The Truth of Things Unseen

Raggedy Wolves

The ranger girl had honey-coloured hair and large eyes so brown they were almost golden. Her clothes were practical and weather-beaten, dark-coloured, so they blended into the shadows. Her voice was gentle, with rich Mercian overtones. A clever, cultured voice.

Fen tried to sit up and immediately realised it was a bad idea. The pain carved through her like a hot wire, across her chest, down her side. Her scalp was stinging. With a shock she realised that was where he had dragged her. The man had cut her and dragged her and burned her with fire. He had laid hands on her. He had seen her. She felt dirty inside.

"Is he dead?" she asked.

The ranger girl nodded.

"Did it hurt him?"

The ranger girl nodded again. This time she smiled a different kind of smile, a secret smile with a curve in it, just a flash, immediately hidden.

"He drowned in his own blood, pinned to the floor like a butterfly. It was spectacular."

"Good."

She was wrapped in some kind of grey fabric. The ranger's cloak. Underneath it, she was bare. Where was her dress? Where was Gwyn's cloak? What would Gwynn say if she didn't get her cloak back?

"You rescued me."

"Seemed like the thing to do."

"You covered me."

"Easy enough."

"I need my things. I had things, up there on the hill."

The ranger girl shrugged. She was frowning as though listening to some voice inside her head. The little flash of cruelty was gone. The girl's brow was clear, the gold-brown eyes wide and innocent.

"Are you listening to something?"

The ranger girl hesitated just a moment too long. "No, no there's nothing. Would you like water?"

The ranger girl passed her a squishy leather bag. Fen looked at it. The girl mimed lifting and drinking. There was a sort of a catch at one corner. Fen fumbled with it and water began pouring out down her front. She lifted it to her mouth and gulped. The water tasted odd from an animal skin, but as it went down inside her, she felt the shivery feeling as it dampened down her insides.

"Thank you," she said, handing back the skin. "For everything. I would have been burned."

"It was fun." Again the smile with the curve in it, immediately hidden. A little pause as though she were listening to some other voice, then the girl spoke as though reciting lines. "I'm Taliette. I'm going East. Who are you?"

"Fen, I was going West, but I think I'm going East now, too."

The pause again, then the words, spoken just a little too quickly. "Oh, maybe we can walk together?"

Fen tried to sit again. There was a bright line of pain running down her spine. She remembered a knife. Tearing cloth.

"You've got a cut up your back," said the ranger girl. This time, there was no pause, no emotion at all. She barely looked up from cleaning her dagger." The rat-faced one sliced your skin when he cut your dress away. Right from your neck, all the way down. I washed it but I couldn't work out how to put a bandage on it. It's probably pretty scabbed now."

"I'll get blood on your cloak."

"I'll get another one."

Fen could feel the scabs pulling and cracking.

"Maybe you should just lie there a bit?" said the ranger.

Fen ignored her and pushed through it. "I will not. Lie here. I've got things. To do."

She struggled to her feet and immediately fell to her knees, grabbing hold of fistfuls of leaves.

The ranger girl was watching her, wide-eyed, grinning like a cat. "Wow, that's pretty strong. Are you sure you want to do that? You look like you're going to die."

"I have to get my things." It suddenly seemed very important to have everything she needed once again.

"What, your bag and stuff?"

"My bag, my bottles. There was some cheese."

"Well, great then," the ranger girl leapt to her feet too, swinging her black pack onto her shoulders. "I thought we'd be stuck here for hours."

Fen followed the ranger girl back up the rise, the cloak clutched tightly around her body. Near the top of the hill, she started to shake. I am a rock. I am a stone. I am the smallest mouse. but she was none of these things.

There was a smell in the air, ash and cold meat. It reminded her of bacon left on the skillet. The wind swirled around her legs. The shaking grew worse until she could hardly hold the cloak together to cover herself.

The oilcloth was half burned up. Tam's rope was gone, only a couple of pieces of knot tangled in the trees. Her grey dress lay abandoned in the clearing, sawn open down the back. Her satchel had a big muddy footprint right across it.

The two bodies were mostly gone, the stomachs had been worried open and entrails were looped around, up in the trees, hanging like party decorations. The lean muscle on the legs had been torn off, leaving raw bloody bones like meaty sticks. The eyes had been sucked out, and portions of the cheeks had been scissored away. Whatever had done the eating had left plenty of marks on the trees. Thousands of little bloody handprints marked the trunks, as though a child had been doing fingerpainting.

The ranger girl was grinning, though Fen noted that she had an arrow knocked and half drawn.

"I never thought they were real," said the girl to herself, studying the palm prints. "I thought it was just a story. When they eat you, they hold you still and take little bites."

"What do? What takes little bites?"

But the ranger girl didn't answer. "Get your bag and anything you want to bring," she said. "We can stitch that dress back together on the road. I'm going to leave my arrows."

There was a rustle in the undergrowth, and Fen spun around, but it was only a squirrel. The ranger began to sing, softly, a childish melody.

"Listen at the windowpane,

The rattle at the latch.

The raggedy wolves are climbing up,

And digging in the thatch."

"I think we should go now," said Fen. She stuffed her dress into the satchel. There was no point taking the melted oilcloth.

"Come on then," said the ranger. "We should go before they come back. You still travelling east?"

Fen nodded.

"You can tell it's East because that's where the sun rises," said the ranger, sagely. As they walked away, she recited the rest of her rhyme.

"Tunnels ‘tween the rafters lead to,

Ways beneath the floor.

Raggedy wolves come knock knock knocking,

At your bedroom door."