The apple pie was exquisite. Ellie baked the crust herself, it was buttery, warm and fragrant. The apple filling was perfect combination of sweet and tart, with generous cinnamon and sugar. Ellie also made whip cream to go on top of the pie.

It was when they sat down around the dining table when Charlotte saw the gold ring around Ellie's left ring finger.

Dad and Ellie saw Charlotte's gaze at the ring, and both sheepishly smiled.

"Beautiful ring," Charlotte smiled too. "May I see?"

Ellie nodded and extended her hand to Charlotte so she could see the ring closer.

The ring was simple gold ring with amethyst as its gemstone.

"I made the ring myself. I took a course on jewelry making, and I-well, I did it," Dad's voice sounded proud and Charlotte looked up quickly."Wow! Dad! That-that is so sweet!"

Ellie caressed Dad's shoulder, her eyes gently looking at the man of her heart.

"Well, it is a true symbol of love," Ellie nodded lovingly at Dad.

Charlotte nodded her agreement. "I am so proud of you, Dad," she gently patted Ellie's ring and stared at Dad. For some reason, she felt like crying. She was just happy that Dad found someone, someone like Ellie who seemed to be a very sweet loving woman. Mom would have been so happy for him too, Charlotte knew it.

After the apple pie and warm tea, Charlotte went and looked around the small cottage. It was simple design. Kitchen, living room, wash room, two bedrooms, and one toilet, one bathroom. No fancy appliances, everything was well taken care of, and worked well, but it was not top of the line brand with fancy functions. Charlotte was completely taken by the cottage. "I would love to live here," she whispered to herself a few times.

However, her little tour around the house was cut short when she heard a banging sound from the kitchen. She rushed to see what had happened, and saw Ellie in Dad's embrace.

"What happened?" she asked. Ellie looked pale, and her body trembled.

"I'll get Ellie to rest first," Dad was worried and he carefully took Ellie to the bedroom while Charlotte picked up the just-washed soup pan that had fallen from Ellie's grasp. She took a cloth, wiped the wet floor, and continued dishwashing that Ellie was doing when she had the dizzy spell.

After a few minutes, Dad came back into the kitchen again. His brows furrowed in worry. "Low blood pressure. That's what we think. Ellie promised to go to the doctor with me if she still has the dizzy spell," Dad sighed.

Charlotte bit her lips and nodded. "A bit of rest would be good for her."

"She never had this kind of fainting, dizzy spells in the US. It started a couple days after we got here. She got home from her walk in the forest and she just-just fainted."

Charlotte took Dad's hands and grasped them tight. It pained her to see so much worry in Dad's face. "Let me know if I could help you and Ellie in any way, Dad. I will be here for a few weeks."

Dad sighed. "She's been getting tired easily these days. She is much more pale now, dizzy. We haven't been able to go on a longer hike because she would just-just collapse in exhaustion. Half an hour walk to the excavation site is the max she can do now. I hope it's nothing serious, you know?"

Charlotte nodded.

"I am making a doctor's appointment for her first thing Monday morning."

"Good idea, Dad."

"I am worried, Charlie." Dad sighed. "She ran the marathon, finished it! Just two months ago! She ran, swam, hiked, and she had just got started on kickboxing the week we left to come here."

Dad's voice quivered, his eyes looked moist. At that, Charlotte went ahead and hugged Dad. Dad's bony shoulders just collapsed in her hug at the weight of his worry.

The rest of the late afternoon and evening Ellie did not come out of the bedroom anymore. She did sit up on the bed and ate the dinner that Charlotte made. Charlotte was not a chef, but she could cook basic meals. She gathered what she could find in the kitchen pantry and made a decent spaghetti.

Ellie was thankful though she could not finish her meal.

Dad was quiet, and he spent the evening after dinner reading next to Ellie in the bedroom. Charlotte cleaned up the kitchen after refusing Dad's offer of help with that. Then she just went into her bedroom—a tiny space across the living room from Dad's, with a single bed that creaked a lot, a small-sized wood clothing cabinet, and a set of compact writing desk and a chair. There was one window with red and white checkered curtain. That was all. But Charlotte did not mind it.

The room was cozy enough. Charlotte sat at the edge of the bed, just enjoying the quietness.

The whooshing sound of the wind and rustling tree leaves outside were all she heard. It was just so much better than the noise of freeway cars and sirens and loud neighbours that she was used to in her own apartment back home.

Charlotte sat and took some deep breaths. She let her body fall to the bed behind her, and she laid stretching her arms to her side. The relaxed state must have done something to her brain because she could have sworn she heard something else other than the whooshing wind.

It was like a ... roar. Or was it a howl?

It seemed like it had come from deep underground.

Charlotte shook her head. Crazy. It was just the wind.

She decided to sit up again and started cleaning up her suitcase, arranging her stuff in the cabinet. Then she took her slingbag, cleaning the content. She had decided to try to stay away as much as she could from her smartphone while she was here, detoxing herself from the socmed and internet. For a few weeks. She would check her messages once a day, that was it. She should be able to do it.

With that determination, she put her smartphone in the cabinet along with her passport.

Her slingbag now just contained her bare essentials: Wallet, clown nose from Mom, whatever left of the honey-roasted peanuts, her clown-for-hire business cards (which she had toyed to just leave with her smartphone in the cabinet, but decided against it. Who knows she could advertise her clown small business to some of Dad's US colleagues who were at the excavation site too, they might have grandkids or kids in the area where she lived).

After a shower, she went to bed and pulled her blanket up. It got cold now. The wind howled outside, and she was sure what she had heard was not a roar or a howl. It was the wind. It had to be. She could not think of any animal that lived underground that could howl or roar so loud that it could be heard all the way up here.

Her eyes got heavier from exhaustion, and as she drifted off to sleep, the sound of wind really turned to sound like a roar. It did sound like a raging roar from an angry beast who lived underground, itching to get all the way up above ground. Charlotte shook her head as sleepiness overpowered her.

No beast underground, silly Charlotte. Now sleep. Just go to sleep. It's all good.

<<<>>>

The next day, Ellie felt better. She was still pale, but she insisted to come along to the excavation site.

After breakfast, the three of them went out to hike to the excavation site. Dad carried a backpack, Ellie's stuff were put in Dad's backpack too. Charlotte slung her crossbody slingbag, light because she had taken out stuff last night, wore her comfortable walking shoes, and off they went.

The sky was grey, and wind blew though it was not strong like last night. They walked in a path in between some rolling hills, with tall grass and wild spring flowers blooming, giving a spectacular colour show in such contrast with the grey cloudy sky.

Charlotte walked a few steps behind Dad whose hand was holding Ellie's. She stared at the rolling hills with flowers blooming here and there. The quietness of the whole place made her, again, fall in love. Just the gentle wind and the sound of her shoes stepping on the grassy path.

She decided not to ask Dad or Ellie about the sound of wind that sounded like a roar from deep underground. It was too stupid, and too obvious what the answer would be. They would say: It is the wind, Charlie. And they would be right.

The path took them encircling a small hill, and it kept going downward as it approached a small forest. Charlotte started seeing some signage about excavation that was ongoing in that period.

They went into a forest which had a winding river cutting it in the middle, the forest was quite dense, but there was a clear path parallel to the river that they took to walk from one side to the other side of the forest.

"Stay close, Charlie. This forest is quite dense, we have to follow the path," Dad turned his head to speak to Charlotte, and she nodded her understanding to Dad's message.

She recognized some trees from her days in girl scout—alder, downy birch, silver birch, oak, wild cherry. Pretty trees with beautiful spring leaves. Her walking shoes were stained by mud now but she could not care less. She was busy looking into the forest, the trees that grew without specific formation, while her ears enjoyed the crisp splashing of river water as it crashed onto the tiny jutting rocks on its path.

Her heart started beating faster. The strange thing was she could almost be sure that the forest was watching her. Like a pair of eyes that followed her every step, like a breath that was held, waiting to be exhaled right after she passed by. She shook off the feeling, who could possibly watch her anyway in this forest?

She started humming some random tunes, it helped though failing to completely remove that feeling that she was being watched. At some point, she stopped dead on her tracks and turned around fast to look, there was noone behind her. She looked to the forested areas to her left and right. Just trees.

"Charlotte?" Dad stopped and turned around to face her. His face looked worried, it matched the fact that he only called her Charlotte when he was worried about her.

"Yes! I am coming!" she replied and quickened her steps to catch up with Dad and Ellie.

"You okay? We stay at the cottage, this forest is the quickest path to get to the excavation site," Dad patted her shoulder.

"Where does the rest of your team stay?" Charlotte tried to breathe slower to calm herself down a bit more.

"They stay at an inn, an hour by car. They come by the major road and just have to hike a bit along the edge of the hills. No forest for them."

Charlotte nodded and stayed closer to Dad from then on for reason she could not explain with some logic. Was she scared of the forest, of the feeling like she was being watched?

Maybe. One thing for sure that she believed with all her heart now: She was truly a born-and-bred big city girl who got startled at everything when quietness engulfed her and she actually heard the sounds of nature. She would do much better trying to find her way around a gigantic mall or a massive parking lot or a metro train station than in a forest.

A strange relief washed over her when they finally got to a grass plain where the excavation was.

There were two big brown tents where tables were set, and since it was Friday, there were some people working on two dug-up field about 10x10m in size, and about 3m in depth.

Charlotte saw two middle-aged men who were squatting the trench, cleaning some half-buried structure with brushes. One woman was standing in one of the tents, busy arranging different artefacts on the table. She was about late thirties or so, and next to her was a little girl.

There were a couple other staff on site. But Charlotte's eyes were glued to the little girl with curly brown hair, beautiful chocolate skin, and pink-rimmed glasses. She wore a bright orange bandana, red shirt, and jeans. She was about five or six years old.

"Who's that kid?" Charlotte cocked her chin to the girl.

"Oh that's Emily. The daughter of one of the postdoctoral fellows involved in this project, Michelle. That's her mom next to her. Michelle-she is undergoing a divorce procedure and cannot find a sitter for a few weeks. So Emily is in our team now!" it was Ellie who answered.

Charlotte smiled to herself.

Dad started introducing her to everyone there, and they welcomed her. But Emily was the most excited to meet her.

"Are you new here? I am Emily!" she asked while jumping up and down in front of Charlotte. She had one tooth missing on the bottom row of teeth, forming an adorable gap with tiny white tip of the new tooth began to peek out.

"Yes! I am Charlotte. Nice to meet you, Emily!" Charlotte extended her hand, and Emily shook it hard.

Michelle came closer and smiled at Charlotte. "And I am the mom of this ball of energy!" she extended her hand, and Charlotte took it with smile too.

Michelle was going to chat more with her when she was called back to the tent, Dad was going to show her something. It was then just Charlotte and Emily.

Emily was a happy girl, she started telling about the birds she saw on the way to the site, what she had for dinner last night (macaroni with tomato ketchup, because she did not like the other sauces), and that she was five years old. Charlotte felt much more lighthearted at the company of such joyous little girl, and had to show her the red clown nose.

"Do you know what I have?" she asked with a grin as she rummaged into her slingbag.

"A candy? Mom said I cannot—"

"Even better than candy, Emily! Look!" Charlotte took out the red clown nose, waved it in front of Emily's nose, and the little girl shrieked in happiness. "You are a clown! A real clown!" she shouted and clapped her hands.

"Yes!" then Charlotte put the red ball on her nose, got into her MissCharLee character right away, and that was an instant hit with Emily. She sang the nursery rhymes she usually sang for the kids in a birthday party, she danced a bit, and Emily laughed. Good thing she brought her red clown nose! She and Emily would have so much fun. She knew it.