The Solitary Tree
Part 3
By: Chase L. Currie
Charity sleep for a few days without waking up much. The poison and the antidote fought a nasty battle inside her. A battle she wished was over on the fifth day of rolling in bed.
“You have a fever,” Ansel said beside her bed. “It should pass by the end of the week.”
“Are you a Spellcrafter?” She asked in the heat of a fever dream.
“No.”
“Why did you kill, Jasper?” Charity asked with tears rolling down her cheek.
Ansel rose to his feet planning on walking until Charity shot out to grab his paw. He looked back at her, and she cried, “Why did it have to happen? He – they – were just children.”
Ansel slowly removed her paw and tried to smile down at her. For a moment, she saw massive white wings behind him, and she asked before fading back to sleep, “Are you an angel?”
She slept hard for the next few nights, and at some point in time she woke to a soft calming voice telling her, “You will live, my friend.”
She knew it wasn’t Ansel voice but someone else; this squirrel voice was softer than Ansel and smoother than anyone she has ever heard before. It was as if he was born of words and speaking them was like breathing to him.
“Who are you?” Charity asked.
“A friend.”
“A friend of who’s?” Charity asked.
“A friend to you now.”
“How do I know this is not a lie?” She questions him still feeling the effect of the fever. She felt him smile at her, a smile which held all the glory of life in it and was a smile she would never see again.
“You are the angel,” She realized.
“Your brother wishes you to know he loves you dearly.”
“What?” She asked shooting up from her bed looking around the dark room to see nothing, nothing but books and darkness.
She fell back to the bed chopping the angel up to the hard fever. She rolled over facing the wall closing her eyes and falling back to sleep. When she woke back up her throat was as dry as a desert, and her cup was empty. She was growing tired of being locked in this bed anyway. She slowly climbed out of the soft of bed feeling her limbs being weak and took a moment to gather a little bit of strength. Once her body had built up what she could, she headed for the door.
She expected the door to be locked but to her surprise, it wasn’t. She opens the door glancing at her sword against the wall thinking she might need it, but a whisper told her to leave it. If Ansel wanted her dead, he could done it a long time ago.
She stepped out into the hall to find more rows and towers of books, no pictures, just books. There was no other door in the hall line with books just some stairs leading up to more of the tree and stairs leading to the bottom of the house.
There was a little bit of light dancing on the wall from the bottom of the tree, so she went the way of the light. She used the wall as a brace leaning against it trying to walk. She made it half way down when she heard voices coming up from the living room area. Two different voices were carrying on a lovely conversation as if they were old friends. It was close to dinner time, and the two squirrels chatted away like they had been talking for hours.
But Ansel said he lived alone, could he have been lying? Why would he lie about living alone? Could the other squirrel be a Spellcrafter and Ansel has been hiding them the whole time?
It would explain how he knew about the poison and the antidote. The Spellcrafter could have been the one to save her, a way to win her over to not kill him or her, but it wouldn’t matter. She was a Whispering Hood, and she vowed to kill all Spellcrafters. It was the duty of her rank, and there was no questioning it. It was a done deal; there was no way around it.
She glanced back up the steps thinking about going to get her weapon. She might need it now, but before she could make up her mind, Ansel stuck his head up the stairs and said, “Charity, it’s good to see you are up and about.”
“Yeah,” She said stepping down slowly into the room to find only Ansel heading back to his chair and his book. He sat down picking up his books before she made it fully to the last step. “Who were you talking to?” She asked him.
He looked around and said with a grin, “No one.”
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