Darkly Wood

by Power, Max

  But he didn’t attack. Woody darted away to the centre of the clearing and came to a hunched rest beside a rotten log. While they watched he reached quickly inside and pulled on something with all of his might. Then he darted forward a little again before coming to a halt. Once more they expected an immanent attack. But to their surprise, there was a new sound in the wood. It was a low but loud rumble and the ground beneath their feet shook and trembled. They had to steady themselves to keep their balance. Across the clearing, as the forest erupted beneath their feet, the beastly creature they called Woody, let loose a little chortle, sprung skyward into the trees and in a flash, Woody was gone.

  CHAPTER THIRTY – WHO IS BENJAMIN BLOOD?

  They both saw Woody spring into the low hanging branches but couldn’t see where he went after that. With the tumult beneath their feet, neither of them had the luxury of focusing on anything other than keeping upright. The whole forest was erupting and the deep rumbling roar drowned out everything else. Daisy clung to Benjamin and screamed,

  “What’s happening?” but he didn’t hear her over the noise. Even if he had heard her, Benjamin didn’t know the answer to her question. She tugged on his jacket to get him to look at her.

  “What’s happening?”

  She still screamed the words but this time slowly, mouthing each word so that he might lip read. Benjamin understood and answered with a shrug of his shoulders and a similarly carefully mouthed answer,

  “I don’t know!” was all he could shout.

  The ground all around them shook. It felt like an earthquake. Then, something started to poke out from the ground at the centre of the clearing. It was a stone of some kind. Then almost immediately, there was another just off to its left. Then another appeared and another. All around them in the clearing the forest floor seemed to be giving up its very foundations. Woody had triggered some strange mechanism. But it was far more sinister than that. Very quickly, they both recognised what the Darkly Wood was giving up. They were not random stones or pieces of rock. They were stones alright, headstones. Daisy and Benjamin found themselves standing in the middle of a graveyard. The forest was giving up its dead.

  The rumbling stopped and the shaking subsided. Daisy let go of Benjamin as a familiar and eerie quiet fell across the Wood. They stood there in silence, staring at the gravestones scattered across the clearing. Each one looked very old, half covered in moss which was eating into the very fabric of the stone. They jutted out of the ground at very odd angles, having been pushed back up through the earth. There were dozens of them. Some of the stones stood perfectly erect, others leaned over at almost impossible angles. There was no pattern to their positions, all randomly sprung from the earth, facing in all directions. Daisy started to walk towards the nearest one to have a closer look, when Benjamin caught her arm.

  “Wait!”

  There was a peculiar edge to his voice.

  She looked at him. Benjamin’s face looked very serious.

  “What is it?” She asked him.

  “There are some things you need to know.”

  Benjamin kept his eyes on hers. He sounded very ominous and he squeezed her hand affectionately as he spoke. Then he continued.

  “I should never have let you come here.”

  It sounded like an apology of sorts.

  “This is why I came back for you.”

  “Let me?” Daisy asked.

  Her voice sounded puzzled, for she was.

  “You didn’t let me come here Benjamin. If I remember rightly, you tried to stop me.”

  She squeezed his hand back but Benjamin didn’t let her go. His feelings for Daisy May were like nothing he had ever felt before, but he knew something now, something that he hadn’t known when they first entered Darkly Wood. Though a veil still clouded his mind, Benjamin had begun to understand at least part of the truth.

  “I should have known,” he began before correcting himself, “I should have remembered I mean.”

  Benjamin looked like a little boy confessing to his mother, a misdemeanor that he felt guilty about. Daisy was confused.

  “Remembered what?” she asked him flatly.

  “I should have remembered Darkly Wood. I should have known what was going to happen.” Again he repeated his regret.

  “I should have stopped you.”

  Daisy really didn’t know what he was getting at.

  “Benjamin, I don’t know what you’re on about...” she started,

  “The stories,” he interrupted her, “they are true.”

  He raised his voice slightly as though he was demanding she believe him.

  “What?” Daisy asked him.

  She kind of half believed them anyway and thought that some of the stories at least were real. Others certainly had a sense of being based on real people. But from the way he spoke, she figured Benjamin meant something more.

  “The stories in your book are all real true stories about real people and what happened to them.”

  He paused and tightened his grip on her arm.

  “The Wood took them. It took them all Daisy May and I think… I think now, it wants you.”

  His words were chilling. In normal circumstances Benjamin would have sounded like some kind of lunatic, but what she had witnessed since entering the Wood, meant that what he said sounded entirely plausible. It was a terrifying thought. But on the other hand, Daisy hadn’t completely lost her sense of what was real and what was not. In the bizarre circumstances in which she now found herself, what he said somehow made perfect sense, or perhaps imperfect sense. Daisy didn’t know what to think.

  She looked back behind her at all of the gravestones and she looked at Benjamin. Then she pulled her arm away and shook him off, walking to the nearest stone. There was one that jutted out of the ground not ten feet away. Benjamin wanted to stop her, but he knew she had to see for herself so he let her go. Perhaps, he thought, it was the best way for her to understand.

  She glanced around, still wary of Woody, but he was nowhere to be seen. Daisy brushed the damp earth from the front of the first stone. It was different from any headstone she had ever seen. There was no date of birth or death, no age, no ‘R.I.P.’ just the name of the person that the stone commemorated. The name beneath the clay she scrapped off was ‘Libby Love.’ It shocked her and she spun around to look at Benjamin. He didn’t speak. It was true! Daisy hurried to the next one, just behind Libby’s and it read ‘Myles Love.’ Again, there were no other details apart from the name on the stone. It all seemed so impossible.

  Daisy scampered to the next grave and brushed away the dirt. One after another, she scuttled from each one to the next, revealing all too familiar names from her book. ‘Ignatius Pipe’. ‘Philagrea Mancuso’. There were some she didn’t recognise, but more that she knew all too well, ‘Hattie Grey’, ‘Abel Gloom’, ‘Jo-Jo Couchet’, even ‘Honey Meade’. They were all there and when she came to Honey’s stone, Daisy fell to her knees. Her story was the one she had read first and for some reason, it was the one which meant the most to her. She began to cry again, but it was a soft personal cry and silent tears rolled down her face. Daisy was partly crying for those whose names she knew, whose grave stones she was surrounded by and partly, she was crying for herself. She fingered the lettering on Honey’s grave ever so tenderly.

  Daisy hadn’t noticed in her shock, but Benjamin had followed her, slowly cutting a path through the graves of those that had been lost to Darkly Wood. By the time she fell to her knees at Honey’s gravestone, Benjamin was standing directly behind her.

  “I’m sorry” he simply offered.

  Daisy didn’t look up but answered him with a question.

  “What have you to be sorry for?”

  Her face was dirty and Daisy’s tears cut a thin muddy trail down her cheeks.

  He didn’t answer for a few seconds and the silence hung heavy in the air of the Wood. When he did answer it was not the reply she had anticipated and it caused her to get to her feet an
d turn to face him immediately.

  “I knew about all of this.”

  He looked away.

  Daisy May’s face crinkled with questions.

  “You...You knew about this place? You knew this was here, that this would happen?”

  Then as the realisation about the obvious consequence of his knowledge hit home she asked the question that angered her most, the second the thought struck her,

  “You knew I was in danger?”

  Benjamin was thoroughly ashamed. How could he possibly explain? In truth, he doubted that he could, but he had to try.

  “No, of course not,” but as that was not exactly true either he continued, “well yes, sort of...but no…no, I didn’t...” He couldn’t explain the way it was in his head.

  “I knew but I didn’t...it’s confused.”

  He stopped himself. Benjamin was trying, but for some reason he couldn’t make her see the sense of it. The words weren’t there that could explain something this complicated.

  “This can’t be real.” Daisy declared from nothing.

  “These people were buried in a graveyard somewhere. How can they all be here in this secret god forsaken place?”

  “They are not here Daisy, this is just… the Wood.”

  It was a nothing explanation but he tried a little harder knowing in his heart that she couldn’t understand without telling her things she should not hear.

  “This place plays tricks with the light; it plays tricks with the mind… It can be whatever it wants. It can reveal as much or as little as it needs to in order to keep you here. Don’t you see Daisy May…?”

  Daisy wasn’t buying it. Just minutes earlier, this was the boy who had kissed her and the boy she thought she had fallen in love with. How could he have misled her? Then in her anger, another thought struck her.

  “Where were you?”

  It was a surprising question.

  “What?” Benjamin asked not understanding.

  “Where were you, after I climbed the tree and left you alone?”

  For a moment she seemed to be sticking to the question. But she wasn’t. Daisy had a million questions in her head. Like Benjamin though, she was finding it hard to express herself in the circumstances. It didn’t stop her trying.

  “You were sick and weak and you couldn’t come with me. You disappeared and left me. Now look at you! You’re positively glowing? How did you recover so quickly? Where were you Benjamin?”

  But before he could answer an even more surprising question entered her head and she asked it straight away.

  “Who are you?”

  It was the question that she had been trying to get out.

  Benjamin didn’t know what to say. It seemed ridiculous but he had only just begun to understand himself and in truth, he didn’t have all the answers.

  “I don’t think I can fully explain” he began, but Daisy immediately cut him short.

  She didn’t want half-answers after what she had gone through, what she was still going through.

  “You had better explain!” she demanded, her voice raised and angry.

  “I will try Daisy May,” he offered, “but you have to understand, I may not be able to answer all your questions.”

  He reached out to take her hand but she pushed it away.

  “I’ll try Daisy May, please let me try. Give me a chance?”

  There was a pleading in his voice that she couldn’t ignore. Daisy could not help but want to believe that this boy, this wonderful lovely boy, was really trying to help her. Though it seemed otherwise, she willed him to be good and to be only thinking of her, but it was really difficult for her to imagine that now. There were too many questions. Still, she had to at least let him try to explain. Daisy felt she owed him that much.

  “Talk,” she instructed, “but you’d better tell me everything!”

  “OK.”

  His answer was simple and pointed Daisy towards a large rounded stone that had erupted from the earth along with the gravestones. She knew that his gesture meant that he wanted her to sit, so she did and he sat on the ground in front of her. He crossed his legs. Before he began, Benjamin temporarily lowered his head and took a breath. He needed to compose himself. He needed to get this right. Then, he lifted his head up and looked directly at Daisy May. It was time to tell her everything he knew. He only hoped that she would understand and not blame him. Benjamin was afraid that he might not be able to tell her everything that she needed to know, to answer all of her questions. Whatever might happen, he knew that she had to be told everything, or at least everything that he knew, for Benjamin was not really sure that he understood fully himself. He smiled before he began, but Daisy May didn’t return the courtesy. Her face glowered and grimaced and she looked like an angry petulant child. She was trying a little too hard.

  “What do you want to know first?” he asked her, quite catching Daisy by surprise.

  “Em..?”

  Daisy searched for a place to start, an important question that she needed answered, but in that moment her mind went blank. She wanted explanations, that much she knew, but what to ask. Benjamin decided to choose the starting point for her.

  “I’ll tell you what Daisy, why don’t I begin by telling you just exactly who I am?”

  It was the right thing to say.

  Daisy felt relief that she was about to get some clarity. Everything was so stressful and she needed something solid to hold onto. The truth would be a start.

  “I thought I knew who you were?”

  Daisy couldn’t help but say it and Benjamin was quick to answer,

  “You do. Well, you know who I am in here.”

  He pointed to his chest and Daisy knew he meant in his heart and despite her annoyance, she softened. Then he continued,

  “But who I am? Well, my name is Benjamin Blood, that much I can tell you is true. Perhaps it would be easier for you to understand who I am if I tell you just who my father was.”

  It was an intriguing statement.

  “Your father?” Daisy asked, wondering what the significance might be.

  “What has your father got to do with anything?”

  Benjamin took a deep breath, knowing that he had more than a little explaining to do and still wondering exactly how he was going to manage it.

  “My father has everything to do with it” he told her plainly.

  A thoughtful look brushed across his face as he remembered his father. Daisy saw the look and recognised it immediately, but he still hadn’t answered the question, so she pushed him.

  “Who was he?” she asked.

  Benjamin smiled and held Daisy eyes with his, as she waited with anticipation for the answer.

  “My father,” Benjamin told her, “my Father was J.S. Toner!”

  CHAPTER THIRTY ONE – ANOTHER VOICE IN THE WOOD

  Not far away, across the now erupted clearing high up and hidden by the deep cover of the trees; Woody sat nestled on a thick branch, listening to the sounds made by Daisy May and Benjamin. His hearing was acute but he still didn’t catch every word. He was listening so very carefully, slowly remembering the sounds, bit by bit understanding more and more of what they said.

  “Daisyee Mayee.”

  He sounded her name softly, repeating it several times, listening to the soft sound that the words made all the while smiling. Had Daisy and Benjamin been able to see him, they would have thought he made a peculiar sight. They had already seen many incarnations of the boy, but he was changing ever more as the moment he had waited so long for, drew near.

  Woody still wore the same clothes that he always wore, an old dark grey roughly made suit, the jacket a little too tight, the pants a little too short. His shirt had no collar and was filthy from the forest. Woody was filthy full stop. There was even dirt in his tussled fair hair. As always he was barefoot and his toe nails were overlong and pretty much black from dirt.

  But it wasn’t just his clothes or the fact that he was so filthy. Even when he looke
d like one, Woody was a strange looking boy. Sometime in his life, he must have been handsome and that shone through occasionally. It was certainly something he could call upon when the situation required him to appear that way. But here in this place, his lair and his home so to speak, Woody’s appearance fluctuated depending on his mood. When he wanted to be fierce or if he became angry or frightened, Woody changed utterly. His hair would go lank, giving it a thinner appearance and his skin would pale so much, that it seemed almost translucent. Veins previously hidden would protrude and his lips turned purple and pouted around his cruel mouth filled with sharp rank animal teeth. When riled, Woody’s hands became claw like and his overall appearance underlined his genuine sense of threat.

  But high up, observing his prey calmly, re-learning a once fluent, but now forgotten language, Woody was relaxed. He paled and darkened, changing by the minute and the light around the clearing seemed to reflect his mood. Woody had a purpose, but he was in no hurry now. He had learned his lesson about rushing things. It was important to take his time. Woody wanted to savour his moment. It had been a while and Daisy May was a delightful prize for him. Benjamin’s arrival had thrown him a little. It interrupted him, angered him. No matter. Once up in the trees, calmness overtook Woody again. There was no need for him to be so apprehensive. He was excited perhaps, but not apprehensive.

  He rubbed his hands and as Daisy May and Benjamin talked below, he decided to move a little closer. They were distracted and he wanted to hear them speak some more. His was a solitary life. The fresh company, in the form of Daisy May, despite the circumstances and his plans for her, quite excited him.

  In a slow crawling motion, Woody crept between trees, along a line of solid branches barely making any noise. Below him, Daisy May and Benjamin were so absorbed in their conversation that they didn’t notice his presence. Pretty quickly, Woody found himself almost directly overhead. Once in place, he made himself comfortable and smiled. He could hear them perfectly now so he tuned in and carefully picked out words, remembering some and even making sense now of whole sentences, only the short ones though and only when they spoke slowly.