Wildoak: Chapters 13–22

His argyle socks were bright red and damp at the toes.

"Let me think. The see-in-the-dark goggles were a bit of a disaster. Oh, and what did I call it, ah yes, the kite camera—that almost worked. But I never managed to get the clicker right, and the neighbors got annoyed with the kite hovering all over the place. But the one I'm really excited about, the biggest and the best...well, it's my most ambitious project yet," he said, looking at her.

Ah, what do we have here? A pair of terrestrial pulmonate gastropod mollusks...Cornu aspersum. Otherwise known as the ‘common garden snail.'

Her gaze drifted past the birds, to the crest of the hill beyond, where the trees stood tall.

Any movement, no matter how slight, wreaked agony throughout his body.

He drifted in and out of consciousness, swinging wildly between fear and resignation.

He opened his eyes and sniffed the air. His pupils dilated automatically.

A strong musky scent. Bitter. Some animal was approaching from behind.

She was strong, with stout, thick paws and short, sharp claws.

The pain was overwhelming, and he drifted away again.

He shifted his head to one side and tried to lick some of the hard-packed snow. It tasted earthy and gritty, but the moisture provided a little relief.

Rumpus did not know how much longer he could endure the pain. His wound was wet and weeping.

Sturdy branches were harder to find than she expected, and she soon ventured deeper into the forest, hoping to discover more.

Her boots slid over the ice-packed floor as she picked through the rambling bracken and bursts of bare hazel.

She came across an enormous, fallen beech tree with all of its roots still intact, forming one massive pad of shaggy, earth-matted hair.

She ran in as straight a line as best she could, leaping over branches and fallen logs, ducking between bushes and thickets.

She picked up the cutters with her bare hands. They were long and unwieldy but came apart easily.

She felt her heart spin, a pinwheel whorl, alive with the glitter and spark of both fear and excitement.

Cautiously, the cat crawled out of the hollow. Maggie held her breath, mesmerized by his every move.

Something about him seemed not domesticated, but not fully wild either.

A gust of wind shook the branches above. Maggie left the clearing, pausing to glance up. The sun had just set, draining all remaining wisps of color from the wintry sky above. The trees wavered.

She clambered into the passenger seat and started pointing frantically toward the gate, her cheeks hot and flushed.

She nodded vigorously.

Maggie leaned forward, her hands on the dashboard, scouring the darkness. But the man was nowhere to be seen.

"There's a butterfly called the large blue. As far as we know, only two or three colonies remain in the whole country. And one of them is right here, on the edge of Wildoak! Large blues are on the brink of extinction, Maggie.”

"What proof do we have that my files were actually stolen, and it wasn't me who somehow lost them? Besides”—he sounded dejected—"the committee doesn't have any real legal power. Technically, it's Foy’s land despite all the rights of way and public footpaths that run through it. At the end of the day, he can do what he wants.”

Maggie led them through the tangled brambles and dense brush, past the fallen tree with shaggy roots.

He looked at her intently, his pale blue eyes watery in the cold air.

The lion, tiger, and jaguar also belong to the genus Panthera.

The snow leopard, leopard cat, and clouded leopard, although called leopards, are distinct genera.

Maggie reread the entry twice to be sure, then shut the book with a defiant slam.

Maggie pried open the lid.

Among the containers of mashed potato and cottage pie, she found one labeled STEAK. Hunks of solid meat pressed against the glass sides. Not ideal, but worth a try.

She stopped to look more closely. Were those gems? Turquoise gemstones? She knelt down and sifted through a handful of sticks and damp, snowy leaves.

His paw remained a painful hindrance, no matter how hard he attempted to crouch or creep in silence.

He watched from the branches of a nearby yew as she entered the clearing and put down a bowl, not far from the base of the old oak.

Again she felt the flicker of something primal, a fear that lay buried within the mysteries of thousands of years' worth of human DNA.

She thought she might burst into a spontaneous bout of laughing, crying, and laughing some more.

Something huge stood in the center, covered by a tarpaulin, made up of odd angles and inexplicable curves.

Some of the smells were familiar, some new, but all piqued his curiosity.