The creature came closer and closer. As it stepped within a few feet of her, Serafina couldn’t keep her body from trembling. Her only hope was that the creature wouldn’t see her hiding beneath the roots at its feet.
She could hear its breathing now, the slow wheezing, ragged, hissing breath, like a wounded animal, and she could see it more closely than she had before. A white haze lingered about its body like the smoke around a dying campfire, and straggly grey strands hung around its head like the stringy hair of a rotting corpse. When the creature turned and she saw its face, she gasped. It had been slashed with a savage wound that oozed with the blackish, festering blood of an injury that never healed. She couldn’t tell whether the creature was a mortal man or a hellish fiend, or some combination of the two, but its sharp, pointy teeth chattered with anticipation as it scanned the forest, swaying its head back and forth as it crept forward with its dangling claws.
At first it seemed as if the creature was going to pass her by, but then the thing stopped, standing right over her.
Its talon-like hand grasped one of the roots of the toppled tree beneath which she was hiding. Serafina sucked in a startled breath and held it, too frightened to exhale. The creature looked one way into the forest and then the other. It seemed like it knew she was there, that it sensed her presence, maybe smelled her, but it had not yet detected exactly where she was. She held her breath like a trembling rabbit in her little den.
The creature opened its mouth and a low, vibrating, guttural sound emerged. Then Serafina began to actually see the white air rushing from its lungs. It wasn’t just an exhalation or a long scream, but a storm. The air around her began to twist and turn, the leaves swirling up, the branches on the trees bending and cracking. The air exploded with blowing rain. The terrible noise coming from the creature’s mouth was getting louder and louder as the storm rose up all around.
The storm-creech peered down into the mound of roots where she was hiding. Its silver-glowing eyes looked straight at her, shocking her with a blast of fear. The creature’s talons closed into a fist, crushing the roots that it had been holding. Then it began tearing the roots away with both hands, its teeth chattering as it ripped its way towards her.
As the creature attacked, Serafina reflexively tried to shift into panther form to defend herself, but it didn’t work. For some clumsy reason, she couldn’t change. She tried again, concentrating on envisioning herself as a panther, but she couldn’t do it. She remained in her human form.
Not knowing what else to do, she cowered down. She tried to stay out of the creature’s reach as it ripped the roots away. She thought about leaping up at the thing and fighting it with her bare hands, but it seemed far too powerful. At the last second, just as its claws touched her, she scrambled out of the roots on her belly and darted out the other side.
A storm raged through the forest. The pelting rain roared around her. The wind blew so hard that her hair and clothes pressed against her face and body. It felt like it wasn’t going to just blow her away, but tear her into little pieces.
But she couldn’t let the storm slow her down. The creature was right behind her. She had to get out of there. She ran headlong into the swirling rain and just kept running.
When she looked over her shoulder, she expected to see the creature charging up behind her, grabbing for her, but it wasn’t. It was in the distance, still ripping at the roots where she’d been hiding.
Confused, but relieved that she’d managed to escape the wretched thing, she quickly turned to keep moving, but she nearly ran straight into an eerie black shape similar to what she’d seen before. She stopped abruptly, recoiling from it like it was a venomous snake.
It floated right in front of her now, so sharply black that it seemed like an impossibility. The light of the moon and stars disappeared into it, and she could see nothing on the other side of it. Rain fell in, but did not come out. It was like a tear in the fabric of the world.
The sight of it tightened her chest. Her skin buzzed. She backed away and ducked into a thicket of bushes to hide.
When the black shape drifted in her direction, she caught her breath in surprise. She couldn’t tell if it was drifting on the winds of the storm or was actually drawn to her in some way.
The roiling black shape floated slowly closer. She thought that the thick foliage would protect her, but the leaves and branches snapped and hissed as the black shape touched them, bursting them one by one, as it moved towards her.
She frantically squirmed away, but the edge of the black shape touched her shoulder. The searing pain felt like she was being slashed with a burning, white-hot blade. She screamed in agony and wrenched herself away.
Driven by blind fear, she clambered out of the thicket and ran. She spotted a rocky area and sprinted for it. When she saw the drop-off of a steep mountain slope, she jumped.
She hit the ground hard and rolled down the earthen slope, her shoulders and legs thudding against the rocks and trees as she fell, then sprang to her feet and fled.
She tore through the forest, gasping for breath, but pushed herself on, looking over her shoulder for signs of the storm-creech and the black shapes.
As the rain and wind slowly died down, and the storm faded behind her, she kept going at a hurried pace.
Finally, she was relieved to see the glow of the moon peeking through the clouds. Day folk knew that the sun rose in the east and set in the west, but many didn’t realize that the moon did as well. Its black shadows among the trees were like arrows pointing the way home. As soon as she got her wits about her, she figured out what direction she needed to go, and went as fast as she could. She had to warn the people of Biltmore about what she had seen.
But just as she began to make progress, she came to the edge of a river blocking her path. She scanned the surrounding area in confusion.
‘Don’t tell me you’ve gone and gotten yourself lost,’ she scolded herself.
She had thought she was close to home. She remembered a creek near here, small and shallow, just a quick leap across. But what blocked her path now was a powerful river, turbulent and strong, ripping through the trees. Its shores weren’t the rocky edge of a normal river, but the flooded forest.
It was strange how so much had changed. If the little creek she remembered was now this churning river, then there must have been many other storms like the one she’d just fought her way through. A knot of worry bunched in her stomach. There were few things in the mountains more powerful and damaging than the rushing waters that had formed them.
Knowing she had to get home, she stepped into the dark water of the river to cross it. The current felt like tiny shards tearing at her bare skin. She’d waded across plenty of rivers, but this was a strange and alarming sensation that she’d never felt before. When she took another step, it became very clear that the river was far too deep and turbulent for her to cross. It seemed like it wanted to suck her in and pull her under.
Looking out across the river, she was amazed to see an entire tree – branches, trunk, and roots and all – floating downstream, tumbling through the current, like a great, leafy leviathan. Many of the largest and oldest trees at the edge of the river had toppled into the current, the earth beneath their roots ripped away by the powerful pull of the rushing water.
She stepped back out of the flooded river and away from the edge, convinced that the dark, malevolent water wanted to consume her. She couldn’t cross here. But if she was anywhere near where she thought she was, there were no roads or bridges for quite a while.
‘We’re in a real pickle now, girl,’ she said, talking to herself the way her pa did. ‘What we gonna do about it? That’s the