Chapter 4 Tracking The Shadow

• Chapter Four – Tracking the shadow.
• The Madam’s body was numb from the fall. Her eyes shook with pain.
• The soldier kept pulling the whip with Margaret while enduring the beatings at his back. The sticks weren’t painful and Evelyn was enjoying the beat she was making.
• The soldier let go of the whip and same time pushes Evelyn away from him. She doesn’t expect it and falls to the ground, she begins wailing.
• “Sister down” Lydia yelled as she snatched the whip Margaret held and flung it on the soldiers back giving him a taste of his own medicine.
• Evelyn’s wails turned to laughter as the man danced to the pain the whip gave.
• Some boy in the crowd shouted “more” and Lydia decisively lashes the soldier again. Madam Lara was trying to crawl away now.
• It was like a town charade. Some children threw Madam Clara’s dirty tomatoes at the soldier for coming to embarrass his ranks.
• Horses neighing as they ran towards them made Margaret stop whipping the soldier and threw the whip into the crowd.
• “What is going on here?” one of the horseman shouted as he pulled his horse to a halt.
• No one answered. “Somebody answer me?” the soldier shouted again. Still silence. He brought out his sword for effect but no one still said anything.
• There were all soldiers, soldiers from the kingdom of Craitan which bullied the small village Evelyn and her sisters lived in.
• They’re were not very religious as they worshipped many idols so they had no specific mode of conduct.
• Reporting to them what happened will bring no justice, they were all unjust. The soldier saw Evelyn sitting on the ground and came closer to her.
• “Young woman, what happened! Why is this soldier weeping!”.
• “Sir” she started with a teary voice. “Madam Lara just began yelling at us. She had earlier insulted a little boy. She then told this soldier to flog me and my sisters.
• I accidentally kicked him in the groin while trying to stop him from flogging me. He just laid on the ground crying since then” she increased her cries.
• Everyone kept a gloomy face, trying to make Evelyn’s story seem true. The soldier on the horse glared at the soldier on the ground.
• “Pathetic” he cursed as he began riding away. Lydia smiled mischievously while helping her sister up.
• “Nice acting. Be an actor not a soldier” Lydia winked. The girls laughed as they walked away from the crowd.
• They felt like heroes who just saved a poor child from a big hungry monster that was going to devour him.
• Their laughter soon died down when they remembered the situation that had brought them out of their home in the first place.
• “Oh, I am really not going back home” Lydia folded her arms grumpily. Margaret did the same.
• Evelyn also didn’t feel like returning but they had no where else to be. They were just helpless orphans.
• “Did anyone hear or see the shadow lurking around during that Killer Wolves attack?” Evelyn asked her sisters as they strolled in the forest.
• “The only sound I saw was the growls of the Killer Wolves. The only sight I saw was death” Lydia sounded poetic.
• Evelyn frowned, “I am serious. It had the figure of a man. It better not be what I’m thinking”.
• Margaret hurried to catch up with her sisters. Her weight seemed to have doubled only from eating three unripe tomatoes of Madam Lara.
• “Let’s go find out then” Lydia gave her evil smirk and the three adventurous sisters went deeper into the woods. Margaret picked a stick along the way, just in case.
• They walked into the sounds of the forest and buzzing off wild bees.
• Deeper, they came across a cave with claw marks on it’s surface.
• Lydia suggests they leave immediately but Evelyn's curiosity is turned on so she declines. She could be on her way to revealing a great stranger amongst them.
• Lydia followed her sisters cautiously, grabbing a stick of her own. She couldn’t die at seventeen.
• “They’re fresh claw marks on this cave” Margaret noticed. Lydia freezes as her eyes landed on something even more alarming.
• A red haired wolfman was flexing his claws on a nearby rock. His body had blood and it seemed he had just killed an animal, hopefully.
• His back was against them but Evelyn was sure he was the owner of the shadow that had helped them during the Killer Wolves attack.
• Lydia was now tugging on Evelyn’s shoulders that they should turn back.
• “Wolfmen are bloody. We should not engage” Lydia quotes their Uncle’s usual line to them.
• “We are free now. We don’t need listen to whatever Uncle said” Margaret counters immediately. Lydia frowns. Wasn’t whatever he said still valid for safety?
• Evelyn picked a stone and threw it at the nearby river besides the wolfman prompting him to turn around. They all hide behind the cave, peeking slightly.
• The wolfman had reddish eyes but they were not scary but shiny. And his lips were plump and pink and didn’t look rough.
• His red hair also spread across his broad shoulders and his shirt was hanging on his shoulders making his chiseled chest visible.
• He narrowed his eyes at the stone for seconds. Lydia narrowed her eyes at him. He seemed awfully familiar but she couldn’t place how she knew him.
• Margaret began swooning, “He's so gorgeous. Sarah was right. These wolfmen were irresistible” she cackled quietly.
• “They’ll do the same thing to you like they did Sarah” Evelyn shot back. Margaret stayed quiet.
• Sarah was a childhood friend of theirs that was said to have fallen in love with a wolfman, she had a name for them. Werewolves. But the villagers preferred wolfmen.
• Sarah had disappeared after claiming to be getting married to one of them. She was never seen again and was said to be dead.
• “Can we leave now?” Lydia asked for the hundredth time.
• Evelyn shrugged since there was no reaction from the wolfman so they could as well let him be.
• “He's no fun” she concluded and turned to leave.
• A growl stopped them three on their tracks and they retreated behind the cave.
• The wolfman smiled and laid besides the stream playing with the water.
• “See how gentle he is with water. Imagine how much gentle he’ll be with a woman” Margaret whispered.
• Evelyn sighed tiredly. They better get out from there before he’d show them ungentleness.