Read Online Home by Shayna Krishnasamy - Free Book Online

more than ever? What did that mean for the journey ahead? She felt as though she’d come to a friend’s door only to find an enemy lying in wait.
    As the water was tepid and shallow, they didn’t bathe in it as she’d planned. Instead, they sat on its former shore, in the shadow of the trees. Liam laid his head on Shallah’s knee and began to doze, while she wondered quietly why those she loved most always left her alone.
    “I miss you,” she said sadly.
    Her voice echoed forlornly across the empty lake.

Chapter Seven
    On the third day much of the path lay uphill. It was past midday when Shallah and Liam finally arrived at the fork in the road and stopped for their meal. They sat in the trees to the right of the northern path, using a cedar log as a bench. Shallah was glad to have her satchel off, for it had begun to pull at her as though it were full of rocks. Her body ached from it.
    It had been a strange morning.
    She was awoken by a hard kick to her side. Liam was thrashing his arms and legs in his sleep, his undertunic twisted around his body. His hair was soaked with sweat and his breath came in quick panting bursts. It sounded like he was suffocating. She tried her best to wake him gently, but nothing worked. When she called his name softly and stroked his cheek, he turned his head away. When she reached for him he clawed at her, nearly drawing blood. When she shook him, he kicked.
    In the end, she was forced to slap him in the face and he jerked out of sleep, flinging the blankets from his body. He wheeled on her, full of fright, and she had to hold his wrists to stop him from running off.
    “Don’t you know me, Liam?” she asked. “It’s me, Shallah. I won’t hurt you. There’s nothing to fear.”
    It took a while to make him believe her.
    The odd happenings of the day didn’t end there. Almost as soon as they’d gotten out of sight of the lake, the air began to thicken with humidity, unusual for that time of year, and a clammy wetness settled on their faces and hands. The canopy fog came down to greet them, and water dripped from the tree branches in punishing drops. They trudged up the path with bowed heads, the wood around them quiet as death, and though Shallah couldn’t see the mist that drifted around them like wispy ghosts, she began to feel agitated all the same.
    The silence was unnerving. It seemed to speak of hidden dangers. The humid air felt like the breath of some awful fiend sneaking up at their backs. Shallah felt a tingling in her legs, a sudden eagerness to run. She carried Liam in her arms out of fear that if she let him down for a moment he would be snatched away.
    As the day wore on, the minutes dripping by, Shallah halted in her steps several times, listening. Once she distinctly heard a snarl in the distance followed by a high-pitched whine. There could be no mistake; they were being tracked.
    As they ate, she still sensed them coming. They traveled in a pack, a big one, it seemed. But they were still a ways off, and as she rested her tired feet among the shrubs, she felt a calm settling in her for the first time that day. She knew the fog was lifting, for some warmth had crept back into the air. She took Liam in her lap and together they listened to the song of a bird she didn’t recognize, perhaps a wren. It was the first sign of life they’d found in these trees, and they were both glad of the company.
    Suddenly, the path ahead seemed to hold much promise. Already the air smelled sweeter, and Shallah could feel herself growing stronger. The wind in the branches, though it pulled at her hair, was a welcome release from the suffocating silence. Even the creatures that followed them seemed less menacing now that she’d had a moment to reflect on it. They were only animals after all, she thought to herself. She could beat them off if it came to it.
    Once they were ready to be off again, her attitude had changed entirely, and she spoke brightly to Liam, eager to move on. But