Mid-Week Flash Challenge - Week 316

This week's picture prompt was creted by fine art photographer, Vassilis Tangoulis. This is among his collection, Dreams in Colour on his site. He has some wonderful pictures, worth checking out. 

Delving once again into Tricky's world and the characters in there. Last time was Week 315. 

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How to create a clickable link in Blogger comments can be found on lasts week's post here. 

There is also a Facebook group for Mid-Week Flash, if you fancy getting the prompt there.


Watched
He paused on hisway to the jetty. Was he being followed? He was sure he felt eyes on him. Hiseyes scanned the trees at the edge of the path and touched the amethyst Trickyhad left him in his pocket. He felt Tricky’s energy and it reassured him, butit wouldn’t make him safe.

Tricky had also left a piece of peridot andyellow birch leaf, and while Nathan slipped into the trees on the right side ofthe path, he used it to become invisible by pressing them together in his otherpocket.

He remained where he was and waited, hopingthat whoever or whatever had their eyes on him would appear.

He heard a shuffling and a boy stepped outonto the path from the trees on the other side.

Nathan frowned to himself. He might nothave thought much of such a youngster except they were wearing a black cloak.It looked like a uniform, one that triggered a memory from his youth. Couldthis be one of Douglas Bottle’s students? Did he even still have students? Nathanthought he probably did; it was useful having underlings to run errands foryou, while you passed on your craft. And Bottle was that kind of old school mentor– one that Nathan used to respect, but less so now he knew Bottle was involvedwith The Network.

But this confirmed one thing, he was beingwatched. Did they know he went to the cabin on the lake? He remained still. Hewould let the boy show him.

The boy looked both ways up the path andthen crossed into the trees, passing close to Nathan. He walked a few trees inand then stopped looking round himself.

Nathan doubted this young one would haveany perception of using gemstones to make yourself invisible. Surely if theydid they would be using it. Nathan was sure the boy couldn’t sense him, andenjoyed being hidden right under his nose. Tricky had certainly excelled atdiscovering the intricacies of such energy combinations. Dufray had been justas gifted, and Nathan felt a slight pang of remorse that he was dead; so muchknowledge lost to their little world at a time they needed it most.

He watched the boy look around, trying totrack Nathan. But Nathan couldn’t be tracked because he hadn’t gone where theboy was looking.

He continued to observe the boy as he returnto the path and continued along it, this time with Nathan in pursuit still veiledfrom view. The boy paused at Dead Lake, and looked at the cabin. However, hedidn’t endeavour to go across the jetty and inside, instead giving it a cursoryglance then continuing along the shoreline of dead trees, and then passingbetween them into the living trees behind.

Nathan followed.

When the boy was four or five trees deep,he stopped again and let out some whistles. Two more boys joined him, and theyheld a whispered conversation Nathan couldn’t tap into while veiled. Then thethree of them moved off further into the woods. Nathan continued to trail them,even when they used their energy to pick up speed, a simple trick he used a lotwhen covering large distances, which this turned out to be. They didn’t meet upwith anyone else and eventually disappeared down inside the base of a verylarge red-coloured tree.

Nathan looked up at the tree. At this pointhe wished he had Tricky’s ability to communicate with it. He put his hand onthe trunk, and although he could feel the energy running through it, and eventap into it, it didn’t give him any information. It was a shame. He could seethe opening they used, but it wasn’t a good idea to go down there when he hadno idea where it led. He knew it was into one of the bunkers, which was probablyconnected to others, but getting lost in a rabbit warren of them when your enemywas all around would be foolish.

Nathan turned back instead, remaining cloakedthe entire time, not feeling safe to release the peridot and leaf until he wasback inside the time wrap in the cabin.

He was confident they knew he was residinghere – or at least suspected he did. How long had they been watching him? Questionshe couldn’t answer. But they’d know who he was; he was familiar with their mentor,as anyone who had schooled under Tricky’s mother, Angelique Hayek, would be.

They had all met Douglas Bottle at somepoint – or Gandalf as he liked to be nicknamed. Bottle might look uncouth andlarger than life in his garish coloured suits, but he had a keen memory andknew everyone. Nathan knew he’d recall his association with Tricky, Annie, and Lucien.There was no doubt he knew they were working together. But the question thatburned brightest was, did they know this was Tricky’s cabin, or did they thinkit was just another of Nathan’s abodes? Which led to the next question: howmuch longer was Nathan safe here?

Nathan needed to inform Annie and Tricky assoon as possible.