White Ghost and the Poison Arrow (15 page)

Arella hauls the deer up onto her shoulder and begins the walk
back to the tree house It is heavier than it looks, and Arella has
to stop half way home for a rest. His antlers digging into Arella's
back, sure to cause bruises. She must remember to shift its
position when she picks it up again. Maska looks a little impatient
with her. “Please don’t look at me like that Maska. This thing is
heavy you know.” He moves to sit next to Arella, who has sat
herself down on a mossy rock. “The skin will do good though. We
will be able to use it to cover the rest of the roof for the
downstairs of our house.” Arella says to him, voicing her own
thoughts rather than keeping them to herself. Arella thinks to
herself that if people didn’t see Maska sat there with her, which
would be likely because he is so dark, they would think she was
talking to herself. “
The first sign on
madness.”
She would tell
herself.

Catching the
deer has scuppered Arella’s plans to collect more branches for
their downstairs fire pit, but she can go back out and do that when
the deer is back home. She picks it up once again and continues on
home, careful to position the deer so it doesn't cause more
bruising on her shoulder.

By the time
Arella, Maska and the deer are back at the tree house, Arella is
exhausted. She puts the deer down on the ground and stretches her
arms up to the sky. He back clicks as she does this. “That thing is
heavy.” She says. Maska just sits and licks his paws. “If I get it
into the house, then we can go collect the branches we need.” Then
I will cook us some food and sort out that deer, what do you
think?” Maska yawns, all the walking has made the muddy auron
kitten tired. “You can stay here if you want Maska.” She pauses.
“As long as you promise not to touch the deer.” Maska walks over to
Arella and purrs. “I’ll take that as your promise then little one.”
Although Maska is not so little now. He is growing every day, and
where he was just below her knee when she took him on, he is now
just above the knee, and growing fast.

With great
effort, Arella hauls the deer’s caucus up to the tree house, and
places it at the back. She turns around to help Maska up the tree
to find him already there behind her. “When did you learn to do
that?” She asks, but gets only a blink in reply. “Never mind. Now
you stay here, and please don’t touch the deer.” She leans down and
kisses Maska on the top of his head and collects her cloak before
climbing back down out of the tree. Arella then places the deerskin
bag in the hollow of the tree and leaves the camp site in search of
branches. As she walks away, Maska curls up on the fur bedding and
falls fast asleep.

After a quick fifteen minute walk, Arella has started finding
long branches again. She still has a few left at the tree house,
but they are all shorted and good for firewood. Arella begins to
pile all of the branches she finds up, moving the pile as she moves
through the forest. The sun is hiding behind the clouds, and Arella
feels she will be safe to take her cloak off without risk of
burning. She then uses her cloak to wrap around the branches,
making it easier to keep them together. After an hour or searching
and walking, Arella feels that she has enough branches to be able
to make the structure of the ground home, then she can weave vines
through it to create walls. She picks up her bundle and starts
walking back towards her camp. Something catches Arella's eye as
she walks through the forest, something shining on the floor. As
she moves close to it, Arella realises it is just a clear puddle on
the ground. She is just about to walk in the other direction when
her own reflection stops her. She sees a skinny figure, mud covered
clothes, dirty hair with mud and leaves in it. Sweat has made her
hair knotty, and as Arella moves her cloak to the side, she can see
the bright purple bruises already forming on her shoulder.
“Wow. I really do look a mess.”
Arella thinks.
“Good job
no one cares what I looks like.”

On her way back
to camp, Arella spots a vine tree growing by the side of the path
she has made by walking. There are several of these trees on her
way home, and she needs the vines from them. Vine trees grow very
quickly, and if not seen to, can quickly grow out of hand. The one
at the side of her seems to be doing just this. Arella places the
bundle of branches on the ground and takes out her dagger. She then
begins cutting down the vines and tying them around the branches
and cloak. By the time she has finished doing this, the bag is a
deep green colour, rather than the fawn brown of the fur. She picks
it up and hauls it onto her back, which is now starting to hurt and
starts her short walk home.

Arella's
finally gets back to the tree house, and finds Maska still fast
asleep in the tree, true to his purr he has not touched the deer.
“Maska I’m home.” She says as she drops the bag on the ground. It
is very heavy, and Arella is now in a lot of pain. “I tell you what
Maska, I could do with someone to do all of this for me.” She
laughs. “I’m too old for this.” Arella thinks for a minute, looking
up at the sky and the emerging stars. She studies their positions
carefully. “Actually, tomorrow is my birthday judging by the stars.
I’m going to be fourteen tomorrow.” Maska just yawns and
blinks.

Arella places
the vines and branches on the ground under the tree and climbs up
to get the deer down. When she gets to the top, Maska licks her
nose. She laughs at him. “Happy to see me then?” He steps back to
let her up, then trots over to the dead deer, keen to show off that
he did not touch it. Arella is proud of Maska. It must have been
hard for him to not touch it, but he did so for her. With much
effort, Arella manages to lift the deer down onto the ground. It
really is a dead weight.

Darkness has
fallen by the time Arella has skinned and gutted the deer. She had
cut it into sections, taking the legs and hanging them in a the
tree house, wrapping them in aboa leaves from a plant nearby to
keep the meats freshness. She then began to cut the flanks of the
deer into chunks and wrap that in the aboa leaves too. Arella
cannot quite believe how much meat the is off such a small deer.
This will last her and Maska all week, without fail. She leaves one
of the chunks of meat unwrapped. She takes the deer’s insides and
separates them out. She knows that the heart, liver, kidneys and
lungs are good to eat, so saves those to the side for Maska’s tea.
She then takes the rest of the insides and tosses them deep into
the lake. There are predatory fish in that water, and they will eat
it up without a second thought.

Arella takes
the heart, liver and kidneys, leaving the wrapped up lungs with the
rest of the meat for another day, as well as a chunk of the venison
to the area she intends to be the downstairs of the house. She
places them on the black rocks at the side and begins building up a
fire. Once this is done, Arella places her meat on a spit over the
flames and lets Maska tuck into his organs. He really looks to be
enjoying them, eating greedily. The sight of him tucking into the
raw meat makes Arella feel a little ill. However natural it must be
for him to gorge on fresh meat, Arella much prefers her food
cooked.

While Arella’s
meat is cooking, she starts on using the sticky moss to fill in the
gaps in the rocks to make them watertight. Once in place, the moss
will begin to grow, and will also grow up the sides of the hut a
little too… Once the sides have been built that is. The venison
steak is just about cooked by the time Arella has finished with the
sticky moss. She takes it away from the flame to rest and washes
her hands in the lake, getting rid of the sticky residue from the
moss and blood from the deer.

As she bites
into the meat, Arella’s mouth if filled with juice. The meat is
still pink in the middle, just how venison is meant to be cooked.
All Arella remembers of venison is eating the burnt bits no one
else wanted to eat, but this is sublime. Maska licks his paws when
he has finished his meal, and Arella greedily licks her fingers
too, savouring the taste of the fresh meat. She feels a slight pang
of guilt as she does so, but this is quickly replaced with
satisfaction that she has eaten a decent meal. Not one piece of the
deer will go to waste, not even the bones. Because the meat is
still attached to the bones, Arella cannot do anything with it,
however, when the meat has been removed from the bones, she plans
to use it for more structure in her house. She will use it to make
framing for the house. It will be stronger than wood, and means she
won’t have to keep replacing parts of walls.

Chapter
12

Over the next
three months, Arella and Maska grow, both in size and confidence.
Arella has grown stronger and is no longer just skin on bone, she
now has toned arms legs and a strong core. All of the lifting and
building she has had to do to get her home perfect has been a
struggle, but now it is finished, Arella is proud. The tree house
at the top of the three white trees is standing strong and still
waterproof. The branches she shaped around it have grown into place
and now hide it amazingly from view. The inside of the tree house
is coated with the skins of various deer and rabbits that Arella
and Maska have caught over the last three months, all dried
out.

The downstairs
part of the home has also been finished, and comprises of a space
big enough for Arella and Maska, plus a few more people if she
wanted to sit comfortably. Arella built the platform out from the
floor above and then built the walls down from there. Arella then
wove the vines she collected through this structure. The vines took
to this very well and have now grown more, also taking over part of
the house above, aiding in the camouflage of that. Arella than
created a small doorway from the house upstairs onto the extended
platform, and made some fencing around it to create a small
balcony. While the vines took well to the structure, they need
upkeep to stop them growing out of control, but Arella is managing
this well.

As well as the
house being finished, Arella’s garden of berry bushes has grown
extensively. She started planting them around the back of the tree
house in the small clear area behind, and has now fleshed it out
and created a thick wall of bushes both for cover and food. With
both berries that ripen in autumn and spring, Arella has plenty to
eat. She also planted more grue bulbs close to the shore or the
lake, which have also grown quickly. The land that she has made her
home on appears to be very fertile indeed.

The final thing
Arella built was a small willow hut and pen for chickens. It site
at the edge of the clearing. Arella has used the natural growing
trees as markers for the side edges, and has weaved willow between
the trees for about 10 foot across. She then came out about 5 foot
on either side and then finished it off with a rounded edge. Arella
then built a small hut inside for the chickens shelter, planted a
few small bushes and grasses then once they had taken root, went
out catching chickens. That was a fun job. Arella quickly found out
that chicken catching was not as easy as she thought. Even though
they do not fly, they are not exactly the cumbersome slow creatures
Arella thought they would be, and it hurts when they peck you. So
after a good few days attempting to catch them, Arella has bleeding
and bruised fingers and forearms, five chickens and a cockerel. All
of the chickens are brown in colour, with fluffy feet, and the
cockerel is black, much bigger than the females but also has the
same fluffy feet. It was worth the pain though, because the eggs
are delicious. At the moment, Arella has one of the chicken sitting
on a clutch of six eggs, they are due to hatch in a few days, then
they will have little chicks running around in the pen. Maska is
particularly interested in the chickens. He often just sits next to
the pen watching them. Never touching, never attempting to get
inside then pen and chase them, just watching.

Maska is the
next thing that has changed. He is no longer the little kitten
Arella started to raise. He has grown taller, a lot taller. He now
stands with his back just above Arella’s hip, his paws as big as
Arella’s hand when she stretches her fingers, which suggests that
he has a lot of room still left for growing. His fur has grown
longer, and is now a beautiful obsidian black, flecked with deep
purple visible in bright sunlight. Maska kept his odd coloured
eyes, yellow and green, always as if he can see into the soul. His
tail has grown particularly bushy, and Maska has a nasty habit of
wagging it and flicking Arella in the face. Sometimes she wonders
whether he does it on purpose. Maska has grown in confidence, and
his agility is unparalleled. He can jump in and out of the tree
house without thinking twice, can run faster than Arella, although
she is getting faster, and he can catch almost any animal you ask
him to… Except bison, they haven’t been that ambitious yet. Maska’s
recent growth is half the reason the tree house has so much fur in
it. Maska has been catching a deer every two for the last two
months, sometimes with the help of Arella. They have gone further
and further from home to catch these, and luckily there are plenty
of them passing through on migration. The deer in these parts breed
very quickly, and most have two young, some have even more. There
are also several breeds of deer, some of which are quite large.
Maska and Arella have also been catching wild boar. This is not an
easy task, as they both found out, but again there are plenty of
those, and their hides dry out very quickly in the hot sun, even
quicker than the deer hide.

The only other
thing that has changed in the last three months is Arella. Arella
herself has grown stronger and more agile. Her arms now have
defined muscle rather than just skin on bone, her legs are strong
enough to carry her for miles and miles without faltering, her back
is strong enough to lift deer and boar across uneven ground without
complaint. Arella has grown into a strong individual, and she has
grown up too. Maska and Arella have had hard times, times when they
thought they would not eat for days, times when the rain did not
stop for days on end, but they have had good times too. Arella has
perfected using her bow, and can now hit a moving target. She aimed
an arrow at a pigeon flying through the camp just the night before,
hit it in the eye and killed it outright as it flew past. She has
also been practising how to fight, and although she is not perfect,
there is now at least some power behind her kicks and punches. Not
enough to knock someone over, but maybe at least enough to defend
herself.