The Master of the Hunt: A Paranormal Romance by Susan G. Charles Page A

direction. As she was looking upward, a squirrel bounced from one limb to another, disappearing into the nature above her before the sound of a light stomp came from up ahead her, near ground level, and she dropped her sights to see him. He was crouched on one knee and had a flat palm in the grass, with a grin on his face and a childish, boyish glare in his eyes.
    Rick’s hair was brown with golden highlights, freshly trimmed and prickly at the ends. He wore a brown leather vest over a white long sleeve button up shirt. His dirty denim jeans were tucked inside his favorite brown buckskin boots. His face was beaded with the first hint of perspiration and his hands were covered in his best work gloves, stained with the soil of many past chores and loads of many long forgotten games played out in the barn and all over their little farm.
    Rick must have descended from the trees somehow, but the lowest limbs were more than ten feet above, and he would have definitely hurt himself landing from a drop of that height. But he did it some how, he must have, and in all the Hide-n-Seek games they’ve played before he’s never pulled such a daring stunt with technique of this magnitude. Of course he would sometimes hide in the bushes and skip from tree to tree, cover himself with leaves or throw rocks in opposite directions. But this was an original move for sure. How could any ten year-old complete a ten foot leap without at least one bone being cracked on impact?
    Her eyes bugged as she was caught in awe of his incredible accomplishment just now. He didn’t say a word as all these thoughts raced through her mind, but she knew in her heart that this was, indeed, an unusual moment. Just then the shriek of her uncle’s whistle sounded through the last minutes of sundown, and without time to wonder, she rushed toward his echoing whistle with determination still set in her thoughts. She would have to explore this area more later, she thought to herself as she ran toward the house, following the sound of her uncle’s whistle. He had already whistled once – he would have a fit if he had to do it more than twice.
    Even so, she still passed the boy, slapping the sleeve of his shirt. “You’re it!” she laughed and picked up the pace before he had the chance to tag her back. Rick turned and chased her toward the house, lowered his brows and flipped her a competitive hand signal to further antagonize her on the course back home. It was more like a race, actually, considering the next game of Hide-and-Seek would be held on pause until the following morning, after the chores were completed and the daily luncheon was held.
    Anyone in the area could hear the joyous laughter of them both as they ran, the innocence they exuded and the youth of a boy and girl’s seemingly everlasting friendship and explorations. They laughed and yelled and called out to each other to further egg each other on as they rushed back toward the cabin. He finally caught up to her twenty yards before the clearing. “You didn’t think I would let you cross did you?” he asked in between breaths as they still ran to the house.
    She smiled at him in reply. At that very instant a short-lived scream, more like a loud whine or a bird’s final call of the day, arose from somewhere behind her, scaring her into a self-tripping fall. She instinctively grabbed a hold of the boy’s sleeve to help prevent the plunge, taking him down with her as well. After landing atop of her and sharing a brief twinkling of eye contact that could have been their first hint of something more than a friendship developing, he sprung to his feet, swung around to the sound, and reached underneath his shirt to produce a shining dagger.
    She had seen the dagger from her place on the ground, jumped to her feet and grabbed his shoulders playfully from behind. She was not frightened any longer. She wanted to see who or what it was that had made the sound, twisting and turning her head in all of the