Dwayne lay in semiconciousness on wet ground. He lay listening to his surroundings and hearing another person coughing as if to catch their breath.
Rachel stood against a tree coughing and trying to get her breath back. She felt as if she had been kicked in the stomach. It was hard getting her breath back, and she thought she was haluncinating. What was once a room, was now a forest of thick trees.
"Where are we?" Shadow asked, as she sat up and looked around. A trickle of blood made its way down her chin. She wipped it away with the sleeve of her shirt.
Puck looked at her and rolled her eyes. "Where ever we are, my pager still works." He said as the pager vibrated wildly in his pocket.
A rustle in the leaves caught all their attention.
"hurry in here." the womans voice said to them. "please hurry." The leaves rustle one more time as the woman scurries away quickly.
The four of them look at each other wondering if they should follow. Puck stands up and dusts himself off, feeling light headed, he falls back to the ground. Dwayne lays still in a fetal position afraid to move.
"She went that away!!" Says a voice not far away.
Rachel runs off in the direction the woman had ran, hoping to catch up with her.
"Wait for me!" Shadow whispers, as she pounces off at full speed.
"Where did they go?" Dwayne says as he too finds his feet. He stops at where he last saw Rachel and Shadow.
"Pssst, over here." Rachel says and pulls Dwayne into the shadows of the trees. Puck follows close behind, so close he almost trips into the old shacks doorway.
The woman stood looking out the window. " oh they think awful things of me. If they saw you in the woods, they would think you were my doing." She said as a tear ran down her cheek.
"Are you Sharlette?" Shadow asked the weeping woman.
"What? No, that is my mother, I am Anna." The woman says as she opens a closet that is full of clothes. " I can't have them thinking I am like her. Put these clothes on, or it will be your doom." She hands the girls dresses and then stand and stares at the two men. "I haven't any mens clothes for you... " She stands there ringging her hands.
"Why are they after you?" Puck questions.
"They think I am a witch. They think I practice the dark arts and follow Sargatanis. I shall not say his name again, it only brings me nightmares." Anna says as she stares back out the window as if waiting for something or someone to appear.
"Did you bring us here?" Puck asks as he turns the vibrating pager off.
"She said she didn't!!" Shadow says in anger. Puck stares at her and then turns back to Anna waiting for her to answer.
"He is near, I can feel him." Anna says crying.
"WHO? Damn it, did you bring us here." Yells Puck as he turns here around to face him.
She looks at him wide eyed " Yes, yes. Please forgive me. It was the only way..."She turned back to the window. " you have to leave, he will be here soon.
"Where do we go?? Who were those men after you? You can't just throw us out and to the wolves." Rachel says angrily.
"Go deeper into the woods, there is a stream. Follow it to a beautiful white mansion. You will find safe haven there." She ushered them out of the old shack.
They stood in front of the shack until they heard a horse approaching. They scattered into the woods hoping they hadn't been seen. A dark figure approached and entered the shack, breaking the door with force. A scream of terror rang through the air, and Anna ran through the open space only to be pulled back by Sargatanis.
"You brought them here, now where are they?" Sargatanis asked as he pulled her face to face with him.
"Please sir, I don't know. I saw them in the forrest, I thought them dead. I didn't stop to see. I was being followed by the men that thought me wicked." She said to him, as he pushed her to the ground.
"Liar, I can smell them here!!" He said and sniffed the air. He turned in circles as if searching for the four people, and then kicked Anna in the ribs.
Rachel put a foot forward as if to run help Anna, Dwayne held her back with the terror in his eyes..
"Please no!!!" Anna cried as she scurried away from him with her hands in front of her.
"I will find them" He said with a snarl. He spat at her, and mounted his horse. "You faithless whore. You bow to me, or those men will find you once more. " He said with an evil grin.
"You wouldn't!!" She cried as she started to bow, because she knew he was that evil. She bowed to him and started off into the woods, hoping the people she had brought here had run like she said.
His horse trotted away, spraying mud into her face.
His eyes scanned the dense forrest around the old shack. Seeing nothing, he kicked his horse and galloped off at full speed.
Rachel was the first at Anna's side.
"Leave, leave before he decides to return. I know he will return. He smelled your scent. Find a man named Chester at the mansion. There you will be safe! Please hurry!" She rose to her feet as they heard beating holves of a horse returning.
Rachel ran back to Dwayne as the man came back into sight.
"What did you forget sir" Anna asked as she bowed to him againe.
" You will bear my son. I will have no more daughters. If you bear a daughter, it will be the death of both of you, and it will be a most gruesome death." He said as he dismounted from the horse to drag her back into the shack.
------
"We have to leave here." Rachel said as she started to look for the stream. " We can't help her now.
"But what do we do when we find the mansion? Will this Chester believe us??" Shadow asks, as she follows Rachel.
"The stream should be around here somewhere, you can hear it." Puck said as he followed the two women. His pager goes off making him jump. He grumbles to himself as he takes off the pager and throws it into the stream that has appeared before them.
They traveled what seemed like miles into they stepped into a meadow of sorts. As they stepped out of the shadows of the forrest, an uneasyness fell upon all of them. The Mansion was only but a few yards away, but what if they were sent to a place where they would be surely put to death?
"Who goes there?" An old mans voice is heard from a tool shed off to their right.
"Anna sent us." Rachel says not knowing what else to say. She looks at Shadow and shrugs her shoulders.
"Anna?" The man asks as he comes into their view stroking his beard." Anna. Dead Anna?" he asks them. "Nah, it must be another one, it has to be." He says to himself.
"Are you Chester?" Puck asks the man.
"Me? oh dear no." He chuckles. "No sir, I am the gaaarden keeper, Ferris. Chester is much younger, and prettier I should say." His smile vanishes as he hears a wolf howl. "We mustent stay out here any longer, darkness is falling. We do not know what dwells in the forrest after dark. . Follow me, we haven't had company in months." Ferris stares at Puck and Dwayne in their odd looking clothes and shakes his head.
He took them into the mansion into what seemed to be the libarary. A young man sat reading underneath a very dim light. Most of the light came from the enormous fireplace against one of the walls.
"What have you brought me Ferris?" The man said looking up from his book.
"Forrest creatures sir. They said Anna sent them." Ferris said chuckeling.
Chester pailed at the mention of Anna. "Anna is dead... how?"
"Don't now sir. What should I do with them?" Ferris said of the four of them as if they didn't understand what he was saying.
"I don't care." Chester said with a wave of his hand. The name fresh in his mind, and so was the pain of...anna.
"WAIT! Chester is it?? Anna isn't dead.. We saw her, we saw her with a man named Sargatanis... She needs you..." Rachel started, but Chester cut her off.
"Dare not say his name in this house again. He is not a man by no means is he a man. Anna is dead, I saw her burn at the stake myself. She died when she chose that horrid....THING.. over me." He said as he poured himself a brandy.
Puck slapped himself in the face. "WHEN WILL i WAKE UP!!" He said laughing.
"FOOL, YOU ARE NOT ASLEEP!" Chester yelled at him, and threw his glass of brandy for good measure, missing Puck by inches. Puck jumped and hid behind Dwayne. "Put them out... OUT" he pointed out the window.
"WE have no place to go! Anna...."Dwayne started to say as Ferris started to push them out the door.. He didn't like it when the master of the house was angry.
"Sir they seem harmless enough..." Ferris said in risk of a lashing.
Chester staired at the four and walked over to Rachel. Something about her seemed familiar. The dress? The hair? The eyes. The feeling he felt made him angry..
"PUT THEM IN THE BARN." He said through gritted teeth and turned his back on them . He returned to his seat near the fire and started to cry for what might have been. "Anna" he whispered and buried his face in his hands.