Bayou Shadow Protector. Debbie Herbert

which he had weighted down with rocks. His eyes adjusted to the night’s dark veil, so he probably didn’t need the flashlight, but it never hurt to be prepared. The rocks were for any stray will-o’-the-wisps.

      Strapping the backpack across his broad shoulders, he approached the woods. He’d first glimpsed April by the massive oak. The tree had a sharp bend in the trunk, courtesy of Hurricane Katrina years earlier.

      The scent of violets and moss teased his nose, the same scent that April bore, one that niggled at his memory. Broken twigs and pine needles marked the ground and he followed the trail.

      She’d stayed close to one of the many narrow footpaths that veined the forest and her direction had been true. Never once had she strayed down a different path, or circled back to the one that led to the road and his home. Interesting. You would think somebody new to the area, and supposedly lost, would have strayed at least once, taken a circuitous path or explored a way to exit the woods.

      Deeper and deeper, Chulah journeyed to the dark, quiet interior of the bayou forest. Strange that April chose to walk a path so far removed from civilization. An uneasy prickle lifted the hairs on his arms. The scent of violets grew sharper and the trail abruptly ended at the base of an ancient cypress where a large patch of wild violets bloomed—totally out of season. They were spring flowers blossoming in the heart of autumn. Chulah turned from that mystery to another, more pressing question.

      Where had April gone from here?

      That same April who knew of the bayou’s secret, of its evil spirits, who knew things about him she had no logical way of knowing. Whose tracks stopped in the middle of the woods, in a spot that festered with some strange magick he’d never seen. Something was afoot, something he’d never encountered before in all his years of hunting shadows.

      He didn’t believe in coincidence. This place and that woman were connected. Tomorrow he would visit April and demand an explanation. Had she kissed him to distract his attention from her loose tongue? If so, it wouldn’t happen again.

      Eerie silence enveloped him like a wool blanket. That was what was different. Not what was there, but the absence of what should be there—no insect droning, no underbrush rattles from small animals, no hooting of owls or even the sound of the sea breeze in the treetops. Only silence.

      Baffled, Chulah raised his arms, allowing his senses to become totally immersed in the night, seeking out any sign of hidden shadows that secreted the bayou. The sensing was passed down from his Choctaw ancestors, a special line of descendants gifted to detect the evil shadow world. The shadow creatures considered humans intruders and sought to either drive them out or control the ones who stayed.

      His family had chosen to stay. And to fight.

      They had lived in this south Alabama swampland for hundreds of years, as far back as anyone could remember. Surely they had been here since the beginning of time—same as the shadow beings who didn’t want to share the land. Not only that, they wanted to dominate every creature—human, animal and supernatural—that roamed the bayou.

      Chulah sent a prayer to his ancestors for guidance. The silence continued, but Chulah’s feet directed him to a distance of about ten yards from the tree where April’s trail stopped. He looked down. On the side of his right foot, fallen leaves blew and rustled. On his left side, all was still and silent.

      Odd.

      He followed the divided, splintered land, walking a circle with the cypress tree at its center. Inside the circle, all was silent. Outside the circle, all was normal. Chulah rubbed his chin, puzzling out this new development. Was it possible there was some new manner of creature that he and his fellow hunters had never before witnessed?

      Quietly, he withdrew two large rocks and held each in the palms of his hands, ready for attack. He again walked the circle’s perimeter, yet found but one set of April’s footprints where she had walked from the tree to the road.

      It didn’t make sense. Something was off.

      Chulah halted, allowing the darkness to completely mask him from moonlight, drawing layers of the night’s shadow to wrap around his body.

      And waited.

      His patience was as still as the live oaks that encircled and filled the forest, living sentinels that discouraged most humans from entering deep, and contained the shadows within. A boundary between civilization and the primitive, mysterious evil that had been present since the beginning of time.

      As a shadow hunter, he lived in between the two worlds, not fully belonging to either. On full-moon nights, his soul ached to be in the bayou backwoods, a part of the shadows born to shelter mankind from the old spirits who meant them harm and who longed to escape the forest’s boundaries.

      He continued his watch, attentive to every sound and smell and movement. A gray fox, his namesake, stopped its lonesome prowling and stared at him solemnly before padding away on silent paws. The wily creatures never failed to greet him on his solitary vigils. When he was born, his father had entered the woods and waited for a sign on what to name his son. A fox had wandered close and stared. His father named him Chulah, Choctaw for fox, to honor his son’s appointed animal guide.

      An orange glow, the color of citrine lit from within, shone in the distance, a candle in the dark. It wasn’t the blue glow of a wisp with a green, throbbing heart at its center. It wasn’t swamp gas. And it wasn’t a flashlight beam of a fellow hunter. This was something altogether new, the likes of which he’d never observed in all his years of hunting.

      It skittered closer, its glow elongated and emitting sparkling cascades of light. He sensed no mischief or ill intent, but then again, shadow beings often cloaked their evil with a display of beauty and purity.

      The violet scent intensified and the patch of improbably late-blooming flowers opened their petals and multiplied their blooms. As the orange light drew closer, the violets hummed and shimmered with a fluorescent aura.

      The orange luminescence glided to within twenty yards. The closer it came, the more details appeared. Over five feet in height with a thin columnar shape, extensions from the main body occasionally moved like limbs. Although the predominant color was orange, there were also pinks and purples and blues and greens.

      Chulah squinted his eyes. Were those wings protruding from its back? Could this be some kind of giant, magical insect? Or some creature that feasted on the strange violets that now tinkled with the clean, pure notes of a bell?

      Excitement and wonder stirred deep within Chulah. Still, his hands fisted over the rock he held in one hand and a dagger in another. Just in case this was some wisp mutation sent to trick. He knew better than anyone that the swamp held deep, dark secrets. He had lost two hours of his life here one day, two precious hours that had meant the difference between life and death for his father.

      Just because something was beautiful didn’t mean it wasn’t deadly.

      The creature stilled, as if realizing it was being observed. In a blink, the light extinguished. Darkness thickened and the flower blooms wilted and died, withdrawing their scent.

      The dead flowers bothered him more than the strange creature. Nature’s time cycle had warped. How long had he been out here? Had he lost time again, perhaps more than a mere two hours? Chulah scrubbed his face. Tried to rub out the questions that left him disoriented and queasy.

      Stumbling, he turned away and ran, clumsy with dread and déjà vu. Crazy, man. You’ve lost it again. Crazy, crazy, crazy. He longed for his cabin, longed to know that no time had mysteriously disappeared and that no one was hurt or dying.

      It’s happening again, just like before.

      No! If someone else died because of him... No, he wouldn’t think of it. His blood roared in his ears, combining with the sound of his own strangled breathing. A symphony of terror. It drowned all other noise, as if he were alone in his own private hell.

      Thorns sliced at his legs and arms and he welcomed the pain that kept him grounded to the land and reality.

      Chulah broke into the