'A monster? What kind of monster? Did you see?'
A giant, memory told him. A troll. But he shook his head in her invisible face. 'I'm not sure, but I got it. It ran away.'
Her ringing slap sent lights flaring across his vision again. For a moment he was too shocked to do anything, then he reached out to where he thought her throat might be, but encountered only empty air. 'What was that for?' Tears of fury stung his eyes.
'You're not at home now; Michael. You can't slaughter things with your brave guns. There are different rules here. Listen.'
He did, still smouldering. The woods were silent— deathly silence, the hush like that of a desecrated church.
'It doesn't mean you have to slap me. A bloody girl, too.'
'Oh, be quiet, you stupid boy.'
That word again. He gritted his teeth. He'd get her back for it.
'We have to put some distance behind us, and quickly. We must leave this place. They'll be flocking like bees.'
'Who?'
But she ignored him. He was tugged to his feet and yanked along like a recalcitrant child, and he felt like one, sulking and chastised. Brambles raked his face and the lower branches strove to gouge holes in his skull.
'How do you see in this?'
Again he was ignored. They ploughed through the midnight forest in silence.
By the time they halted he was staggering with tiredness. He no longer cared where they were or where they were going. The shotgun was a dull ache of weight. Cat grasped his free hand and set it against the rough bark of a tree.
'Climb.'
'You must be joking.'
'Climb, if you want to see the morning.'
'I can't, holding this.' He brandished the shotgun in the darkness.
'Blast you. Give it to me, then.' He could have sworn she shuddered as she took the weapon from him.
'I can't see a thing-—'
Noises off in the trees, distant growls. A long, high-pitched howl.
'Climb!'
He did as he was told. The rough bark tore his palms; He straddled it and hauled himself up with quivering limbs, encountered a stout branch and clung to it, grunting. There were others here. He hauled himself on, feeling his way, running his hand up the trunk of the tree until he met something his fingers could grip. Once something small and clawed scampered over the back of his hand and he almost fell. He gave in to cursing, low and venomous. He was too tired. His arms would not support him and there was nowhere for his right foot to go.
A hand, guiding his ankle. 'Put it there.' And his foot was safe, taking weight.
'That's enough,' she said after a while. 'Ease out along the branch.' He inched out fearfully, the drop an unknown height in the blackness, His branch was a yard thick, and others arced close by. He was able to sit back and relax. He heard Cat rustle beside him and then the cold weight of the shotgun was plumped into his lap. 'There. Now we can sleep.'
'Sleep!'
A palm caressed his cheek, and then she was kissing his ear, the corner of his mouth, and her hair tickled his nose. 'I'm sorry, Michael.'
'Aye.' Mollified, despite himself.
She slipped a slim arm about his shoulders and he felt safe as houses. He dipped his head under her chin. Bloody hell, he was tired, sleepy as a child.
He did not hear the pack coursing below them later in the night, the hoofbeats that battered the empty air above the tops of the trees, the trolls calling out to one another.
THE LIGHT IN his eyes woke him. He prised open his gummy lids, stiff as wood all over and beginning to shake with cold. For a second he was utterly bewildered by the swaying branches, the birdsong and the brilliant early-morning light sifting through the leaves. Then it flooded back. He shifted in Cat's arms and the shotgun slipped out of his lap and fell to the ground with a far, muffled thump.
'Bugger.'
Cat stirred but did not waken. His leaning weight had made her arm blue and cold and he rubbed it gently, coaxing the blood to move. She was severely beautiful in the dawn, though dirt smeared her cheekbones and thorn scratches lined her skin. He brushed a sun-brilliant beetle out of her hair. His stomach rumbled and complained and he thought wistfully of bacon and eggs, hot tea, soda bread. And a bath.
But there was something fine about being here on talking terms with the birds, seeing the sun come up. And having this girl beside him. In a strange way, his hunger made it more immediate. Once he had ground the sleep out of his eye sockets he felt as sharp as a knife, and licked dew off a coppery leaf to moisten his tongue.
When he looked back she was awake, her eyes enormous and filled with sunshine, like the shallows of a summer sea. She was flexing and stretching, pointing her dirty toes.
'Is it safe now?'
She yawned and smiled. 'Safer maybe. We can get down. You slept well.'
'Where are we going?'
'I'll take you home. You're not ready for this yet.'
He surprised himself by feeling let down. Perhaps it was the crystal clearness of the morning air, the jewel light of the sun, the bird-loud trees. Adventure. Wonderland.