The path home felt longer than usual, though my legs knew every twist and turn by memory. Twilight pooled in the low hollows and turned the ferns into black lace. I shifted the scarf wrapped egg against my chest and took sure steps. Each time the bundle bumped my heartbeat quickened, half afraid I would feel it crack in my arms.
I told myself not to look back. The clearing of smoke and shattered shells would still be there in the morning, a scar in the woods to last a long time. Still, each rustle in the undergrowth tugged at my ears, and I caught myself listening for heavy boots... for the scrape of a bow across leather. Only the small hush of night creatures returned - a frog's low croak and the shrill cry of a waking cricket. The forest, speculative, was finding its voice again.
When the trees thinned and the first glimmer of my campfire winked through the trunks, the tension in my shoulders eased up slowly. My home was no house, not really, more of a stubborn compromise with the wild I was living in. Years ago I had pitched a heavy winter canvas tent beside the old cedar stumps, and over time I had stitched the woods into its frame - roughly cut planks propped up as walls, pine sap caulked seams, and a lean-to of cedar slats that caught the rain before it could sink the roof. In summer it smelled like a sun-warmed canvas; in winter, of smoke and pine. Tonight the firelight gilded the edges of the wooden roof like a lantern halo.
I ducked inside. The tent's interior welcomed me with the familiar mingling of wool and woodsmoke. Along the left wall, my iron stove sat with leftover heat from the evening meal. A crooked shelf above the stove held jars of dried herbs, their scents threading the air like faint green ribbons.
I laid the egg on the folded quilt near the stove and slowly unwrapped the scarf. The shell glowed faintly in the firelight, its silver flecks catching every flicker of the flames. A thin mist of breath curled from its surface, or perhaps that was only the warmth rising off the iron stove.
My hands trembled. I had trapped rabbits, dressed deer, mended torn hides and stitched wounds but never had I guarded something so fragile. A life no bigger than my two hands - silent, hidden, and waiting. I rummaged through the pile near the stove for my small wooden bowl and poured in warm water from the kettle. With a scrap of clean linen I dampened the cloth and gently wiped the ash that still smudged the shell. The egg pulsed once beneath my fingers, so faint I might have imagined it.
"Easy now," I murmured. My voice sounded different in the quiet tonight, softer almost mothering. "I'll keep the fire steady."
Outside, the wind rattled the cedar branches like distant chimes. I set an extra log on the stove and watched the flames leap up orange and steady. The quilt beneath the egg grew warm, the silver flecks shimmered as if catching stars. Sleep pulled at me but I refused it. I sat cross-legged beside the stove, listening to the night deepen. The forest had a rhythm I had learned to trust, owl calls, the occasional crack of a falling limb, but tonight each sound seemed to circle the tent like a promise.
Sometime past midnight the egg shifted, just a fraction, a whisper of motion that made my breath catch. No crack yet, only the smallest tremor. I pressed the back of my knuckles to the shell, feeling its gentle heat. "I'm here," I whispered, not sure if I spoke to the tiny life inside or to the silence that wrapped us both.
The fire settled into a low, steady glow. Outside, the forest sighed, and the night closed around us - two hearts, one hidden.