It’s #BookQW and Fern’s ‘view’ is surprising!
More from Chapter 2:
Fern sat up fast. The slime yanked on her leg, nearly jerking her free from the tree. She clutched its rough bark. No one was in sight, but she heard erratic breathing between the kite’s weoo calls. Leaves rustled from two different directions as something moved closer…
A guy crawled into view. Her breath caught, and he pivoted, close enough to touch if she hadn’t been clinging to the tree. His rusty-red hair fell in curling waves around his face. Freckles dusted his cheeks.
“Hey, lass, there you be. Raven?” he called over his shoulder. “This way.”
For a moment, she just stared, because—geez—one second she’d been alone, and the next here was this big guy. He looked in his late teens, with green eyes and an accent. Scottish, or Irish, she didn’t know, but he wore some kind of traditional clothes, a pullover shirt with laces at the neck. He crouched on his heels, taking her in from wet hair to her slimed foot.
“Ach, that’s nae good,” he said.
She shivered. Think. His arrival isn’t so different from how I got here, so he’s likely a neighbor of Gran’s and not dangerous. But her pounding heart didn’t believe that. Despite what she’d promised Mom, she struggled to get both feet beneath her in case she needed to defend herself. The muck pulled back, harder this time. Her grasp on the tree slipped.
The guy lunged and wrapped a large hand around her free wrist. “Do’na let the rip take you in!” He grabbed her other arm, too, and hauled against the slime.
An unstoppable tremble coursed through Fern at the fear in his voice. She seized his wrists, found a root or something to brace her left foot against and shoved with everything she had toward this freckled stranger who had become her lifeline.
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On a personal note:
Today is the last above 50 degree day for the next ten days. I have a lot I’d prefer to do in the warm weather, so will keep this short. We had a beautiful 4 inch snow last week that took the remaining leaves down, but also dampened everything against wildfire.
A grass fire burnt 20 acres seven miles downwind of us the week before, so we are grateful for the snow, though it makes some chores harder!
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