In Fallen Woods

by R N Merle

  ‘You know enough. The time has come for you to begin your work in Fallenoak.’

  6

  The Somerbornes

  Darklin opened her mouth. Her lips formed the word 'No', but the sound would not come out. Gressyl turned back to her chair, and began to walk away. Realising she was about to miss her chance, Darklin blurted out, ‘I….’

  It was all she could manage before Gressyl snapped her head round to look Darklin in the eye. Instantly Darklin’s gaze dropped to the floor.

  ‘Yes?’ hissed Gressyl.

  Darklin fought within for the courage to speak. She couldn’t recall a time when she had ever disagreed with Gressyl, let alone wilfully disobeyed her. Memories of the hateful cane pounding down on her flesh, of broken skin and black bruises, shattered her resolve, leaving it in dismissible pieces. Grasping for anything that might aid her, Annie Sparrow’s anguished face flashed into her mind, providing Darklin the necessary impetus. Still the words took an age to tremble from her lips.

  ‘I cannot go,’ she finally forced out, hardly expecting that Gressyl would hear her.

  ‘What do you mean?’ Gressyl’s voice lashed the air between them. Darklin knees quivered, threatening to give way under her.

  ‘I… I…’ She could not subdue the screaming voice inside her head that begged her not to provoke Gressyl, a rule she had lived by for so long, that was so deeply imbedded, it had at that moment, more strength than her fear of Fallenoak.

  ‘I don’t think I am ready.’ she lied.

  ‘You are ready if I say you are ready.’ Gressyl spat back. ‘Enough of this nonsense. I’ll beat you within an inch of your life if I find you’ve turned coward. You will go to Fallenoak on the next moonless night. Is that understood?’ Gressyl’s fingers tightened around her cane, and she fixed Darklin with a look that sent cold terror racing through Darklin’s veins. Darklin’s throat closed up, and she felt the blood drain from her face. She knew that she had lost, that she had barely even fought, but recognised that it would be madness to argue now. She turned her face from the witch and repeatedly tried to swallow. When she could make her voice audible, she whispered, ‘Yes.’

  Days and nights passed in distorted time. The hours Darklin spent with Gressyl seemed to stretch and drag interminably, while the moments in the light raced by. She was still drawn by the light, but its attraction was no longer so powerful. It was the boy’s enchantment that had her wandering through the woods, with every nerve in her body alerted to the possibility of seeing him again.

  She now welcomed the distraction of him, his power over her held such strength that it was the one thing able to block out her terror of returning to Fallenoak.

  But her distraction held its own dangers. Her mind had become poisoned by him. He was always present, a clear and vibrant memory persisting in her mind’s eye, or as a relentless shadow lurking at the back of every thought. His force was potent, but she had powers too; his attraction was a kind of trap, she thought, and she was certain she could find a way to free herself from it.

  She was convinced that she should see him again, threat though he was, to assess him, and discover what made him weak. She braced herself for their next encounter. For days Darklin returned to the clearing in the orchard where she had first seen him. She waited there for hours, her ears straining to catch the sound of his voice, or for the noisy rustling of leaves that would announce his arrival. On the sixth day, having had no sign of him, she began to think that she would never see him again, that his presence in the woods that afternoon had been a singular occurrence.

  On the seventh day, she again circled the trees around the clearing, hiding behind mossy trunks and lush undergrowth. She lingered, painstakingly searching for indications of his presence. The sun moved across the sky. By day’s end, with no trace of him, she was finally convinced that she would never see him again. She felt deflated, unable to tell if she was relieved or disappointed. She waited a moment to enjoy a few last rays of the sun before she headed back to the cold house. As she turned to leave, a low voice in song wove its way between the leaves and branches of the April trees.

  Darklin froze, the hair on the back of her neck rising. Her ears strained for the direction of the tune. The song grew louder. Darklin could make out some of the words; something about a knight on the road. It was his voice, she was sure. Darklin followed the sound, moving as quickly as she could without creating a noise, all the while making sure she was well hidden. Her progress was frustratingly slow.

  Shortly, the crack of an axe at work revealed his location. She made her way cautiously toward the sound. She saw a flash of white and gold through a puzzle of furled leaves, and soon had him in full sight. Again Darklin studied him from the shadows, recognising beauty. He was chopping hazel with a small axe and building it into piles, his sleeves rolled up and shirt half open; twigs and leaves were trapped in the waves of his hair. Often he would stop for a moment to push back his forelocks when they fell over his eyes, stretch his limbs and set to work again. Her eyes traced the shape of him, his broad muscular shoulders, narrow hips and long legs. Her gaze rose to rest once again on his face, that was so inexplicably captivating. He seemed brighter than everything around him, as if the sun favoured him above all else and blessed him with more light. She thought it might hurt her eyes to look at him for too long.

  An hour passed. The boy put down his axe and he gave out a low whistle. A small, heavy set, black horse with white feathered fetlocks appeared out of the wood, chewing a mouthful of long grass. He spoke gently to the horse. It slowly walked toward him and rubbed it’s nose against the boy’s chest, as he softly stroked the side of its face.

  He then loaded the cuttings into two large sheepskin panniers hung on each side of the horse, and led it away by its bridle. Unthinkingly, Darklin began to follow him, conscious of keeping a distance between them but not enough that she might lose him.

  The boy led the horse on a winding path, through the brightening woods. After some duration, Darklin saw an approaching gap in the trees, through which the golden haired boy led the horse out of the woods and into a meadow. Darklin followed until she reached the edge of the woods, and could go no further. From where she stood, she watched the boy take the horse into a large stone barn in the far corner of the meadow.

  Darklin looked outwards. Beyond the shadows of the trees, the strength of the light was dazzling. Shielding her eyes, she could see a farmhouse, surrounded by gardens, with tall grasses and wild flowers at their perimeter. A magnificent horse chestnut grew close to the house, and stood alone on a patch of grass, allowing its branches to stretch and grow without restraint. Darklin had never seen a tree so uncrowded. It did not look secretive, like the trees in the deep woods that were all crouched and curled as if they had something to hide.

  Darklin moved along the tree line to get another view. She saw on the other side of the house, the garden sloped down to a line of willows, through which she could see glints of sunlight reflecting off water.

  The house itself was taller than the houses she had seen in Fallenoak, though built of the same sandy coloured stone. Instead of thatch it had a tiled roof, and large windows both upstairs and down. A faint wave of foreboding chilled Darklin’s body as she saw the house was covered in budding roses; growing under the sills of the downstairs windows, slithering up the face of the stone walls, and coiled around the trellising of the porch that sheltered the softly arched doorway at the front of the house. There would be hundreds of roses, Darklin thought, when they bloomed. So many roses; twice as many thorns. Darklin was aware that the house had been built to charm. Untouched by the reach of the wood’s shadows, and basking in full sunlight, the house’s pleasant and alluring appearance filled Darklin with mistrust. Mindful of the dark consequences of beauty, a cautioning memory of bitter thorns and bloodied hands, pricked her consciousness.

  The golden haired boy came out of the barn with the horse, now devoid of the panniers. He let it drink from a stone trough
, and then set it loose in a paddock behind the barn. She saw two boys run out of the farmhouse, both with identical mops of light brown wavy hair, the smallest boy a perfect miniature of the other. Her ears were assailed by the loud screams of excitement let out by them, when they caught sight of the golden haired boy.

  ‘John’s home! John’s home!’ they shouted. The golden haired boy was named John, Darklin noted. They ran over to him, hastily followed by a brown and white dog. Darklin’s lip curled in disgust when the dog, beside itself with joy at seeing his master, wriggled up to John and pressed its body against his legs. One of the boys jumped up on John’s back, and grabbed him around the neck, while the other poked him in the stomach with a tiny wooden sword. She was surprised he didn’t shake them off or tell them to go away. She could not guess their ages, but the taller child did not yet reach John’s chest.

  The door to the house opened again, and a girl of around sixteen years came out carrying a large pewter tankard. She had the same golden hair as John, but instead of falling in waves around her face, her hair was neatly pinned up at the back of her head.

  ‘There you are, brother,’ she said as she handed the tankard to John, who drank down the contents thirstily, draining it in one long draught. The children and the dog bounced around him as John strolled over to the chestnut tree and sank down in the long grass, leaning his head and back against the trunk. A while later, the girl came out with a baby in her arms, and went to join her brothers under the tree.

  From the cool green shadows, Darklin watched the family, recalling words from the Rules of Vardyn, “There is no such thing as a happy family, they are always riddled with long held grievances and jealousies. Ill-feelings nurtured between relations are always more intense than in any other relationship. Though the hatred may be veiled, it burns with a ferocity that is almost never extinguished. Love within a family is mightily difficult to discover. Remember, a family is not bound by love, but by duty, servitude and tradition.”

  She expected that at any moment the children would start arguing, but the scene remained peaceful, only Darklin became unsettled. She watched the young boys swinging on the branches, running in and out of shadows. She watched the girl position herself in the sunshine, lying stretched out with the back of her head pillowed on her arms. She watched John lift the baby, and place it on his chest, as he lay back on the soft grass.

  She watched carefully, waiting for the picture of contentment to show cracks and shatter. They do not show their dislike of each other openly, Darklin thought, still convinced that if she stayed long enough, their annoyance and resentment of each other would be revealed. Long minutes passed. A soft breeze sent murmurs through the trees while birds filled the garden with their songs; a blackbird, a robin, and the lulling coos of a pair of wild doves.

  Darklin anticipated that at any moment their mother or father would come out, and put the siblings to some useful task, instead of idling in the sun. No one came. Darklin grew frustrated; the harmonious scene was irksome to her. She detected a tightness in her chest as she watched, that made itself known every time she breathed in. Still, she waited for them to expose what they really thought of each other, to behold the hidden meanness that lurked behind each of their pretty faces, just like Gressyl said it would.

  Finally, the taller of the young boys, believing his sister to be asleep, took hold of a plump green caterpillar that had been languishing on the tree. He crept near her and hovered over her, trying to work out where to place it, where it would cause most offence. Darklin lent forward, relieved that she was finally witnessing something of what she had expected. The boy crouched by his sister’s head, careful that his shadow was not cast over her eyes. His hand, holding the wriggling insect drew ever nearer to her face. Darklin prepared herself for the oncoming fury with obscure pleasure. He slowly lowered his hand to release the caterpillar onto her forehead.

  ‘Tom Somerborne, if that caterpillar falls on me, I’ll make sure you’ll be eating it for your supper!’

  The peace had been shattered, but not by anger. A chorus of laughter rushed to Darklin’s ears, the sound of it was grating, and anger pulsed through her body. The sight of their grinning faces made it worse.

  ‘It might taste better than your cooking!’ Tom replied.

  ‘Well, if you find my cooking so offensive, you are very welcome to go without.’

  ‘I were only joking, Bess, honest!’ The boy apologised so quickly, they all started to laugh again. The girl, Bess, grabbed hold of the boy and pulled him down onto the grass and tickled him. Seconds later the boy screamed for mercy and Bess gave in, planting a noisy kiss on the boy’s cheek before she released him. The boy stood up angrily and wiped the kiss off, and the others laughed again.

  As the laughter reached her ears, Darklin experienced a fiery pain that began in her heart, then burned in the blood around her body, to the tips of her fingers, to the very ends of her hair. She was all at once livid, and sorrowful, confused and full of loathing. The feeling attacked her unbearably; she needed to scream, to kick, to release it from her body any way she could. Afraid of what she might do, she rushed back into the wood, before the violent energy caused her to draw the attention of the sunlit children.

  She dragged in a breath through clenched teeth; infuriated tears besieged her eyes, blurring the path she was forging through the thick foliage. She tripped over a tree root and fell heavily to the ground, releasing a short anguished cry to the trees. She sat for a while amid broken twigs and dead leaves, sobbing silently, trying to still the chaos swirling inside her. She cried until her tears ran dry, then wiped her nose and scrubbed her cheeks with her sleeve. The feeling had not diminished.

  She got to her feet and moved hurriedly through the trees, hoping the feeling would fade with the distance she put between her and the Somerbornes; or that if she moved fast enough, she might leave it somewhere behind her. She ran until her lungs ached for air, but she could not flee from it. She returned to the witch’s house, slipped into her room, silently shut the door, and sank onto her bed.

  But the darkness only served to make the feeling more intense. She wished that there was a way to claw it out from inside her; she was sure that she would do it, even if it meant tearing through her own flesh to get at it. Suddenly, she knew what ‘the feeling’ was; it was torment.

  An hour scraped by. Darklin lay perfectly still, as every muscle in her body quivered with tension. She was afraid to move or think. Any flicker of memory that touched upon the Somerbornes caused the torment to bite at her again. She didn’t know why they caused it, only that they had caused it, and that she hated them because of it.

  As she lay considering her loathing for the Somerbornes, she noticed the more hatred she felt, the less torment she suffered. To test her observation, she freely let her hatred grow. She let it saturate her mind, finding any and all reasons to hate them. John and Bess for their bright, sun coloured hair. The little boys for their idiotic energy and their infuriating shouting. All of them for their terrible laughter. For their blind, lazy contentment. For their obliviousness to coldness and darkness, to dirt and stagnation, to beatings and punishments, to suffering and sorrow. Little by little, the hatred expanded inside her, suffocating all other emotions, until she could feel nothing else. Darklin found it soothing; hatred was simple. It was her own, an emotion she had chosen, something she could control.

  She wished she could cause them as much pain as they caused her. No, she wanted them to feel worse. Far worse. She wanted them destroyed. Within that moment, the purpose of the coven, why it existed, why they cursed people as they did, instantly became clear to her. She understood it as she never had before.

  The numberless seasons of preparation could now be put to use. She was a witch and she could make them suffer. The thought was pure medicine to her anguish. She began to breathe slowly, a sense of ease returning, as she imagined the Somerbornes miserable and broken. A suitable curse was all she needed to turn it into reality.
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br />   That night, Darklin rushed through her chores, desperate to get her hands on the spell book to select one fitting for the Somerbornes. She flicked through its pages, unsure of where to begin. She thought it would be helpful to discuss with Gressyl which one to choose; she did not want to pick a spell beyond her ability. She sat at the table, deliberating whether to ask her or not, she did not want to provoke her anger by disturbing her with questions. She could let Gressyl believe she was asking in order to prepare for her next trip to the village. She cleared her throat.

  ‘Yes?’ said Gressyl, as if she had been waiting for a question.

  ‘I was wondering how you select a spell….how you know which is the one that will make them suffer most.’ Darklin thought she saw an expression of relief brush fleetingly over Gressyl’s features.

  ‘There are many ways to make a person suffer. Usually the spell you use upon them will be proper to the reason you need to punish them. Once there was a most vain maiden, a wicked girl, all she did was admire herself all day long, looking at her reflection, delighted at her own beauty and good for nothing else. I soon put a stop to that, cursed her with a spell of hideousness, and from that day on she couldn’t walk through the streets without covering her head. Scared away all her lovers who had fawned on her, too. You must work out what it is that makes them abhorrent; watch them, listen to them, then you will know how to inflict the most pain.’

  ‘What if the folk were foolishly happy, always laughing, how would you take away their joy?’ Darklin asked timidly.

  ‘Sometimes what is best is most simple, and doesn’t involve much craft,’ Gressyl replied. ‘Tell me what the Rules of Vardyn say about money.’