Chapter Eleven

Over the river and through the woods

Wherein Jack makes a decision and strange forest inhabitants are met

 

Jack glared at the merrily crackling fire.  Sydney and Sark had been gone for sometime now and he was pretty sure it wasn’t because they couldn’t find firewood.  He spooned up some of the porridge he’d made for breakfast, eyes darting around the clearing, one could be too careful.  Seeing nothing amiss he returned to his broody over what he was going to do about Sydney and, and Sark.  The name alone made him grit his teeth, which was unfortunate because his spoon was in his mouth at the time.

 

After, discreetly, making sure he hadn’t chipped any of his teeth he went back to brooding.  Sydney could be stubborn, obstinate even; she got it from her mother.  If he was to say anything to her she would surely dig in her heels and refuse to listen to reason.  The alternative, unfortunately, was to say nothing about her improbable alliance with the blonde.  If he was lucky it was just a rebellious phase, one brought about by her being free of the tedious and wooden Agent Vaughn.  Perhaps she was just drawn to the opposite of her former suitor and after a bit she’d regain her senses and break off any alliance with the blonde.  He knew how compelling some of the grayer shadows in their world could be, he supposed she could have picked a worse way to flirt with the darkness.  Yes, as much as he disliked the idea, saying nothing seemed the best course of action for the present moment, open to adjustments as further developments arose.  That decided he began to truly shovel down his porridge, barely tasting it.

 

“um, Mister Bristow, sir.”

 

He looked up at Marshall, who was nervously twirling his spoon around and eyeing the surrounding forest, “Yes, Marshall.”

 

The tech nervously swallowed, “Uh, well, Sydney and MisterSark,” he anxiously ran the name together, “well it’s been a while… and I was wondering…shouldn’t we maybe go look…”

 

“No,” his firm answer cut the younger man’s sentence off sharply.

 

“Right, okay,” Marshall hunched over his bowl and started eating again.  Just then Sydney and Sark wandered into the clearing.  Jack narrowed his eyes.

 

Sydney was sporting a small, silly smile and her corset was rolled up and tucked under her arm.  She had a few small twigs and leaves in her somewhat messy hair.  Sark was strolling leisurely along after her, his eyes slightly unfocused as if he was thinking of something else.  A tiny smirk flittered about his lips.

 

“Oooh, breakfast,” Sydney dropped to a sitting position by the fire and grabbed one of the waiting steaming bowls.

 

As Jack steely watched Sark sat down next to her, an inch or two over and he’d be practically in Sydney’s lap.  The two began by quietly eating their breakfasts.

 

Marshall looked as if he was going to say something, but after a glance at Jack he hunched even further over his bowl and went back to eating.

 

Then Sark had to open his mouth, “Did you know you have leaves in your hair?”  He amusedly eyed Sydney’s hair, reaching up to pull out a leaf.

 

“Oh, I do?  Where?”  Sydney began fussing with her hair, trying to pull of the various bits of forest debris.

 

“Here, now, you’re just getting in the way,” Sark batted Sydney’s hands away as he worked on getting out the twigs and leaves.

 

Jack narrowed his eyes as Sydney-giggled.  Pursing his lips he glanced at the fire, trying to remember his resolve to say nothing, for now.

 

 

Everything packed, a quick check of Sark’s compass and they were off.  They came across an animal trail of some kind so they followed that as it was going in there direction.  Sydney walked along with Julian at the head of their little group, Marshall was behind them and her father brought up the rear.  She was a bit concerned that her father hadn’t said anything to her yet about Julian because she knew eventually he would.  She was pondering that when Marshall exclaimed.  Looking over her shoulder she frowned as Marshall picked something up off the forest floor.

 

“Look!  I think its gingerbread,” Marshall eagerly exclaimed as he brought the morsel to his face.

 

For one brief, horrifying moment she thought he was going to taste it, but he only sniffed at it.

 

“And look there’s more!”  Before anyone could stop him Marshall bounded off into the woods following the trail of gingerbread.

 

“Marshall!” she dashed after him, her father and Julian crashing through the woods behind her.

 

For a computer geek Marshall was pretty spry.  She didn’t catch up with him until he’d stopped.  Panting to a stop next to him she was about to chastise him about staying with the group when she realized what he was staring at.

 

In the middle of a clearing stood a gingerbread house.  Julian and her father joined them as she stared at the building.  It wasn’t a very well kept gingerbread house.  A piece of the icing looking gutter was dangling from the roof.  Gumdrops apparently had lined the roof at some point but most where now lying in the clearing, some of them nibbled on.  One of the chocolate shutters was dangling only by its bottom hinge, the portion near the ground also appeared to have been nibbled on.  It also looked like one of the corners of the house had a hole chewed in it.

 

“Wow.  I wouldn’t think gingerbread would be a very good building material,” Marshall commented.

 

“It obviously isn’t,” Julian pointed out.

 

She was about to suggest they get back to the trail when the front door creaked open.  She had a brief thought of a decrepit old witch so her mouth dropped open when the person that stepped out of the house was anything but.

 

A scantily clad, buxom young lady appeared.  Her skirt was barely more than a rag tied around her waist and the seams on her tawdry top looked fit to burst.  She appeared a bit dirty and her hair was a frizzy mess. “Would you travelers like to stop to rest a moment?” she seductively cooed.

 

Marshall made a strangled sound and she grabbed his shoulders turning him back the way they’d come.  “No thanks.  We’re just passing through.”  Giving him a push she glanced at her dad who shot the women a bored look before following Marshall.  Julian was looking highly amused at the whole incident, in a condescending way.  Catching her eye he grinned at her before, chuckling and following Jack.

 

She followed Julian and glanced over her shoulder to see the woman stomp her foot and flounce back into the house, slamming the door behind her and causing the last gumdrop to roll off the roof.

 

Back on the trail Julian was still chuckling and Marshall was looking bewildered.

 

“Do you think she wanted to eat us?!  That’s what happened with Hansel and Gretel right?”

 

“Probably not,” she reassured him. “I wouldn’t take all fairy tales at face value here.  Just as a guide.  Was the witch’s house in Hansel and Gretel a gingerbread house?”

 

They discussed that a bit but unsurprisingly none of them had really been that in to reading fairy tales when they were little so they couldn’t decide on that point.

 

 

Walking next to Julian she had to control the urge to take his arm or his hand as their arms swung next to each other, occasionally brushing.  She didn’t want to provoke her father’s oddly accepting state.  She could have walked behind Julian but then she couldn’t have taken quick peeks now and then at his profile.  She was taking one of those peeks when he startled her by raising an arm and stopping her.  Stumbling a bit she glanced to where he was narrowly watching and her breath caught in her throat.

 

On the path in front of them a large black wolf stood, his golden eyes staring at them, into them.  None of them moved.  Her dad whispered for them to stay still, to see what the wolf would do.  He continued to stand in the middle of the path, staring at them, not moving a muscle.  Shortly another wolf darted across the path behind the black one.  Two more, gangly, younger pups, ambled across the path, silently fading back into the woods.  After another long moment the black wolf blinked and darted so quickly into the trees that it almost seemed as if he had disappeared.

 

“Cool,” Marshall breathed, “I’ve never seen a wolf before.  Well the one time at the zoo, but they were farther away, and they weren’t doing anything, just laying around and sleeping.”

 

She smiled over her shoulder at Marshall.  He was certainly a breath of fresh air compared to her stoic father and even Julian’s calm demeanor.

 

“Let us hope we don’t see any other predatory forest animals,” her father seriously intoned.

 

That serious statement had her hastily clamping a hand over her mouth, muffling her snickers and glancing at Julian.  He grinned at her rakishly and raised an eyebrow.

 

“Let’s move on,” her father’s words got them moving along again.

 

 

They hadn’t gone much further when she began to notice unusual movement in the forest around them.  A glance at Julian showed that he too was aware of it.  She glanced back at her father, yup, him too.  Marshall trudged on oblivious.  Trying not to be obvious she darted her eyes around trying to count how many there were.  Clearly the movement wasn’t from animals, it was too organized and it was definitely following them.

 

Suddenly someone stepped out onto the trail in front of them.  She remarkably resembled Heidi and had a readied arrow in her bow.  The others melted out of the forest and surrounded them.  As she calmingly raised her hands she noted that they were all women, with a few teenage girls mixed in, and they all had crude weapons of some sort.  They were all also wearing stereotypical German or Swiss clothes and all their hair was braided in some manner.

 

“er, can we help you?” she politely asked.

 

“You can come with us,” the first women, whom she was going to privately call Heidi, gritted.

 

“We’re on a bit of a schedule actually.  It’s not really convenient thanks all the same,” Julian tried to talk their way out.  Apparently his arrogance only worked on gnomes as the women just eyed them silently.

 

A glance at her dad and she sighed, nudging Julian so he wouldn’t make a fuss.  They were outnumbered right now and she didn’t fancy trying to shoot all of them.  Especially some of the younger girls who, now that the women had closed in around them to lead them off, she revised it estimate to include teens and pre-teens.

 

As the whole lot of them trooped off into the woods she noted that they were moving north, away from their previous course, away from the 4^th Kingdom.

 

Interlude Four ~ Chapter Twelve ~ Tell us a Tale