Wolfsbane

Wolfsbane, Chapter 10, By Ruth Nalio

Autumn…

The silence Trystan and I had agreed to was a bad idea. It had done nothing more than give me time to think about everything that had happened so far today. I kept replaying the way Trystan had looked at me when he’d first seen me this morning. The way it had made my skin tingle and my hair stand on end, but not really in a bad way, just in a way that made me intensely aware of his eyes on me. It was like his eyes were burning into my skin through my pants.

“So, Autumn, what all have you killed?” Jude asked, shocking me out of my meditation.

“Well, um, deer, rabbits, everything really. The list is too long to go through it all.”

“Do you clean it yourself too or do you have someone else do that for you?”

“I do it myself, blood doesn’t bother me. Most women faint at the thought of it but I just get out my knife and dig in.” I smiled at him as I said this. His laugh was warm and inviting. It was nice to be able to be myself and not get judged or looked down on for it.

“When she was a little girl and I first took her hunting with me I told her that if she was going to hold a gun she was going to shoot it, and if she was going to shoot it she was going to aim at something we could eat, and if she wanted to eat it she was going to clean it.”

“That’s the way to do it. Most people kill something and take it home for their servants or wife to clean.” Jude winked at me when he said this.

“Upper-class women don’t usually clean the meat though. I don’t see why they should be any different than anyone else.”

“It’s because people like us have money, Autumn,” Father said as he smiled at me.

“I don’t mean to be rude, but are we actually planning on catching anything?” Trystan interrupted the conversation.

“Yes, why?” Jude replied smoothly.

“Because I don’t think anything is going to be stupid enough to come up on a bunch of people talking and riding horses. I was wondering when we’re going to start hunting.”

“He’s right, we aren’t going to get anything this way, Jude,” Father said as he pulled his horse to a stop.

“Alright then, Mason, what do you say you and I hunt together and Trystan and Autumn hunt together? We can all meet back at the house that way.”

“Sounds like a good idea to me. Don’t shoot each other now.” Father said as he got off his horse.

“Just go back to the house when you’re done, then.”

“Right,” Trystan said as he jumped down and tied his horse to a tree. This wasn’t going to be fun at all. Father was likely going to think that there was hope for us yet if we hunted well together. What was I going to do?

“Are you sure we should split up? We could all hunt together.” I suggested; there was no way I was going to let them think this was ok with me.

“Autumn, they already had this planned out, they are not going to change their plans now, are you?” Trystan said looking at his father. “No matter how much we push them in another direction they’re just going to dig in their heels more. I already tried talking my father out of this.”

“I’m surprised you listened for a change, Trystan,” Jude said as he got off his horse. “Are you waiting for Autumn to ask for your assistance?”

“I don’t need help.” I chimed in before Trystan could move. I began to get down on my own but suddenly there were hands on me, helping me down. Damn brain! How was this going to make them call it off if he were a gentleman? “I don’t need help Trystan!” As I slapped his hands away I began to fall but caught myself just as he did. “See what you did! Let go!”

“If you hadn’t tried slapping my hands away you wouldn’t have fallen,” Trystan said in a cold voice.

“I’m just doing what a gentleman should.”

“Well don’t. I don’t want your help. If I wanted your help I would have asked.”

“Autumn, stop being so rotten or this will be your last hunting trip,” Father said as Trystan pulled me from the horse.

I squared my shoulders, “Thank you Trystan.” I gritted out threw my teeth.

“You’re welcome.” He practically growled. Just what the hell was his problem? He was pissed and we hadn’t even started fighting yet!

“You two go in that direction and Mason and I will go in this,” Jude said as he pointed one way then another.

Trystan didn’t even wait for them to start walking before he took my horse and tied it next to his.

“Let's go.” Was all he said as he began walking into the woods. I gritted my teeth and followed him. Once we were well out of earshot of our parents I stopped.

“Just what the hell is your problem, Trystan? You think that if you act nice to me they are going to call this off?”

He smiled a coy smile at me and said, “No, I think that if I act the way I do when I’m about to rip someone’s head off because my father is making us hunt together he’ll see there is no way this could work.”

“So you were never even mad!” He shook his head in the negative and turned around. “How did you think of that?”

He shrugged, “Give them what they want but do it all with anger and they won’t think we are working together anymore, and they’ll call it off. If the only way it can work between us is if we are forced to do what we don’t want to by them then they will see that we can never get along.”

“That’s brilliant!”

“I would like to catch something though, so if you would stop talking and start hunting-”

I nodded my head in agreement and walked after him. Why the hell hadn’t I thought of that? It was so simple! Now all we had to do was get it to work. We were still working together in a way but in a way that our parents didn’t know about, that was the truly brilliant part of it all.

He held a finger to his lips in a shushing motion and pointed threw the trees at a deer. It was too far away to hit though. I watched as he began to sneak forward. He stopped when I shifted my weight to the other foot just before taking a step and held up a hand to halt me. How the hell had he known I was going to follow him?

I shrugged it off and held still and watched. He moved so smoothly and soundlessly it was like watching a ghost. Before I knew it he was close enough to easily make a clean kill, but he continued going closer. What was he doing? Then when the deer lifted its head and perked its ears he dropped it in only one shot.

“Damn.” I heard the word slip from my lips before I could even fully think it.

He turned and smiled at me. “I thought I could get a bit closer to it but I guess I must have stepped on something.”

“How the hell did you do that?”

“Practice.” He shrugged and began walking toward his kill.

Trystan…

It was Autumn’s turn to make a kill now, but after that shot I made I didn’t think anything would be moving around. I had told her to walk on ahead while I cleaned my deer. Once I’d gutted it I left it where it was though, I could get it on the way back if it didn’t take Autumn too long to get a kill. It wasn’t hard to find her, all I had to do was follow her smell.

I didn’t know why her smell stirred such a sense of déjà vu in me. Maybe it was simply my imagination. I came up behind her and cleared my throat as softly as I could to let her know I was there and when I did so two rabbits took off out of a bush. “Shit.” She muttered and pulled her gun on them. One shot and she downed the first rabbit then she took aim on the next. She took the poor creature's tail off but no blood was spilled.

“I like a moving target but that’s just ridiculous. I couldn’t hit both of them. You should have just touched my shoulder instead.”

“You took its tail off at least. I don’t think I could have done that after making the first kill.”

She turned and smiled at me. “I’ve had a lot of practice with moving targets. I like carrying the smaller game better than a deer.” Just then a squirrel began barking in the tree above us.

“Fuzzy little bastards,” I muttered as I looked up at the damn thing.

She giggled and turned her gun up. Next thing I knew the squirrel fell on the ground not far from us. “I don’t like them much either unless they’re on a dinner plate.” I watched as she pulled out her knife, walked over to the squirrel, and began cleaning it. “What happened to your deer?”

“I left it back there because I thought it would be fine while I came to check on you.”

“I’ll be done here in a few moments if you want to start back to your deer.”

I turned and began walking back to my kill without another word. I’d never given it any thought to her cleaning anything. I knew she said she cleaned her kills herself but I hadn’t even expected her to kill anything. She looked so natural doing it, too. I think that was what confused me. Women weren’t supposed to be beautiful with their hands covered in blood, but she was.

As I walked up to my deer I pulled out a length of rope and began tying its legs together so that it would be easier to take back to the horses. I could skin it and cut up the meat when I got back to the castle but for now, I would just leave it gutted. I noticed that the smell of its blood wasn’t making me hungry. I couldn’t smell it much more than any other human. That was odd, a few moments ago I could smell my way to Autumn.

“Ready?” Autumn’s voice startled me and I turned to see her with the rabbit hanging over the front of her shoulder and the squirrel over her back. She’d tied their feet together and slung them there. She had a piece of leather under them so the blood wouldn’t stain her clothes. I had to admit she was a better hunter than I’d ever imagined.

“Do you think our parents are done yet?”

“Maybe, maybe not.”

“Let’s head back to the castle.” I got to my feet, grabbed the deer, and we began to make our way to the horses.

“I was thinking and we should probably not talk to each other much in front of our parents unless it’s in a way that shows how much we dislike one another.”

“We could be so kind to one another that it’s sickening.”

“That could work, but I don’t know if I can do that.”

“I don’t know that I can either but we might as well do that when they get on us for being less than civil to each other.”

“That could work.” She smiled. “So I’m just as pissed at you as you are at me.”

I smiled back at her, “Bitch.”

“You’d better believe it.” We were quiet from then on until we got to the horses. “Thank god.”

She said in a disgusted tone and stomped over to her horse. She threw her kill into the saddlebag on the side of her horse. Then untied the horse and got on it. “Aren’t you ready yet? I can’t wait for this day to be over.”

Out of the corner of my eye, I saw that our parents were coming through the trees. “You know it was no picnic hunting with you either.” I threw back at her as I slung the deer over my horse. “I’ve hunted with children quieter than you.”

She scoffed and rolled her eyes, “You’re confusing me with yourself. If it weren’t for you I would have two kills instead of one.” She held up her fingers to stress the number.

“If you’d been a better shot then you would have done more than blow the tail off the second one.”

“Oh really? I’d like to see you make the shot any better than I did.”

“I would have had you not gone on when I was cleaning the deer.”

“You told me to!” She defended.

“So you listen to me, good, be quiet.”

“I’ll not be quiet for you!”

“Both of you be quiet!” Mason said as he walked up to us with a rabbit in each hand.

“Yes, do stop.” Father agreed. He had one rabbit and a pheasant.

Autumn stiffened on her horse, squared her shoulders, and looked away from me. I narrowed my eyes at her and turned to my horse before father could see the amusement threatening to come through. Damn if she wasn’t good at acting pissed at me. Then again, she had a point when saying that I caused the rabbits to run. Hopefully, the new angle we were working from would succeed because I didn’t know how much more I could come up with.

“You should be thankful that the two of you even caught anything with the way you bicker,” Mason said as he stuffed his kill in his bags.

“What is the matter with the two of you that you can not even get along long enough to catch your supper?” Father asked as he walked to his horse.

“Ask him,” Autumn said as I secured the deer to my mount.

“I’m not the one that couldn’t hold still. I’m also not the one that couldn’t shut up.” I said as I got on my horse.

Father rolled his eyes. “The two of you can just give it up, alright? I know you’re not as angry as you’re pretending to be so just accept that you’re not going to change our minds and get along with one another.”