Akilina: Out of the Woods

by Patricia A Bowmer

  As Halley traveled, the undergrowth grew drier. The storm couldn’t have been as big here, for it to dry out so fast. As dry earth reappeared, the topmost layer of leaves began to crisp. The birds cawed and trilled, as if celebrating the sunshine. Her guess at some of their calls was confirmed – a group of Black-faced Laughing-thrushes noisily announced their presence – their black face guards made them look like masked robbers. She liked the song of the Jungle Crow the best. It was always louder than the others, and she liked to imagine its cries as the words “Don’t Quit; Don’t Quit; Don’t Quit”.

  She needed the encouragement. Her hunger gnawed relentlessly, and her mouth was parched. The vibrant red berries on the bushes mocked her, red demon eyes winking. They looked alluring, but she couldn’t be sure they were safe to eat. Reluctantly, she left them. The situation was getting desperate: she’d had a full day with very little food, and just two canteens of water.

  Come on Halley, we’ve been this way already! Get your act together! Think!

  The self-criticism reminded her of the way she’d talked to herself the night before. She knew why she didn’t like to be alone. Her voice was cruel. She tried to break the pattern by speaking aloud. “When did I start to speak to myself this way?” she said. “I remember a time when I used to believe I could do anything, could be anything.” She had no answer. The endless day stretched on and on, and the blisters on her feet burned and then burst.

  Hours later, she came upon a dried-out waterfall, its rocky, desiccated riverbed spread long and empty before her. She stopped short. Her hand moved to cover her mouth.

  She knew this waterfall. This river.

  The surprise of this realization immobilized her completely.

  It can’t be.

  This was where she and her father had planted wildflower seeds. In the fertile land near the river, the seeds had sent a multitude of shoots skywards. It had been a long-lasting delight of different colors, sizes, shapes, and textures. She would sit and run her fingers along the various leaves, feeling their softness or their roughness, observing how their veins ran along their backs, even tasting the flowers as they bloomed each season.

  The summer she turned twelve, the scarlet ibises had come, as if by magic, to sit upon the grey rocks of the waterfall, their red plumage glowing in the sun. That summer, she began to come to the waterfall alone for the first time. She told herself it was to watch them, but it was more than this. It was carving out her first private space. The birds gave her a focus, each tiny move they made, as they dipped their curved black beaks in the water, as they showed off, just a little, with their brilliant color, their self-assurance. The hours she’d spent watching them spread their wings wide to splash in the water were some of her most treasured memories. During that summer with them, she’d transformed slowly and peacefully from girl to woman. The wildflower garden by the waterfall had been her soul-place.

  Her head was pounding, and a light sweat broke out on her forehead.

  This can’t be the same place. I’ve never been here before. There’s been nothing else familiar about this forest…we drove hours to get here… I didn’t know the trail head…

  The truth stirred and grew large, too large to leave any room for doubt.

  She was trembling. Her own words came back to her, the words she’d spoken to Fernando before entering this strange forest: A new place to begin.

  What had she done!

  Somehow, she had unraveled time and space from its usual continuum. I didn’t mean it. I don’t want to begin again. She was breathing fast, her heart pounding hard. A sense of vertigo threatened to overpower her. The world was moving in a way in which it should not. This waterfall belonged in a different country. In a different time.

  She stared at the place where the water no longer flowed, and felt herself dry up. Sinking down, she trailed her hand on the dry earth at the edge of the empty river, rubbing marks in the dust. It was as drained of moisture as a thin cotton sheet hung too long in the summer sun. Between her fingers, Halley crushed a small bit of loose dirt, and watched it filter through her fingers.

  Her eyes traveled upwards to the trees. That was our swinging tree. On long summer afternoons, she and her brother had swung from a rope tied to the largest tree, leaping off in full flight like young gibbons, trying to plumb the depths of the pool at the waterfall’s base. The remnants of the rope were still there.

  And there…that was my garden, she thought. All that remained were dead, wilted heads of wildflower blossoms. An un-seemly smell of rot was in the air. She tried to remember the flowers alive, to see the garden.

  The river was empty, the life gone. As if it had been dammed and blocked and would not flow again. She hung her head. She didn’t want to look anymore. It’s been so many years. But I never imagined this place could dry out, that the wild flowers could die. The loss was vast, a desecration.

  She sat down on the ground to compose herself, legs crossed, hands on her knees, staring blankly. Abruptly, she collapsed forward, as if she could no longer hold herself upright, and she rested her head in her hands, her face covered. No. I don’t want it to be gone like this, don’t let it be. Did I do this? Did my words change things from how they were?

  She closed her eyes tightly, forcing them to remain closed, willing it to be untrue, and willing that when she re-opened her eyes it would be as it was. Her brow was furrowed, a deep tense line.

  When she did open her eyes, nothing had changed. It was worse looking again on the devastation, when she had recreated how it used to be behind her closed eyelids.

  She picked up one of the flowers and examined it, looking for answers, trying to understand what had happened. Her heart began to pound faster. The stem had been cut straight through. Still holding the flower, she lifted her eyes to the mass of dead flowers; they all had been cut. “Someone’s done this on purpose,” she said, very quietly. The words, spoken aloud, made the reality sink in.

  Halley scrambled up, and moved away fast from the dry riverbed and dead flowers. She was suddenly quite frightened. Who cut the wildflowers? If the flowers had been cut purposely, the waterfall might have been blocked intentionally too. Someone had destroyed her soul-place, and they had done it on purpose. It was crazy to think it had been done to destroy her, but that’s just what she thought.

  The daylight was beginning to fade. The ground, littered with dry leaves, crackled and crunched with each footstep. As she moved further into the woods, away from the dry waterfall, the noise made her uneasy. It gave away her position, making her too easy to track.

  At a fork in the trail, she stopped to decide which direction to take. The leaves continued crunching for a moment after she had stopped, and then were suddenly silent. She was being followed! Her eyes widened as she swallowed a scream.

  “There aren’t any large animals in these woods,” she said, measuring the depth of her fear by the tone of her voice. Even in the gathering dusk, her soft voice was moderately calm; its sound reassured her. She thought for a moment. “But I didn’t know about the snakes…” Randomly, she chose a trail, and rushed forward, trying to outdistance her fear.

  The path she chose was difficult. Exposed roots of trees got in the way and slowed her down. At first she tried to step high and move between them in a fast jog. She was quickly exhausted from the effort. Looking back over her shoulder, fear pounding in her, she tripped and landed shockingly hard, scraping the skin off her palms on a rough tree root. The tears that blurred her vision were out of proportion to the pain of scraped palms. She blinked them away, and got to her feet fast, heart racing with imagined terrors. Another loud crackle somewhere behind her made her whole body tighten. I’ve got to hurry, got to find somewhere safe. I can’t spend tonight outside.

  In the past, Fernando had found their shelters, following thin trails, seeking out hidden caves with his sharp eyes. But he wasn’t here to help. Her eyes sought small tracks off the main trail, visible only by a slight discoloration in ground cover
. She’d have to be moving slowly to spot them, as they were often unused for weeks or months. The call of an early owl made her heart leap painfully. I’ve got to find a place to hide.

  Unwillingly, she slowed her walk even more. Sweat ran down her forehead into her eyes. She rubbed it away impatiently. The hair on the back of her neck lifted: the sound of someone tracking her was suddenly louder, more obvious. She wheeled around, her hands held high in a martial arts guard, steeling herself to face whatever was there.

  The empty motionless forest made a mockery of her stance. No one was there. She felt a collapsing inside. Dropping her hands, she turned around, and walked on. She tried to ignore her quickened breathing and the sweat trickling down the back of her neck.

  It took longer than she liked, but she finally found a small off-shoot trail. It was just as she’d expected: overgrown, with small flexible branches that snapped back into place after she’d pushed through. In the ebbing daylight, she moved hastily along the path, and after several minutes, came to the edge of a massive tree. She knew this type of tree: it would shelter her. She stood very still.

  If she stayed this frightened for long, alone in the woods, she’d go mad. So she didn’t enter the shelter straight away, telling herself that the delay would prove the woods were safe, that she wasn’t afraid she was being followed. After all, what protection did a tree shelter really provide?

  She stood outside the shelter, trying to assuage her fear by telling herself a story about the tree, like a bedtime story one would tell a young child to chase away nightmares.

  “Long years ago,” she said aloud, “this tree sprouted roots from some of its high branches. It was on a quest similar to the quest that draws you.”

  She stopped; it wouldn’t do for the tale to be told this way, in a hurry, in a voice tensed with fear. With effort, she gentled her voice and slowed her speech, and then she continued. Now her voice reminded her of a river, smooth and flowing.

  “This tree – Ballyo, it was called, after an ancient wise man – had grown so tall that it had lost all touch with the earth. With the source. It reached for the ground through its limbs, sending out long aerial roots, aiming to bury them deep in the rich earth. Ballyo had grown very tall; without the extra strength of a more vast foundation, it would topple in the high winds of winter.”

  There, that was better.

  “Over time, the aerial roots stretched their fingers towards the earth. Some died, alone on their heroic journeys, dwindling away to nothingness. The evidence of their failed attempts hung for all to see, in the shortened hairy strands that hung only halfway to the earth.”

  She paused, and thought of herself, thought of her journey. Would she be one that made it, or not? She closed her eyes: the crackles she heard would just be birds nesting down for the night. I won’t let myself look around. She forced herself to continue.

  “Some, the strongest aerial roots, made it. These touched down, and felt within the earth for crevices and finger-holds. They found them, and they grew, over the course of many lifetimes. Those lifetimes were full of the usual mix of joy and sorrow, life and death.”

  She would not allow herself to think of her own life yet, of what it had cost her to live until now. She breathed deeply, and continued the story.

  “Eventually the roots found the quality of earth they sought. It was warm and dark and full of nutrients, and it opened the way for them, and they became deep-rooted. They had found their homes and they grew strong and thick, and were then responsible for the strength of the tree entire.”

  Halley stopped talking, and assessed her body. It had worked – she had been soothed by her own story, her fear calmed. She was ready to examine the shelter that Ballyo could provide.

  Between the main tree and the roots was a sheltering space, roofed by small branches and leaves. She was drawn to the leaves immediately, by the ordinariness of their shape. They were just like leaves should be: no fanciness, the main body just a simple elongated ellipse. The leaf had one central vein from which many lines of veins radiated, each at a thirty-degree angle; this made the little leaf resemble nothing so much as the etching of a tiny Christmas tree, ready to be decorated. She ran her finger along the back of the leaf, letting the central vein slide under her fingernail. She liked the thickness of the vein, the way it filled the space under the nail, the way it stood out from the back of the leaf. The rest of the leaf was soft and smooth, yet nicely thick. Everything about it was re-assuring.

  Better still, the space these leaves roofed was almost fully encircled by long, slender roots that were anchored into the earth. She ran her hand along one of them in memory of her story. Brave root. Some of the roots had thickened and were now the size of her forearms. They were like small tree trunks themselves. Between neighboring roots, only tiny gaps existed, so the shelter inside was almost fully enclosed.

  A small opening remained that acted as an entrance. This was fringed with more hairy roots that were working their way towards the earth below. Not failures. She had remembered something else about this tree: the aerial roots absorbed nutrients and water directly from the air. They were of value to the greater tree – it wasn’t just the ones that had touched the earth that were worthy. All were worthy.

  She peered inside. The shelter was surprisingly spacious, with room for her to stretch out full length if she curled up just slightly, and still have plenty of space around her. It was carpeted with the ordinary-leaf-shaped leaves, which were brown and old. They would make a soft bed.

  Just before she entered the shelter, she looked behind her, back into the darkening forest. Standing half in and half out of the entrance, statue-like and silent, she willed whatever it was that had been following her to show itself. Nothing appeared.

  She moved inside and lay down. Her exhaustion dragged her into a deep sleep, where she dreamt of all manner of food and drink. Occasionally though, she grunted and fought, as if in the midst of some nightmare from which she could not awaken.

  Something startled her awake. Her eyes snapped open. It was dark. There was an acrid tang in the air. It smelled like a match had been struck, but she couldn’t see or hear anything. For a long moment, all was still. Just my imagination, playing tricks on me. Still, she sat up, intent on slowing the rapid-fire thumping of her heart.

  A red spark appeared in the air. She watched wide-eyed as a tiny blue flame moved slowly through the air. It touched something, which burst into sudden flame. The heat of it – a torch – leapt out at her, seeming to scorch the very air.

  There was a dark figure sitting in front of her! So close, it could have reached out to touch her. The torch blinded her. She shoved herself back hard. But, mistaking the distance between herself and the tree roots, she slammed the back of her head. Sharp pain shot through her; acid pouring into her stomach. Her breath came in quick gasps, too quick to get enough oxygen. Halley was shocked into silence, and, try as she would, she could not speak, could not scream. Frozen in place, her body began to shake uncontrollably. It could kill me. The thought made the blood in her head pound harder, made her dizzy and lightheaded.

  Silence filled the space between them. When the dark figure finally spoke, the quiet had lasted far too long to consider it normal.

  “Don’t be afraid,” a man’s voice said. “I saw you crying. By the butterflies. I thought you were lost. I wanted to help you, but I lost sight of you.” He looked at her closely. “Please stop trembling like that, like I’m some sort of monster – I won’t hurt you. I want to help you.”

  Why then, bring the word “hurt” into it?

  Shaking her head, she willed the voice away, trying to block it from her ears. It was too silky, too smooth. She couldn’t see him properly in the darkness with the torch light in her eyes. She was acutely aware of his body invading her personal space, violating her sense of safety.

  Did he say he’d seen me crying by the butterflies?

  She thought about the waterfall that had reminded her of her parent
s, about the butterflies hovering. But that was so long ago! Has he been tracking me all this time? A shudder moved through her again, and she pulled herself closer, making a smaller bundle of her body.

  “I don’t need your help!” She thrust the words out as if they were weapons, willing power behind her voice. “I’m not lost. I know where I am and I know what I’m doing.” Unintentionally, she spoke fast and with a sense of urgency. “Please. Just go away.” Her right hand had wrapped itself tightly around the thickened trunk of a nearby tree root.

  He didn’t move or speak.

  Her voice had wavered. It held the truth of the night she’d spent unsheltered in the rain, of the long, devastating days she’d spent wandering lost.

  He kept quiet, as if letting her think.

  In the darkness, an image played before her eyes: the dried-out waterfall; the decapitated flowers. She wasn’t safe. She wasn’t safe at all.

  After an overlong pause, so long that Halley grew desperate to shift her position and move her rapidly numbing legs, he cocked his head slightly, like a bird of prey.

  “I don’t believe you,” he said.

  The words stretched out long, an elastic band that threatened to snap. He considered her. “You’re so small,” he said, with something like kindness that was not kindness in his voice. “You can’t know what you’ve gotten yourself into – you’re a little sparrow, in a large and dangerous wood. I can show you the way out.”

  “But what about the baby?” she said. She covered her mouth with her hands, but it was too late.

  With a wave of his hand, he dismissed it.

  “The baby. Its mother ran out of formula. I showed her a shortcut back to the trailhead. They’re safe now. And, more importantly, that baby is quiet.”

  “Oh.”

  It was a small word to express the heartbreaking sense of loss she suddenly felt.

  He seemed to mistake her expression. “Forgive me, I’ve been terribly impolite. I haven’t even introduced myself. I’m Trance. Trance Darkling.”