| By: Jason Atwood |
“Jayce, aren’t you awake yet?”
“Sleep….little longer,” he said groggily in response to his wife’s question.
“You’ve had a ‘little longer’ twice already,” she said as she entered the bedroom, and opened the
curtains. Bright sunlight bathed the room, and instantly banished any idea of returning to sleep.
“Kayli!” he exclaimed while shielding his eyes from the sunlight, “Is it really necessary to blind me?
Blasted sun!”
“Yes, it’s necessary to subject you to the vile, life-giving sun to finally wake you up,” she
responded with a grin. “You’ve slept half the morning already.”
Jayce lowered his hand from in front of his eyes and blinked away the last bit of drowsiness. He
looked up at his wife and smiled. She was a lovely woman. Her thin frame was well toned from a
life filled with physical activity, and her skin was tan from days of working outside. She had long
brown hair which she kept in a single braid and dark brown eyes that were easy to get lost in.
“Silly boy, your hair is such a mess. I can hardly see your face,” she said walking over to the
dresser. “You really should wear it in a braid like I do. It keeps it from getting all tangled.” She
walked back over to the bed, and handed him a brush. “I’m going to finish packing the cart while
you get dressed. There’s some fruit and bread in the kitchen for your breakfast.” “Packing
the cart? Oh, that’s right. We’re going to Enfield today.”
“Yes, and I’d like to get back here before dark.”
As Kayli left the room, Jayce crawled out of bed. He was stiff and sore from his encounter with
the bugaboo. He surveyed his lean, wiry body for any injuries he might have sustained. There
were some scratches on his arms and legs, but those were most likely from his run through the
woods. He began brushing the tangles out of his dark hair, and drew it back into a ponytail. He
gently touched his cheek where the bugaboo had struck him, and winced with pain.
Jayce grabbed Kayli’s mirror off the dresser, and he looked at his face in the polished metal.
There was nasty bruise there, and there would be no way to hide it from Kayli. Once she saw it,
she would of course want to know where it came from. Jayce was poor at making up stories. His
blue eyes always betrayed him when he would attempt to lie. So, he would more than likely have
to tell her the truth about last night.
Jayce dressed in a pair of work pants and a shirt and made the bed. Then, he reached for his
sandals by the dresser, but there was only one. He cast about the bedroom for the missing sandal
even looking under the bed but to no avail. He was pretty sure he had not worn them out last
night. There should be no reason for them both not to be by the dresser. Unless…
“Damn little thief,” he cursed.
Jayce was certain that there was a goblin or gremlin or some other little mischief maker living in the
small house. Things always seemed to be missing. He could sometimes hear a gibbering whisper
at night, but had never been able to actually catch the creature. In truth, he had never even seen it,
but he was still certain of its existence. However, Kayli refused to entertain such notions. She
never seemed to be able to hear or see the things that Jayce could, and this had resulted in some
tension in their relationship.
He sighed, “Looks like I’ll be going barefoot to Enfield.”
Jayce went to the kitchen, and found one of their cats guarding his breakfast. This particular feline
was a twenty pound golden furred female named Baby. He had taken to calling her that when she
was just a kitten because it was easier than the name Kayli had given her. Miss Lady Kitten von
Fluffinfur doesn’t roll off the tongue quite so easy, and Baby seemed to enjoy her shorter name
much more.
Jayce stroked Baby, and he noticed that she had nibbled the crust off his bread.
“Testing to see if it was safe to eat?” he said to her.
She only looked back at him with lazy eyes and purred. Jayce began eating his fruit which Baby
had not touched because all intelligent felines know that fruit is never poisoned. Also, Baby could
most likely tell just by the smell that fruit would not be yummy on her belly.
“I’m so lucky. The tiger twins are never thoughtful enough to test my food for poison. So, I think I’
ll just give the rest of the bread to you.”
The tiger twins, Hoppy and Sissy, were the couple’s other two cats. They always stayed outside,
and they kept the little farm free of vermin. Baby was the only cat who wanted to come into the
house. Because she was allowed to do so, she had assumed an air of superiority over the other
two. The fact that Sissy and Hoppy did not want to come inside the house didn’t matter.
Jayce was finishing up his breakfast when Kayli entered the house.
“The cart is all packed. Are you almost…What happened to your face?” she asked, her eyes
wide. “Love, how did you get that awful bruise? You didn’t have it when you went to bed.”
“I had trouble sleeping. So, I went out for a walk last night. I ran into a tree in the dark,” he replied,
averting his face to avoid eye contact.
She stared at him, “You didn’t just go for a walk did you? You were gone most of the night. That’
s why you slept so long. Why would you go for a walk at night with all the strange things
happening?”
“I thought I heard something outside, and I went to investigate. I saw something in the shadows,
and tried to run it off. It threw something at me, and then it was gone.”
She looked at him skeptically and said, “You can’t go around trying to stop creatures from
ravaging the countryside. It’s too dangerous. We don’t do that kind of thing anymore. We’re
farmers now with nice, quiet, safe lives.”
“I know. I shouldn’t have gone after it, but…”
“Go on.”
“Someone had to do something before it became more than missing animals and vandalized farm
equipment.”
“Are you seeing that wolf again?” she asked as she locked her intense gaze onto him.
Jayce paused for a moment then simply said, “No.” The lie felt bitter on his tongue.
“Jayce, that wolf isn’t real. If you’re seeing it again, we need to get you help.”
“We have been over this time and time again,” Jayce said defensively. “Only I can see the wolf,
and you don’t believe me.”
“I believe that you have great instincts that served us well before we moved here, but we aren’t
those people anymore. Your ‘wolf’ almost got you killed on our last assignment. We saved that
rich guy’s kid from those slave traders, and that should have been enough. You, however, had to
run off and try to release all the captives. You followed that ‘wolf’ of yours right into the middle of
the camp and alerted the guards. If I hadn’t been there, you would be dead now.”
“But you were there, I’m not dead, and we did save all those people from slavery.”
“That’s not the point. That ‘wolf’ would have gotten you killed eventually. That’s why you have to
not ‘see’ it,” she said on the verge of tears. “I don’t want anything bad to happen to you.”
He rushed to embrace her, “I know, love. I’m not seeing the wolf again.” She clung to him,
“You shouldn’t be placing yourself in danger anymore. You need to leave that to the
Professionals.”
He stroked her hair, “I will.”
As he held her, he gave a brief thought as to what would have happened if the Professionals had
stumbled across that bugaboo. He shuddered at the image. It was hard enough living with the fact
that he had killed the creature and lied to his wife. He was not sure if he could live knowing that
anyone else, even the Professionals, had been hurt or killed because he had done nothing.
The Professionals were a trio of overweight, balding, middle-aged men who worked for Enfield’s
local government. Their official job was to capture troublemakers, find missing persons and kill
dangerous animals in the farmland and woods surrounding Enfield. In reality they used most of
their assignments as excuses to camp, hunt and get drunk (not necessarily in that order). After
they had gotten their fill of the great outdoors and their beer kegs were empty, they would find
some proof that their assignment was finished and return to Enfield.
This was not to say that they were bad people. Actually, they were very nice fellows, and they
were always the life of any get-together. In fact, the tall tales of their past assignments made for
very good stories. Also, not all of their successful assignments were shams. They happened to
be pretty good at finding missing persons. Because these were the few assignments where they
had citizens helping, they had to put forth their best efforts.
Even during their hunting trips they would do something beneficial like killing some woodland
predator that was most likely causing trouble. Animals that tend to be dangerous to humans
seldom display the same caution around people as that displayed by other wild creatures, and it
was a good thing that someone eliminated these threats. However, there is a big difference
between a rabid bobcat and a bugaboo.
Any criminals on the run or troublemakers in the area usually ended up eluding the Professionals.
These people either: moved on, got tired of mischief or had the bad luck of targeting a farmer or
woodsman who owned a crossbow with a hair trigger. Only Jayce and a few others knew the truth
about the Professionals, and Jayce only knew because he had solved some of their cases for
them.
The latest one happened only a few weeks ago. Farmers were reporting that their cellars we being
broken into, and food was being stolen. All of these farmers claimed that they had locked the
outside cellar doors, but no locks were to be found. Oddly enough, the doors were in no way
damaged or vandalized. The Professionals were given the assignment, and took to it with their
usual methods. They must have been having a good time, because they actually returned to
Enfield for more supplies to continue their investigation. It was only a matter of time before their
drunken hunting expeditions resulted in someone being injured.
So, Jayce decided to find the culprit on his own. It took a few days, but with the help of his wolf,
he finally found the responsible party. It turned out that the food thief was the son of a locksmith
who lived Enfield. The locksmith had arranged a marriage between his son and the daughter of a
successful trader. After being tackled and subdued by Jayce, the young man explained why he had
become a forest dwelling food thief. It was not because the young lady to whom he was betrothed
was some hideous gargoyle or a yapping harpy. In fact, she was attractive and rather sweet
natured.
Unfortunately, the young man was in love with another woman. This woman was not from as
successful a family as the trader’s daughter. So, the locksmith would not stand for them being
wed. The young man had fled Enfield until he could come up with a plan to marry his sweetheart
(and have means to provide for her without his father’s support). During this time he had to eat.
Therefore, he picked the locks on cellar doors, and took what he needed to survive. Jayce felt
sorry for the young man, and did not want him to get in any trouble. Eventually, he convinced him
to return to Enfield, and face his father.
It was not easy to convince the young man, but the alternatives of turning him into the local
authorities or handing him over to an angry group of farmers turned out to be very powerful tools
of persuasion.
Not long after the thefts stopped, the “victorious” Professionals returned to Enfield. They claimed
that the culprit was a rather large raccoon they saw around the cellar door of one of the local
farms. Many people were skeptical at first, but the robberies stopped after the raccoon was
dead. So, they concluded that the creature must have been responsible. It is easy to see that
those mighty hunters would have lasted no time against a crazed bugaboo.
Jayce gave Kayli a firm squeeze, and then let her go. She wiped a few stray tears from her eyes,
and looked at him. She really was just concerned for his safety, but it complicated matters that she
did not understand the forces that compelled him. After Jayce and Kayli had bought their farm and
settled down, he had ignored the wolf’s calls, and it had vanished for a time. Now, it was back,
and he could not resist it. There was urgency in its eyes, and what it asked of him was important
to save lives. He did not know where the wolf came from, or what it actually was. He only knew
that it had been with him for as long as he could remember.
“I love you, Kayli,” he said softly. “I promise not put myself in danger.” Even as he said this, he
knew it was a promise he would unlikely be able to keep.
“Yeah, well, I love you too, and I don’t want you dying on me,” she replied. “Now get your ass
ready. Time is wasting.”
“But she’s your ass too,” Jayce replied with a grin.
Kayli stepped back and flashed a wicked smile, “Good thing you realize that your ass belongs to
me.”
They shared a laugh. Jayce went outside to harness the donkey, and hook her to the cart.
“Sleep….little longer,” he said groggily in response to his wife’s question.
“You’ve had a ‘little longer’ twice already,” she said as she entered the bedroom, and opened the
curtains. Bright sunlight bathed the room, and instantly banished any idea of returning to sleep.
“Kayli!” he exclaimed while shielding his eyes from the sunlight, “Is it really necessary to blind me?
Blasted sun!”
“Yes, it’s necessary to subject you to the vile, life-giving sun to finally wake you up,” she
responded with a grin. “You’ve slept half the morning already.”
Jayce lowered his hand from in front of his eyes and blinked away the last bit of drowsiness. He
looked up at his wife and smiled. She was a lovely woman. Her thin frame was well toned from a
life filled with physical activity, and her skin was tan from days of working outside. She had long
brown hair which she kept in a single braid and dark brown eyes that were easy to get lost in.
“Silly boy, your hair is such a mess. I can hardly see your face,” she said walking over to the
dresser. “You really should wear it in a braid like I do. It keeps it from getting all tangled.” She
walked back over to the bed, and handed him a brush. “I’m going to finish packing the cart while
you get dressed. There’s some fruit and bread in the kitchen for your breakfast.” “Packing
the cart? Oh, that’s right. We’re going to Enfield today.”
“Yes, and I’d like to get back here before dark.”
As Kayli left the room, Jayce crawled out of bed. He was stiff and sore from his encounter with
the bugaboo. He surveyed his lean, wiry body for any injuries he might have sustained. There
were some scratches on his arms and legs, but those were most likely from his run through the
woods. He began brushing the tangles out of his dark hair, and drew it back into a ponytail. He
gently touched his cheek where the bugaboo had struck him, and winced with pain.
Jayce grabbed Kayli’s mirror off the dresser, and he looked at his face in the polished metal.
There was nasty bruise there, and there would be no way to hide it from Kayli. Once she saw it,
she would of course want to know where it came from. Jayce was poor at making up stories. His
blue eyes always betrayed him when he would attempt to lie. So, he would more than likely have
to tell her the truth about last night.
Jayce dressed in a pair of work pants and a shirt and made the bed. Then, he reached for his
sandals by the dresser, but there was only one. He cast about the bedroom for the missing sandal
even looking under the bed but to no avail. He was pretty sure he had not worn them out last
night. There should be no reason for them both not to be by the dresser. Unless…
“Damn little thief,” he cursed.
Jayce was certain that there was a goblin or gremlin or some other little mischief maker living in the
small house. Things always seemed to be missing. He could sometimes hear a gibbering whisper
at night, but had never been able to actually catch the creature. In truth, he had never even seen it,
but he was still certain of its existence. However, Kayli refused to entertain such notions. She
never seemed to be able to hear or see the things that Jayce could, and this had resulted in some
tension in their relationship.
He sighed, “Looks like I’ll be going barefoot to Enfield.”
Jayce went to the kitchen, and found one of their cats guarding his breakfast. This particular feline
was a twenty pound golden furred female named Baby. He had taken to calling her that when she
was just a kitten because it was easier than the name Kayli had given her. Miss Lady Kitten von
Fluffinfur doesn’t roll off the tongue quite so easy, and Baby seemed to enjoy her shorter name
much more.
Jayce stroked Baby, and he noticed that she had nibbled the crust off his bread.
“Testing to see if it was safe to eat?” he said to her.
She only looked back at him with lazy eyes and purred. Jayce began eating his fruit which Baby
had not touched because all intelligent felines know that fruit is never poisoned. Also, Baby could
most likely tell just by the smell that fruit would not be yummy on her belly.
“I’m so lucky. The tiger twins are never thoughtful enough to test my food for poison. So, I think I’
ll just give the rest of the bread to you.”
The tiger twins, Hoppy and Sissy, were the couple’s other two cats. They always stayed outside,
and they kept the little farm free of vermin. Baby was the only cat who wanted to come into the
house. Because she was allowed to do so, she had assumed an air of superiority over the other
two. The fact that Sissy and Hoppy did not want to come inside the house didn’t matter.
Jayce was finishing up his breakfast when Kayli entered the house.
“The cart is all packed. Are you almost…What happened to your face?” she asked, her eyes
wide. “Love, how did you get that awful bruise? You didn’t have it when you went to bed.”
“I had trouble sleeping. So, I went out for a walk last night. I ran into a tree in the dark,” he replied,
averting his face to avoid eye contact.
She stared at him, “You didn’t just go for a walk did you? You were gone most of the night. That’
s why you slept so long. Why would you go for a walk at night with all the strange things
happening?”
“I thought I heard something outside, and I went to investigate. I saw something in the shadows,
and tried to run it off. It threw something at me, and then it was gone.”
She looked at him skeptically and said, “You can’t go around trying to stop creatures from
ravaging the countryside. It’s too dangerous. We don’t do that kind of thing anymore. We’re
farmers now with nice, quiet, safe lives.”
“I know. I shouldn’t have gone after it, but…”
“Go on.”
“Someone had to do something before it became more than missing animals and vandalized farm
equipment.”
“Are you seeing that wolf again?” she asked as she locked her intense gaze onto him.
Jayce paused for a moment then simply said, “No.” The lie felt bitter on his tongue.
“Jayce, that wolf isn’t real. If you’re seeing it again, we need to get you help.”
“We have been over this time and time again,” Jayce said defensively. “Only I can see the wolf,
and you don’t believe me.”
“I believe that you have great instincts that served us well before we moved here, but we aren’t
those people anymore. Your ‘wolf’ almost got you killed on our last assignment. We saved that
rich guy’s kid from those slave traders, and that should have been enough. You, however, had to
run off and try to release all the captives. You followed that ‘wolf’ of yours right into the middle of
the camp and alerted the guards. If I hadn’t been there, you would be dead now.”
“But you were there, I’m not dead, and we did save all those people from slavery.”
“That’s not the point. That ‘wolf’ would have gotten you killed eventually. That’s why you have to
not ‘see’ it,” she said on the verge of tears. “I don’t want anything bad to happen to you.”
He rushed to embrace her, “I know, love. I’m not seeing the wolf again.” She clung to him,
“You shouldn’t be placing yourself in danger anymore. You need to leave that to the
Professionals.”
He stroked her hair, “I will.”
As he held her, he gave a brief thought as to what would have happened if the Professionals had
stumbled across that bugaboo. He shuddered at the image. It was hard enough living with the fact
that he had killed the creature and lied to his wife. He was not sure if he could live knowing that
anyone else, even the Professionals, had been hurt or killed because he had done nothing.
The Professionals were a trio of overweight, balding, middle-aged men who worked for Enfield’s
local government. Their official job was to capture troublemakers, find missing persons and kill
dangerous animals in the farmland and woods surrounding Enfield. In reality they used most of
their assignments as excuses to camp, hunt and get drunk (not necessarily in that order). After
they had gotten their fill of the great outdoors and their beer kegs were empty, they would find
some proof that their assignment was finished and return to Enfield.
This was not to say that they were bad people. Actually, they were very nice fellows, and they
were always the life of any get-together. In fact, the tall tales of their past assignments made for
very good stories. Also, not all of their successful assignments were shams. They happened to
be pretty good at finding missing persons. Because these were the few assignments where they
had citizens helping, they had to put forth their best efforts.
Even during their hunting trips they would do something beneficial like killing some woodland
predator that was most likely causing trouble. Animals that tend to be dangerous to humans
seldom display the same caution around people as that displayed by other wild creatures, and it
was a good thing that someone eliminated these threats. However, there is a big difference
between a rabid bobcat and a bugaboo.
Any criminals on the run or troublemakers in the area usually ended up eluding the Professionals.
These people either: moved on, got tired of mischief or had the bad luck of targeting a farmer or
woodsman who owned a crossbow with a hair trigger. Only Jayce and a few others knew the truth
about the Professionals, and Jayce only knew because he had solved some of their cases for
them.
The latest one happened only a few weeks ago. Farmers were reporting that their cellars we being
broken into, and food was being stolen. All of these farmers claimed that they had locked the
outside cellar doors, but no locks were to be found. Oddly enough, the doors were in no way
damaged or vandalized. The Professionals were given the assignment, and took to it with their
usual methods. They must have been having a good time, because they actually returned to
Enfield for more supplies to continue their investigation. It was only a matter of time before their
drunken hunting expeditions resulted in someone being injured.
So, Jayce decided to find the culprit on his own. It took a few days, but with the help of his wolf,
he finally found the responsible party. It turned out that the food thief was the son of a locksmith
who lived Enfield. The locksmith had arranged a marriage between his son and the daughter of a
successful trader. After being tackled and subdued by Jayce, the young man explained why he had
become a forest dwelling food thief. It was not because the young lady to whom he was betrothed
was some hideous gargoyle or a yapping harpy. In fact, she was attractive and rather sweet
natured.
Unfortunately, the young man was in love with another woman. This woman was not from as
successful a family as the trader’s daughter. So, the locksmith would not stand for them being
wed. The young man had fled Enfield until he could come up with a plan to marry his sweetheart
(and have means to provide for her without his father’s support). During this time he had to eat.
Therefore, he picked the locks on cellar doors, and took what he needed to survive. Jayce felt
sorry for the young man, and did not want him to get in any trouble. Eventually, he convinced him
to return to Enfield, and face his father.
It was not easy to convince the young man, but the alternatives of turning him into the local
authorities or handing him over to an angry group of farmers turned out to be very powerful tools
of persuasion.
Not long after the thefts stopped, the “victorious” Professionals returned to Enfield. They claimed
that the culprit was a rather large raccoon they saw around the cellar door of one of the local
farms. Many people were skeptical at first, but the robberies stopped after the raccoon was
dead. So, they concluded that the creature must have been responsible. It is easy to see that
those mighty hunters would have lasted no time against a crazed bugaboo.
Jayce gave Kayli a firm squeeze, and then let her go. She wiped a few stray tears from her eyes,
and looked at him. She really was just concerned for his safety, but it complicated matters that she
did not understand the forces that compelled him. After Jayce and Kayli had bought their farm and
settled down, he had ignored the wolf’s calls, and it had vanished for a time. Now, it was back,
and he could not resist it. There was urgency in its eyes, and what it asked of him was important
to save lives. He did not know where the wolf came from, or what it actually was. He only knew
that it had been with him for as long as he could remember.
“I love you, Kayli,” he said softly. “I promise not put myself in danger.” Even as he said this, he
knew it was a promise he would unlikely be able to keep.
“Yeah, well, I love you too, and I don’t want you dying on me,” she replied. “Now get your ass
ready. Time is wasting.”
“But she’s your ass too,” Jayce replied with a grin.
Kayli stepped back and flashed a wicked smile, “Good thing you realize that your ass belongs to
me.”
They shared a laugh. Jayce went outside to harness the donkey, and hook her to the cart.
| Splintered Fate |
| July 2009 |
| Serial Fiction |
| Copyright 2009 by Jason Atwood |
| Chapter 2 |
Bio:
Jason Atwood is a native of Sparta, a small town in the mountains of North Carolina. He now lives in Lilburn,
Georgia with his lovely wife Lisa and their four cats. When he's not writing, he's making a difference in the lives of
children as a pharmacist at a children's hospital in Atlanta.
Jason Atwood is a native of Sparta, a small town in the mountains of North Carolina. He now lives in Lilburn,
Georgia with his lovely wife Lisa and their four cats. When he's not writing, he's making a difference in the lives of
children as a pharmacist at a children's hospital in Atlanta.
| Return in August, 2009, for the next installment of "Splintered Fate" |