Page 4 of Rescued By the Surly Sasquatch

Betsy crushed some of the leaves between her fingers. "Huh," she mused, "It’s a bit stronger than I expected. Must be some kind of wild super-mint. I'll probably be able to hear colors after drinking this." Almost immediately, an itchy, burning sensation began to spread over her hand.

Betsy's eyes widened in horror as angry red bumps started to appear. "Oh no. That’s not mint. That's so not mint. That's—" she groaned, the realization hitting her like a sack of particularly itchy bricks. "Poison ivy. Grandma is probably rolling in her grave right now. Probably because she's laughing too hard to lie still."

She needed to go back home and hope that she could find the calamine lotion. But as she looked around, the clearing she'd been in seemed different. Weren't there more rocks before? And that twisted old tree—had that always been there?

"Okay, no problem," she muttered, turning in a slow circle. "The cabin's just... this way. Or maybe that way?"

The forest, which had seemed so welcoming and full of potential just moments ago, now loomed ominously. Everyrustle in the underbrush became a potential threat, every shadow a lurking danger.

"Just great," she groaned, clutching her basket like a lifeline. "You wanted to be one with nature, and now you might scratch yourself to death in the middle of nowhere. Grandma would be so proud." Betsy’s mother had warned her not to do anything rash.

She should have warned her not to get a rash.

“You’re a Jersey girl,” her mother had said. “You wouldn’t last ten minutes in the deep woods of Connecticut.”

It had been twenty-four hours. So technically, she proved her mother wrong. Pulling out her cell phone, she hoped for a signal. No luck. There hadn’t been any when she was a kid, and there wasn’t any now. At least, the cabin had Wi-Fi—if she ever made it back there.

She picked a direction that looked vaguely familiar and set off, trying to retrace her steps. But each tree looked the same as the last. Each clearing was a mirror image of the one before. As she walked, Betsy's mind conjured increasingly ridiculous scenarios.

"Maybe I'll become a forest legend," she mused, ducking under a low-hanging branch. "The Ghost of the Lost Herbalist, doomed to wander these woods forever, rattling her basket of misidentified plants and wailing about the dangers of gardening without Google."

A twig snapped somewhere way too close, and Betsy yelped, nearly jumping out of her skin. "Or maybe a serial killer will get me and they’ll never find my body."

As the light grew dimmer and her feet grew wearier, Betsy's sass began to give way to genuine fear. She was lost, truly lost, in a forest that suddenly seemed vast and unknowable. The weight of her ignorance pressed down on her like a physical thing.

"Okay, universe," she whispered, her voice trembling slightly. "I get it. I'm not cut out for this whole earth mother thing. I promise, if I make it out of here, I'll stick to store-bought herbs and only use essential oils ironically. Just... please. Help me find my way back."

As if in answer to her plea, a sound cut through the forest—a low growl that made the hair on the back of Betsy's neck stand on end. She froze, her breath catching in her throat.

Slowly, ever so slowly, she turned.

There, in a small den formed by the roots of a massive oak, lay a wolf. And not just any wolf—a mother wolf, her body curled protectively around a litter of tiny, squirming pups.

For a moment, Betsy forgot to be afraid. The scene before her was straight out of a nature documentary, beautiful and wild and utterly awe-inspiring. The mother wolf's eyes met hers, and Betsy felt a connection, a primal understanding passing between woman and beast.

Then one of the pups yipped, and the spell was broken.

The mother wolf rose, her hackles raising as she positioned herself between Betsy and her babies. More growls joined the first, and Betsy's heart sank as she realized the rest of the pack had arrived.

"Nice doggies," Betsy squeaked, taking a step back. "Good, terrifying, probably-going-to-eat-me doggies."

The wolves began to circle, their movements fluid and purposeful. Betsy's mind raced, trying to remember anything useful from those wildlife survival shows she'd binge-watched. Play dead? No, that was bears. Climb a tree? With her upper body strength? She'd be lucky to scale a stepladder.

Just as Betsy was considering making a run for it—because hey, death by wolf was death by wolf, whether you were standing still or flailing wildly—a sound unlike anything she'd ever heard before echoed through the forest.

It was a howl, but not like the wolves'. This was deeper, more resonant, filled with a power that shook the trees. The wolves' ears perked up, their heads swiveling towards the source of the sound. For a moment, everything was still.

Then, as one, the pack turned and melted into the underbrush, leaving Betsy alone and shaking.

She didn't wait to see what could make a sound terrifying enough to scare off a pack of wolves. Betsy turned and ran, her basket of poison ivy-mint forgotten on the forest floor.

Branches whipped at her face, roots seemed to reach up to trip her, but Betsy ran on, fueled by adrenaline and the fervent desire to not be eaten by whatever forest monster had just saved her from becoming wolf kibble.

By some miracle—or perhaps guided by an instinct she didn't know she possessed—Betsy burst out of the tree line and into the clearing where her grandmother’s cabin stood. She didn't stop running until she'd crossed the porch, slammed the door behind her, and collapsed against it, gasping for breath.

As the adrenaline faded, leaving her shaky and spent, Betsy let out a laugh that bordered on hysterical. "Well," she panted, sliding down to sit on the floor. "That's one way to get my cardio in."

She looked down at her trembling hands, twigs and leaves stuck in her hair, and made a solemn vow. "Next time I want to commune with nature, I'm watching Planet Earth with a bag of kale chips. Much safer."

---