There was something in the trees.
Perched on the now-completed roof of the forge, Matt stared out into the branches, at the forest that straggled along the edge of the ravine and tried not to think about how he knew in his gut that there was something out there. It was starting to get cold as the sun sank closer to the western horizon, but he stayed up on the forge’s roof, complete now after the day’s work, watching the clouds and the late autumn sky. They’d finished it hours ago, and once they had Davon had headed back to the main tent to get cleaned up and help with dinner. Phelan had lingered a little longer on the roof before he’d gone to check the wards. Matt could see him from his perch, the older man’s hair lit by the setting sun, looking as if his head was wreathed in flame.
The scar on his palm ached in time with his pulse and he squinted off toward the trees. From the corner of his eye, he could see the afternoon sun glint off the filaments of gold in Phelan’s fiery hair as the other man walked the perimeter of their wards. Part of him thought he should be down there with him, a tug from somewhere deep, something he was still trying to ignore just for a little while longer.
It seemed like it got harder every day. Every hour.
He watched Phelan for a few moments, flexing his scarred hand and frowning.
There was something out there in those trees, but what—or who—was it?
Paranoid, he thought, still frowning. It’s probably nothing.
Still, he couldn’t shake the feeling that he was being watched. Considering everything that they’d faced in the few months since the end of what he’d started to think of as modern life, perhaps feeling like he was being watched wasn’t that surprising—and wasn’t something he should chalk up to simple paranoia.
Slowly, testing his balance and footing on the newly-finished roof, he stood, squinting through the dying afternoon sun out into the trees of the ravine.
There’s nothing out there, he told himself. At least, nothing I can see. Which means there’s probably nothing that’s a threat out there. Just trees and animals. Nothing to worry about there.
He shook his head slightly, letting his gaze drift back to Phelan. The older man’s hair was lit by the setting sun, looking as if his head was wreathed in flame.
The uncomfortable feeling of having seen a similar sight in some dim and dead yesterday settled into his bones. The feeling of odd things being familiar had been growing over the past couple of weeks, since the weather had turned sharply colder, as if autumn was giving up the fight against an early winter. Some of those feelings of things being familiar he didn’t mind as much, like the building and his work at the forge, but other things—like the familiarity with Phelan that felt deeper than it should—were unsettling.
So were the dreams. Those, he tried to forget.
He watched Phelan straighten from his crouch and felt a prickling at the back of his neck. Phelan’s gaze scanned the trees and though he couldn’t quite see it from this distance, somehow Matt knew that he was frowning.
He cleared this throat. “What is it?” he called, glancing from Phelan out into the woods that choked the ravine, scanning trunks and branches once again.
Still nothing. Whatever was out there, it was either well-hidden or something he just couldn’t see.
I’m not sure which terrifies me more. That there could be something out there that I can’t see, or that I’ve decided that there’s actually something out there and I’m not just paranoid.
“Not sure,” Phelan called back. “At least not yet. You see anything?”
“No.” But he looked again, brow furrowing. A gust of wind rustled the branches, sending a few dead leaves that still stubbornly clung to the branches spiraling down toward into the lengthening shadows along the walls of the ravine. “Do you?”
“Not yet,” Phelan said, carefully stepping over the ward he’d been checking, right up to the true boundary between warded and unwarded ground—at least, that was how Matt had come to understand the thin line in the turf where Kellin and Marin had buried copper wire and salt mixed with ashes. “Something’s stirring.”
The words were nearly too quiet for Matt to hear, but he heard them nonetheless. His fingers curled into fists as his jaw tightened before he moved carefully to the edge of the forge’s roof and dropped over the edge, landing in a crouch. Phelan glanced over, then away again, squinting off into the trees.
“It could be nothing,” Matt said quietly.
“You don’t really think so, though.” Phelan exhaled slowly. “And neither do I.”
“Then what?” Matt crossed the distance between them, trying to swallow his heart back down to its spot behind his ribs from where it had crawled up into his throat. “Something hunting you? Or something hunting us?”
A fresh gust of wind tugged at their clothes and hair. “Not hunting, I don’t think,” Phelan said softly, his voice almost lost under the sound of the rustling branches above, lips barely moving as he stared out into the ravine’s trees. “It feels more like something’s watching.”
An icy chill slowly worked its way down Matt’s spine. “You realize that’s almost worse, right?” He took a deep breath and forced himself to exhale slowly, trying to calm a heart that was already beating too fast. “The idea of something watching us and not knowing why or what it is? That’s more than a little unnerving, Phelan.”
A faint sound escaped the red-head, not quite a snort, and he shook his head slightly. “I suppose not. But I don’t know what to tell you, Matt. It just feels like something watching, not something hunting, and I’ve got no answers beyond that.” He glanced over for a moment, studying him, and something shifted subtly in his expression. “You feel it, too.”
Matt shook his head. “I’m feeling paranoid is what I’m feeling. Probably because shit keeps showing up and trying to kill us.”
The ghost of a smile tugged at Phelan’s lips as he looked away, staring out into the trees again. His gaze seemed to simultaneously search the ravine and be looking at something very long ago and far away. “Legends say that those who watch from afar do it from the eyes of an animal—usually some kind of bird, but sometimes other things. Wolves, deer. I heard a story about a squirrel, once, but I’m not sure I believed it.” The ghost of a smile tugged at his lips and Matt felt a growing tightness in his throat, as if some part of him recognized what Phelan was telling him even though he knew he’d never heard it before in his life. “Sometimes you’re able to not do it that way, but most of the time I’ve never bothered to do it. Once, though, I almost regretted it. I was keeping watch over a friend while she did something potentially dangerous and possibly ill-advised because—well. At this point, I think you can figure out why.”
Phelan crossed his arms, exhaling slowly. The sun was slipping lower, now, and the stormclouds pressed closer as the daylight started to fade. “I should have been more careful. My watching gave her away.”
“How?” Matt asked quietly, staring at him as the wind started to pick up, creeping down the neck of his jacket to chill the drying sweat down his spine.
He smiled faintly, ruefully. “An owl was following her in daylight.” He reached over and grasped Matt’s shoulder, squeezing gently. “If we keep watch for things that shouldn’t be there, we’ll know what’s watching, at least, even if we won’t know who. Come on. I don’t know about you, but I can feel that storm in my bones.” He nodded toward the darkening clouds.
“Do you think it’s snow?” Matt asked as he let Phelan steer him away from the ravine’s edge, back toward the path that wound down the hill from the forge toward the huge tents where they still gathered for meals and a dozen other purposes for their surviving community. “This time of year, could go either way.”
Phelan paused, tilting his face toward those clouds, his brows knitting for a moment before he looked at Matt sidelong. There was something ancient and exhausted in his eyes and it made Matt swallow, part of him regretting the question he’d asked.
“Never mind,” Matt said quietly. “We’ll know soon enough.”
“The wind’s picking up,” Phelan said quietly. “From the north and west. Could be snow.” He exhaled a long breath, scrubbing a hand roughly over his face. “What’s your gut say?”
A fresh chill worked its way down Matt’s spine. This moment felt too familiar in a way he didn’t want to wrestle with, not now—maybe not ever. His gaze drifted up toward the sky, following Phelan’s gaze toward the clouds that continued to build and push in, moving fast on the wind.
“No,” he murmured softly. “Not snow. At least not at first.”
The words were bubbling up from somewhere inside and his stomach twisted uncomfortably, pins and needles stinging his fingers and hands from the inside and the hair at the back of his neck prickling uncomfortably.
“Another few days for snow,” Matt murmured softly, then gagged, doubling over and pressing a hand against his mouth, swallowing the bile that surged up in his throat. Something felt wrong but he couldn’t grasp what it was. Phelan pressed a hand against his back, between his shoulders.
“Through your nose, deartháir. Deep breaths.” Warmth seeped through his jacket from Phelan’s hand and some of the nausea started to recede. Matt’s breath rasped as he struggled to breathe through his nose and force down the urge to offer everything he’d eaten today up to the grass alongside the path. His vision blurred and for a few seconds, he thought he tasted blood in his mouth, could feel a hot wind instead of the cold one that funneled through shattered buildings to whip around them.
He squeezed his eyes shut against the sudden sting of tears, then coughed and spat bile into the grass.
“I’m fine,” he rasped, though his stomach nearly made a liar out of him as it lurched again. Phelan didn’t retreat and Matt could feel traces of the other man’s power seeping through his jacket and shirt and into his skin.
The fact that he could feel it and identify it for what it was left him even more unsettled.
“Don’t,” he whispered.
“Don’t what?” Phelan asked quietly. “Don’t help?”
“Just don’t,” Matt coughed again, wiping his mouth with the back of his wrist and hand.
For a few seconds, Phelan was quiet. From the corner of his eye, Matt could see him straighten slightly, his gaze sweeping the area, then flicking up to the sky.
“I won’t,” Phelan murmured. “But come on. Pull yourself together so we can get under cover before the rain starts.”
Rain. A fresh chill worked its way down Matt’s spine even as he heard the distant grumble of thunder. He forced himself to straighten, swallowing twice and sucking in a pair of breaths before he glanced toward Phelan again.
“Don’t say anything,” he said quietly.
“I won’t.” Phelan shook his head and sighed. “It’s up to you, Matt. All of it. But you know where to find me if there’s anything you need. Even if it’s just to talk.”
Scrubbing a hand over his face roughly, Matt nodded. “Yeah,” he said. “Yeah, I know. I just—Phelan, I—”
“I get it.” Phelan gave him a sad, crooked little smile. “It’s a lot. And it’s coming too fast, isn’t it?”
“It’s hard for anything to come when there’s nothing there,” Matt said quietly.
For a second, Matt felt like Phelan might have said something might’ve argued with him. Instead, he just smiled and slung his arm around Matt’s shoulders.
“Come on,” Phelan said quietly. “I’ll make you some tea and teach you how to tell the difference between watchers and regular birds.”
They’d gone half a dozen strides before Matt stopped, glancing at him. “…what happened?”
Phelan’s brow furrowed as he turned fully to face him. “What do you mean?”
“To the friend you were tracking with the owl. What happened to her?”
Phelan choked on a quiet laugh and grinned, equal parts rueful and relieved. “It all worked out. The ones who spotted it were the ones she was looking for. She said they were kind and understood.” His expression tightened for a moment, then turned wistful as he looked away—that same faraway look he’d gotten when they’d been standing out by the ravine. “She got what she came for and came back safely. If she hadn’t, I’m fairly certain her intended would have slit my throat himself.”
The smile Phelan turned on him then was sad, full of memory and a thousand things left unspoken. He just put his arm around Matt’s shoulders again and steered him back toward the tents, toward the fire, shaking his head slightly.
“It was a long time ago,” Phelan said, almost to himself. “And it all worked out for the best.”
There was too much pain in Phelan’s voice for Matt to fully believe him, but he kept his mouth shut.
There would be another time. Of that much, he was sure.
