Chapter 7
1464 Words
Penny was fourteen again, crouched in the underbrush, knees buried in loam, the forest thick with the musk of mating season and the electricity of something about to go wrong.
The light of the full moon silvered the world, and the clearing before her shimmered with movement—antelopes grazing cautiously at the edge of the trees, their bodies lean and alert. Eight miles from the modest home she shared with Amara, Penny knelt beside her father. Harry’s camera was steady on its tripod, his eye behind the viewfinder, breath shallow.
He grinned sideways at her.
“Stay low, kid,” he whispered. “They’re feeling frisky tonight.”
Penny clutched her small camera in gloved hands, trying to mimic his posture. Her heart pounded not with fear, but with the thrill of the moment. The wild pulsed around her—alive, ancient, familiar. She didn’t just see it. She felt it. It rippled beneath her skin, ran alongside her pulse. Like something deep inside her had uncoiled to meet the forest halfway.
She’d always felt it that way. Since she was very small. She had learned to hide it—Amara told her gently to keep it quiet, and Harry simply didn’t see what she saw. But it never left her.
Then came the hum of engines.
Headlights carved through the trees. A truck tore into the clearing, tires spitting gravel, beams washing over the startled antelope, which bolted in a flurry of hooves and shadows.
Penny froze.
Doors slammed. Heavy boots struck dirt. Three men emerged, rifles slung across their backs, their voices sharp, laughing. Poachers.
“Stay here,” Harry hissed, his grin gone. “Stay hidden.”
“No,” Penny whispered, reaching out. She caught the edge of his sleeve. “Dad, wait—”
But he was already moving, already stepping into the moonlight, hands raised.
“Hey!” he shouted. “This is protected land! You can’t—”
The hunters turned toward him, guns up.
Words flew—low, hard, urgent—but she couldn’t hear them over the thudding of her own pulse. One of the men laughed. The sound cut through her like a blade.
Then came the crack.
A single shot.
Harry dropped.
Penny didn’t scream. She couldn’t. She pressed her hands over her mouth, eyes wide, frozen as if turned to stone. Blood spilled across the earth beneath him, soaking into the moss, dark and thick.
The truck’s engine revved. The men jumped in. Headlights spun away. Then silence.
All that was left was the echo of the gunshot, and the rasp of her own breath.
She crawled forward, shaking, whispering. “Dad…?”
But there was no answer.
Only the dark.
--- Penny jolted upright in her sleeping bag, tangled in nylon, sweat chilling her back. Her breath came hard and ragged. Outside, the roar of the river rolled steady, indifferent to her grief.
She pressed her hands to her eyes.
“Not again,” she whispered. Her voice cracked with exhaustion.
She felt hollowed out, like the dream had taken something from her she didn’t know how to get back. Her father’s death was always with her—etched behind her ribs—but some nights it surged up and swallowed her whole. The dreams weren’t just memory. They were reminders.
She touched the pendant at her throat.
It was warm. Almost pulsing. The amethyst eyes caught the first strands of dawn filtering through the tent wall.
You feel the wild, kid, Harry’s voice murmured in her memory.
She swallowed hard and unzipped the sleeping bag.
The world outside was dew-drenched and hushed. Mist curled across the forest floor like breath. Birds chirped in distant trees, soft and fragmented.
She stood, shaking out her limbs, breath steaming in the air.
“Let’s get to work,” she muttered, voice steadier.
--- Spring clung to the narrow valley between Desolation Peak and Castle Peak, the chill of winter still threading through the trees. Penny slung her camera bag over her shoulder and moved through the forest like a shadow. The soft squish of moss under her boots was the only sound as she followed a low game trail near the creek.
The water sang beside her, winding over smooth stones and under ancient roots. Pines towered overhead, their trunks wide enough to swallow three people. Birds darted through shafts of gold light. Everything felt old. Eternal.
She paused beside a cluster of ferns and unfolded her map. Notes from Harry’s journals danced in her mind—sketches, notations, quiet musings about migration routes and seasonal shifts. She traced her finger along the winding blue ribbon of Ruby Creek and smiled. She knew where she needed to go.
First up: the drone.
She powered it on, its hum rising like a dragonfly in heat. The wind tugged at her braid as she guided the controls. The drone soared, breaking above the canopy, camera swiveling.
Her screen flickered to life. She scanned the treetops, the ridgelines, the river bends. Elk tracks in the mud. Fresh claw marks on a tree. Scat near a brush pile.
“Got you,” she murmured.
Harry’s favorite phrase.
Then the trail cameras. She hiked along the perimeter of the clearing, carefully mounting them where deer paths crossed and underbrush funneled animals toward water. Each one blinked red once, then vanished into shadow.
By midmorning, her pack felt lighter—not physically, but mentally. She had a rhythm again. She belonged here.
Even the pendant seemed to approve—warm, grounded.
Still, something tugged at her senses.
Not fear. But awareness.
She’d grown up in forests, knew when she was being watched by squirrels or eagles or even the occasional big cat. But this was different. This watching was closer. Bigger.
And quieter.
--- By noon, her shoulders ached and blisters throbbed on her toes. She collapsed beside the creek, the cold water numbing her fingers as she splashed her face.
The map lay open beside her. She ate half a protein bar and let the silence settle.
This valley was different.
It breathed with her. It recognized her.
She looked down at the pendant. The Two Rivers design shimmered faintly in the sunlight.
She thought of Amara’s voice.
The wild will guide you.
Penny stood and slung her camera back into position.
She followed the creek upstream, letting her instincts guide her, letting the rhythm of birdsong and the crunch of leaves and the whisper of wind decide her next steps.
She crested a small ridge and stepped into a sun-drenched clearing.
And stopped.
A wolf lay sprawled on a flat rock beside the water, silver-gray fur shimmering in the light. Her body was long, lean, powerful—scarred across one haunch. She looked like a queen fallen to slumber.
The wolf’s head lifted.
Eyes met.
Amber-gold, clear and bright.
Not startled. Not afraid.
Calm. Measured.
Penny froze, heart leaping into her throat.
Slowly, breathlessly, she knelt.
Her fingers lifted the camera.
Click.
The wolf’s ears twitched, but she didn’t move. Her gaze remained steady.
Click.
Penny adjusted the focus. Captured the shape of the wolf’s body against the backdrop of mountains and light. Captured her stillness. Her elegance. Her patience.
The pendant at her chest pulsed in time with her heartbeat.
Click.
The wolf stretched, her spine arching like a cat’s, paws splaying.
Click.
And then—
From the shadow of the trees, another form emerged.
Larger.
Darker.
A second wolf stepped silently into the clearing, black as volcanic glass. Muscles rippled beneath his thick coat. Gold eyes glinted beneath the canopy. Massive. Intimidating. And utterly still.
Penny’s hand shook on the camera.
Not from fear.
From something else.
Recognition?
The new wolf looked at her—direct, unblinking.
Click.
The shutter sounded too loud in the clearing. The female wolf stood and stepped beside him. Together, they watched her. Neither aggressive. Neither retreating.
Just watching.
The pendant burned against her skin now. Alive.
And then—
A voice in her head.
Not words. Not exactly.
More… presence.
A knowing. A thread pulling tight.
You.
She gasped, lowering the camera.
The wolves blinked in unison. Then turned. And slipped into the trees.
Gone.
--- Penny remained kneeling in the clearing, the camera still in her hands, heart hammering.
She had photographed hundreds of animals. But never like that.
Never with meaning.
Never with something watching her back like… like it knew her.
She stood slowly, barely breathing.
She didn’t call out. She didn’t try to follow.
She just listened.
And the forest answered.
The wind shifted. The ravens cawed. The pendant cooled against her skin.
Somewhere deep in the trees, a howl rose.
One voice. Long and low.
Calling.
Not just to others.
But to her.
- Writer
