Penny gave him a bewildered look as if the man had grown another head, “What?” Damien was looking up at the tree with his eyes set on the scrumptious looking red fruits that hung on the branches of the tree.
“That one right there,” he pointed out his hand at one of the fruit which had grown at the top and the far end of the branch.
“We do not have a ladder, master Damien,” Penny tried to reason with him which the man didn’t seem to hear though there was nothing else stopping him from listening to what she just said.
“I can see that. That is why I said go ahead and start climbing the tree. That one,” he said looking at the fruit while not moving an inch from where he stood. His stance was stubborn. Did he think she was some kind of monkey?
“I do not have the skill for it,” she frowned, giving the tree a look to see there was no way she could climb this one. Penny had no experience when it came to climbing trees.
Damien nodded his head before his eyes fell on her, “You will develop. One needs to learn how to climb trees,” why would anyone have to learn it unless it was the woodcutter who needed to cut and sell woods, “You might never know why you will need it. Now hurry. I have been craving to have this one whilst waiting for it to ripen.”
Penny stared at him and he stared back at her with a lighter intensity. Penny gritted her teeth, turning away from him, she walked to the tree. Checking the tree so that she could know where to place her foot to start climbing. Her bare feet which had not been covered since the time she had been taken to the slave establishment, felt the stones and the little twigs under feet.
Still hesitant about it, she turned around to look at Damien who gave her an encouraging smile. Turning herself again back to look at the tree, she finally held the trunk of the tree with both her hands, placing one foot while swaying her body up and down as if anxiously waiting for some invisible push to push her on the tree but nothing ever came.
After a minute, Penny placed her head on the tree.
“Did you fall asleep without even making an effort to climb? How lazy,” she heard Damien ask her. If it was possible right now, Penny would have loved to pull the tree from its roots to bash it right against this pureblooded vampire’s head to see if it could fix the loosehead of his.
“I have never climbed the tree, Master Damien. You cannot expect me to climb up like some squirrel and bring you down the fruit.”
“Hmm? Are you being disrespectful towards me?” he asked from behind.
“I didn’t mean to offend you, master,” Penny closed her eyes, her teeth gritting.
“Of course, you didn’t. But then if you are, would you like a swim in the sea here? Though I cannot assure you if it will be a good swim as no one ever came back to tell me how it was, you can always look forward to it,” was he threatening her? Thinking about being thrown from up above into the waster made her feel dizzy.
Penny pivoted her body through her heel, giving the man a queasy smile as she said, “I will try to climb.”
“That’s what I thought. I knew you were looking for just that kind of motivation,” clapping his hand as if he were looking forward to her climbing the tree, he said, “Take a deep breath and push yourself up…You can do it,” he waited for her to get to work which she finally did.
Penny felt as if she were being tortured and punished for her past life sins to have been turned to this man’s personal slave where there was no escape. Before she made up her mind to climb a thought crossed her mind. What if she pushed him in the sea? Would he survive? Maybe he would but it would definitely take him some time before getting up here. After all, the path appeared to be a long one.
But then, thought Penny. This was a demon who had tagged along with her, chances were that before she could even push him he would push her. Another reason was that there were higher chances of her not being able to push him because Penny wasn’t a spiteful person. Sure the man was as odd as one could find but he hadn’t treated her shameful or abusively where she was counting her stars of until when she would be spared. After happening to see how the slave had been treated and after giving it much thought she realized that her master was lenient compared to the people she had come across.
He made her do odd things, one of it being making her climb a tree. His wishes and words were odd. One moment she had thought that they had come to some sort of ground before he shared about his mother but then like a coin tossed in the air, his persona had changed back to the devil he was. Penny wasn’t mean for no reason and what if he died in the process due to the fall? The last thing Penny was to live with herself over a person’s death.
“Penelope dear, planning for the weather to change so that the fruit falls into your hand?” she heard the heavily filled sarcastic words of Damien Quinn. Maybe pushing him off the cliff wasn’t such a bad idea after all.
Looking at the old tree where the outer cover of the woods had dried up she looked up and down before taking a deep breath. It took her a couple of tries where her hands had begun to have dents on them while the bottom of her feet felt incredibly sore. Finally, after some time Penny managed herself to climb the tree to her utter happiness. Moving up, as he stuck to the tree like a moth on the wall, inch by inch she moved up to finally catch hold of the nearest branch…
