In Antas Forest Part 1 - Travelers Two

PART 1

Titus glanced behind. Mist and shadow drenched the lush forest, concealing his tracks beneath a layer of heather and fern. Each step took him deeper into the woods, and farther away from his problems. At least, that’s what he told himself.

“Someone after you?”

That was his traveling companion, Arlene. She hadn’t said much - and he even less - for the first day and a half, but she seemed determined to break that pattern.

“No,” he said. He ran a hand through his neck-length salt-pepper hair and absentmindedly scratched at his two-day stubble.

“Then why do you look back so often?” She wasn’t argumentative with the question, but that didn’t make it any less annoying.

“No reason,” he said.

Arlene picked up a twig from the ground and began peeling away the bark to reveal green wood beneath.

“There’s always a reason.”

“It’s none of your concern,” Titus said.

“For instance,” Arlene continued like he hadn’t even spoken, “I chose to travel with you, a complete stranger, in these woods, because I find it safer than going alone.”

“You had no way of knowing if I was safer than the alternative. I could be a murderer, thief, ruffian.”

“If you were a murderer, you would’ve killed me long ago. If you were a thief, you picked a sorry soul to be the object of your thieving, and if you are a ruffian you are the most shy and bashful one I’ve ever encountered.”

“You’ve encountered many?” Titus kicked himself the moment he asked the question. He didn’t need or want for this conversation to go on.

Arlene brushed aside a swath of auburn hair and looked his direction for the first time. Her fair skin was moist with mist and her green eyes blended into the folds of foliage behind her. “I am a pretty woman who grew of in Lovrikane. I’ve had more than my fair share of men and women wanting everything on my person, and my person itself.”

“You seemed to have managed alright,” he replied gruffly. “How old are you, anyway?”

She tsked at that. “What a forward question. I’ll trade ya?”

“Forget I asked,” he sighed.

She put a pointed finger on her equally pointy chin. “Let me guess: greying hair, strong build, weathered skin, rough hands from sone sort of arduous task. Your eyes and your gait are lively though, like they have some youth to them still. Life has aged you faster than time. I’d say thirty-four, forty at most.”

“Close enough,” he said. Her observance was not that of a common fool. She had been taking an account of him for the past day. He could not say the same.

“I’ll accept that, for the time being,” she winked. “And for the sake of fairness, I myself am just shy of twenty-eight.” She tossed aside the twig she had been de-barking. “Where are ya headed? And don’t say west again.”

She beat him by half a second. His gaze fell to his leather boots. “Brunehaven.”

“Brunehaven? I’ve never even heard of that.”

“Well, it’s real,” he said, sighing with exasperation.

“I myself am headed to the great city of Genevuh. There’s said to be endless opportunities on the Glass Coast. Any person with skill is sure to find a living. Maybe I’ll work for the mayor himself, or perhaps I’ll settle into some sort of more menial work, like a dock worker or seamstress.”

Titus said nothing. She didn’t look to have the brawn necessary for a dock worker, nor the temperament of a quiet seamstress, but working for the mayor could suit her well. She was plenty meddlesome but had an air of buoyancy that she hid behind. With her charming looks and bubbly persona she could fool many a commoner. And she was still talking.

“From your looks I’d guess you work quite hard with your hands. Lumberjack? Stone mason? Surely with those big arms you could hoist those pieces of granite without breaking a sweat.”

Titus grunted. It was meant to signal the end of the conversation, but to Arlene it meant to commence with another line of questioning. He wasn’t sure why she was so chatty all of a sudden. Even the birds had hidden away as she plowed through the undergrowth with no regard for tranquility, her long red dress snagging on thorns, wet leaves, and fallen timber, but she paid them no mind.

“Where do you come from? That could give me some inclination. I know you aren’t from Farris Station. Pretty sure no one lives there but the livery boys and the correspondence station workers, and you certainly aren’t a desk clerk or scrawny street urchin.”

A headache was beginning to form. Titus squeezed his temples. “Why does it matter? Why are you so interested? In a few days we’ll never see each other again. The only important thing is getting through Antas Forest. And if you don’t pipe down you just might get to meet a murderer, thief and ruffian altogether at once! Wouldn’t that be something?” He shot her a most sarcastic smile.

She puffed her cheeks and shoved her hands in her dress pockets. “Just making conversation. Been traveling alone for a while. Started to go a little stir-crazy.”

“Stir it somewhere else, hmm?” That seemed to finally silence her.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Antas Forest was dark in the day, with great canopies blocking out most of the light, and darkwood and shadowy foliage absorbing the rest. That is, when a ghostly mist wasn’t rolling through the damp woods. For this reason, Titus and Arlene had stopped to make camp well before the usual time, to make sure they had ample firewood for the night. Titus didn’t believe in ghost stories, but he did believe in wildcats, dire wolves, and night bats.

Now they sat before a fire opposite each other. The flames tried their best to drag his mind back to his hometown, the cevin cats crying in the trees joined in the attempt, but he blocked them out. He couldn’t revisit those thoughts, lest they envelop flame and bring on the darkness again.

Titus had kept it on the smaller side, not wanting any unseen eyes to note their presence, and although he sensed disagreement from Arlene’s pensive presence, she said nothing. That is until after they had eaten from their respective rations. Titus ate nothing more than a bit of dried meat, but Arlene gorged on fresh apples, plums, and some bread that she washed down with a berry mead. Titus sipped from his canteen of water.

Her inquisitive voice broke the cadence of owls hooting and fire popping. “Do you believe the stories? Of the forest, I mean. The dark figures in cloaks, the Woman in Green, the walking riverboat?”

“No.”

“But you have heard of them?”

“Hasn’t everyone?”

“That’s a good question,” she said.

“Not really,” he growled.

“Why not?”

Titus sighed and capped his canteen. “Why does it matter if I’ve heard of them? It only matters if you believe them, and I do not.”

“You have no belief in the supernatural, then?” She leaned forward, crunching on an apple.

Titus leaned back on the log he had been using for a chair. “I believe in what I can see before me. I don’t have time for the rest.” But he did hope there was a supernatural. He couldn’t bear the thought of the consequences otherwise.

“You’ve got more important things to attend to. In Brunehaven?”

“Yes,” he hissed.

“I don’t believe you,” she said, not a shred of malice in her voice. But it was full of confidence.

“Why not? Not that I care.”

She chuckled, a merry sound that rang out against the aged and massive darkwood trees. It was beautiful if you knew its origin, but one that might be haunting out in these woods at night if you were a lonesome traveler.

“If you didn’t care, you needn’t let me know. If you had such high prospects in Brunehaven you would have shared them by now. No man with a hopeful future would carry himself such as you do.”

“Perhaps I am sworn to secrecy.”

“That would make you even more intriguing,” she said, rising and coming round the fire to his side. She sat on the log beside him, causing him to shift on the dewy ground farther to the right. He could smell the berry mead on her lips.

“It would make you quite a nuisance,” he said. Not that she wasn’t already, but he thought this may pass along the message without stinging quite as much.

“It would make me a woman,” she said.

“What does that mean?”

“It means, that if we didn’t ask the questions, we wouldn’t get any answers most of the time. You all act so brooding and commandeering.”

“If I’m such a bothersome traveling companion you could move on,” Titus offered. He was beginning to feel fatigued from the journey and his brain was tired of her wordplay and incessant curiosity.

“Not when you’ve been such a good sport. Besides, you seem lonely.”

“I don’t mind being alone,” he lied.

“No family then?”

“What?”

“You prefer only the company of yourself.”

“That isn’t what I said.”

She sank to the ground beside him, inches away. “Then you do have a family?”

“That is none of your concern,” Titus said, standing abruptly and wiping the back of his pants off. He tossed a few logs onto the fire and watched the dancing sparks fight for the sky, only to dissolve.

“You had a family,” she said. This time her voice was soft, almost as if talking to herself.

Chills ran down his spine as heat rose up his cheeks. His heart was thudding against his chest in an instant, and he fought a wave of memories that tried to crash upon the shores of his mind. She had no right to know his pain, and he did not want to deal with it right now.

“Is that why you are going to Brunehaven? Why you left your home?”

He spun on his heels, leering down at her. “My business is my own! Why must you badger me? Have you no regard for my sanity or serenity?”

Arlene’s eyes sank. She stood slowly, fingers picking at each other. Titus was huffing at this point, trying to contain the storm within. She looked up at last, gently taking his wrist in both her arms.

“I am sorry. You’re right. I’ve been a trampling boar.” She let go of his wrist. “Perhaps I should just leave.”

She stepped away and gathered her travel bag.

“What are you doing?” Titus asked, hands on his hips. His breathing had steadied a bit.

“I have overstayed my welcome as a travel companion. I’ll see myself to Genevuh.”

“Don’t be ridiculous.” Titus stepped toward her. “You can’t travel in these woods at night. Forget your bedtime ghost stories, you’ll not be able to see where you’re going, and there are very real threats in these woods. Stay the night, at least. Let us think upon this in the morning with clear heads.”

A hint of a smile spread across her cherry lips. “Very well. Still, I shall remain silent as the grave.” She tossed her knapsack on the ground and Titus turned to make his bed for the night. “I often talk to myself, you know?” She plopped onto the ground. “It is a way in which I don’t lose my head in the clouds. Haven’t been able to do such with you beside me.”

Titus spread out his threadbare blanket and made a pillow of sorts with his travel sack. He rested his head on it with his hands clasped behind his head and closed his eyes.

“I suppose it brings me some comfort, not letting it fester inside. My mother never spoke much, then would act in the most rash manner, and I believe it to be a symptom of hiding it all insi-“

“Arlene.”

“Yes?”

“Do you know what the phrase ‘silent as the grave’ means?”

His eyes remined closed but he could almost detect the blush. “Yes. Sorry.” There was a moment of silence. “Goodnight.”

Titus wasn’t sure if he muttered a reply before he dozed off. What was crystal clear is that when he awoke out of a dead sleep in the middle of the night, Arlene was gone, her travel gear undisturbed, and the fire had died down to smoldering embers, but the sky was still black as tar.