Bartholomew knelt and rolled a ball of detritus between his thumb and forefinger, breathing in the earthy soil while his eyes scanned the clearing ahead. The boggart had passed this way--far too close to the Agate farm for his liking. Boggarts never maintained amicable relations with their human neighbors. If they weren’t souring milk or making off with livestock, they were in the house throwing things about, screaming and yelling and scaring the wits out of the unfortunate family cursed with their presence.  And when boggarts grew bored with their tantrums...  Bartholomew shut his eyes and pushed the horrid images from his mind.
     PeekIng through the tall grass at the forest’s edge, he scanned the sunlit pasture before him where Bobby and Mikey Agate practiced their swordplay. They could hardly be called children now, more like young lads with the promise of being skilled swordsmen.
     “Is tha’ wha’ ye call a lunge?” Bobby asked his older brother.
     Mikey swatted him on the thigh with the flat of his blade. “Made ye flinch, didn’ I?”
     They fell to arguing, and Bartholomew’s mouth upturned into a half smile. Skilled swordsmen or no, they were still his little brothers.  He wouldn’t allow the boggart to trouble the children.   
     Still hunched down in the tall grass, Bartholomew unslung his bow, knocked an arrow, and crept along the edge of the pasture. In the distance, sheep grazed on the spring-green grass.  Behind them was the Agates’ stables where the horses nickered loudly, already aware of the boggart’s presence.  A trail of smoked wisped from the chimney of a small farmhouse on the horizon. While Bartholomew had ‘adopted’ the Agates as his own, he’d never call the farm his home, just as he could never truly call the forest home though it was more familiar to him than an old friend. As a half-breed, Bartholomew would forever straddle the human and elven worlds without belonging to either.
     Dead leaves stirred in silence as his feet sank into the soft ground. Shadows flickered through the brush from the corner of his eye, small animals, and humanoid shapes dodging through the forest.  The little bugger was going to use shadow glamour was he? Bartholomew heard a small, twittering laugh from behind him and whirled, drawing the string taut as he brought his bow to bear.  Nothing.  
     “Bloody hate boggarts,” he whispered.  
     He took comfort in knowing that his brother Leif lay in that direction; if anything, Leif would flush the little bugger back toward him. There was another laugh from the other direction, this one light and sweet, and Bartholomew’s muscles tensed as he turned and crouched lower to the ground. He breathed deep at the sight of the girl sitting beneath a lone ash tree in the pasture. Her knees drawn up to her chest, the girl tucked a strand of long brown hair behind her ear. Bartholomew admired the way her hair seemed to shimmer in the small motes of sunlight that filtered down through the tree’s leaves.  She had sad brown eyes and a smattering of freckles on her face. Bartholomew closed his eyes, listened to his pulse race. The boggart forgotten, he set his bow down and parted the grass in front of him for a clearer  view.
     Sha Agate was a regret that Bartholomew would never forget. The first time their lips met, he should’ve known--should’ve felt the warmth in his belly and admired the softness of her lips. Instead he had spurned her; she was child then, he thought. She couldn’t have known what love was. But now that she was older--that they were both older—he wanted to go to her and tell her what an arse he’d been.
     A young man stepped from behind the tree and settled down next to her. Sha gave him a wan smile as he wrapped his arm around her shoulders. Black-haired and handsome, Steven Gayle was any young girl’s dream.
     Then why’d he pick Sha?
     Bartholomew’s jaw clenched as Steven leaned in, caressed Sha’s cheek with one finger before their lips met in what seemed to be a gentle kiss. A shadow fell across the pasture, and Bartholomew stole a glance upward. Dark, heavy clouds covered the sun. The grass waved as a chill breeze blew through the forest into the pasture.
     Chewing at his lower lip, Bartholomew watched the couple intently. None of this was right.  Steven wasn’t part of this equation; he was an outsider who’d pushed his way into Sha’s heart, even as he pushed Bartholomew out. He was everything Bartholomew wasn’t: inconsiderate, self-centered, and boorish.
     Their lips parted and their gazes lingered on each other.  Bartholomew cursed, pounding his fist into the ground and a peel of thunder rolled through the sky before the clouds opened up.  Through a wall of rain, Bartholomew watched Steven laugh, even as he helped Sha to her feet.  Hand and hand, the couple ran for the stables.  Bartholomew watched then until they were out of site, then reached for his bow with a shaky hand.  
     “I don’t much care for him either,” a voice said, and Bartholomew blanched.  
     “Ye want I should shoot ye?” he said as he whipped around.  “Don’t sneak up on me like tha’.”
     “He ran right by ye, an’ ye didn’ even notice,” Leif said.  He pointed deeper into the forest.  “Tha’ way, far’s I kin tell.”
     “Aye, then we best git to the task.”  Bartholomew stood slowly, stretching.  He glanced over his shoulder at the lone ash where Steven and Sha had been sitting, now awash in sunlight.  The storm had gone as quickly as it had come.  Leif shot off into the forest, on the boggart’s trail.  
     “Learn ta reign in tha’ temper, Wood,” Bartholomew muttered before chasing after his brother.