. "Run to me," Silas said. She ran. She reached him and he caught her arm and pulled her behind him. The beast stepped into the clearing, slow, considering. It did not charge. It looked at Silas and its eyes narrowed as if it knew him. He stood between it and the woman with empty hands. The compass lay in the mud behind the beast. He had reached her first. He did not yet know what that had cost.