InsaneJournal

Wolves and Woods and Graves, Oh My
WHO: Gwyn, Open
WHERE: The Woods and the Newly Found Graveyard
WHEN: Early Morning

The previous night had been, in a word... interesting. Between the general sleeplessness that usually came from being in a new place and the huge ruddy wolves pacing the town throughout the night, well, Gwyn hadn't gotten much rest. She wasn't sure if those animals could be called wolves, though. She had glimpsed one from her window after being startled awake by what she could only assume was one of their howls. Mad creatures, really.

What boggled her even more was their black coats. As she laid there, staring at the ceiling, her hands gripping the sheets around her and listening hard at the scrape of the animals' claws against walkways, she recalled a half-remembered lecture from an early natural history class. Black wolves were only indigenous in North America. Could that possibly mean she'd been transported across the Pond? If it was true, then Colin was a lot closer to home than he could have suspected. (If he suspected at all. Honestly, the poor bloke was so full of worry and concern it had been difficult to leave him the evening before. She hated to see him so, well, ...so.)

Only the promise of a trek through the nearby forest helped to get her out of bed that morning. Not sleeping very well usually put her off food the next day, but she managed a bit of toast and fruit before grabbing a couple of water bottles and stuffing them into her now-empty, but favourite backpack. Finding it in the closet the evening before had been an unexpected, yet welcome surprise. Stepping out into the picturesque, island town, she took in a lungful of the slightly cool morning air. It helped wake her up a little bit more, but it was the solace of the woods she needed.

With her watch gone, it became easy to lose track of the time, especially when she couldn't track the sun's place in the sky half the time. The minutes and hours seemed to melt into nothing, however, when she was away from it all. She couldn't say how much later it was when she discovered the old graveyard. It was so unexpected that she almost didn't believe it was really there at first. A single touch (and a sharp splinter) to the old wooden markers, however, proved that it wasn't an illusion. Gwyn sucked in a breath as the pain from so tiny a thing throbbed through the tip of her index finger. "Bother," she muttered as she started to try digging it out with one of her stubby nails. "Couldn't have my first-aid kit with me, yeah? What I wouldn' give fer a set o' ruddy tweezers."

The little blighter was pretty deep, and trying with just her nails was getting nowhere, so she abandoned it and tried to focus instead on the grave markers. They were so odd, out of place- and old. At least they looked old. There were no dates on any one of them, though. She wasn't sure how she missed it, but she was further caught off-guard by the burned down church building further into the field of graves. No, not caught off-guard: unnerved. Gwyn crossed herself and uttered a little prayer. What could have happened in this place? The hackles rose on the back of her neck. Who or what could have burned down a Holy Place?