The most important thing in a hunt was patience.

  That was something that I had learned a long time ago, and something that I had begun to implement an embarrassingly long time after that. It was for the sake of patience that I had been camped in the brush for the last hour with no sign of a break. The expectation for many when they think of a patient hunter is typically a shirtless man, spear held aloft as he prepared to pierce the hide of a bear, or maybe some other large predatory beast. The reality, at least for me, was instead a village girl staring at a rabbit trap for far too long in the brisk autumn winds.

  Don’t get me wrong, I had hunted larger animals. Any time the larger predators in the area got too confident or something happened deeper in the forest to drive them away from their territories, somebody had to deal with them. My late mentor Gabriel had called it ‘putting the fear of mankind in them’, and for all I thought that was a bit dramatic, I couldn’t really disagree. The point was, I was capable of hunting the larger animals in the forest, although capable and confident were two different things.

  That said, most of the time it was a lot more like this. Small game lacked the glory of a bear, but it tasted just as good. Not that I would be tasting these ones, but still. So it was that I found myself sat as still as I could manage, tucked out of sight as I slowly lost focus, although I never let my attention drift completely. It was a little frustrating when the smallest movements would break my train of thought, but it would be more frustrating to miss my quarry. Thankfully, I didn’t have too much riding on this particular animal. I had several other traps to check in a few hours, but I hadn’t felt like heading back to the village just to leave again, and I had wanted to do something productive.

  Technically productive, anyway. The trap would be just as effective no matter where I was, but if I was here to collect I could make sure nothing broke into the trap for the free meal. I could also use this trap as an indicator for when to collect the others, although this was far from a science. Overall, I would probably be best leaving them over night, but for all my talk about patience I wasn’t quite a model practitioner. Do as I say and not as I do, or whatever.

  I was alerted to movement in the forest by the rustling of leaves, too short and sudden to have been caused by wind. Sure enough, when I looked over to my trap I saw a rabbit sniffing about. I watched, my body still and my breathing steady, as the rabbit slowly snuffled around the miniature clearing. I watched as it approached the trap with innocent curiosity, abandoning its search to stare longingly at the scented vegetables that I had placed in the centre of the trap. I watched as the rabbit moved slowly towards its meal, and grinned as the trap sprung.

  “Gotcha,” I cheered under my breath.

  A moment of confusion later, the rabbit was trapped inside a wooden cage. These new traps were incredible. They had been thought up by one of the woodworkers in the village, and I couldn’t even pretend to understand how they worked. What I did know was that they could spring up in moments to form a cage, one that would take a rabbit time to gnaw through to escape. I sprung from my hiding place, spooking the already shaken rabbit as I grabbed the cage by the little handhold in the top and hefted the it. I then set off in the direction of the nearest of my other four traps.

  My sense of direction wasn’t flawless, but it was plenty workable, and I knew this forest like the back of my hand. Even so, I helped myself out a little by making a small mark on a tree in the direction of the next nearest trap whenever I did something like this. Even with how much time I spent in these woods, it was still easy to get lost, especially since it would probably be evening at least by the time I got back.

  About half an hour later, I reached the nearest trap only to be met with disappointment. This trap was untouched. I had expected this to happen, I had prepared myself for all of the traps to be empty. It still stung, though. I collected the trap, which folded up and fit into the leather bag I had slung over my back. Moving on, I realised that I had underestimated the time, and that it was likely to be dark by the time I got home. I sped up a little, although not enough to make any foolish movements.

  The next two traps ended up successes, although the final one must have failed to trip, since the bait was missing. That was fine, three was plenty. Normally I couldn’t help but feel slightly guilty whenever I hunted rabbits, because they were far too cute to eat. Today my heart was light, however. These rabbits would not be food, although they didn’t know that.

  The walk back to the village was fairly uneventful, if tiring. Carrying three cages was just uncomfortable enough to bother me as I walked, although it was far better than usual, since the cages these traps made were far more snug than the ones I used to use. I had been correct that it was just about dark by the time I reached the edge of the woodland, so I wanted to hurry home.

  Stolen from its rightful author, this tale is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

  A few minutes before I exited the treeline, I spotted a deer. I didn’t get to stare long, because it also spotted me and promptly bolted, but the encounter had me thinking. Some deer didn’t shy away from the village, but that had looked like one of the larger ones from deeper in the forest. I couldn’t help but wonder if any predators had followed it out here.

  With those thoughts on my mind, I broke through the trees and made for home. Vernal wasn’t exactly huge, but it was also the only settlement I new of for quite the ways in any direction, which made it stand out plenty. Me and my mum lived on the outskirts, although we weren’t the furthest house. I was pretty happy about that, since it meant that I didn’t need to wander through the entire town before making it home.

  The village was pretty quiet, since most people that were still awake were in their own homes by now. This meant that I didn’t get bothered as I walked back home. Once I reached our house, I place the cages on the floor and knocked four times, all in quick succession except the last. It was a simple thing, but it was nice to know for whoever was in the house at the time whether or not one of us was coming in or if it was someone else.

  “Come in!” I heard my mum call out, so I pushed the door open before picking up the rabbits again. Shuffling into the building, I kicked the door behind me shut again before striding across the room to place the cages onto the floor next to my bed. This room was both our communal room and my bedroom, since our house wasn’t too big. My bed was in the far corner from the door, along with a small night stand. Further in were a couple of chairs, which were both facing the hearth that was built into one wall. The hearth was big enough to house a cooking pot, which my mother was currently standing over.

  My mother was a short woman, her greying hair and kind eyes giving her a nurturing presence. She had the stout figure of someone who had lived her life in one place, which suited her perfectly. She was a seamstress, and she made a lot of the clothing for the village. She wasn’t the only one, of course, but I liked to think that she was the best. I knew from experience that her clothing lasted longer than it had any right to. In my seventeen years of life, I had never had any of her clothes break in a way that I couldn’t be blamed for.

  She had tried to teach me to weave, but although I was capable of it I couldn’t imagine doing it day in and day out. She had clearly realised this early, because by my early teens she had given in to my pleading and allowed me to take up some more active vocations. That didn’t mean she had given up teaching me, only that our lessons were less frequent and direct than if I were taking over for her some day. I did my best to learn, because she was sharing with me the thing she loved, and it seemed crass to not take it seriously.

  “Hi, honey, good day? I haven’t seen you since this morning.” She said that with a small frown, although I could see from her eyes that she was being playful. At first, Mum had disliked how much time I spent out of the house, but something about my attitude must have improved when I started spending the days in the woods, because she quickly came around to it. Even if she took the chance to tease me about it when she could.

  “Yep. Got enough for tomorrow, anyway. The kids should be happy.” I was a little anxious about tomorrow, just like I always was when the Festival rolled around. I knew it would be fine though, so I tried not to focus on it.

  “That’s good. You know that your displays are always so popular, especially with the little ones.” As always, Mum could read me like a book.

  “Yeah, I know.” I sighed. “It’s just hard, you know? Being around everyone.” Ever since I was young I had been treated a little poorly by the majority of the village, although I had never been able to get a straight answer out of anyone as to why. The best I got was that some people thought I was ‘off’, which was less than helpful.

  “I know, sweetheart. Still, you’ll have Cassie there, won’t you?”

  Once again, my mother knew just what to say to get my mood up. Cassie was my best friend, initially because she had been my only friend. Over the years she and I had just clicked, and I always ended up feeling better about things when she was with me. She also had a tendency to make me more adventurous, since she had so much more energy than I ever did. I couldn’t help but smile gently as I thought over some of the minor adventures we had been on, and the grin on her face when we found something new, or went further from the Vernal than last time.

  “True. This was her idea, after all.” That was true, at least the first time we did it. It had been my idea to keep going, seeing how excited the kids had been and how much Cassie had enjoyed setting the whole thing up. She had always had a theatrical streak, so Fate himself may as well have ordained that she would end up doing something for the Festival.

  “Anyway, dinner’s almost ready. You promise me that you’ll get some rest for me tonight, okay? You have a big day tomorrow.” I did my very best not to roll my eyes, a feat I couldn’t quite manage. I was only human, after all. She could be a little too concerned at times, although it wasn’t like she was wrong. I knew I would be exhausted tomorrow no matter what, so it would be best to get as much energy as possible.

  Dinner was nice, a small affair of idle chatter and warm broth to calm my ever increasing nerves over the coming day. Before I knew it, I was getting ready for bed, leaving some food for each rabbit as I did so. They were going to have a busy day tomorrow too, although I had an inkling that they would enjoy themselves almost as much as the village kids. It wasn’t long before I was drifting off, dreaming of nothing as I floated away into a restful slumber.