Tracking the shadow

Chapter Four – Tracking the shadow.

The Madam’s body was numb from the fall. Her eyes shook with pain.

  The soldier kept pulling the whip with Margaret while enduring the beatings at his back. The sticks weren’t painful and Evelyn was enjoying the beat she was making.

   The soldier let go of the whip and same time pushes Evelyn away from him. She doesn’t expect it and falls to the ground, she begins wailing.

  “Sister down” Lydia yelled as she snatched the whip Margaret held and flung it on the soldiers back giving him a taste of his own medicine.

   Evelyn’s wails turned to laughter as the man danced to the pain the whip gave.

   Some boy in the crowd shouted “more” and Lydia decisively lashes the soldier again. Madam Lara was trying to crawl away now.

  It was like a town charade. Some children threw Madam Clara’s dirty tomatoes at the soldier for coming to embarrass his ranks.

 Horses neighing as they ran towards them made Margaret stop whipping the soldier and threw the whip into the crowd.

   “What is going on here?” one of the horseman shouted as he pulled his horse to a halt.

 No one answered. “Somebody answer me?” the soldier shouted again. Still silence. He brought out his sword for effect but no one still said anything.

  There were all soldiers, soldiers from the kingdom of Craitan which bullied the small village Evelyn and her sisters lived in.

  They’re were not very religious as they worshipped many idols so they had no specific mode of conduct.

  Reporting to them what happened will bring no justice, they were all unjust. The soldier saw Evelyn sitting on the ground and came closer to her.

  “Young woman, what happened! Why is this soldier weeping!”.

  “Sir” she started with a teary voice. “Madam Lara just began yelling at us. She had earlier insulted a little boy. She then told this soldier to flog me and my sisters.

   I accidentally kicked him in the groin while trying to stop him from flogging me. He just laid on the ground crying since then” she increased her cries.

  Everyone kept a gloomy face, trying to make Evelyn’s story seem true. The soldier on the horse glared at the soldier on the ground.

   “Pathetic” he cursed as he began riding away. Lydia smiled mischievously while helping her sister up.

   “Nice acting. Be an actor not a soldier” Lydia winked. The girls laughed as they walked away from the crowd.

  They felt like heroes who just saved a poor child from a big hungry monster that was going to devour him.

  Their laughter soon died down when they remembered the situation that had brought them out of their home in the first place.

  “Oh, I am really not going back home” Lydia folded her arms grumpily. Margaret did the same.

 Evelyn also didn’t feel like returning but they had no where else to be. They were just helpless orphans.

  “Did anyone hear or see the shadow lurking around during that Killer Wolves attack?” Evelyn asked her sisters as they strolled in the forest.

  “The only sound I saw was the growls of the Killer Wolves. The only sight I saw was death” Lydia sounded poetic.

  Evelyn frowned, “I am serious. It had the figure of a man. It better not be what I’m thinking”.

  Margaret hurried to catch up with her sisters. Her weight seemed to have doubled only from eating three unripe tomatoes of Madam Lara.

  “Let’s go find out then” Lydia gave her evil smirk and the three adventurous sisters went deeper into the woods. Margaret picked a stick along the way, just in case.

  They walked into the sounds of the forest and buzzing off wild bees.

  Deeper, they came across a cave with claw marks on it’s surface.

   Lydia suggests they leave immediately but Evelyn's curiosity is turned on so she declines. She could be on her way to revealing a great stranger amongst them.

  Lydia followed her sisters cautiously, grabbing a stick of her own. She couldn’t die at seventeen.

  “They’re fresh claw marks on this cave” Margaret noticed. Lydia freezes as her eyes landed on something even more alarming.

  A red haired wolfman was flexing his claws on a nearby rock. His body had blood and it seemed he had just killed an animal, hopefully.

  His back was against them but Evelyn was sure he was the owner of the shadow that had helped them during the Killer Wolves attack.

Lydia was now tugging on Evelyn’s shoulders that they should turn back.

  “Wolfmen are bloody. We should not engage” Lydia quotes their Uncle’s usual line to them.

  “We are free now. We don’t need listen to whatever Uncle said” Margaret counters immediately. Lydia frowns. Wasn’t whatever he said still valid for safety?

  Evelyn picked a stone and threw it at the nearby river besides the wolfman prompting him to turn around. They all hide behind the cave, peeking slightly.

  The wolfman had reddish eyes but they were not scary but shiny. And his lips were plump and pink and didn’t look rough.

  His red hair also spread across his broad shoulders and his shirt was hanging on his shoulders making his chiseled chest visible.

   He narrowed his eyes at the stone for seconds. Lydia narrowed her eyes at him. He seemed awfully familiar but she couldn’t place how she knew him.

  Margaret began swooning, “He's so gorgeous. Sarah was right. These wolfmen were irresistible” she cackled quietly.

  “They’ll do the same thing to you like they did Sarah” Evelyn shot back. Margaret stayed quiet.

   Sarah was a childhood friend of theirs that was said to have fallen in love with a wolfman, she had a name for them. Werewolves. But the villagers preferred wolfmen.

   Sarah had disappeared after claiming to be getting married to one of them. She was never seen again and was said to be dead.

  “Can we leave now?” Lydia asked for the hundredth time.

  Evelyn shrugged since there was no reaction from the wolfman so they could as well let him be.

   “He's no fun” she concluded and turned to leave.

  A growl stopped them three on their tracks and they retreated behind the cave.

  The wolfman smiled and laid besides the stream playing with the water.

  “See how gentle he is with water. Imagine how much gentle he’ll be with a woman” Margaret whispered.

   Evelyn sighed tiredly. They better get out from there before he’d show them ungentleness.