Pansy stepped out into the garden alone, the cool night air barely registering amid the sour heat that roiled beneath her skin. It was strange being out here without Ren. For one, the garden was far darker than she was used to; the lanterns Ren had arranged for her benefit still unlit. Had Pansy planned on doing something other than plopping down on the front stoop and stewing in her own misery, trapped in an unending loop ofjust-tell-them-but-I-can’t, she might have gone to the trouble of lighting them herself. But, as it was, she saw no real point. Just a lot of wasted effort and burnt-down wicks.
It wasn’t like she couldn’t see. The garden remained discernible enough for her purposes, familiar shapes cast now in gold and silver, the warmth of the cottage meeting the cool glow of the moon.
The forest beyond, however, was a different story.
Pansy had barely settled onto the stoop, her skirts folded neatly underneath her, when a sharp snap, like that of a twig crunching underfoot, rang out from the black mass of the nearby treeline. Her breath snagged in her throat, eyes flying wide as her head jerked in the direction the noise had come from.
In truth, it shouldn’t have been nearly so startling. The forest was full of sounds, from the rustle of leaves to the low groan of shifting bark.
And yet, there was something different about this. A chillhad come over Pansy, washing down her limbs in streams of gooseflesh. She squinted into the murky void, eyes straining to make sense of what little she could actually perceive, a jumble of barely there outlines that slowly coalesced into a handful of bushes, some trees. So far, nothing unusual or out of the ordinary.
Then one of the shapes shifted, retreating deeper into the thicket; what Pansy had once thought to be merely a tree turned out to be anything but.
“Ren?” she squeaked out, unable to keep herself from hoping, even though it made no sense. If that had been a person – rather than some strange, terrifying monster of the forest – they were much too tall to be a goblin or even a halfling. “Ren, is that you?”
“Pansy?”
Pansy’s heart kicked into her gorge. Ren’s voice had come from behind her. She turned and found them standing in the doorway, their forehead knotted with thick ropes of confusion.
“What’s wrong?” they asked, frowning at the sight of her expression, wide-eyed and devoid of color.
“I—” Pansy glanced back to the forest’s edge.Did I just imagine it?“I thought I saw someone… In the trees over there.”
“Stay here,” Ren said, yanking on their shoes, which they’d left on one side of the doorway. “I’ll go take a look.”
“I’ll come with you,” Pansy said, already shooting up from the stoop. If someonewasout there, there was no way she was going to let Ren face them alone.
For a moment, it seemed like Ren was going to argue with her. But one look at the hard set of her jaw, and whatever fight had been building inside them promptly fizzled out. “Fine,” they said. “But stay behind me.”
Together, they approached the black tangle of the forest, each step speeding Pansy’s already frantic pulse. She shivered as they pushed beyond the treeline, branches unfurling overhead like thick veins of ink. Unable to help herself, she gripped a fistful of Ren’s tunic, flushing when they cast a quizzical look over their shoulder.
“I can’t see,” she mumbled by way of explanation, ducking her burning face beneath a veil of red curls.
“Then stay close,” Ren replied, their vision once again trained on the forest floor, searching for footprints, no doubt – or, perhaps, some other clue, one that sat equally beyond Pansy’s present reach.
“Do you see anything?” she asked, half-hoping the answer was no, if only because the alternative proved far more frightening.
Ren shook their head. “No footprints. Just some scattered leaves, a few animal droppings. You’re certain this is where you saw them?”
“Positive.”
“Hmm. Then perhaps—Oh!”
Oh, gods. They’d found something, hadn’t they? It hadn’t been her imagination. Someone had been out there, watching her, watching the cottage.
Pansy swallowed, her throat narrowing in what had now become an all too familiar sensation. “What have you found?” she asked, her words nearly upended by the quivering warble that had hooked into her voice.
“Nothing frightening,” Ren assured her, gently disentangling her hand from their tunic. “Whatever you saw, it was probably just an animal. Perfectly normal for the forest.” They smiled.
“I knowthat,” Pansy protested, her face heating anew. “Itjust… it was tall. It didn’t really look like an animal…”
Ren shrugged. “Well, I’m not seeing any evidence of anything else having passed through here, and as far as I know, this forest isn’t home to any sort of horrifying monster.”
“‘As far as you know’, huh? That isn’t exactly a reassuring qualifier…”
“Pansy, I’ve been roaming these woods since the day I took my first steps. So, take the good news for what it is andcome look.”
They were right about one thing, at least: itwasgood news – even if it made Pansy look like a fool. But she supposed that was par for the course at this point, a thought that registered with an undeniably sour note alongside the heat pooling in her cheeks.
