The Companion by EE Ottoman

Author:EE Ottoman
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: EE Ottoman
Published: 2021-04-16T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter 8

She had been on the porch again, curled in a wicker chair with the pad of paper Victor had given her in her lap when the knock came at the door.

Madeline set her pad aside and hurried to answer it.

Audrey was on the other side, dressed in heavy wool trousers, a very practical-looking cotton blouse, sturdy wool jacket, and boots. Her hair was pulled back and partly hidden under a kerchief.

Her expression became more hesitant when she saw Madeline in one of the older dresses she usually wore around the house.

"You said you wanted to go hiking in the woods?"

"Oh yes, of course. I got distracted by writing," Madeline said, feeling slightly caught off guard. She really had lost track of the time. "Do you mind waiting while I change?"

"Of course not." Audrey stepped into the hall, and Madeline rushed up the stairs to her room. There she pulled out her oldest, sturdiest skirt and blouse, socks, and boots and managed to get everything on straight before clattering back down the stairs.

"I made lunch for us too." Madeline had a very small knapsack in army green canvas that she'd owned since she'd been a child. She opened it as she hustled into the kitchen and pulled the lunch she'd prepared for them out of the fridge, storing it in the knapsack.

"Finally ready?" Audrey asked when Madeline came back into the front hall. Her mouth was turned up in an amused smile that softened her words.

"Yes." Madeline smiled at her, then headed out of the house and down the path.

Instead of back down the road, Audrey led them around the house to the field behind it and toward the small stand of trees beyond that.

After that, they moved through a small field at a diagonal path to enter a stretch of forest Madeline had never seen before.

"Have you done a lot of hiking?" Audrey asked.

"Not in a very long time," Madeline said. "Not since I moved to New York City and sometime before that, but when I was a child, I used to practically live in the woods. There was no hole, stream, or rock I didn't know."

Audrey hummed softly, weaving their path between the trees.

"I understand that. I've always loved it here since back when I was young and the farm was still my grandmother's. Watch your step."

The ground had dropped off to their left, where a small stream had been fattened by the rains, washing out the earth all around it and leaving tree roots in a tangled mess of stones and empty air.

They carefully picked their way around it.

"There aren't any truly deep caves here," Audrey said, “but there are smaller ones. When I was young, I crawled into a fair number of them, but an adult wouldn't fit into most."

"Victor talks as if the forest is a death trap," Madeline said.

Audrey snorted. "Victor thinks most things outside the house are a death trap, particularly nature. Victor likes nature when it's safely on the other side of a pane of glass from him.

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