Page 93 of Nave
Ariah’s house had one light on in the living room. Likely so the dogs weren’t in the dark since she was out for the night. She had a dinner planned with her parents and sister. I even offered to let the dogs out if I didn’t see her come home by ten.
“It’s nice out, huh?” I asked.
The air had taken on hints of fall, the wind crisp when it blew, heavy with the scent of turned dirt and a hint of moldering leaves from the underbrush in the woods.
I couldn’t wait to see the area ablaze in shades of red, yellow, and orange; to pick pumpkins and winter squashes to make soup and pies with. To take walks with Nave through the park again, warm drinks in our hands.
There was so much to look forward to.
We’d moved past the gardens and the animal enclosures and were walking through the orchard, the air smelling a little sweeter here. Like apples and beaches, likely from ones fallen and busted open on the ground.
Kit or Ria would collect them and feed them to the animals.
Just because we wouldn’t eat them doesn’t mean they won’t.
I was just about to head back, figuring that Edith’s little legs must have been getting tired.
When something, I don’t know, pricked at me.
It was the silence.
Like the crickets and cicadas and even the wind that had been blowing a moment ago were all suddenly holding their breaths.
My fingers tightened on Edith’s leash, not sure what felt wrong, but wanting to be ready to grab her and run if I needed to.
The girls had mentioned bears in the area.
Could there be one lurking? Looking to raid the gardens or the bird feeders?
Was it just a little deer family, and I was letting my imagination run away with me?
One beat, another.
My free hand slipped lower, instinctively covering my stomach. Three months only, give or take. There wasn’t much to show for it. But everything in me screamed to protect the baby.
Edith had frozen in front of me, sniffing the air, her body language looking suddenly stiffer, more anxious.
It wasn’t just me.
A twig snapped. My heart stopped.
My gaze scanned the trees, expecting a large snout, big yellow eyes.
My reptile brain screamed.
Predator.
Run.
But you couldn’t outrun a bear. You didn’t want to try, to potentially make yourself look like prey.
A shadow moved. My belly flipped.
It was a predator who stepped out from between the trees.
Just a very different one from what I’d been expecting.
For just a moment, my mind refused to accept what I was seeing. Who I was seeing.
