The Forest Beyond the Earth

by Matthew S. Cox

  Eventually, the word ‘boy’ came to mind from a story about a child going to a house in the forest where magical creatures started attacking them. He had an older sister who carried a sword and…

  Wisp biffed herself in the forehead. “Sword. They’re swords, not big knives. And that was a boy!”

  She ran her fingers through her hair, trying to help it dry faster while contemplating the idea that children weren’t all girls. Boys must get older and become dads, but maybe girls like her stayed small and needed dads to protect them. A proud smile bared her teeth. She’d been alone a week and protected herself. Maybe she didn’t need Dad hovering inches away all the time, but she still missed him.

  While the wind lifted the water from her skin, she replayed the fight she witnessed in her head. It gave her confidence watching a child her size send a marauder to the Other Place with a knife. Marauders looked like men trying to be Tree Walkers, taking other people. They seemed way weaker than real Tree Walkers, and would probably run away like those other monsters did as soon as she shot one. Better still, marauders didn’t have any magic and couldn’t melt into the weeds to disappear.

  Still, much better not to get seen―by marauders or Tree Walkers or anyone else―until she found Dad. Since Mother had yet to scold her for being bad, she knew she’d find him. Refreshed from her long swim, she lay stretched out in the grass and gazed at the clouds, wishing the wind would hurry up and dry her off.

  She spotted some blueberries growing in a cluster of bushes not far from the upside-down no-wheeled car. Near to drooling at the prospect of yummy berries, she took the deeper pot from her backpack and hurried over to the bushes. Once she’d nearly filled the pot, she returned to her little campsite and ate as many as she could.

  After reaching the point she couldn’t force down even one more blueberry, she repacked the pot (and a nice stash of extra berries). By then, she’d dried off enough to get dressed. After one more check for bugs, she stepped into her skirt. The sun had warmed the leather painfully hot, but she wriggled it into place, gasping the whole time, and secured both belts. She snapped her shirt a few times in case of bugs before putting it on, then added the rest of her stuff one by one.

  “Ugh.” She sighed under the weight of the backpack. All this stuff felt so heavy compared to floating in the lake. Still, she had at least two hours of daylight left and didn’t want to sleep by the water. Especially not since marauders might come back. “Which way, Mother?”

  The twig-on-twine unfurled from her hand, dangling on one finger. It spun back and forth, tossing in the breeze until she rotated herself to block the wind with her body. A few seconds later, it went still, pointing at the trees.

  She nodded, stuffed the twig in the backpack’s side pocket, and picked up the rifle.

  Supplies

  -20-

  The woods had not offered much in the way of shelter that night. She had to make do by concealing herself in a thick patch of underbrush with only delicate plants between her and Tree Walkers.

  Tired from a poor sleep, Wisp trudged along for hours. The twig pointed her in an uphill direction, which she found odd since she’d been going downhill more often than not lately. Still, she trusted Mother, so she obliged, despite thinking she might be going northwest. Perhaps the beast that had taken Dad kept carrying him around, and she’d been following a moving target.

  Her expression remained stoic, though silent tears drew wet lines from the corners of her eyes, pushed backward by the wind in her face. Having gone days without talking to anyone, she began trying to have a conversation with Mother.

  “I miss him. I hope Dad’s okay. Do you think he’s okay? That’s good. I do, too. I’m sorry it’s taking me so long to find him. I won’t give up.”

  She walked on for a few minutes, imagining Mother telling her she did a good job and everything would be okay. Random thoughts of home, her Haven, Dad’s smile, the smell of crickets in boar grease with yellowgreens―all of it hit her and kept the tears flowing.

  “Stop crying. I’m wasting water.” She came to a halt, taking deep breaths to let her grief settle down.

  A couple hits off her canteen and a twig check later, she resumed walking, making a slight course correction to the left. She made a brief stop around midday to munch on blueberries, and choked down a couple handfuls of yellowgreens without cooking them. At the first signs of sunset, she crested the top of a hill and came to a stop at a cliff ridge. There, she beheld an impossible sight:

  The end of the Endless Forest.

  Land, a vast expanse of barren dirt, stretched as far as she could see out in front of her.

  “Umm…” She peered down what had to be a seven-or-eight story drop, near vertical. Windblown whorls of dust, some bigger than her cabin, glided back and forth across the ground far below. “Mother? I don’t think I can go this way.”

  This cliff stood at the line of separation between life and death, with the lush forest behind her, and a desiccated wasteland in front.

  She stepped back from the edge before the soil could crumble out from under her, and sighed at the distance. The red-orange sun sank behind the mountains at her back, sending streamers of fire across the clouds. A collection of dark shapes way off in the wastes resembled a ‘city’ she had seen on the cover of a book. She pulled the rifle off her shoulder and used the scope to zoom in on the spot. A group of what she thought were called ‘skyscrapers’ stood in the midst of a vast field of brown-beige rubble. All tilted at the same rightward angle, as if some great force and crashed over them from the left. Their upper ends had broken open, blooming into twisted tangles of metal spars and dangling concrete hunks.

  “Whoa,” she whispered. “Is that the Other Place?”

  She panned the scope over smashed windows, examining fluttering curtains, chairs, and other objects she didn’t recognize. The ancient buildings all had missing sections where gaping holes in the sides spanned several floors. Nothing moved in that place without the wind’s help. The skeletal high-rises contained only death.

  Wisp shivered, emitting an uneasy mutter. A place that looked that scary had to be where spirits went. But what would happen to a living person if they walked to the Other Place? Would they be stuck there or could they leave again because they hadn’t lost their life? I could visit Mother! She bounced on her toes with anticipation. Of all the stories in her books, one thing upset her more than anything: reading about young characters who had mothers. She’d always been jealous of them, since her mother had to go to the Other Place before she got old enough to remember her. Wisp took an instant dislike to any character in a book whose mother remained alive, and even more so if they acted mean to her.

  But…

  She remembered something a character in one of her thicker books said, and tried to mimic a man’s voice.

  “One does not simply walk into the Other Place.”

  Modifying the line made her want to laugh and cry at the same time.

  The ruin looked so far away, she expected even a bullet from her rifle would fall to the ground before reaching it.

  “It’s not really here. This hill lets people see it, but we can’t go there.”

  Skiff.

  Wisp spun to the rear at the sound of a shoe in the dirt. She didn’t even have the time to yelp before a marauder grabbed her in a painfully tight bear hug and hauled her into the air. Her legs pedaled at nothing; he flipped her over right as she began to scream, and threw her down, chest-first. Her body striking the dirt changed her scream to an “Oof!”

  The marauder fell on top of her, grabbing at her arms. “Git her legs!”

  She kicked harder, struggling to pull her arm away from the vicelike grip on her right wrist. “Let go!”

  Another marauder rushed over and seized her legs. Wisp kept kicking and struggling, even with hard fingers crushing around both ankles. The second marauder overpowered her, gradually fighting her legs together and pinning her feet to the soil. Her backpack got in the way
of the man trying to pull her arms around behind her. He released her left arm and grabbed the strap, trying to yank it off her shoulder. The rifle crushed into her hip, pinned to the dirt beneath her.

  A brush of coarse rope at her ankle set her off like a primer to a bullet.

  Wisp roared and flung herself up, smashing the back of her head into the mouth of the man on top of her. He let off a pained whimper, released her arms, and fell to the side, clutching his face. She rolled to the right, yanked the pistol from its holster, and pointed it at the man trying to tie her ankles together. He started to glance toward the gun less than two feet away from his face, but she fired before they made eye contact.

  The back of his head blew out in a spray of red. He slumped over sideways and landed with his butt in the air.

  “Gah!” shouted the other marauder, scooting away from her.

  She twisted to aim at him. Blood streamed out of his nose over his teeth.

  “Black magic,” said the marauder.

  Wisp pulled the trigger. The marauder’s head rocked back and he collapsed to the ground, still. She lay there pointing the gun at him for a moment more, heart racing, breath rushing loud in her ears. Eventually, she calmed enough to reach forward with her left hand and pull the loose rope away from her legs, her gun still trained on the man. Another six or so minutes passed before her heartbeat slowed back to normal, or she moved.

  Without a word, she popped the magazine from the pistol and counted fourteen shots left, thirteen in the mag, one in the chamber. She slid the magazine back into place and let her arms drop into her lap.

  “Monsters. They’re just monsters.”

  She closed her eyes and told herself over and over that they hadn’t been people. People don’t grab children.

  Six minutes after shooting two monsters, she slid the pistol back in the holster. Still, she sat there, staring past her feet at the marauder with his butt in the air. That big man and the boy had gathered everything from the ones they sent to the Other Place, but she didn’t want to take their clothes. Not to mention, she couldn’t really carry their bows, since she already had so much stuff it made walking a chore. One had a pouch with jerky in it, which she helped herself to. The other guy had a couple pieces of bread, which she also swiped. She took a test nibble from a piece of jerky, and determined it to be deer.

  After eating the dried meat and one of the small breads, she picked up the two empty casings her pistol had spat into the dirt. Dad would want her to so he could put more magic fire dust in them later.

  Both marauders had canteens, and the water smelled okay, so she drank.

  Water and food. She looked back and forth between them. Could I hunt monsters for supplies instead of foraging? She sighed. No. I should save bullets for emergencies. Always run first. I can’t run when the monsters are holding me down.

  She pulled her feet close, shifted her weight forward, and jumped upright.

  “And I should get out of here. Guns are loud.”

  Wisp stooped to pick up her rifle, dusted it off, and jogged down the hill heading back the way she’d come.

  Zen

  -21-

  At the bottom of the hill, Wisp pulled out the Mother Twig and let it spin.

  It guided her left to a section of road she hadn’t seen before with another rocky wall straight in front of her, leaving her no choice other than following the paving to the right or left. This time, the twig pointed right, putting the sun at her back.

  “East again… That’s good. Thank you, Mother.”

  She wound the twine around the twig, stuffed it again in the side pocket on the backpack, and proceeded to follow the road. Still on edge from the marauders trying to grab her, she carried the rifle. The thicker leather flap in the middle of her skirt slapped against her legs as she walked, creating a regular pat-pat-pat. She thought back to the boy slicing at the marauder with his knife, but not cutting his chest.

  At least if someone tried to stab her in the skirt, she’d be protected. She didn’t want to get into knife fights, but she decided it would probably be a good idea to ask Dad to make her some chest armor. So far, she’d sent three monsters to the Other Place all on her own, so she had to be ‘ready’ to go on trips with him. No more hiding in the Haven for Wisp. Nope. Once she found Dad, she would follow his third rule perfectly: never again would she be more than three steps away. Even if he made ngh, she’d stay close.

  She grimaced at the memory of how bad it could smell sometimes. What about Dad made it so powerful? Was that a Dad thing or a man thing? Heck, Dad’s ngh stank so bad it could probably keep marauders away. Maybe even Tree Walkers.

  “We’ll make an ngh thrower. He’ll destroy all the monsters.”

  Wisp laughed.

  The road passed into a section with high rock walls on both sides, too sheer to climb. Strange fuzzy paint writing covered the left side, but she couldn’t make out what any of it said, aside from recognizing one or two individual letters. Since the canyon limited her choice of direction, she kept going along the road, which increasingly took on a steeper downhill grade.

  By midday, she’d finished the water in the marauders’ canteens and put the empties in her backpack, which had about reached the limit of what it could hold. Walking on road for so long made her feet hurt, so she stuck to a narrow strip of dirt by the wall. The road swerved around a sweeping left after another hour, where the tops of the walls shrank lower and lower. Two hours past midday, the incline walls on either side of the road flattened out from vertical to steep hills she might be able to climb. Another bend curved to the right, and when she peeked around the corner, she stopped short.

  The paved strip became a pin-straight line heading out into flat dirt―no trees anywhere in sight. A few small green bushes sprouted here and there, as well as bizarre tall plants she’d never seen anywhere but in pictures before with thick stems covered in spines. She would’ve turned around and gone back up into the woods if not for spotting a settlement beside the road in the distance.

  It didn’t seem possible to survive in such a dead place, without bugs or edible plants or any animals. But a cluster of buildings visible past the heat blur suggested that some people did manage it. Mother had to know what she was doing bringing her here. Maybe this is the place she will find Dad. Even if it turned out to be empty, she couldn’t exactly get lost anymore, not in wide-open nothingness. No landmark more obvious than the mountains behind her existed. She’d only have to follow this road back to her forest.

  Wisp decided to proceed. Within minutes, sweat ran down her body in trails, dripping from her nose onto the rifle. At least a reasonably cool breeze cut across the land, making the heat bearable. As she got closer to the settlement, signs of life became apparent. The occasional voice broke the silence, and she spotted a few goats as well as some of those fat non-flying birds. One cabin even had a rectangular arrangement of green plants growing behind it.

  A giant box lay on its side across the road close to the edge of the settlement. Huge tires, mounted in four pairs of two, stuck out from the left side. These tires would’ve stood as tall as her chest if the box had been upright, far bigger than any she’d ever seen before. In fact, the box looked about twice as long as her cabin. This thing isn’t supposed to be on that side. The tires should touch the ground. Something knocked this giant thing over, but what? She gawked at the sheer size of it.

  That machine’s days of driving long ago came to an end. Metal and wood creaked as the box deformed with the wind, swaying back and forth. She crept up and hid behind it to observe the settlement, not quite ready to let other people see her.

  She watched for a while, counting seven individuals, some in fabric skirts, some in jeans, and a few wearing armor like marauders, but black instead of brown, and none had face-coverings. The men with armor didn’t act aggressively toward anyone, so she entertained the hope that they might not be marauders. Dad wore leather armor on his chest and he was certainly not a marauder. His did
look a lot like theirs, but he probably sent one to the Other Place and took the armor.

  “What do you think, Mother? Should I go in?”

  Kneeling in the road safely in the shadow of the huge box, she pulled out the twig and let it spin. It swayed back and forth for a little while before winding up pointing (mostly) at the settlement.

  “All right. I know you will protect me.”

  Wisp stood, took a breath, and stepped out past the enormous tires. The twig told her to go that way, and she trusted Mother. Head held high, she walked straight into the settlement along the road. People looked at her with curious expressions. One man seemed worried, but none approached or spoke. The urge to scream at being around so many people at the same time welled up inside her, but after a full minute of no one trying to convince her to come closer or running over to grab her, she relaxed.

  Another strange man with long hair, a slender build, and an unusual puffy pillow in his shirt, stared at her. He appeared to teeter on the verge of walking over, but remained in place. Wisp stared at him, wondering how he’d managed to shave his beard so well that no sign of any hair remained on his face.

  The smell of food in the wind triggered a sharp growl from her stomach. She faced the breeze and looked around for the source, walking in that direction. Her nose led her to a huge one-story cabin with a round white and black sign over the door. It had no words, but a basic drawing of two curved raindrops spinning into each other. The black one had a white spot in it, and the white one had a black spot.

  A small staircase led up to an elevated porch as wide as the whole face of the cabin, with an assortment of chairs and a few tiny tables, though no one sat at them. She padded up onto the warm wood, leaving a trail of footprints in the dust on her way to the entrance. Instead of a door, a curtain of hanging beads separated the inside from outside.