Chapter 1: Rowan

There were a lot of things people could say about Rowan Robertson. She was kind-hearted and had a great sense of humor. They could call her a hard worker and loyal to a fault. She could even be accused of being spacey occasionally. But there was a great reason for that. It’s hard to be completely focused on someone or something when she had a million things talking to her at once.

Yes, people could say a lot of things about Rowan. But one thing they could never say, she hoped at least, was that she was dumb.

“But this… this was dumb, Rowan,” she told herself out loud as she moved through the house.

When she’d run away from her entire life, she figured renting a cheap house in the middle of a dense forest in a town no one had heard had been a good idea. However, now as she looked around at the run-down two-bedroom house, she wondered if she had lost her mind.

House, she scoffed as she looked around. This place could barely be called a house. It was more like a shack, and she didn’t say that lightly or because she had never lived in a house smaller than a four-bedroom, three-bath house. No, she might have been a rich socialite most of her life, but she knew a shack when she saw one.

This place was filled to the brim with dust, dirt, old and new cobwebs. Several of the windows were just gone, leaving the area in its reach weather damaged and needed to be replaced.

“Maybe I can get away with just throwing down a rug. No one would ever know,” Rowan murmured as she turned away from the living room.

There was furniture at least! She thought, trying to look on the bright side. But thankfully, there was no electricity for her to see the state of that furniture.

Rowan walked into the kitchen and set a few things down on the small dining room table. Using the light from her cheap smartphone, she quickly made herself up a peanut butter and jelly sandwich.

As Rowan ate, she patted herself on the back for her forward-thinking before she made it here. Otherwise, it was possible that she would have gone hungry. She had no idea how to cook, and without electricity, there was no way she could use the stove.

Rowan took her sandwich outside to look over the property that came with the house. It wasn’t a lot and was mostly filled with weeds. But for a little while, it was where she would call home.

Despite all of the house and yard's faults, she was grateful to them both and to the landlord that let her get in on strictly cash payment and the promise she wasn’t crazy.

Mostly she was grateful to have gotten away before anyone had a chance to stop her… or worse. It could have been worse; much, much worse if she hadn’t gotten away before her fiancée had found out what she had done.

But now it was over, and all she had left to her name were her clothes and a file folder of papers that may or may not guarantee her freedom. At least that’s what she and Mr. Mousekins were hoping.

Rowan quickly finished her sandwich and began to pull the few things that she had inside, and managed to find the master bedroom.

Once she dropped off her boxes, she was still too antsy to lay down to get some sleep. She walked the house again and made a mental list of things she would need to fix.

But soon found herself back outside.

After the heart-to-heart with Mr. Mousekins that had started this whole mess, Rowan swore off dabbling in her deepest, darkest secret.

Very little good ever came from her “gift”. Her current predicament was proof of that. With a sigh, she sat down on the front steps and tried to keep her mind closed to the animals close by. She really should have actually thought about being out in the wilderness. The rural areas were where most animals were, and she would have a hard time ignoring them.

However, if she were honest with herself, she really didn’t want to tune them out. Despite some of the obvious downfalls, she loved talking to animals. Most of them were sweet and adorably curious. Then when they found out she could understand them, most were so excited they tended to follow her around.

Not to mention, the animals were honest; so incredibly honest. It was a very rare trait that not enough people had.

Rowan lived her busy, socialite lifestyle like she was having the time of her life. But she had always preferred animals to people.

Craving the simple pleasures of the animals, Rowan broke her promise easily and opened herself up to them. Her field was filled with mice hiding away from the cold and nighttime predators that could easily spot them. Above them in the sky was one of those predators circling, fantasizing about catching their dinner. Rowan quickly closed that one out. Animals never really understood humans dislike the basic needs of a FRESH meal. It was not a fight that she wanted to have.

She let the sounds of the animals fill her and calm her without calling them to her. She relaxed enough that she was almost asleep until she heard a loud cry of warning and caught the image of a predator in one of the animal’s minds.

But this wasn’t just any predator; it was the kind that even scared the owl that was hunting for the night.

Rowan knew she should have been scared, but she rarely met an animal that would harm her once they realized she could understand them. She looked up, and her eyes easily spotted the animal that had quieted her yard.

Just in front of the tree line was a huge dog. No… not a dog… Rowan realized with a sense of awe. It was a wolf. A large, beautiful, majestic wolf was staring right at her as if it could see into her soul.

Unable to help herself, Rowan reached out to try and read its thoughts. She didn’t want to communicate with him. He was a wild animal and didn’t need to learn that humans were safe. But she definitely wanted to know what it was thinking about and what it thought of her as a human.

But for the first time in her life, there was nothing there. It was like she ran into a roadblock and couldn't get past it. She tried a few more times until the wolf turned around and raced off into the forest.

Rowan just stared in confusion. What had just happened? She had never come across an animal that she couldn’t communicate with. There were a few animals that didn’t really communicate in words. But even with those animals, Rowan would still catch impressions or even images.

Rowan sat back down on the steps and leaned against the railing as she contemplated the animal. Pretty quickly, now that the wolf was gone, the other animals returned, and her relaxation with them.

She closed her eyes and just drifted away, imagining she was running through the woods like the wolf. Happy and free.