Monday, September 29. Grove. Survived.

While Lusa ate, I held the anchor—and ignored our guards. I didn’t want to sit on my injured leg, so I ended up awkwardly cradling the stone against my left arm and using my staff to stay upright.

The warm energy flowing through the stone had strengthened even more. There was a quiet hum I felt—heard wasn’t the right word, it wasn’t really a sound. A current flowed under my skin, pooling in the places I’d been injured. 

I could have died—

Not now.

The warmth became a burn in those places, like I’d sliced myself open and poured in antiseptic.

My shirt and pants were ruined and probably my shoes. And I had nothing for injuries. 

No gauze. No bandages. No antiseptic.

It wasn’t like we could just dash to the drugstore and get first aid supplies. I wasn’t crossing that circle again until I had to leave for work in the morning. The idea of calling out of work—getting Lusa a phone, the salt I’d forgotten, first aid supplies—was sounding pretty appealing. 

Lusa boiled some of our bottled water after she was done eating. 

“Now your wounds. Do not wait any longer,” she said.

But she didn’t take the stone.

I leaned the staff against my chest and pulled my tie off one-handed. 

Lusa caught the sleeve of my shirt and tore it, then peeled the fabric away from the bite as gently as she could. 

“The grove should help prevent any infection. You should stay here tomorrow so it can completely cleanse it enough for your body to fight any taint. I want a look at the other wounds too.”

She took the stone. 

“I’ll get out of these clothes and clean them first,” I said.

My stomach rumbled. And food.

I limped to the tent, taking off my shoes. They actually looked okay—nothing a little polish wouldn’t buff out. 

Ducked inside. Socks were torn. My undershirt had holes in it and blood on one side, but the other looked mostly clean. I could probably use it to clean and bind my arm for the night.

I was down to my pants when I remembered to zip the door closed. 

My slacks were history. And I’d brought jeans—which were not going to feel great rubbing on my shredded leg all night. Wearing muddy torn pants wasn’t an A-plus answer either, even with the grove’s supposed help.

Well, these pants were already ruined. I’d just take that leg off and sit on my sleeping bag tonight. Maybe it would be healed enough in the morning I could stand wearing jeans long enough to survive a trip to the store. 

I was going to hear it for going in late tomorrow.

But if I showed up with a bandaged arm…

Questions.

Lots of questions.

How would I explain this?

Yeah, I got attacked by hostile shadow-mutts in the woods helping my land-god friend reestablish her ties to the earth.

Yup. That would go over well.

I stepped out of the tent barefoot, shirtless…and very conscious of the fact that it was almost October, had been raining a slow drizzle the last two days—and I was no athletic spring chicken.

I’d had to run from hollows tonight. Had to fight. Jump.

I’d survived by luck. Nothing more.

It was not a comforting thought. The tattoo on my chest pulsed and I looked down. The budding leaves were open now, some turning yellow-gold.

I glanced at the anchor tree. Yellow-gold crept along its branches here and there, but not completely taking over yet.

Exactly like my tattoo.

I looked up to find Lusa watching me. At this point, why bother leaving the slacks on at all? Might as well parade around in my boxers for all the good one pant leg was doing.

Do you mind? I wanted to snap, but held my tongue. 

Some of my annoyance must have bled through, because the faintest smile touched her lips—gone so fast I wondered if I had imagined it.

I rinsed my wounds as best I could. The scrapes on my leg looked shallow—much like the willows’ work on the night I’d gotten myself into this mess. 

They should heal fine. 

The punctures on my side weren’t too bad either. My arm on the other hand…

A dull, burning ache was creeping through it.

Tearing my undershirt into strips required bracing my injured arm against my chest while holding it and letting my right arm do all the work. 

Tying a bandage with one arm was a different story.

“Switch with me,” Lusa said, holding out the stone. “I’ll do it.”

I grabbed my sleeping bag and spread it next to the stone, then gently sank onto it, trying not to rub the gashes on my leg. I ended up sitting with that leg propped up against my chest, resting my right hand and the stone on top of it. Thankfully the claw marks on my torso were on my left side, so they didn’t complain much.

Lusa retrieved the mortar and what was left of the yarrow. 

“This needs plantain and willow bark,” she muttered, but had the yarrow pounded into a paste in short order. She mixed that with water, then packed the paste on my arm. I bit down on my tongue to keep from swearing as the paste hit the wound. 

She wrapped my arm with a layer of strips from my undershirt, then smeared the second layer in leftover ash paste from the grove ritual.

“Yarrow for cleansing,” she explained as she bound the outer layer and secured it. “It will guard against mortal infection. The ritual paste will seal against taint.”  

She moved to smear more yarrow on my side.

“I can—“

“You hold the stone. The grove’s healing is more important than your pride.”

I muttered under my breath. 

Her fingers were warm as she smeared the paste across my side, then my leg. Beneath the scent of yarrow and ash was something else—sun-warmed earth, crisp leaves, a hint of spice. Clean and cool and strangely comforting.

More ‘autumn woods’ than any candle shop Sarah had ever dragged me into.

The grove.

…or maybe her.

Of course my brain picked now to notice.

I shut that down.

“Oh—“ I said out loud, my heart sinking.

“What?”

“Sarah. I haven’t talked to her, haven’t even messaged her since Saturday. She is going to be pissed.”

“Your betrothed?”

“No, not yet. But soon—I hope.” 

“You worry that she will leave,” Lusa said.

A prickle of discomfort. I was reminded—again—that I couldn’t hide what I felt from her. But all I said was, “Something like that.”

“Then why not tell her?”

“It isn’t that simple. Before I met you—heck, even after—it’s hard to believe all this is real.”

“Then bring her to the grove.”

“Bad idea. The last thing I need is for her to think I'm running around on her.”

“This running does not mean physical exertion?”

I opened my mouth.

Closed it again.

“Uh…No. It means—It means she would think we’re involved,” I said, a little too quickly. 

“You are bonded to me.”

“There’s no way I could explain that in a way she’d believe. She would think…I’d found someone else. That she wasn’t enough.”

“And what does she think right now?”

I sighed. “Hopefully that my job sucks.”

My stomach rumbled again.

Lusa dug out my dinner and pried off the lid. Picked up a fork.

“Absolutely not,” I said. 

I was not about to let her feed me. 

I may not have much dignity left after tonight, but I was going to cling to the scraps I had. 

“Surely I can let go of this rock for five minutes to eat.”

The corners of her mouth twitched. 

But she took the stone.

“As you wish.”

After dinner, the paste on my torso had dried enough I could pull on a t-shirt. I added a flannel shirt over that, keeping the left sleeve unbuttoned so it didn’t drag across my arm. Wrapped my sleeping bag loosely around my legs—dress slacks weren’t known for their warmth. 

After two days of near constant drizzle, the night air was damp and chilly. The misting rain didn’t seem to bother whoever held the anchor. The chill didn’t bite as much either. 

Not the case for whoever was sleeping or moving about the circle. Lusa paced the edges, filling in where salt had thinned from the rain over the past few days.

“We are out,” she said. 

“I’ll get more in the morning,” I said.

She looked up, considering the cloudy sky. “The rain should pass shortly. Tomorrow will be clear.”

I could wait. Bring the salt after work.

The warmth of the grove was a steady pulse beneath my skin. If I closed my eyes, I could feel it spreading—deep, steady, everywhere. I felt alive—banged up, achy, and one arm throbbing—but alive.

Our shadow kitty guards were a quiet presence. Only the infrequent flick of a tail or ear to remind me they were there.

“Get some sleep,” I told Lusa. “I’ll keep an eye on Scar and Shere Khan.”

Lusa gave me an odd look, then glanced at the hollows. 

“Do you mean the panthera?”

“Yeah. Them.” 

I smiled, willing my face to say I was fine. 

She slipped into the tent and was asleep quickly. 

I was alone with my thoughts—and two panther-sized nightmares. 

Too bad Lusa had missed more than a century’s worth of pop culture. I was pretty proud of my names for the shadow kitties. It made them sound like washed-up wrestlers…not instruments of death. 

Memories of racing through the woods, the panic when the hollows struck, that helpless feeling of being unprepared threatened to overwhelm me.

I closed my eyes, forcing myself to focus.

The steady pulse of the stone.

The warmth in my hands.

The earthy scent of herbs. 

I'd been asking the wrong question.

Walk away? Stay?

I'd already answered that.

Walking away wasn't the problem anymore. It was figuring out how to survive this.

I wasn't a hero. 

Sometime before midnight, the skies cleared and soft moonlight filtered through the trees. 

Scar and Khan shifted back, sinking deeper in the shadows. 

No games tonight, just silent, steady stares.

I didn’t look at them.

Yes, I’d panicked. 

Yes, I’d been unprepared.

That was on me. 

I’d been playing by the wrong rules—her rules. 

I was done being the idiot with a stick at a claw fight.

It was time to change the rules.