Chapter 231 - Ghost Of The Woods 3

Andreas looked down at the dissolved misoprostol in his hand. That's why this concoction of Zoe's was so important. Hopefully he had gotten the dosage right. It was essential that Graeme's mate lose the pregnancy tonight.

The light outside the cottage windows was nearly gone, so he rose from where he was sitting on the last step and began to make his way to the door. Just as he passed the first window, he heard the excited chatter of pups approaching outside in the darkness. The were on the other side of the creek. He bent down and peered through the window with its shattered glass.

There must have been a dozen or more pups hooting and skipping and making all kinds of racket just on the other side of the bridge.

"Luna is going to be so excited!"

"She loved the surprise today. She will love this one, too!" a boisterous young female exclaimed.

"Okay, everyone break up into the teams we were assigned," a male pup ordered. "Once the smaller projects are done, we can all help Alexander's team on the spiraling portal they are creating. That's going to take the longest by far."

Andreas' ears perked up, recognizing that voice. He knew that pup, but he couldn't place who it was with the confidence it exuded.

He couldn't believe his luck. He had to leave now, but both the doors led out the same way—over bridges that crossed the creek right toward where the pups were now settled, chatting and working on something out there. He was going to have to find another way out.

Zoe had set up that whole ordeal with the Mama bear and cubs here not too long ago, and if he recalled there was a trap door in the kitchen that led down to the basement rather than having to slide down the broken dumbwaiter. Once down there, he could exit out the cellar. Just as the alyko had when they were rescued from the burning cottage.

Andreas tiptoed through the house back toward the kitchen as quietly as he could. Whether he was going to be able to get the trap door up as quietly was another question entirely. It was hidden in the floor of the pantry. Getting into the pantry was no problem. But the metal ring attached to the floor looked as though it would crumble the charred wood if it was pulled.

He set the precious bottle of his drug solution on the ground and gripped the ring in both hands before slowly and gingerly pulling the hatch up toward himself. It creaked loudly, and he paused, listening for a reaction from anyone outside. He couldn't hear much that was happening with the pups out front, so he imagined they couldn't hear him either.

Andreas grabbed the bottle he had set down and lowered himself through the hole. Someone had done a good job of cleaning up after the bears, because he could only pick up a vague scent that they had left behind.

The basement was, however, pitch black. He struggled to light a torch that he had with him just so he wouldn't have to feel blindly through the darkness before coming to the cellar door.

Outside, a few of the pups ears had perked up at an unexpected noise from Maggie's cottage. If August and Isaac hadn't had such a horrific encounter with bears in the basement there, they probably would have ignored it. But now many of them were backing away from the bridge with wide eyes, anticipating a large furry predator to come bounding after them.

"Do you suppose it's haunted on Samhain?" Bear asked with a tremulous voice, swallowing to coat his suddenly parched mouth.

They shouldn't have come here without any juveniles or adults. This was stupid. They had snuck off together on this mission to surprise Luna August with their finished forest sculptures, but they never considered that the risks associated with Samhain might be true.

"It's not haunted," Isaac scoffed.

"Well what about faerie portals then? Maybe they come into our world through Maggie's cottage. Maybe they are in there right now, and we aren't even in disguise!" Bear's eyes were growing wider and wider with each horrifying possibility that entered his mind.

"Those stories aren't true," Clementine argued, but the tremor in her voice didn't sound so sure.

"I think we should go tell someone. Maybe we should get Luna. She can fight off bears," Plum said quietly.

"Any lycan with a wolf can fight off bears," Isaac rolled his eyes. The problem was, there weren't any of those lycans here with them at the moment.

"What's the problem, pups? Why are you all all the way out here?"

They jumped at the unexpected deep voice of a male behind them.

"Oh, Mr. Lucas… we heard a noise in that house. That's where Luna August and Isaac were attacked by bears," Alexander explained.

"Do you think they are faeries coming to get us?" Lily squeaked.

"Maybe your portal sculpture opened it for them, Alexander," Bear groaned.

"Oooh, what portal?" a girl that looked just old enough to soon be getting her wolf spoke up from behind Lucas.

All the pups looked at her dumbfounded. She was new. They had never seen her before. Did Mr. Lucas bring an outsider? Or was she a faerie?

"W-who is th-that?" Plum asked, backing away with some of the others.

"This is my friend, Zoe. Don't worry," Lucas assured them.

"Have you fallen in love with a faerie Mr. Lucas?" Bear asked in his same tremulous voice. "You have to be careful. They make you fall in love with them and then they take you to their world."

"She's not a faerie, okay? I promise. She will not take me or you away. But, just to be safe, how about you all go back to the market or the pack house or—better yet—go home!"

A few of the pups giggled, others screamed—torn between fear and excitement—but the others just stared silently before running off away from Maggie's cottage and the weird things that went on there, promising to themselves up and down that they would never return, not in a million years, and especially not on Samhain.