W. O. Hemsath
The daylight clawing down through the branches was slowly dying. In its place, a growing breeze scraped through the trees, too cold for this time of year.
Aasim Beaver sat on his haunches, his wide tail tapping the ground. This new wind didn’t carry the smell of cedars or date palms. It smelled of danger and darkness.
It smelled of death.
His tail tapped faster. They should all be in their homes, preparing for whatever was coming. Not gathered like fools discussing the health of local mushroom colonies or squabbling over territories. But Nahar loved these little gatherings, and now that she was pregnant, he wouldn’t let her come alone. He would protect his family at all costs.
He could not fail again.
Nahar rested her tail gently, but firmly, atop his to still it and urged his gaze back to the gnarled stump in the center of the crowd of animals. A wizened brown hare with a half-severed ear ended his rant with a thump of his hind leg, then hopped off the stump.
A mongoose—this season’s community chair-mammal, according to Nahar—scurried atop the stump in his place.
“Thank you,” she squeaked, “for that important reminder that scent markers make good neighbors. Remember to mark what’s yours and respect what’s not.” A tendril of icy air rushed past her, and she shivered. “If there’s no further business—”
“What of my parents?” a deep voice asked from beyond the circle of gathered creatures. Two sharp, ridged horns pierced the lengthening shadows as an adolescent gazelle stepped forward.
“That’s the boy I told you about,” Nahar whispered to Aasim. “He called on the council last week for help finding his parents. They disappeared one night and haven’t returned. He’s busy caring for his younger sisters, poor dear. Otherwise he’d go looking himself.”
The mongoose wouldn’t meet the gazelle’s eyes. “Yes, um . . . you see . . . .”
“Won’t be no search,” the wizened hare grumbled. All ears flicked toward him. The mongoose shot him a disapproving look which he met with a defiant thump.
“Boy’s grown. He don’t need hoof holdin’. He needs the truth.” He turned to the gazelle. “Wolves got your folks. That’s the sorry truth. Makes no sense riskin’ our lives to look for bones. It’s best you move on.”
The gazelle reared and struck his hooves into the forest floor as his voice charged through the night. “It wasn’t wolves!”
Aasim grabbed Nahar’s paw to pull her away. He wouldn’t risk her being around if a fight broke out.
Directly overhead, a branch snapped. Every creature stilled, eyes and ears searching, assessing.
More branches shuddered, drawing closer. Aasim tugged at Nahar, but she resisted and pointed at a giant heron hopping down towards the clearing. “It’s only Traveler.”
Nahar often mentioned the news-bringing bird, claiming he was harmless. Aasim didn’t trust outsiders, however. Especially those with snake-like necks and beaks as sharp as human spears.
The heron perched on the lowest branch, looming over them. “The boy is right. Wolves are not behind these disappearances.”
“These?” The mongoose quivered atop the stump. “There have been more?”
Traveler bobbed his head. “Two water buffalo a day’s flight from here, brother and sister. And a pair of owls, too. There’s never blood, no sign of struggle, no saying good-bye.”
“What happened to them?” the gazelle asked.
“Not what. Who.” The heron leapt from his branch to the center of their gathering and lowered his voice. “The Double-Snatcher.”
All the animals cowered slightly. The heron stalked his way around his audience on spindly legs, wings spreading dramatically as he spoke.
“He doesn’t hunt. He doesn’t trap. He doesn’t use anything except . . . magic!” A stick shot up, clutched in his talons. Those closest to him flinched. He smiled as he tucked the thin branch under his wing and continued prowling. “His staff has the power to snatch control of your very mind. Under his spell, you’ll leave all that you love to slither, walk, or fly straight to him. And what does he do once you arrive?”
Not even Aasim breathed during the suspended silence.
“He feeds you to a ravenous beast!” The heron snapped his beak at an unsuspecting hedgehog and reveled in the resulting squeaks and startled squeals. “In all my travels, I’ve never seen its likeness. A true leviathan of the land that could cross your river in a single stride.” Nahar huddled closer to Aasim as the heron continued. “It crouches on its many legs outside a human colony, demanding to be fed. Beneath its row of unnatural eyes is a gaping mouth that never shuts. The beast swallows animals whole and doesn’t bother spitting out the bones.”
Beside Aasim, Nahar trembled. The last of the sunlight drained from the forest, and the heron’s beady eyes glinted in the shadowy night. This bird clearly enjoyed the power his stories had, and Aasim was done letting Nahar be terrorized by them. He pulled her away, and she came without protest.
As they headed for the river, she crept beside him, searching the shadows on either side of their path.
“It was only a full-moon tale,” he assured her. “The kind you tell young kits so they’ll stay close to the lodge. There is no mind-snatching man.”
“But Traveler saw him.”
“Traveler saw a gullible audience. He’s a performer. Don’t let him get under your fur.”
“The gazelles did disappear though. And there wasn’t any blood.”
“No blood where they were last seen,” he corrected. “They wandered from the safety of their home, and I’m sure wherever they were caught, there were signs of wolves or humans.” He eyed her seriously. “Regular, non-magic humans that our lodge protects us from.”
They emerged from the meager shelter of the trees, and the icy wind raked across them unrestrained. It clawed the normally smooth surface of their dammed-off pond, disfiguring the reflected face of the full-moon into a ragged skull.
Aasim shivered. The wind would only get stronger as the night wore on. The Double-Snatcher might not be real, but the danger of this storm was.
Nahar paused at the water’s edge. Her paws fretted over each other. Aasim stilled them with his own and raised his voice to be heard over the rising gusts. “I will keep you safe.” He stared meaningfully at her belly. “All of you.”
She nodded, then slid into the pond, letting its inky waters consume her.
Aasim followed her down to the watery entrance and up into the tunnel that led to the dry chambers of their lodge. They’d come home just in time. Beyond the vent hole at the top of their main chamber, the wind rushed faster and faster as if trying to escape something close on its heels.
Outside, wind-whipped debris pelted the wood and mud walls of their lodge. “They’ll hold,” Aasim said, nestling beside Nahar.
He reassured himself of everything he’d done to make this new lodge thicker and stronger than their last, yet this wind was like none he’d ever seen. It gnashed and tore at their roof. Chunks of mud ripped free around the vent hole, and the tightly woven sticks across the opening began to rattle. Nahar buried her head against him, whimpering.
The wind howled, vicious and hungry, devouring pieces of their home above them. All Aasim could do was hold Nahar and fight back memories of teeth and growls and other howls—of frantic cries and blood-stained dirt and scattered tufts of newborn fur.
The wind attacked for hours. When it left, their roof bore a gaping wound, and the vast uncertainty of the night bled in. Thick clouds now dammed the once moonlit sky.
Aasim sniffed tentatively. The air was heavy with the smell of coming rain. “We won’t have long to make repairs. A day or two at most. I need to get started.”
“Now?” Nahar followed him to the exit tunnel. “It’s too dark. You haven’t slept.”
“I’ll sleep once I know the lodge is fixed and you’ll be safe.”
“Let me help.”
Aasim rested his paw on her swollen belly. “The kits need you to rest. The sun will rise in a few hours, and I’ll have worked up an appetite by then. I’ll come home, and we’ll eat together.”
“I could make cattail soup,” she offered.
“I don’t want you leaving the lodge.” He motioned to their stockpile of tubers. “We have plenty to eat already.”
The water level in the exit tunnel looked lower than before; their pond was slowly draining. Part of the dam must have been weakened as well. That would have to be his first repair.
“If I’m not back by breakfast, I will be by midday,” he said. “No matter what, promise me you won’t leave the lodge?”
She nodded, and he slid into the watery black.
Aasim had been right about the dam; the wind had left a bite in it, and the draining water was slowly eroding and enlarging the hole. He patched it easily enough with mud and branches, careful not to thump too loudly—Nahar needed her rest.
Repairs weren’t enough, though. If the clouds overhead proved as vicious as the wind that brought them, the rain might raise the river. He needed to make their dam taller, stronger. He had to keep Nahar safe.
Aasim made his way into the forest, the branches overhead nothing more than dark scratches against an already black world. He moved as quietly as he could, straining in the dark for the right size tree.
He found one that might work, and paced around it. It was thicker than he needed but perhaps he could use it to reinforce—
To his right, the underbrush rustled. Aasim froze, fur bristled. His heart thumped louder than his tail ever had, but he couldn’t see anything. Nothing smelled out of place.
When nothing attacked, Aasim began gnawing the tree. He ignored the prickling at the base of his fur every time he heard the forest shift. If he was going to reinforce the whole length of the dam and make it even higher, he would need a lot of trees. He didn’t have time to waste on fear.
The sun had been trapped behind the wall of clouds for hours before Aasim patted the last bit of mud atop the fortified dam. He’d spent all night and morning felling trees, floating them downriver, and fixing them in place. Thankfully, Nahar had slept through it all. He couldn’t let her sleep any longer though.
“I’ve stabilized the pond,” he called from atop his massive dam. “I’ll gather the branches to fix the roof if you want to start preparing the tubers. I’ll do the repairs after we eat.”
Only the rushing of the river replied.
His voice should have carried through the torn roof. She should have heard him, even in the sleeping chamber. Fear gnawed his belly, but he shook it off like water. They’d had a traumatic night. Nahar was probably too deeply asleep.
Aasim walked across the top of the dam to the riverbank. She was fine. She’d promised to stay in the lodge, and there’d been no signs of predators. If she was still sleeping, he should let her keep sleeping.
And he would. After he checked on her.
He dove into the pond and swam up the tunnel to the main chamber, now flooded with the dim gray of day. He wouldn’t even have to wake her. One quick peek to make sure she was fine, and then he’d—
The sleeping chamber was empty.
“Nahar?”
He checked the back tunnel and rechecked the main chamber and sleeping chamber.
Empty.
Empty.
Empty.
He scurried down the tunnel and back onto shore. “Nahar!”
He called her over and over, louder and longer until his voice was raw.
She never called back.
He ran downriver toward the cattails. Maybe she’d gone to gather ingredients, even though he’d told her not too.
The cattails were empty, though. Deep down, he’d known they would be. Something as simple as soup would never make Nahar break her promise.
But the Double-Snatcher might.
The thought snaked its way into his mind, and he tried to fight it back. There had to be a logical explanation. Magic and mind-snatching weren’t real. The Double-Snatcher couldn’t be real. Even if he was, he took creatures two at a time. Nahar had been alone.
Aasim followed the river downstream, sniffing for clues and calling her name. Impossibly, the wall of clouds in the sky thickened and darkened with more and more clouds until it seemed it would burst. Aasim reached the scent mound marking the end of their territory without so much as a trace of her. However, he hadn’t caught scent of a predator either. That was good. She was probably upriver somewhere. He’d cross to the other bank and work his way toward their upper boundary.
He was halfway across the river when a wail rose above the water’s rumbling. The cry was farther downstream, but there was no mistaking it—a beaver was in distress.
He launched himself downstream, swimming with the current as fast as he could, ignoring his neighbor’s scent mounds as he entered their territory. The cries and moans grew louder, separating into two distinct voices. Neither were Nahar’s.
Around the bend, an impressive lodge rose into view. It had fared the storm better than his own.
“Berosh!” a male beaver called above the distraught wails of the female beside him. “Berosh!”
Aasim exited the river just above their pond. The male stepped protectively in front of the female, slapped his broad tail on the water, and bared his sharp, orange incisors.
“I don’t mean to trespass.” Aasim kept himself at a safe distance, front paws in the air. “I heard crying.”
“Our son.” The female stifled her sobs. “We were all sleeping in the lodge, but when we woke this morning, he was gone. It’s been hours.”
“He’s two,” the father said reluctantly. “It is possible he went searching for a wife and place of his own.”
His wife slapped her tail atop his. “You know he’d never leave without saying good-bye!”
Aasim steadied himself on all fours as the earth started to spin around him like a whirlpool. Two beavers mysteriously gone. No signs of blood.
“Have you seen or heard anything?” the mother asked.
“No.” Aasim’s voice came out as weak as his limbs. “My wife . . .”
“She saw something?”
He shook his head. “She’s missing too.”
The mother wailed anew—a loud, soul-scraping sound—and the urge to join her nearly consumed Aasim. But either Nahar was fine, or she needed his help. Either way, crying wouldn’t do any good. He met the father’s eyes. “I’ll keep an eye out for your son.”
The father nodded with a look that promised to do the same for Nahar, but there was no hope in his eyes, only the familiar sorrow of a father now childless—a sorrow Aasim wasn’t ready to face again.
Nahar and their unborn kits had to be okay.
He had to keep hoping.
He had to find Traveler.
She’ll be dead before you get there.
That’s what the heron had said—once his laughter died—when Aasim asked where to find the Double-Snatcher. He’d finally given Aasim directions though.
A day’s flight with the sun to your left.
Aasim didn’t know how many days of walking equaled one day of flying, but so far it was more than five—if he was going in the right direction. It was hard to keep something on your left that you couldn’t even see. Gray clouds smothered the world around him. They should have burst days ago but continued to darken. The air was heavy enough to drown in. Beneath him, the earth was hard and cracked with only a few stubborn shrubs daring to grow amongst the dirt and rocks.
By the time he’d found the heron and gotten directions, Nahar had already been gone half a day. He’d run for hours, hoping to catch up. Running became walking. Walking became dragging. At times he thought he caught her scent—the increased humidity should have made it easy. But it was so faint and fleeting, he couldn’t be sure he hadn’t imagined it. Now his legs threatened to collapse like chewed trees, and he stopped to rest again.
The further from the lodge he trekked, the more foolish he felt. Did he really believe a magic human had snatched control of Nahar’s mind? What if she’d only wandered to the other side of the forest, perhaps to help those orphaned gazelles? What if she came home to find him gone?
Aasim had done his best to avoid any sign of animal life for fear of predators, but if the Double-Snatcher was real and anywhere nearby, the animals of the area would surely know.
In the distance, the tops of hills peeked over the horizon. If he pushed himself, he could get there in a few hours. The elevated view would help him scout out an area most likely to have local animal life, and if whoever he found hadn’t heard of the Double-Snatcher, he’d go home.
The idea to turn back ate at him as he dragged himself forward, but what else could he do? He would give his life for Nahar, but what if he died here, chasing a full-moon fable and she was somewhere else, scared and alone? What if every step he took was one step further away from her?
The hills loomed larger, speckled with what looked like rocks. No, not rocks. Tree stumps. Not a single tree remained standing on the hills.
Only one thing in all of nature destroyed a forest in that way.
Aasim ran with renewed energy. He reached a hill the height of four grown trees and wove between its stumps until he crested the top. A tangled mass of human buildings sprawled into view.
And at the base of the hill crouched the beast.
Aasim ducked behind a stump and peered cautiously around it. Traveler’s description had been right, but the beast was even worse than Aasim had imagined. Multiple straight legs angled away unnaturally from the beast’s wide belly. Its hide was the color of bark-stripped trees, and it had no tail or nose. On what he’d assumed was its flank but must have been its face, a row of black, sharp-cornered eyes stared unblinking above a gaping, cavernous mouth with its wide brown tongue protruding to the ground.
Humans bustled beside the beast, their thin colorful skins flapping in the gradually growing wind. Aasim counted six of them, all adding strange human items to growing piles. Human scent mounds, perhaps? To keep the beast from entering the city?
There were animals too—snakes, camels, owls. A pair of lions made the nearby herd of sheep bleat nervously, their collective sound the only one that reached Aasim atop the hill. The lions didn’t look interested however, and as a seventh human appeared from behind the beast, Aasim saw why.
The man was tall with a patch of long gray fur beneath his face, and in his paw was a crooked staff. He pointed it at the lions, then the beast. The humid air grew cold as Aasim watched the lions stroll onto the tongue of the beast and disappear in the abyss of its mouth.
The Double-Snatcher pointed his staff at one of the humans’ growing mounds. Two brown shapes emerged from behind it, their flat wide tails unmistakable even at this distance.
Nahar!
Aasim’s heart leapt to his throat. Nahar headed for the beast with a younger beaver at her side. Aasim darted toward her, but the hill sloped treacherously under his already weak legs. She stepped onto the tongue. His sides heaved with every breath. He wouldn’t reach her in time.
“Nahar!” he cried, his voice still too far to be heard. “Nahar!”
She kept walking up into the waiting mouth of the beast until it swallowed her completely.
Aasim skidded to a stop halfway down the hill. His eyes clamped shut, unable to bear the sight of a world without Nahar.
He had failed her. She and their unborn kits were gone.
He thumped his tail against the earth. He thumped again, harder. He continued thumping until he was railing against the ground as if he could transfer his pain to it. The cold despair within him melted as the heat of his wrath took hold. His eyes snapped open.
He wouldn’t go home. There was no home without Nahar. He had to avenge her and his children that would never be. He would chew through the Double-Snatcher’s staff and destroy the source of his power; no more families would be torn apart this way. Then he would attack the humans. He would bite and scratch as many as he could until he joined Nahar in death.
Aasim resumed his downward path with the focused calm of purpose. The humans continued building their mounds near the mouth of the beast. He’d have to sneak around its backside and attack the Double-Snatcher and his staff from behind.
The Double-Snatcher pointed his staff at the camels, and they plodded toward their doom. As they climbed the tongue, a human exited the mouth and—
Aasim froze. There was an eighth human, and it was in the beast’s mouth. More than that, it had come out of the beast’s mouth. Aasim’s heart threatened to burst from his chest. If it had survived, maybe Nahar had too.
Aasim crept forward, studying the strange beast more intently. It lay so still, it didn’t even seem to breathe.
He gasped. He’d been too far to see it before, but this close, it was obvious. It was no beast with wood-colored skin. It was a lodge. A massive wooden lodge supported not by legs but thick logs braced against the earth. What he’d assumed were eyes must have been ventilation holes.
Its design was impractical. If anything happened to those few supports, the whole structure would topple. He could exploit that weakness and chew through the logs, but Nahar was still inside. He couldn’t risk hurting her.
The last of the animals made their way into the lodge, and the humans began carrying items from their mounds into the lodge as well. The Double-Snatcher laid his staff against a rock and hefted a part of a mound himself. Aasim would still attack the staff first. He couldn’t risk being mind-snatched if he wanted to free Nahar.
He slunk forward, staying hidden behind stumps until he made a dash for the backside of the lodge. He crept under the support logs to the far end of the structure and peered around its corner. The Double-Snatcher’s staff lay abandoned on the rock. Aasim would only have one shot at this.
Once all the humans had their paws full of mound pieces and were facing toward the entrance of the lodge, he ran to the back of the rock and pulled the staff behind it. The rock wasn’t large enough to conceal the full length of the wood, but the staff was no thicker than his paw. It would take less than a minute to weaken it enough to snap. He sank his incisors into the middle of the staff and stripped piece after piece, whittling the wood thinner each time.
A chittering human approached the rock. It must have spotted the staff’s exposed end, which jostled as he worked. Aasim bit the middle one last time, then bent back one end of the staff with his paws while his tail held down the other.
The staff splintered with a satisfying crack, and the human squealed as it finally spotted him.
Aasim dodged between the human and the rock and ran for the lodge entrance. Chittering erupted among the other humans as he wove between them, pushing his tired muscles to their limits. On the ramp, he startled one human so much it fell, spilling everything it had carried. The human guarding the lodge’s entrance ran to help, and Aasim scurried past it into the darkness.
A menagerie of smells overwhelmed him. Every animal he’d ever known and plenty he’d never fathomed stared at him from behind wood-barred walls, each trapped in their own small chamber. They brayed, roared, and bellowed as he ran past, screaming Nahar’s name.
“Aasim!” Nahar’s voice trilled with relief.
He bounded towards the far end of the lodge where her tiny paws reached between the wooden branches caging her in and skidded to a stop when he reached her. The young male beaver behind her must’ve been Berosh.
“Don’t worry. You’re safe now.” He bit through four thin branches with one bite each and reached inside for Nahar.
She didn’t move.
“We’re supposed to be here, Aasim.”
She didn’t seem the least bit afraid, which terrified him. He’d destroyed the staff. It should have destroyed the power controlling her.
“That’s what the Double-Snatcher made you believe,” he said.
“It wasn’t the Double-Snatcher.” Nahar took his paw in hers, and a peaceful smile washed over her. “It was Kastor and Ramad.”
They’d rarely spoken of their children since the attack, and the sound of their names stripped him from the inside out. He had to force the words out of a hollow space deep within. “Kastor and Ramad are dead.”
“I know. Their spirits came to me.” Her continued smile hurt him even more than speaking their names had. “They told me they were alright but danger was coming for us, and I needed to follow them right away. I wanted to wait for you, but they promised you’d follow. They led me here and told me I could trust the humans. And they were right. The humans didn’t hurt us.”
A group of humans entered the lodge, and Aasim ducked into Nahar’s chamber. He lowered his voice. “You only saw what the Double-Snatcher wanted you to see. That’s what happens when you’re mind-snatched, Nahar. Maybe they haven’t hurt you yet, but look around.” He gripped one of the remaining branches of the cage wall. “It’s a trap.”
“It was really them,” she said. “I felt so much peace.”
“If it was really them, why wouldn’t they appear to me, too?”
She cocked her head, looking confused. “They didn’t?”
“No.”
For the first time, he seemed to have broken through her delusion. She scanned the cage around her, and it looked like she was finally seeing reason. When her eyes met his, they held a calm resolve. “I don’t know why they didn’t visit you, but I do know you came.” She squeezed his paw. “Just like they said.”
He pulled his paw free. “I didn’t come because they said something. I came because you’re in danger. Because after frantically scouring the river for clues, I learned that he”—he pointed to Berosh—“had also disappeared, and I feared the heron had been right.”
“My grandmother’s spirit came to me,” Berosh said. “She told me to follow her right away because my future family needed me more than my current one. She promised my parents would be okay.”
“They’re not okay!” Aasim said. “They’re weeping and searching and worried out of their fur.”
He poked his head through the cage opening. The humans were rebuilding their mounds in the center of the lodge. He turned back to Nahar and Berosh. “The humans only have a few more loads to carry before their mounds are fully transferred. We have to go now, while they still have their paws full. It’s our best chance of escape.”
“I know what I saw.” Nahar retreated to the far corner of the chamber and lay down beside Berosh. “I’m not leaving. This is where the kits and I will be safe.”
The ground beneath Aasim threatened to tear away like their roof in the storm. He’d come all this way, and she wouldn’t let him save her.
“Please, Nahar,” he begged. “None of it was real.”
“You said the same about the Double-Snatcher.”
“That’s not the same.”
“Why not?”
Human chittering blended into the cacophony of animal sounds. Aasim checked the entrance. All eight humans were inside, and only some carried items. The mounds were fully transferred.
They had to run. Now. His tail thumped on the floor faster and faster. How could he get her to see the truth?
Gentle pressure stilled his tail. Nahar stood beside him. She reached up and smoothed the fur on his cheek. “I would never want you to feel trapped.” She looked at the open door, then back at him. “It’s okay if you need to go.”
He didn’t know what the humans had planned, but he knew he’d keep her and the kits safe or die trying. He stared at their one chance of escape, not moving as two humans hauled the long wooden ramp into the lodge. The meager light of the outside world was slowly eclipsed by the closing doors until the lodge was lit solely by the dim bars of gray sneaking in through the ventilation holes above.
Nahar squeezed his paw, her voice hopeful. “You believe me then?”
“No.” He turned to her. “But that doesn’t mean I won’t stay.”
She rested her head against him, and he held her close while the humans secured a log across the door. Sharp pings attacked the roof, and every creature in the lodge fell silent as the pings swelled into a thundering roar that flooded the air.
The rain had begun.
W. O. Hemsath is a four-time Mormon Lit Blitz finalist with a degree in screenwriting, nine short stories published in ten anthologies, and an LDS doctrinal non-fiction book releasing in 2024. She loves writing stories with a touch of magic, aliens, or anything supernatural. She recently moved to Utah with her husband and four sons. You can learn more about her and her writing at whitneyhemsath.wordpress.com, or follow her on Twitter or Facebook.
