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We didn’t have such luxuries as soft mattresses. If you wanted to make a better bed for yourself you were always welcome to gather grass and leaves and make your own bed from that. I had had something similar to that, but still it was nowhere anything like this.
This is what I imagined sleeping on the softest of clouds felt like. I briefly wondered if I had died and gone to heaven because this felt lovely and nothing in my life ever really felt lovely before. Heaven was supposed to feel lovely, right?
My community taught that it wasn’t but that we went back into the earth to be born anew after there was nothing left of our bodies anymore.
I always wondered about worms feasting on your remains. Worms really grossed me out for some reason. I think it might have to do with being pooped on once when I was younger.
I opened my eyes and immediately shut them again. I had no idea where I was at. I just knew I had never been any place like it before.
What in the holy hell had been done to me in the woods? Had I hit my head and damaged my poor brain?
“You can relax, Autumn. You’re safe here with this coven. They’ve been taking care of you for over a week now. We’ve just been waiting for you to wake up.”
Excuse my language but what in the actual fuck?
I hadn’t even noticed there’d been someone in the dang room with me.
And what coven was he talking about?
How had I gotten here?
A whole week, he’d said? I wracked my brain. My brain gave me no good answers in response.
I had no idea who this man was, where I was, or how I’d gotten here. I just knew that I was no longer in the woods and amongst my own people.
I had seen people, they hadn’t been my magical wilderness creatures, but maybe they actually had been real people after all and not just figments of my imagination. And they’d clearly taken me with them.
This was not good. How was I supposed to find my way back home again? Did I really even want to go back home again?
I wasn’t so sure that was the right choice for me. Those people clearly didn’t want me there. Did I want to be somewhere I wasn’t wanted and constantly abused?
There had to be more to life than that. At least I hoped there was for someone like me.
I opened my eyes and looked around the room again.
I found the man this time. He was sitting in a chair in front of a window with the blinds closed. He was semi hidden in shadow and I was willing to bet that’s why I had missed him on my first look around the room and also something he’d done on purpose for just that reason.
He was leaning forward with his elbows on his knees and his chin resting in his hands. His dirty blonde hair was tucked back behind his ears and his moss green eyes were gentle and solely on me.
“My name is Rain Kimber,” he said in a gravelly voice. “I’m friends with the coven who removed you from the woods. I am actually the one who sent them in there to check on the situation. Can you tell me a little about your life, Autumn. And I’d really like to know how it was that you became tied up to that tree and bleeding from an alarming amount of wounds on your body. Wounds that weren’t inflicted by you but clearly by someone else who meant to hurt you. I’d like to hear all about that, if you don’t mind.”
I shrunk into myself and wrapped my arms around my chest. I did mind, actually I didn’t know this man at all and we were taught to never speak to outsiders.
It was against the rules to speak with him about what he wanted me to. I didn’t know why I cared, they were probably going to kick me out of the community when they figured out I had disappeared. That place was so backward it wasn’t even funny.
I had no idea why I even wanted to be loyal to them at all when they’d gone out of their way to leave me there to die. But there were some good people who lived there who didn’t deserve anything bad happening to them. I couldn’t go against those people, I didn’t have it in me. Apparently I was stupidly loyal.
His eyes shifted over my shoulder and I felt something loosen inside of me now that his focus was no longer directly on me.
Sheesh. He was freaking intense.
I could take no more of it, I’d easily crack under the pressure. I was no match for this man. And he’d barely even said anything to me yet. I hoped he didn’t try to grill me because I’d either go down fast and hard or I’d set the whole room ablaze with my magic when I panicked and I really did not need to have to explain that one to anyone.
His eyes shifted back to me. Very intense indeed.
“You’re not much of a talker, are you, kid? That’s okay. From the looks of it and how they tell me they found you it sounds like you’ve really been through the ringer and back. I don’t blame you for not trusting easy or not wanting to talk. Tough chick. You remind me of both my daughter and my significant other, my coven's female witch. They’re both as tough as they come. You’re in good company with them.”
He was so very wrong about me. I absolutely was not a tough chick and I had no idea why he’d even think that in the first place. This man did not know me and had no business making judgment calls about me whatsoever.
