by Eliza Grace
And I’m going to die.
Jon is inches from me, I flinch back away instinctively. He grumbles, seeming exasperated through the fangs… which creates a really odd effect of muffled half-groan, half-scream. His left hand reaches for me, grips my right upper arm, and launches me to the side so hard I hit the nearest tree with an air-rushing-out-of-my-lungs, violent thud. I fall down, my body against the cool earth and slightly-damp leaves.
My vision is a tad bleary for a moment; I shake my head to focus. Shake it again when I still can’t see well. And then, there he is. Jon is atop something large and furry. He is making these disturbing, suckling noises that turn my stomach. It seems to go on and on. The creature cannot still be alive. Is he drinking its blood? He must be drinking its blood.
I want to stand and run, but I find that my legs will not work—not in the way of being handicapped, but in the way of fear. Sharp, poignant, mind-numbing fear.
The sucking sound stops. I still stay on the ground with my back against the tree. My head is no longer spinning. The moonlight seems to wave and thicken and spread until I can see every sharp inch of the scene in front of me.
On the ground, nearly at the same level as my head, is a giant wolf. A wolf the size of a grown black bear. From the slack face of the great creature, I look up to find Jon. He is wiping his mouth against his sleeve, but the action does little save smear the blood that looks so very black, despite the night light above us. He’s about to say something, but then his expression warps and wrestles, fighting to not change feelings, but it does. And that feeling is sickness. He puts his hand over his mouth, turns around, stumbles a few steps, and then begins vomiting all over the place.
It is hard to watch; I have to turn away at one point, as the blood splatters against nearby trees and low-hanging branches. He throws up much longer than he has fed. I close my eyes, waiting for it to stop. I don’t dare open them, even when silence has surrounded us for quite a long time.
“I’m not going to bite your head off, if that’s what’s got you so frightened.” Jon sounds weak, wasted.
“That little display didn’t exactly make me feel like life is sunshine and rainbows around you.” I open my eyes as I say it and find that he’s stood only a few feet away, looking at me. He seems shorter, his body hunched over.
“Did you want to get killed by a werewolf? Or, worse, get bitten and go furry next full moon?” He still sounds exhausted, but now there’s a note of his normal cockiness playing about the edges of his words.
“A werewolf? Is that what that is?”
“No, just your average, everyday, magical, giant-ass wolf.” He rolls his eyes. The moonlight flickers above him, falling behind shadows and then reappearing again. It moves faster and slower and faster. It is a tilt-a-whirl of darkness slaughtered by light, just to be resurrected again.
“Would it have really hurt me?”
“Do you see the size of that thing, dummy?” He points at the huge beast that is now very, very dead.
“I’ve seen videos online. Just because something’s huge and scary-looking, doesn’t mean it’s out to kill everything it passes.”
Jon puts his hands on his hips and looks up at the sky, frustration on his face now. It’s a much more becoming expression, especially against the backdrop of his recent vomit session. “Look, I’m trying here. I don’t want to name call or insult you.” He pauses. “Well, actually that’s exactly what I want to do, but I’m trying not to. So can you make it a little less hard on me? You are in a magical forest. I am a vampire. You are a witch. That thing,” he points once again at the wolf, “that is a werewolf that’s been trapped in these woods, in that form, for more than half a century. You are the first living thing that’s been here for a long time. In this realm.”
“The witchfinder’s alive, isn’t he?”
Jon shook his head. “As alive as a shadow.”
I hang my head for a moment, looking down at my fingers that rest against my thighs as I sit criss-cross apple sauce like a child. It’s nice to move my legs that way though, without having to yank and move deadened limbs. “You saved me then.”
He’s about to say something, something jerky I’m positive, so I speak again.
“Thank you very much, Jon.”
His lips clamp shut and he’s obviously disappointed that I’ve taken away his chance to say something smug. “Well, you’re welcome.” He decides on, speaking flatly. “I’m going to need a shovel to bury it.”
“Are there many shovels in a magic forest?” I quip, trying to lighten the mood and the fact that Jon’s covered in blood and a giant werewolf is dead and my entire world is now full of so much magical crap that my head is spinning like a broken dryer that can’t turn off. I realize, for the first time, that ‘werewolf’ means that this beast was once a man. Isn’t that the lore? “A werewolf transforms, right? From a man, I mean?”
“Doesn’t have to be man,” Jon shrugs, “this one used to be a woman. She pissed off the wrong people, ate the wrong snack. And to answer your first question, the forest provides what’s needed.” He walks a few steps away and reaches into a hollowed-out gap in a tree so wide I wouldn’t be able to meet fingers if I hugged it. When he pulls his hand back out, he’s holding a beat-up looking shovel, the blade end chipped and rusted.
“It provides what’s needed?” I repeat, standing up and walking close enough so that I could reach out and touch the realness of the shovel for myself.
“Yes, but it’s a finicky thing, this forest. What’s needed might not be what you think. And it’s definitely, mostly, almost never, what you want.”
I nod as if I understand. “So, think there’s a second shovel buried in there?”
Jon half-grins, lopsided and fetching, and reaches into the gap to pull out a second smaller item. A trowel. The kind of foot-long contraption one would use to bury small flowers in the front yard. “Here you go.”
“That’s not exactly what I meant.” I reach quickly and try to take the large shovel for myself. Jon pulls it back quickly.
“We’ll be here a decade if I let you use the big one.” He pushes the gardening spade towards me.
We start digging, me on hands and knees because my tool is so small. I break a sweat in seconds, which is ridiculous. I’d respect the woods a bit more if they eliminated things like sweat. Jon, for his part, moves like he is unable to tire, like he could run back-to-back marathons and never need sleep.
I sink the blade into the yielding, dark earth. And it hits me. I’ve not had to use the bathroom since I arrived. I’ve not had to eat because I’ve not been hungry. Not once has my stomach rumbled wanting food. “Jon, why did you get sick after, um, feeding on the werewolf?” This seems to be an important question, though I’m not exactly sure why.
“Because the forest doesn’t think its inhabitants need food or water or any of the basic sustaining-life stuff. Because the forest is a douche bag!” Jon whirled around, yelling at the sky.
“You know, for someone who’s been here forever, you talk like you were born in the nineties sometimes.”
“Yeah, well, you know how your mom could push across the borderline to try and protect you? I don’t use borrowed magic for such noble pursuits. Mostly, whenever the forest is willing to let me use a bit of spark for myself, I find someone with their television on. I like TV. Pretty much every kind of TV out there.”
“Reality TV?” I can’t help my nostrils flaring in dislike as I ask.
“Especially reality TV.” He looks up at the forest canopy again. “Of course, this stupid freaking forest hasn’t let me do that for a while.” Even though he’s not spoken louder than his normal talking voice, his words seem to echo and increase in pitch. Soon, they’ve become a buzzing that refuses to fully fade. Until they final do.
The words sink into the trees around us, float up into their leaves, and permeate our surroundings until they are a silent, seemingly-permanent addition.
And it is as if the forest do
es not take kindly to Jon’s words.
“Food.” A voice sounds—high-pitched, keening, yet also a hiss.
“Water.” Another voice, so similar, yet also dissimilar. Sibling voices, alike but different.
“Air.” A final voice booms.
My throat feels tight, like the gate of my larynx is closing slowly. I claw at the collar of my dress, the ruin of rags I am still wearing. “Jon,” I force out, the word trying to stick inside of me, “Jon, I can’t… breathe.”
Jon is in front of me, his eyes wild. He does not seem to be affected. “I’m the one who pissed you off,” he truly yells this time, shouting at the forest. “Leave her alone!”
“Fine,” the first voice, a crow in the blackness, “we’ll leave her alone.”
Dark pink rushes into Jon’s face. I can see his throat, literally see it, caving inwards upon itself. I can breathe now. I can. But he cannot. His neck is getting thinner. Thinner by the second.
“Jon! God, Jon!” I grip his shoulders and I shake him hard, violently. I try to go back to something Mom told me about in passing. A way to pull oxygen out of water. A simple spell. But there’s no water here.
Jon is falling to his knees, his hands wrapped around his throat. I wonder if he can die. I wonder if he will exist forever as something that cannot breathe, but also cannot find sweet release. Unless I can do something. She told me. She told me this. I can remember it.
I kick myself for not paying closer attention to Mom.
The witch language comes to my call; it wraps itself around my tongue until I am fluent. “Vaneer adema aquaeta alin mei.” I repeat the phrase, this time pulling every ounce of my strength, pulling from him. The rubber band yanks back to me, vibrating with power. I can feel him fighting, but I must hold on long enough to save Jon.
Wetness begins to dampen my feet. It rises swiftly, like a curtain around me and Jon. Soon, the forest is obscured through the rippling water. What are the other words? What are they! I remember the spell instantly, a memory on speed dial. Oxygen from water. Oxygen from water. “Oxygenisa ex la-lorse aquaeta.”
The water begins to puff and powder and change into a fog. It fills the space around us with thick, viscous, touchable gas. We are enveloped in life-affirming air. “Breathe, Jon. Breathe!”
But he is still clutching at his chest, still looking at me with pain-filled eyes. I need more power.
I pull the rubber band of my own magic as hard as I can, so taut that I think it might snap and ruin if I force it further. “Breathe, Jon!” My hands are now glowing with a pale yellow-rimmed glow. They make me think of defibrillator pads. That’s what they are…
I slam my palms against Jon’s chest, trying to make sure I hit him square over the heart.
It rockets him backwards, but the wall of water-changing-to-air keeps him in the funnel of space.
His back is leaned against the wetness now and I can see his neck begin to fill, like helium into a balloon. Moments later, the blush leaves his face. As soon as he takes a deep, steadying breath, I fall to my knees beside of him. My worry eclipses my hold on the magic and the water cascades downwards in a great circular sheet, leaving behind a lace of mist.
“Jon, please say something.” I’m trying not to cry, because he is being so silent, only taking in great gulps of air. “Jon, please!” I gasp out, wanting to punch him back to the land of the living, even though I knew full well that he was not alive.
“I’m fine, Tilda. I’m fine.” He looks a little embarrassed for a moment. “Vampires don’t actually need to breathe.”
“But then why—”
“We do feel though. And that felt like hell in a handbasket.” Jon struggles to his feet, brushing away my attempt to help.
“So, note to self, don’t piss off the forest.” I tried to sound like I was joking, but really? I was being drop-dead serious.
“So yous smart enough to learn that, stupid witch. Idiot witch. Ugly witch.” Toady hops out from behind a tree, his flattened face twisted into a smirk. His blunt-shaped arms are moving and twitching, as if something has damaged them in the short time since he first appeared in the forest room I’ve called home for more than a week, although it feels ages longer. “He’s sent me here from there. We dos not travels through times well. It hurts us. I hurts.” He moves his arms again; they shift and crack and pop.
“Why are you here?” I say. “Leave me alone. I won’t answer to him. I won’t ever do what—”
Toady interrupts me. “Projections, little witch. Stupid witch. Don’t you think he felt it? Idiot witch. And thens he sends me back to warn you a second times. Agains. Agains.”
“Your first warning was only a little while ago. Is the witchfinder so weak that he has to keep warning me? Why doesn’t the big bad wolf make good on his threats instead of sending his little toady again?”
Calling him ‘toady’ seems to rile his anger. “Stupid witch! He’s already dones it! He’s already dones it!” His eyes are doing that cartoonish bulging thing again.
“What do you mean he’s already done it?” My pulse quickens, my heart jumping into my throat and souring my saliva.
Toady’s form is beginning to flicker, lighten, disappear. “What the heck is going on?” Jon walks forward, his face confused.
“I’m not from this time, stupid witch. Idiot witch. I can’t stays here. And it hurts. It hurts me!” His body continues to flicker and come in and out of reality, until he disintegrates completely with a gut-wrenching scream.
“What did he mean, Jon? What did he mean that the witchfinder’s already done something?” I feel weak, sick. I look down at my hands and they’re shaking. I have to get back to the forest room. I need Mom.
I start running, as fast as I can, hoping I’m going in the right direction. I can hear Jon behind me. He doesn’t question where I’m going and what I’m doing. I’m grateful for that.
The Never Place
-Hoyt-
Eight days after Tilda’s disappearance.
I’ve driven so fast to Tilda and Jen’s house that I’m surprised one of the usually-hidden police cars hasn’t come racing after me out of the shadows, lights flashing and siren screaming.
I slam my foot against the brake pedal, the Jeep screeching to an angry halt only a foot from the large tree in the backyard. As I’m launching my body out of the vehicle, something makes me bend my waist to grab the journal from the floor. I don’t know why I have to have it right now, but I do—maybe because it’s my tether to Tilda, the item that came into my life as she disappeared from it.
I’m sure Jen is in the house. I can see a light on in the kitchen. She always leaves a light on for me. And when I arrive, I do not turn it off, hoping it will be a beacon to bring Tilda back to us.
A lighthouse in an ocean of forest.
“Tilda!” I yell as I run towards those woods that have swallowed her. “Tilda!” I could have gone into the house, passed that glowing bulb in the kitchen, and rested to drive away the nightmare I’d seen in the journal. I know, rationally, that it must have been a figment of my imagination. But, irrationally, my heart is telling me that it is real. The most real thing. And Tilda is truly in danger.
When the girl you love is in danger, you do not give in to sleep, you do not convince yourself of illusion. You run; you fight; you die in pursuit of saving her. And that’s what I will do. I am tired of being helpless. Nearly a week now, I have done very little. I sleepwalk through my days, helping patients. Each of their faces are hers, open and beautiful and full of so much pain and longing. They are a mirror to my own weakness, this love and loss that wants to murder me from the inside out.
“Tilda!” I am at the very edge of the woods; at the broken fence line that has never granted me passage. I don’t wait for it to reject me this time, to send me back towards the house before I’ve even realized I’m walking away. No, I barrel forward, journal in hand, and I half expect the forest to repel me like it has in the past, but no… I fall through the g
ap. I fall.
And I keep falling, like something is pushing me hard towards a dangerous destination.
Tumbling through a viscous solution like melted mirror. Like cool silver lava. The only thing that feels real, that I know is real, is the book in my hand.
The reflective ooze streams against my body. It is molten magma without the scorching. Yet, I feel compelled to scream anyway. I won’t though; I’ll battle the fear.
I keep my mouth closed tightly, for fear the thick liquid will pour between my lips and I will drown. I cover my nose with the hand not holding the journal. I tilt my head to look downwards and I catch sight of the forest and the fence. The mirror substance is floating over it, getting heavier and heavier, until the trees have disappeared and I can only see my own warped figure.
And the diary is glowing in my hand, that same vibrant gold.
The book is doing this; it is taking me somewhere.
I am suspended in the looking glass pool for so long that I wonder if I am still at the school track, having run so fast and furious that I have passed out against the hard ground.
That must be it.
This is all in my head.
And as that thought passes through my mind, I am ejected violently, pushed out of the substance with little respect for the condition of my body. I hit a ground that is soft and yielding, like kinetic sand that molds to every part of me. I open my eyes and, for a moment, I can see nothing. A haze hangs in the air, thick as a velour curtain. I blink, trying to rid the world of the fog. It persists though, as if the stage is not quite ready for onlookers to see its many props and performers.
The curtain lifts eventually, as I sit hugging the journal to my chest, letting the glow be a comforter in the weirdness that surrounds me. I am in a forest, not unlike the one behind Jen and Tilda’s house. Yet, everything is wrong. Backwards. And I am not in the forest… I am above it.
