Katie heard Deidre’s footsteps stop abruptly and turned around. The woman was facing the opposite direction.
“Deidre, we should hurry,” she called.
“I hear something.”
Katie listened hard and soon heard it as well. It sounded like a herd of horses plowing through the jungle.
“Demons,” Toby said. “We can take the trees, but sometimes they drop you.”
“Sounds like hundreds of them,” Deidre said, troubled.
“I told you there were – “
“Not now, Toby,” Katie said. “We need to get to safety, and I don’t have enough food to blow up the amount of trees it’ll take to stop a herd of demons.”
“Trees!” Toby yelled. “Hold onto them, Mama.”
Before Katie could respond, one of the nearby trees snatched her and flung her into the air. She soared above the treetops and let out a cry when she started to fall. A branch caught her and flung her back up. She saw Deidre and Toby sailing through the air in a similar fashion. The second branch almost missed her and snatched her around the leg before throwing her back up.
She gritted her teeth in pain and sucked in a breath as she started to fall again. She glimpsed demons hovering a short distance away over an opening in the jungle. They looked like massive, angry hornets before disappearing from her line of sight. A branch grabbed her arm this time and threw her back over the treetops. This time, she faced a different direction and saw a sprawling palace the size of a mall. They were closer than she thought.
Deidre screamed, and Katie twisted in midair. The woman was tumbling towards the treetops. Branches snatched at her and missed, and Deidre fell through the canopy to the jungle below.
“Toby!” Katie cried. “Toby, Deidre – “ A branch grabbed her around the chest, squeezing out the air in her lungs. When she was sailing again, she looked around for Deidre and Toby. The angel was soaring through the air, head over feet, but Deidre was nowhere to be seen.
Helpless until the trees finished flinging them around, Katie struggled to grab the branches, so she didn’t end up like Deidre. Finally, a branch wrapped around her and pulled her through the canopy, dumping her at the edge of the jungle. Toby landed with a grunt beside her, and she lay still to catch her breath, still hoping Deidre reappeared.