The Forest Beyond the Earth

by Matthew S. Cox

  One final moment of hesitation passed, and Wisp took hold of the woman’s hand, the key to the Haven pressed between their palms.

  Eden’s fingers clamped around hers; tears ran free. “I’ve missed you so much. I never gave up trying to find you.”

  She started crying as well. “Are… are you really my mother?”

  Navas nudged Even. “Get her out of there.”

  Wisp didn’t protest as Eden pulled her hand back with the key. The tiny bit of metal snapped into the lock with a click, and the faint creak of the door swinging open became the loudest sound in the world. Her worst nightmare unfolded before her eyes. Tree Walkers inside the cabin, and her Haven breached.

  No…

  My cage open.

  Sniveling, Wisp crawled forward. Eden grabbed her into a desperate, tight embrace, sitting on the floor and sobbing. She gingerly reached up and wrapped her arms around the woman’s leafy body. Beneath layers of vines, branches, and fabric, radiated the warmth of a living person.

  Numb, Wisp stared into nowhere, unsure if she should allow herself to believe.

  “Hey, kid,” said Navas. “You look confused.”

  Wisp peered up at him.

  “There’s no doubt in my mind,” said Marr. “Use a signal mirror.”

  “Good idea.” Navas’s vine-covered body shifted about, and a hand popped out holding a bright silver rectangle. “Hon, turn around. Put your faces together.”

  Eden shifted her about, seated in her lap, and rested her chin on Wisp’s shoulder, so their cheeks touched. Navas held the device up in front of them.

  In a little two-by-three inch space, a pair of faces stared back at Wisp. One small, one large, both with bright blonde hair and blue eyes. They had the same nose, and their lips had the same shape. Except for some faint lines around Eden’s eyes, they appeared to be the same person in two different sizes.

  “What is that?” Wisp pointed at the device. “Who are those people?”

  “That’s a mirror,” said Navas. “Do you know what that means?”

  Wisp’s breath caught in her throat. “Yeah” emerged as a teary whine. She’d read about mirrors in her books; characters who stared at one always did so in order to see themselves. In that instant, she understood she gazed upon her own face for the first time… and the woman looked just like her.

  The smaller face, her face, also looked like the reflection she’d seen in the water she mistook for a water spirit. Falo told her a child was supposed to resemble their mother or father. If this… little mirror showed the truth, her dearest wish had come true.

  She reached up and touched one finger to the glass over Eden’s face, whispering, “Mother.”

  “Yes. I’m here, baby.” Eden sniffled and squeezed her.

  My mother is alive!

  Overwhelmed, Wisp lost the ability to speak. Like Kit, she’d crawled out of a cage into her living mother’s arms. After a moment of mute staring, she whirled around to bury her face in Eden’s shoulder.

  Wisp clung to her mother tight, unable to stop bawling.

  Head Sickness

  -36-

  Emotions stormed across Wisp’s heart. Joy, dread, anger, confusion, and sorrow.

  Once they ceased crying on each other, Eden leaned back to look at her. “Are you really here? Am I really not dreaming this?”

  “We’re here, E.” Marr patted her on the shoulder. “This is real.”

  A somber silence settled over the cabin for a few minutes.

  Wisp broke the quiet with a weak voice. “Sorry for taking your dinner.”

  The grownups burst into laughter. Except for her mother, they split up and searched all the cabinets and shelves, with Ionna going into Dad’s room. Wisp opened her mouth to yell at her for breaking the rule, but… maybe it didn’t apply to a woman as it applied to a child.

  “It’s all right, Kaya.” Eden squeezed her again.

  “Why do you keep calling me that?”

  Eden brushed a hand over Wisp’s head, fussing with her hair. “That’s the name I gave you when you were born. The man who brought you to this cabin stole you from us when you were only two years old.”

  “Dad told me Mother wanted a daughter more than anything in the whole world, but right after she had me, she went to the Other Place.”

  “We saw them when they first came to this area, almost eleven years ago,” said Eden. “Our scouts made contact, and we thought them friendly. The man would come and trade with us sometimes. One day, he told us his wife had fallen ill. He wanted to buy a ‘medicine,’ but we do not know of such a thing. We think the woman died not long after. You were out in the yard playing with the chickens when I heard you scream.” She hesitated, choking up. “I went inside for just a moment…”

  “I don’t remember,” said Wisp, bowing her head.

  Eden rocked her side to side for a little while before she regained the ability to speak. “I ran outside as fast as I could, but it wasn’t fast enough. I watched that man carry my child over our fence and run into the woods.”

  “Some believed he took you as revenge for not providing this ‘medicine’ he had asked for,” said Navas. “A search party went into the forest after him, but the man’s horrible magic struck our people dead from afar in a flash of thunder.”

  “We lost five, including your father. I don’t understand why, but the man you called Dad did not use his magic on me. He tied me to a tree and disappeared into the forest. The last words he ever spoke to me were, ‘I shall raise her as my own and protect her, but do not follow or my magic shall be the end of your entire village.’ The others who had been hurt but survived heard him say this, and when we returned home, the elders forbade us to keep looking for you, fearing that he would kill everyone.”

  “She didn’t give up,” said Marr. “Three times a week, she’d lead a team out into the woods, hunting for you. I was only twelve when you disappeared, but once I became old enough, I went with her every time.”

  Wisp blinked. She couldn’t imagine Dad being so cruel, leaving a mother tied to a tree and forcing her to watch him steal her child… or threaten to send a whole settlement to the Other Place. “He wouldn’t… He told me bullets don’t hurt Tree Walkers… but you’re not Tree Walkers, you’re people. Bullets would hurt you.”

  “Bullets?” asked Eden.

  “He didn’t want me to send you to the Other Place.” Wisp sniffled. “He knew you wouldn’t stop looking for me, and he didn’t want me to hurt my real mother.”

  Eden caressed her cheek, lifting her head so they made eye contact. “What is bullets?”

  “Dad didn’t have magic… he only said that to scare people who don’t understand.” Wisp drew the handgun from her hip. “This is a gun. It’s a powerful weapon that even a child like me can use to send huge marauders to the Other Place.”

  All the grownups, except Lanos who’d gone into the Mother Shrine, gathered around.

  She took the magazine out and pulled back on the slide to eject the round in the chamber, which landed on the floor. “These things are bullets.” Wisp held the cartridge up. “Well, it’s really the front end. The back part’s a case. There’s magic fire dust inside. It burns real fast, and it makes the bullet go flying way fast. Kinda like throwing a rock, but throwing it so hard it goes all the way through someone.”

  They gasped in awe.

  “A relic of the ancients.” Marr pointed at the pistol. “I have seen such a thing once before, but could not figure out what it was for or how to make it work.”

  “You… have used this magic?” Eden coughed. “I mean… bullets?”

  “Yes. But only on monsters who tried to hurt me.”

  Eden clutched Wisp’s hands around the gun. “You are much too young to take life, Kaya. Such a thing as this does not belong with you.”

  “Dad showed me how to use it to protect myself. He didn’t want to lose me.”

  Navas scowled. “He would’ve had her shoot her own people, so he could k
eep holding her prisoner.”

  “No!” Wisp shook her head. “He told me bullets don’t hurt Tree Walkers.”

  Eden bowed her head.

  “The elders will want this magic for our defense,” said Ionna.

  Wisp pointed at the books on Dad’s shelf. “Some of those books explain how it works.”

  Navas pulled one off the shelf and held it to his ear. “It is not speaking.”

  She laughed. “No… they don’t talk, you read them.”

  “Read?” asked Eden.

  The other grownups all looked at her in bewilderment.

  “Wait. You can’t read? But you’re grownups!”

  “How does it work?” Lanos picked a book off the shelf by her Haven.

  “You look at the words and they become pictures and stuff inside your head,” said Wisp.

  “So you just stare at this thing and it gives you knowledge?” asked Lanos.

  Wisp nodded.

  Lanos held the book up and peered at it. After a minute, he glanced at her. “It’s not doing anything.”

  “No, silly. You have to open it and read the words, not look at the outside.” Wisp made an ‘open the book’ gesture.

  He fumbled with it since he had the spine facing him.

  “Turn it over. And it’s upside down, too,” said Wisp, frowning.

  Lanos flipped the book over and opened it down the middle. “There are marks inside.”

  “Those are words.”

  “I’m not getting any dreams from this.” Lanos closed it after a few seconds.

  She stood and padded over to him, tugging on the book until he opened it. Finger tracing along the page, she read, “Robert couldn’t let himself be late for work a second time in a month, or he’d be fired.”

  “You got that from these markings?” asked Eden.

  “Yes!” said Wisp.

  “What does that mean?” Navas tilted his head.

  “Umm. A character named Robert was late to do his task, and he was worried his dad would light him on fire for being slow.” Wisp couldn’t believe these grownups didn’t understand something so obvious.

  “I would like you to show me how to get the dreams from these words,” said Lanos.

  “Me too.” Marr smiled.

  Wisp sighed. “Oh… That’s going to take a while.”

  “Eden,” said Lanos, from the Mother Shrine.

  “What?” Eden twisted around to look.

  Lanos held up the small gauzy garment that had been in Mother’s lap.

  As soon as he handed it to Eden, she lapsed into crying again. “You were wearing this when he took you.”

  Wisp leaned against her mother. “I’m sorry.”

  “It’s not your fault.” Eden kissed her on the head. “None of this is your fault. I should’ve searched wider and more often. Gone farther away from home. I―we… had to sneak out at night or we would be exiled for disobeying the elders. They feared this man would kill us all. We never realized how far away he had taken you. When I saw you days ago, right in the very spot he’d stolen you from nine years ago, I thought I was dreaming.”

  “The elders allowed us to go this time,” said Navas. “She convinced them that if you were out on your own, you’d somehow gotten away from him and he was no longer a threat. We found this cabin a few days out, but no one was in it except for a dead woman.”

  “You found Mother? You saw her?” Wisp looked up at him.

  “Yes. The man had kept her body right in the house… The dead belong resting in a grave.”

  Wisp blinked, remembering the dirt mound. “You buried her!”

  They all nodded.

  “The man had a head sickness to leave his dead wife in the next room,” said Marr.

  All the grownups cringed and made faces.

  “For nine years.” Lanos shivered. “That’s horrible.”

  “I can’t imagine how bad that smelled,” said Ionna.

  “And to put a little girl in a cage,” said Navas, a bite to his words. “Crueler still to make her feel safer in there.”

  “Head sickness,” said Wisp. “He loved Mother so much, when she went to the Other Place, he made a shrine for her so she could watch over us.”

  Navas squatted next to her. “That’s what he told you? He must have treated the body with something. I’ve never seen a dead person that old still… umm… intact. If he loved her, he would have buried her so her spirit can rest.”

  “We had best return home before he realizes we have found her,” said Marr.

  Wisp peered at him. “He’s gone to the Oth― I mean…” She bowed her head. “He’s dead. I wasn’t strong enough to carry him back here.”

  “Dead?” asked Eden.

  “Yes.” Wisp gazed at the floor and traced random lines in the dust with a finger. “Marauders were here in one of their buggies. I thought it was a giant bitey-bug, but it wasn’t. He didn’t come back inside, and I spent a whole day in the Haven waiting for him. But he still didn’t come back. I couldn’t get out because he kept the opener―I mean key―on that shelf way up there. I had to escape…” She stared along her arm, still pointing at the shelf, shocked at what she’d said, more shocked for understanding it to be true. “I had to escape…”

  “Oh, Kaya, don’t be afraid. You’re safe now.” Eden clamped her in another tight hug. “There are no such things as Tree Walkers. That man wanted you to be afraid of us, knowing we dress like this to go scouting.”

  “I had to escape,” said Wisp, teetering on the verge of tears. “Daz was right… he did take me.”

  As if watching Dad die right before her eyes, Wisp collapsed in Eden’s arms and sobbed.

  Navas stroked her hair. “Shh, child. I believe in some strange way, that man did love you.”

  “But he had head sickness,” mumbled Wisp.

  She clung to her mother, her mind awash with thoughts. Dad’s wife had desperately wanted a daughter, but died before the spirits brought them a baby. Grief-stricken, he had stolen Wisp into the woods as his child. Mother may or may not have ever watched her from the Other Place, and apparently, leaving a dead person sitting in a chair in the back room for nine years was wrong.

  And for as long as she’d wanted a living mother, Wisp had come within inches of finding her…

  “I’m sorry for taking the bird meat and running. I didn’t know you were my mother!”

  Eden hugged her again before pulling her to her feet. “Don’t be sorry. If you hadn’t done that, I don’t know that I’d have ever found you. Wow, you’re so big.”

  “Actually, she’s kinda skinny,” fake-whispered Navas.

  Wisp stuck her tongue out at him.

  Ionna patted Eden on the shoulder. “You’ll never guess what I found in the trailer.”

  “What?” asked Eden.

  Smiling, Ionna went back inside Dad’s room. A moment later, she emerged carrying a bundle of leaves and vines that looked like a dead, deflated Tree Walker. “He took two of the ponchos. Had ’em in a trunk back there.”

  Wisp crouched to pick up the gun and magazine. She snapped the loose bullet into the mag and slid it back into the handle, leaving the chamber empty. With a sigh, she stuffed the pistol in her holster. “I wasn’t allowed to go in there. Dad had rules. I had to stay close to him, or the Tree Walkers would get me. I wasn’t allowed outside the Haven at night when Dad slept. And I wasn’t allowed in his room.”

  Ionna shook the bundle of vegetation at her. “Yeah. If you saw this, you’d have figured out there ain’t no such thing as Tree Walkers, an’ caught him lying.”

  Wisp hated that the woman made sense. She hated it more that it now sounded so much like Dad didn’t want her to escape. “He got really scared if I walked too far away. I don’t think he lied. He didn’t treat me mean like the marauders treated the people they took.”

  “Maybe you weren’t the only person he lied to. After a couple years, the guy might’ve convinced himself that Tree Walkers existed.” Navas set hi
s hands on his hips and whistled.

  “Man…” Lanos shook his head at the cage. “He had a powerful head sickness.”

  Mother

  -37-

  The people Wisp had believed to be Tree Walkers listened as she explained everything that had happened from the day the marauders took Dad until she returned here and found Mother buried.

  “I guess that twig didn’t really work, did it?” Wisp stared down at her feet.

  “Old Adna thinks the dead talk to her in her dreams, but I’ve never heard of a ghost doing anything like that.” Navas shook his head. “Most likely, the wind moved it.”

  Wisp thought about the stick pointing at the building where she found Dad, but there had been no wind there. In her mind, she saw the twig unfurl and dangle over and over again. It hadn’t turned at all, merely continued pointing the same way she had been holding it.

  A long, sad sigh leaked out her nose. “Mother was a lie, too. She wasn’t watching me.”

  Eden knelt in front of Wisp so they wound up eye-to-eye, and grasped her shoulders. “Kaya, I have been roaming the woods for nine years hoping to find you. I never gave up believing you were still out there. I want you to come home with me, where you belong. Will you return home with me?”

  “You’re asking her?” Navas blinked. “You’re asking a little girl if she wants to go home with you after all you’ve gone through to find her?”

  “Yes.” Eden kept staring into her eyes. “She has already been abducted once. Though she is my daughter, I do not wish to steal her from the place she considers home.”

  “This is her cage,” said Lanos. “Not her home.”

  Wisp bit her lower lip. This cabin had been the only home she ever knew. Whatever had happened during the first two years of her life had fallen off into a void she could not see into. Maybe she had been so terrified or sad at being taken, she simply refused to remember that had ever been. Dad still lay dead in a garage off in the desert―or at least, the man she had called Dad. This woman looked like a grownup version of her. Dad, with his dark brown skin, black hair, and sharp nose…

  “Do kids have to look like Dad or Mother, or can that be who loves and protects them?” asked Wisp.