She heard them, not with her ears, but with her mind. Cries of anger and of pain. Someone was very unhappy.
She sat quite still, trying to sort it all out.
There was a quiver of movement at the edge of her vision. A squirrel. She could smell it, which was strange because she’d never smelled a squirrel before. It stared at her with one bright black eye and then it scampered up the willow tree. Elena realized she’d made a grab for it only when she came up empty with her fingernails digging into bark.
Now that was ridiculous. What on earth did she want a squirrel for? She puzzled over it for a minute, then lay back down, exhausted.
The cries were still going on.
She tried to cover her ears, but that did nothing to block them out. Someone was hurt, and unhappy, and fighting. That was it. There was a fight going on.
All right. She’d figured it out. Now she could sleep.
She couldn’t, though. The cries beckoned to her, drew her toward them. She felt an irresistible need to follow them to their source.
And then she could go to sleep. After she saw… him.
Oh, yes, it was coming back now. She remembered him. He was the one who understood her, who loved her. He was the one she wanted to be with forever.
His face appeared out of the mists in her mind. She considered it lovingly. All right, then. For him she would get up and walk through this ridiculous sleet until she found the proper clearing. Until she could join him. Then they’d be together.
The very thought of him seemed to warm her. There was a fire inside him that few people could see. She saw it, though. It was like the fire inside her.
He seemed to be having some sort of trouble at the moment. At least, there was a lot of shouting. She was close enough to hear it with her ears as well as her mind now.
There, beyond that grandfather oak tree. That was where the noise was coming from. He was there, with his black, fathomless eyes, and his secret smile. And he needed her help. She would help him.
Shaking ice crystals out of her hair, Elena stepped into the clearing in the wood.