The Log House by Baylea Hart

Hello lovely people!!!!

Please enjoy this amazingly exciting extract from the Log House!!!! Thank you to the author and Anne cater!!

Be aware! You will fall in love!!!!

Penny realised her mistake as soon as her foot hit the ground, but by that time the second foot was already in motion, and then it was too late to turn back.

She was never going to be able to run in this forest. The very branches themselves seemed to work against her, grabbing at her clothes with spindly, crooked fingers.

She hopped over brambles high enough they scratched at her cheek. Pushed her way through grass that grazed her bare shins.

She didn’t know which direction to head towards –the darkness of the forest was just as deadly as the alluring sparkle of the river. Just get away from the noise, said the voice in her head. Nothing else matters.

She didn’t care about losing sight of the river; that was a problem for later. What she cared about was the faint rustling behind her, getting ever closer and faster as the forest grew darker.

She did not look around to see what it was. She didn’t need to.

Penny’s breath caught in her chest, and she gasped noisily for air. Her feet thumped against the ground. A regular rhythm. Like the knocking of a door.

The beating of her heart.

A scream in the darkness.

She was being too loud.

It would hear her.

Damn it, run faster.

To her right, through a thistle bush, she could see a crooked tree, limbs bowed low enough she might be able to reach them.

Penny swerved towards it and pushed through the painful plant as it scratched her skin. She was bleeding, and the droplets ran down her arms as she wrapped them around a low branch and pulled herself up into the tree.

Her feet scrambled against bark, toes stretched and searching. She managed to rest one foot on the trunk for a fraction of a second before it slipped, catching a sharp, snapped branch on its way down.

Penny bit down on her tongue to stop herself from crying and reached up to the branch once again. She pulled, her arms quivering. Her toes brushed against a small knot on the trunk, just wide enough to balance herself.

She paused, took a breath, and reached for the next branch. Then the next. Up and up, Penny climbed much higher than seemed safe, and then further still. When the trunk started to sway beneath her weight, she wrapped her legs and arms around it.

She closed her eyes.

Breathed.

For a moment, Penny thought she had escaped. Had she overreacted? Perhaps the woods were safe now, after all these years. Perhaps it hadn’t heard her. Hadn’t followed.

And then came the silence.

Every animal and every bird. Every insect, every leaf on every tree, even the wind itself – it all fell still.

Watch for the silence, said the voice in her head. It’s the only warning you’ll get.

A small bead of sweat trickled down Penny’s back, curling around to her waist. She could smell earth and bark.

The tree swayed. Back and forth.

Penny tried to focus on her breath but the more she did, the more it caught in her chest. Her body throbbed in fear and pain as she tried harder and harder to force the air into her lungs.

She was being too loud. Moving too much. It would hear. It would see. It would find her.

There was a shuffle of leaves and a snap of a twig below. Penny drew herself closer to the trunk, hoping to sink inside it. Sharp edges of bark dug into her skin.

Another snap. Then a long, slow, deliberate scraping noise. A horrible scratching with such strength behind it that the tree shivered beneath her. Penny bit her lip, tearing at the skin until she could taste blood on her tongue.

A sound from below, like a sigh, broken and distorted.

‘Haaaaa.’

Her world shattered. Not that noise. Not again. She couldn’t hear it again. Doors slammed behind her closed eyes. A man screamed. She trembled. Mary’s voice, full of regret. Mary. Penny dug her nails into the tree bark and furrowed her brow.

Mary had put her through this. Mary had done this to her. Mary had forced her into her nightmares and locked the door. Mary had done it all.

Get up, brush off, move on.

Penny’s breath became even. Her heartbeat slowed.

She listened as the thing below her finished its scratching, and remained still as the shuffling grew quieter. She did not move, even when she stopped hearing the shuffling entirely. Only when the birds began to sing, and the breeze raked itself through her hair, did she unwrap herself from the tree and slide down to the ground.

She dropped herself from a branch and landed with all her weight on her feet. Her legs were stiff, and her left foot throbbed from the impact of the ground, sending pain radiating through her leg. Penny sank to the floor, clutching her foot and pulling it towards her.

She was bleeding. Heavily.

She looked over her shoulder, into the trees. It was safe, but it wouldn’t be for long. Wincing, she tried to clean the wound but her hands left more dirt than they removed. She tried to tear part of her shirt but the fabric wouldn’t give.

She swore under her breath and pulled her shirt over her head. Penny shivered against the wind and began to wipe at the blood and dirt, cleaning her foot as best as she could. She wrapped the wet shirt around her wound, tying it together with the sleeves.

She breathed, slow and steady, and pushed herself up. The lumpy bandage made it difficult to stand, but it was better than bleeding all over the floor. Those monsters weren’t the only things in the forest capable of killing her, after all.

Exhausted, Penny leaned back against the tree trunk, pushing her hair out of her face. A single wet strand flopped back against her forehead, dripping onto her nose. Her stomach cramped and she winced, pressing her hands into her stomach as if to calm it.

Across her skin were the harsh pink scars that had remained after her pregnancy. The miracle pregnancy, they had called it. The first child to be born in twenty-seven years, and the very first boy to be born at all. The first… unaltered boy, anyway.

Penny stroked the lines with a gentle touch. Her child, her son, was back at the house. No doubt Mary was already digging her claws into him, just like she had always wanted. Penny had seen the hunger in her eyes, though couldn’t have said what it meant until now. She had seen it every time she walked with her son hand and hand, every time they sat down for meals together. Not to mention the incident that day by the river that still sent waves of rage pulsing through her even now.

Penny was his mother. He was hers. And she was not about to let Mary take him from her too. She would make sure of it.

She pushed her back against the tree, using it to propel herself forward, but as she moved her hair became caught in a crevice of the trunk. Her eyes watered as her hair threatened to tear from her scalp, and Penny’s hand shot up to stop it from pulling.

She turned to free herself and the strands of hair in her hand fell from her grasp. Penny stared at the tree in horror. Carved into the trunk as if it were butter, were four long scratch marks, each line as deep as the length of a finger. A child’s finger.

Penny stumbled backward. Her hair ripped and broke away from her scalp. She didn’t notice. Instead, she turned her back to the tree and limped away without a second thought. She didn’t want to be in this place any longer.

She did not look back.