Fairy Circle by Johanna Frappier Read Free Book Online

She could stroll past him, but getting past her mother would be a different thing altogether. Audrey didn’t like it when Saffron “loitered” in the woods. But Audrey usually painted late and slept late. Saffron and Derek were the early birds who had enough respect for each other to ignore each other.
    She used her butt to back out of the screaming screen door and was just letting it back in its jamb when her mother’s voice rang out, clear and concerned, on the still morning air.
    “ Saffron, what on earth are you doing? It can’t be more than five-thirty yet!”
    Saffron stood motionless, the door still in her hand. Did her freakin’ mother ever sleep? She stared at the chipping paint on the side of the house and wondered again why her mother didn’t get vinyl siding. They were forever scraping, priming, painting. In any given year, one side was done and another part was ready to be to be done over.
    Audrey frowned. “Do you have to….“
    “‘ Loiter in the woods now? Yes, Mom, I have to loiter in the woods now. It’s called being a naturalist.” Saffron raised her eyebrows and hitched up the corners of her lips.
    “ In your case it’s called ‘avoiding’.”
    Her mother’s words were a slap. Saffron reacted physically, snapped her head back and opened her mouth in protest, but remained silent. Her cheeks and neck flushed scarlet.
    Derek’s bushy, auburn hair came into view from down behind Saffron’s mother; his curls sparkled shower-fresh. He was kneeling, picking through the herb garden with one hand, clutching a mug in his other paw.
    “ I mean really, Saffron, what’s the rush? You need to get some sleep!” Audrey stood erect, weeds choked in her grip. “And stand up straight, you look like a used-up hippie. Did you comb your hair?”
    Saffron straightened. Her teeth clenched beneath her pale cheeks. Who was Audrey calling a hippie? She reached down for the wide basket that her mother used to collect weeds. “You know what? We don’t need to have this argument. I’ll give myself a goal. Lemme fill this basket with blackberries.” Saffron’s last word came out at a higher pitch, almost shrill, as if she was trying to gather the attention of a deaf cocker spaniel.
    Audrey began to drill her pointer finger into her temple.
    Saffron backed away. When Audrey didn’t say more, Saffron took off running for the trees, the hem of her nightdress gathering and getting caught up between her legs as they churned. She escaped the trim yard successfully and ran through the wild tangle of brush that fringed the forest. She picked up her knees to avoid tripping in the mess of white daisies and purple vetch, as grasshoppers leaped from the frill of Queen Anne’s lace. She ran beneath the pines, the ground carpeted in brown needles, smooth and stretching out for miles along the rocky, and wooded shoreline. She passed the boulder shaped like a pumpkin, skirted the giant half-pine whose top was skimmed off by lightning in a long-ago storm, then slowed to a walk. She was almost there - a small clearing by the cliff where light shone down and cast a pool of forest floor in dusty gold. On the far side of the clearing was a prickly, green mess of wild blackberry bushes not completely ravished by little squirrel hands, skunk lips, or greedy beaks. Beyond the blackberry bushes a line of mushrooms disappeared into the thicket.
    Saffron sighed.
    Opening her backpack and reaching deep, she pulled out a bottle of bug spray. She anointed herself and the surrounding area with the poison. It was a strong brew, able to ward off most bloodsuckers, including the evil deer fly.
    Next, she pulled out an old green tablecloth. Its weave had been worked in various directions so that the end result was a series of vines that shone faintly as it was moved around in the diffused sunlight. She shook it and lifted it high, guiding it as it fluttered to the forest floor. She lay down and stared at the sky, feeling like the Lady of