Unrest in the Woods (Secrets of the Forest Book 1) Read online

  “Riddle, Riddle, Riddle.....Riddle....”

  A nudging hand roused Cybil from a deep slumber to find herself drooling across her notebook in the back of the university library. She brushed her long black hair, which reached nearly to the small of her back, over her shoulders to dangle behind her. She wiped her mouth with her bare forearm and turned up with slightly squinted eyes to peer into the face of who awoke her. Obscured by the light, she couldn’t quite map his features.

  “What’s a riddle?” a young man’s voice asked. She wiped the sleep from her eyes and a clearer view appeared to her. He was tall, blonde, and judging from his posture, Cybil pegged him as very confident. She felt perhaps she had met him before, or seen him somewhere, but she dismissed this notion quickly. With her wandering mind, she had this thought about most new people she met, she knew this about herself.

  “The name of a boy I met in my dream,” she answered. She read concern in his reaction, which confused her. She assumed she would make him uncomfortable. Instead, he sat down beside her. He wore suddenly a smile and he scooched his chair near to hers. With him so close, she could tell he was quite handsome, and yet his presence was less than attractive. She couldn’t quite identify what it was, but she was intrigued enough by the thought of a boy flirting with her, so she decided to play along.

  “What was this boy like?”

  “Oddly, you remind me of him.”

  “Do I?” he said with a toothy grin.

  “Yes. Very direct, and before you’ve even introduced yourself.”

  “Ethan Anderson.” He offered his hand in greeting. She daintily placed her fingers within his grasp. He held them limply and attempted to initiate a shake, but she wouldn’t reciprocate.

  “No, no,” she said, “if you intend on flirting, I insist you be chivalrous about it.” He raised his eye brows. Cybil leaned forward and whispered a pointer, “That means you kiss my hand instead of shaking it, stranger.” She winked as she leaned back.

  He chuckled and shook his head. Then he lowered his lips to the back of her hand, kissed it, and blushed. Cybil laughed, and the sound of it echoed between the seemingly endless aisles of shelves surrounding them. To keep from embarrassment, Ethan had no choice but to laugh along.

  “You’re a bit odd, you know that?” he said.

  She took her hand back. “Makes life interesting. I’d rather be odd over dull.”

  “And what’s your name, odd bird?”

  “Oh, Odd Bird fits me so much better than my real name.” Seeing in his face he was not satisfied, she relented. “Cybil. Cybil Weaver.” With her name, his face lifted, his cheeks pushed up with a smile and his lips parted just enough to see his white teeth between them. Smitten was the word that came to Cybil’s mind. And something about seeing his so made her the same. While he was less enchanting than the boy from her dream, Ethan at least was real. For whatever folly of her heart, she craved the emotion in the wake of her dream forest encounter. She placed her elbows on the table and interwove her fingers for her chin to rest on as she shared a stare with Ethan in the silence of the library.

  In the moment, Ethan was compelled to mention, “You look very pretty when you do that.”

  “But now while I’m sleeping? Is that why you woke me?”

  “No, just an added benefit.”

  “Then why are we here staring at each other, Ethan?”

  “I recognized you from class, I needed to ask you about an assignment.” She wished he had continued the ruse, that romance could come from a boy rousing a sleeping girl in a library. But inevitably, she thought, we’re all afraid to follow the fantasy. She lowered her hands and swept the expression from her face, lowering her eyes to her notebook. She began flipping through it.

  “Which class do we have together?”

  “I’m not so interested in that now,” he said, leaning in. She turned up from her notebook to find their noses nearly touching. She smiled again. “Tell me more about your dream.”

  “It was beautiful. I was wandering in a magical forest.”

  Before she could continue, Ethan took hold of her hand tightly in his own. “Let’s go.”

  “Do you know any magical forests around campus?”

  “I’m not sure if it’s magical, but it’s nearby and it’s definitely beautiful.”

  “I don’t even know you.” She said this because she felt it was the appropriate line at that moment. She didn’t care that she didn’t know him, she was more intrigued by it, in fact. But she had never been approached so boldly before, the way she interacted with others turned around on herself. None took to her so quickly, and perhaps she was wary of Ethan for it.

  “Sure you do. I’ve told you my name and we have a class together. What more do you need to get lost in the forest with someone?” Cybil bit her lower lip as he rose from her chair. By the hand he led her quickly from the library. Their pace picked up speed as they raced through the rows, books flying past, studious students searching, librarians glaring. They reached the large wooden door that was the library’s entrance and shoved it open and jumped outside. The sun was brightly shining down on them, the expansive lawn was before them, and the paths that wound around campus led out to the various buildings beyond it. In front of the door, they stood, holding hands, staring at the students playing Frisbee, reading on blankets, discretely toking. Cybil turned to look at Ethan, and he returned it.

  “Still with me?” he said.

  “Run. I’ll follow. I want to be out of breath when we reach the forest.”

  “I’m pretty fast.”

  “I ran cross country in high school.”

  “Fair enough.”

  Ethan took off, disrupting the Frisbee toss as he ran between the players. Cybil giggled and chased after him. They ran through the entire campus, past the dining hall, around the science building, alongside the dorms, and out beyond their parking lots. As he darted between the trees, Ethan began to pant, feeling the length of his run behind him catching up. Cybil was catching up, too, as she reached his back to playfully kick his buttocks with the side of her shoe. She stumbled doing so, but caught herself before falling. At the end of the parking lot, Ethan came to a halt, keeling over to catch his breath at the edge of the forest that extended out from the western border of the university’s grounds. Cybil placed her hands on her waist as she stood victoriously beside him. From his knees, Ethan turned his head up to see her face. “Considerably out of shape for what your physique leads on.”

  Ethan stood upright, chest forward. “So you noticed?”

  Cybil rolled her eyes. “Were you really going to ask about homework?”

  Ethan smiled and shrugged.

  “Boys,” she muttered. “Well, your ploy worked. You’ve got the girl all to yourself and she’s interested. Now what?”

  “Follow me.” Ethan took her hand again and with the other brushed aside tree branched to lead her past the forest’s edge and onto an overgrown path. They continued to walk crouched for a distance until the path cleared and the trees grew larger and further apart. Cybil began to see the forest for its wonder and appreciated the sound of a not too far off creek babbling its tune while they made their way. It wasn’t the forest of her dreams, but it was still beautiful, Ethan had told the truth about that.

  “How’d you find this path?”

  “I like to explore.” She had a feeling his answer was disingenuous, but she was too busy staring about at the forest to pay it any attention. He led her to a crook in the path where beside it a large oak tree had tipped and provided a makeshift bench. He placed his hands on her waist as he helped hoist her onto the downed tree, and Cybil felt the warmth of his hands through her dress. She derailed that train of thought before it started, thinking she better get to know him.

  “So, Ethan Anderson, what’s your story?” she asked as he joined hopped up to sit beside her.

  He took in a deep breath and exhaled slowly. “Isn’t this air so much fresher?”

  “Do
dging the question, I see.”

  Ethan laughed, hanging his head as he rubbed his hands between his thighs. “No, not dodging, just delaying. You see we were getting along so well, and I just, I don’t want to ruin that with boring details.”

  Sensing he had more than just boring details he was holding back, Cybil wanted to know more. Never one to doubt her impulses, however, Cybil had an idea to coax him. “Alright, how about this. I’ll kiss you once and then you tell me whatever it is your hiding. That way, if you turn out to be a scoundrel, you’ve still stolen a kiss and the afternoon will have been spent wisely. Deal?”

  “Sounds fair,” he said as he was already wrapping his hand around the back of her neck. He brought her mouth into his and their lips pressed hard against one another while his tongue ventured to meet hers. It was startling, but the dance it made with hers in her mouth was exciting. His thumb rubbed her ear lobe affectionately as he placed his other hand around her shoulder, bare in the spaghetti strap floor length sun dress she wore. Then he pulled her in, shoving his tongue deeper into her mouth and showing what skill he possessed. The world around her dimmed as she opened her eyes to see his open. They were narrow, glaring out with an unfamiliar seduction that was far from the playful banter at the library. All her knowledge of him seemed to evaporate with the kiss, having hidden the alluring darkness until the moment their faces met and he pulled her into him with a ferocity unlike any first kiss she had experienced. She was equally frightened as she was attracted, leaning into this kiss like she was giving herself to him. When she felt his teeth bite into her bottom lip, she placed her hands against his chest and pushed back.

  “Alright, tiger, the deal was one.” He stared back at her with his head lowered and his eyes full of something that made her want to lean in again, but instead she wiped her lips and straightened her back, placing her hands neatly in her lap.

  “So it was,” he said, gliding his thumb over his lips. He cleared his throat while his eyes fell to the forest floor. “I like to hide from it as much as possible. Family is family, and a lot of people don’t like me for mine.” He looked back to Cybil. “My father is William Anderson.”

  William Anderson. She repeated the name in her head, searching for a lost memory that would connect it with a likely heinous news story or bit of gossip. Nothing was coming to her. She shook her head. “Who?”

  “William Anderson,” he repeated, as if it would stir an obvious memory. It didn’t. “Mr. Land Grab Anderson?” Her expression didn’t change. “What year are you?”

  “Freshman.”

  “You’re not from Greenville, I assume?” Cybil shook her head. While she was only in her first year at the university just outside Greenville, she felt she would still know just as little about the place when she graduated than she did as a freshman. She simply never found herself with a newspaper or remembering conversations about the news. It wasn’t conscious, she figured it was just how she worked. It was never a subject that captivated her. However, if she thought about it, few real things ever did for more than a day. Ethan took a deep breath. “My father’s realty investments in Greenville have been somewhat objectionable by the people of the city. They feel he swindled them out of strong communal growth for a quick buck off a super mall and a highway, when in reality, he provided a huge economic stimulus to the city.” It was obvious to Cybil he was repeating the words he had been coached by his father. All the same, she didn’t care much for what Ethan’s father had done, even if it seemed it mattered too much to Ethan.

  “Sounds like his problem. It shouldn’t be yours.” She watched the weight lift from his shoulders.

  “Thank you. And he’s not all about development either. I suppose I should come clean about how I found this path. It’s because my father secured this forest as a nature preserve.” More talk of his father waned Cybil’s interest. “He saw the value in it. In nature beside society.”

  Cybil hopped off the tree, scrapping the backs of her legs as she did so, but not caring after she landed. “Who wouldn’t, once you walk inside?” She twirled in place, dizzying herself as the sight of the green covered branches above swirled as an abstract painting. She stopped and stammered, laughing to herself until her eyes fell back on Ethan, who stared on unamused. She felt a tinge of sadness for him, that he seemed so anchored by something she couldn’t wholly identify. His father, his wealth, some responsibility, a bit of guilt, perhaps one or all of these, she thought as she watched him slip off the tree trunk. Whatever it was, it kept him concealed, which masked his seduction, too, and made him dangerous. Cybil didn’t believe in dangerous people, only dangerous tendencies that coexisted with other, more empathetic ones. “Come on, let’s see how lost we can get!”

  Without a moment’s hesitation, Cybil’s feet left the path as she ran off into the forest, in amongst the trees where the distance became obscured by thick growth. She could hear Ethan’s footsteps behind her, then his voice, “Cybil! Cybil, wait up!” but she wouldn’t relent. She wanted him to chase, to feel the exhilaration she did as she propelled herself deeper into the forest. She dodged branches, made sharp turns, and refused to look back. She was determined on getting lost, and at a certain point, she was sure she was. When she stopped to allow Ethan to catch up, however, she could not see him, nor hear him, and she realized she had lost herself alone, which was not her intention.

  “Ethan!” She turned in place, peering through the green and brown shades of the forest to find him, but to no avail. She attempted to backtrack, retrace where she had come from, but this too failed her. She was too successful. As she weaved her way cautiously around the vegetation, trying hard to remember if it was a right or left at any given juncture, she felt the temperature drop in the air around her. It was so sudden and drastic that she began to see her own breath billow out before her. “Ethan!” she called out again. Nothing. The light suddenly receded from the space around her. She craned her neck to peer into the sky, but the overhanging tree branches crowded sight of it. She began to shiver and wrapped her arms around herself. Then she heard something. The snap of a twig beneath a step. She twisted to stare towards its direction. “Ethan?” No response. It was clear, she could make out a figure, a small one. It was something that was aware of her, too, as it jumped from tree to tree in an attempt at stealth. “Hello?” It didn’t answer. “I can see you!”

  “Rats!” a high pitch, raspy voice spoke.

  Cybil shrieked. She turned to run, sprinting carelessly through the forest, feeling the cool of the air meet with the heat of her muscle as she fled what she was sure wasn’t entirely human. She could hear it picking up speed, shrinking the distance between them. She threw a glance over her shoulder and saw what looked like a man, but less than four feet, thin, and greenish in skin tone. Its chest was naked, and hairy. It wore green pants, with a pattern like the veins of a leaf. She held her chin to her shoulder too long. When she returned to the forest in front of her, a low branch met her forehead and she fell instantly to her back, unconscious.

  Her eyes opened to a blackness, deep and enveloping. It was all she could see until the sight of a familiar face hovered into view.

  “Cybil,” it spoke.

  “Riddle.”

  He extended his hand to her. She wrapped hers around his forearm.

  “Wake up. Be wary.”

  Before she could ask why, he hoisted her from the earth, and suddenly all the darkness disappeared, replaced by the ordinary forest and Ethan, who was helping her to her feet.

  “You okay?”

  It took her a moment to nod. “Yeah, I’m fine.”

  “Listen, I want to show you some of my favorite forest corners, really beautiful spots.” His voice was in a backdrop that resided behind her recollection of the creature that chased her, and of Riddle’s face. She sorted through, recalling the cool air, the covered sky, the fear, deciding it all felt too real to cast aside as a strange dream. “Come on, they’re not far.”

  Cybil shook her head. �
�No, I think I better be off. I think I need some rest.”

  “Alright, another time?”

  “Sure.”

  Reluctantly, Ethan escorted Cybil back to the parking lot, following the way they took through campus back to the dorms to drop her off at the front door. “Listen,” he said, “I know this wasn’t the regular way of meeting someone, but I enjoyed meeting you.”

  She shook off the daze a moment to reply, “Me too.” As he stared at her, she saw in his eyes the same quality that she saw when he kissed her and knew she wouldn’t forget it. She knew she wanted to see it again. But she wanted to pull him out of his shell for the next time.

  He leaned forward and asked, “How does a man of chivalry say see you later?”

  She leaned closer and whispered, “That’ll do just fine.”

  With a wide grin, he took two steps backwards and pivoted to walk away. Cybil turned to the door, slid her key card across the magnetic sensor and entered her dormitory. It was a mindless walk through the halls to her room, as she strolled in bemusement of the afternoon. When she entered her living room, her roommate Kasey was typing on her computer with her headphones on. When she saw Cybil enter, she pulled them back to greet her.

  “What’s up, space case?” She wore a multi-colored headband that wrapped around her long brown hair, a black tube top that stopped before her belly button, and high-waisted jean cutoffs that exposed the plethora of tattoos across her thighs. Cybil had watched the boys come after her on countless occasions, and they had only been at college for a month. Kasey had said it was her eccentricities that attracted them, but Cybil could count twenty girls that looked just like her on the way to class each morning. When they first met, Cybil considered Kasey much like herself. They spoke of dreams and flying away with them, and Kasey seemed to have the same nonchalance and disinterest in tradition as she did. Kasey just did it with an edge and sex appeal. Cybil wore her long, blonde hair down always, and was usually in some colorful sun dress when weather permitted. She was skinny, which she was fine with. She didn’t have the curves Kasey did, but she didn’t mind it. The wanting eyes of men were a distraction, she thought. Not that she didn’t enjoy them, but she wanted more than lust.