Featherless Bird

When Carolyn woke up the next morning by the rays of sunlight infiltrating the room, she was cold again. Wade’s side of the bed was empty and cold and that made her frown. It was the weekend, where had he gone? Usually, he slept in, but from what she could tell it was fairly early. She sighed and got up, her curiosity itching in the pit of her stomach. Carolyn heard some racket downstairs and became even more curious.

She half smiled when she thought about what her mother would say to her right now. ‘Curiosity killed the cat’, she’d say and then Carolyn would reply while laughing, ‘but satisfaction brought it back.’

Carolyn stealthily walked downstairs, making sure not to walk on the step that squeaked and finally arrived in the kitchen, where she saw Wade carrying a huge bag of apples.

“What are you doing?” she asked, completely forgetting how she had tried to be as quiet as possible only moments ago.

“What does it look like I’m doing? I’m carrying a bag of apples.” Wade looked at her as if she was completely stupid before continuing towards the door that led outdoors.

“But, why?”

“You’ll see. Grab something to eat, take some of my warm clothes and meet me outside.” he only replied and before Carolyn had time to ask another question he went outside with the bag of apples to do God knows what.

Carolyn sighed, wondering what he could be doing now. But, she did what he had asked her eating a lone toast quickly before climbing up the stairs to get dressed. She rummaged through his drawers and found a small sweatshirt that possibly didn’t fit him anymore and an old worn out pair of jeans that seemed too small for him although they were still too big for her scrawny body. She then went and pulled on the pair of boots she had worn to go to the store and headed out.

The moment she took a foot outside, she shivered. She never liked the cold. The driveway had been shoveled so there was a narrow pathway where the car could fit so the young woman figured that they'd be using the car for this 'apple' business.

“You finally ready?” Wade asked as he saw her coming along. Carolyn rolled her eyes at him and nodded.

“Where are we going?” she asked while opening the passenger door in the truck.

“We’re not going in the truck.” he simply replied, his attention focused on the sky.

Carolyn frowned and looked up also, but she couldn’t see anything that could catch the attention. It was a beautiful day, no clouds, the sun wasn't hitting too hard and the wind was only gusting occasionally.

“Um, what are we looking at?” she asked quizzically and Wade turned his attention to her again and smirked.

“We’re looking at the sky, Carolyn. Now, come on.”

“Alright, but I was planning on having fun with my violin today. I better be able to do that tonight.” She grumbled, taking advantage that Wade seemed in an unnaturally good mood that day.

Wade laughed lightly before chucking her something that she caught only by reflex. It was in a large paper bag so she wasn’t exactly sure what it was but Carolyn knew that it was oddly shaped and quite heavy. “Now, be careful with that. Really, it could kill you.” Wade said as if an afterthought and the young woman stared wide eyed at the thing and then at Wade.

“And you’re making me carry it?” She almost added ‘Are you completely out of your mind?’, but when she thought about it she figured that wasn’t the smartest idea and just shut up.

“Yes, I am. Now come on.” he said, carrying the bag of apples and also a large backpack while starting to walk in the road-that was considered the driveway. Carolyn ran to catch up with him, the thing at arms length.

“Where are we going?” she asked, thoroughly confused and becoming annoyed that she wasn’t given any answers.

“You’ll see. Just follow me and shut up.” Carolyn’s mouth clamped shut so as not to let any regretful words come through and just followed Wade silently. They stopped walking after a while, but then Wade sharply turned left and started walking again, this time right in the snow, though he had picked a stop where there was less.

“Alright, now will you tell me where we’re going?” Carolyn said, still struggling with carrying the heavy object.

“Not really, no. You know, patience is a virtue.” She could feel his smirk although he had not turned towards her.

“Yes, I know. You have no idea how many times I’ve been said that. Chances are I'm never going to have damn patience anyways so I don't get why people continue to tell me that.” Carolyn rambled, apparently amusing Wade while doing so because he was certainly chuckling to himself when she stopped. “What?”

“Nothing.”

“Tell me.” she said sternly heard Wade sigh and knew she had won.

“You’re cute when you're mad, did you know that?” Carolyn turned red, though she didn’t know if it was because she was embarrassed or if it was because she was mad. She almost regretted asking the question altogether.

They were still walking in the snow, getting closer and closer to the forest. From the truck it looked as if the forest was just near the road, but as she trekked through the feet of snow, she knew that wasn’t true. Finally, they arrived to the edge of the forest but just as Carolyn had stopped and was ready to drop the thing to the ground Wade continued walking. The girl groaned internally as she started walking again, following him into the depths of the forest.

Carolyn quickly acknowledged though that the forest was actually quite nice. There was a lot less snow since the trees had most of them in their branches; the birds were chirping, and the sun that filtered through the branches made the snow sparkle.

It was incredibly beautiful.

They walked in silence for a while, Carolyn making sure that she was following Wade closely as not to lose him although she bumped into him a few times. The sun rose higher in the sky as time went by but Carolyn actually enjoyed the walk. It was calm and so peaceful, she could almost forget all of her problems. Plus, it made her do some exercise, something she was sorely lacking.

At last Wade arrived at wherever their destination was and Carolyn who hadn’t been looking bumped into his back.

“Sorry,” she mumbled but noticed that Wade had a smile on his face and that he didn’t seem bothered one bit that she had bumped into him.

“Here we are.” he said though Carolyn didn’t know exactly where ‘here’ was. For all she knew, the place looked exactly like the rest of the forest.

“Uh, okay.” she simply stated a bit confused but then jumped in surprise as she saw Wade starting to climb the nearest tree. “What are you doing?”

She heard Wade grumble something but didn’t quite understand it and then a small ladder seemed to drop from the tree. Carolyn’s eyebrows shot up but she climbed it. It took a while mostly because the ladder swung from one side to another plus she had the bulky object in her hands.

Carolyn finally managed to make it up the ladder and there she found a tree house. She hadn’t been able to see it from the ground, possibly because it blended in so well, snow and all. Wade was already sitting in one of the chairs that were in there, looking out of the window, turning to look at her with a smirk on his face when he saw her shocked expression.

“Like it?” he asked as he threw the bag of apples on the ground, followed quickly by his backpack. Carolyn cocked her head sideways, taking it in. It wasn’t big, but big enough. There weren’t any mice or anything; it was fairly clean, there were two chairs and a small table. For a tree house, it was kind of amazing.

“Yeah, I do.” she admitted, climbing completely in the cabin. Wade smiled at her and pointed to the chair. Carolyn put the object down, not taking the chance to just drop it, before she sat in the chair. “So, what are we doing here?”

“Hand it to me.” He didn’t have to say what as Carolyn handed him the object she had been hauling along all this time.

Wade took the paper bag off slowly, while Carolyn watched intently, curious as ever. When she saw that the thing inside the bag was a gun, she gasped and glared at Wade.

“You made me carry a gun!?” she exclaimed loudly. Wade rolled his eyes at her, clearly thinking that she was stupid for overreacting.

“Yes, I did. It’s not like it killed you or something.”

“Yeah, but it could’ve. What is it for anyways?” she asked, still not getting what they were doing exactly. Wade rolled his eyes at her, yet again, something she was beginning to find extremely annoying before replying.

“Well, we’re in the forest, in a tree house, with a gun and apples. What do you think we’re doing?” Carolyn shrugged, not too fond of this guessing game. “We’re going to hunt.”

“You’re joking.”

“Of course not. I’m telling the whole truth.”

“But it’s not even hunting season!” she cried out, knowing exactly when that was thanks to her father. He gave her a weird look, before starting to laugh.

“And? It’s not like anybody’s going to see us, or hear us.” he simply stated reasonably before opening the bag of apples and dropping a couple of them on the ground and then lounging back in his chair.

“So, what do we do now?” she asked, admitting defeat with that question. Wade grinned at her while taking hold of his gun again.

“We wait.”