Shards of Sanity (Book 6, Forgotten Series)

Chapter Four

"Lilith, please stop that." I looked up the tree where the strange female had found herself in. Her dirty bare feet swung in the slight breeze and the blue shawl I had given her, tucked over her head as if she were a child hiding from a monster that lingered underneath her bed. "Come now. You need to come down." I pressed my hand to the bark, asking the old oak for forgiveness of her antics as she moved her feet in the air.

"You do not need to ask for forgiveness, Ambris. I asked for permission. It was given." She lifted the shawl from her head, peeking out at me as she gave me a lopsided smile. The shawl fell back into place and I closed my eyes with a sigh. I did not know what Mene wished for me to do with the female, she was such an odd creature and it was hard to keep track of her at times.

"Still, it is getting close to dinner and you shouldn't be up the tree." Sitting up there looking like a great blue ghost, I really didn't know what to do with her at times. She had been with us for over a month and I still didn't know. I cared for her as I should, as I had been told but she hadn't settled in with us like another would have.

Her feet swayed and I was reminded of a child sitting on a chair too high for them. There was so much about her that was both childlike and sombre. She was a female who had seen too much of this world but it was like when Mene put her back together she didn't do it smoothly. She was jarring at times with how her emotions and moods were. "I was trying to see the trees." She said it lightly and I let out another sigh.

"You can see them from the ground." I glanced around at the edge of the small forest we sat inside. There was much you could see of the trees. So much so that you didn't need to climb them with a shawl over your head.

She let out a small, out of tune hum for a moment. "You see them differently without eyes. You can hear them, feel their voice inside your chest. It thrums through you and if you listen hard enough, you can hear what they say." The words were said calmly and evenly with a hint of awe and I shook my head slowly. She was a female who saw and heard too much now but there was little I could do to fix that. What Mene had done, was done. There was no fixing it.

"Still. You are a wolf, not a monkey. I don't know how you even managed to get up there." I shook my head, feeling too much like a caretaker of a large child rather than a half mad female.

There was a moment's pause, "Up where?" Lilith asked it softly and I closed my eyes for a brief moment.

"Lilith, you are in a tree." I looked up at her again and she slowly pulled she shawl back from where it covered her face.

"Oh." Her eyes widened and her ease was gone as she gripped the tree tightly with her hands. "How do I get down?" She swallowed and looked down towards me with a heavy dose of fear as her knuckles turned white with the strength of her grip.

"I am not sure how you got up, so I'm not sure how you will get down." I studied the tree, trying to plot out how she had even managed to scramble up there but I couldn't see anything that would help.

"I-I-I-" She swallowed again before she turned those now timid eyes onto me. "Can I have some help?" She asked it in a choked whisper and my heart ached for the female. She was so childlike one moment and then it was like her brain remembered what was done to it and I was left with the cracked shell of who she used to be. Timid and always afraid of punishment.

I gave her a slow nod to calm her fears about asking for help and for getting stuck. "I'll get some of the larger males and we can get you out of the tree." I turned my gaze towards the inner territory wondering who I could call to help when there was a faint thump and oomph behind me and when I whirled around, Lilith was standing as she wiped off her robe with her hands. I shook my head slowly before holding out my hand for her. "Come on then, it's close to dinner and we should get to the hall." I gestured with my hand and she adjusted the shawl around her shoulders before taking my hand. Her hand was so dainty it always surprised me. She felt like she should break, as if she wasn't truly there, just an intangible form that was a whisper of living. I patted her hand in sympathy, knowing just what it took to get her to feel like that.