Chapter 2: A Silent Scream
THE next morning, Olivia and Arthur woke before the sun rose.
They got dressed and quietly went downstairs. A worker was already up because the inn provided breakfast.
“Good morning. You’re up early,” she said.
“Yeah, we’ve got some stuff to do this morning,” said Arthur.
“Um…” started Olivia like she couldn’t help herself. “I heard there’s going to be a royal hunt nearby?”
“That’s right. People’ve seen a golden deer! I don’t know who said it, but rumors have been going around saying it brings good luck. I guess His Majesty heard the rumors, too.”
“Will the king be coming?” Olivia inquired.
“Oh, no, of course not. It’ll be hunters sent by the king.”
“Do you know when it will happen?”
“I imagine it’ll start today or tomorrow.”
“Oh. Thank you.”
“Will you two be having breakfast?”
“Sorry, but we’re in a bit of a hurry.”
Arthur, who had been waiting for Olivia to finish her conversation with the worker, stepped close to her and whispered, “Doesn’t look like we’ve got much time.”
“No. But it’s all right. I have an idea.”
They stepped outside and found Rob sleeping underneath the carriage—he hadn’t been allowed in the inn. Rob yawned and stretched all his limbs out with a groan, then came out from under the carriage and looked up at Olivia and asked, sounding concerned, Food? Where food?
“We’ll have breakfast after we go to the forest,” said Olivia.
All right! Food, food, food!
Rob was always cheerful. He jumped into the carriage, in such a good mood he’d probably be humming if he were a human, then lay on the floor.
Arthur and Olivia boarded the carriage they’d rented in Marlais, then they hurried towards the forest. Arthur called to Olivia from the driver’s seat, so she moved to the seat directly behind and opened the window.
“What was that? Did you say something?” she asked.
“Yeah. If the point of this whole thing is to get the pelt of the golden deer to give to the king, then I bet they’ll use some method that won’t damage the fur. They’ll avoid hunting rifles and bows and arrows.”
“Oh, you’re right. What would they use, then?”
“Once, when I was working as a guard for a noble, he went on a hunt. He wanted a bearskin, so he was using loads of poison and traps. He put poison in some food a bear might eat, but I guess you can’t do that for a deer. They’ll probably use traps.”
“It does seem likely.”
“What are you thinking of doing?” he asked.
“Deer don’t have dens. They can run free. They might find themselves in some other buck’s territory, but I’m not worried about that since the golden deer is used to it. I’m going to tell him he should move somewhere else.”
Arthur tried to figure out exactly what that meant she would do as he drove the carriage, but what she said still wasn’t enough for him to make a concrete guess. “Ah, well, guess I’ll just get to see what she can do. Something fun about that, too,” he murmured to himself, looking forward again.
After some time, the carriage brought them near the lake.
“Is this a good spot?” asked Arthur.
“Yes, thank you, Arthur. All right. I’m going to scream. Silently. Try not to be surprised,” said Olivia.
“Uh, sure,” he said, while thinking, Silently scream? What in the world does that mean?
He had many questions but decided not to say anything. Instead, he watched as Olivia stood with the lake at her back, facing the forest, her eyes closed, her hands clasped in front of her as if she were praying.
She stood like that for some time, and then the shock struck Arthur’s mind.
Hunters are coming! They are after the golden deer’s pelt! Run! Run! Run far away!
Every bird in the forest took flight at once, their cries echoing between the trees, and Arthur couldn’t help jumping. The sudden voice in his mind was loud and powerful and, he realized, indeed a silent scream. He looked at Olivia, his breathing slightly unsteady, but she still stood there, her eyes closed.
She was repeating what she said, still, letting out powerful yet silent cries of Run! Hunters are coming!
And a mass move began in the forest.
Wolves urged their pups on, though their pups were nearly as large as they were, trying to move as far from Olivia’s mental yells as possible. Bears, both male and female, ran, their large bodies lumbering with surprising speed, spurring other animals into moving. Both those animals with dens and those without hurried north, away from Olivia’s screams. Rabbits ran alongside foxes, while brown deer bounded gracefully past them.
The golden deer also heard Olivia’s cry. He stretched out his long, graceful neck, his head tilted in thought for a moment, then he turned to his herd of uneasy does and gave them one high-pitched bleat.
Then, unlike the other animals, he began to move west.
The golden deer had survived for a long time, and he had been hunted often by humans. He knew humans came from cities, that they followed tracks, and that their hounds traced back the scent of animals.
That’s why he didn’t head north, the same direction as all those other animals. He went west, with the city behind him to the east.
He eventually came to a large river. The river flowed quickly, but he didn’t hesitate. He knew he could escape the hounds following his scent if he managed to cross the river.
The four does followed as the golden deer led them across, the morning sun illuminating them as they forded the river. The golden deer crossed carefully, gauging the depth of the river because the does were significantly smaller than him and more likely to be swept away.
Once the last of the does clambered up the other side of the river, they continued on, heading upstream along the rocky riverbed. They wouldn’t leave tracks in rocks.
Back at the lake, Olivia said, “Arthur, can we go home after we say goodbye to your childhood home? I miss home.”
“You think everything will be fine here?” he asked.
“I do. That deer is smart. I’m sure he’s heading somewhere safe by now. Rob, you can play in the water a little if you want.”
Food? No food yet? thought Rob.
“Oh, Rob, I’m sorry. I forgot. I had someone at the inn give me a little bit of boiled meat and bread for you. Here, let me put it on a plate for you.”
Rob scarfed the food from the wooden plate, finishing his breakfast in a mere twenty seconds, gulped up water from the lake, then went to the carriage of his own accord.
“Rob’s such a clever boy,” said Olivia. “All right, Arthur, let’s go visit your family again. Then we’ll go home. The goats are probably waiting for us.”
“All right. You get in the carriage, then, too,” said Arthur, and they drove back to Arthur’s childhood home.
Around the time Arthur, Olivia, and Rob went to the silverberry trees to say their goodbyes, a large group of hunters was heading into the forest from the city. They were all hunters skilled with traps, convinced they would be the one to present the golden deerskin to the king. But they were all wrong.
“That’s weird. I don’t hear any birds,” said one.
“It’s not just the birds. I’m seeing neither hide nor hair of any rabbits or squirrels,” said another.
“Hey, come look at this. There are loads of tracks trampling the underbrush, and not just on the game trails.”
These veteran hunters felt uneasy about these things.
“What in the world happened?”
“I’ve never seen anything like it.”
“Is there going to be some huge natural disaster?”
But it was a rare opportunity to distinguish themselves by presenting a trophy from a hunt to the king, so they spent all day long setting up a huge number of traps to catch the golden deer.
They didn’t see any living creatures in the forest the entire time they worked.
In the two days that followed, not a single animal was found in any of their traps.
“Maybe we angered the goddess of the forest,” muttered the oldest of the hunters. The rest of them nodded in silence, as if they’d just been waiting for someone else to voice their thoughts. “I been a hunter for forty years, but I never seen anything like this. Apologies to His Majesty, but I value my life. Maybe the golden deer was the goddess of the forest in physical form, so she could come and play in the forest. I have no idea what’d happen if I caught something like that.”
“I have to agree, when you put it like that. The kingdom isn’t paying for my meals. It won’t care for our wives and children if something happens to us.”
“I’m out. I don’t want to commit some sin.”
Hunters spent their everyday hunting animals, and that made them superstitious. All several dozen of them pulled out of the forest.
“And if some high-up official gives us a tongue-lashing, we just need to meekly bow our heads. At least that won’t kill us,” one said as they left.
It was far more terrifying to lose their only means of providing for themselves by angering the goddess of the forest, or from whatever injury they might sustain if they did anger her.