by Tia Wilson
Maybe her fleeing and returning to America would give him a purpose she thought sourly. Keep telling yourself that, anything to bury the guilt you feel for your actions, he didn’t deserve what you did to him she thought as she began walking. It would take her a few days of walking and sleeping wild for her to reach the port city of Cork. From there the woman would get passage and leave this superstitious rain scoured rock behind. There is nothing about this place that will be missed she thought, as she padded through the undergrowth her ears tuned to any noise that wasn’t animal moving about. The woman was alone and left to her thoughts as she made her way to Cork.
2
Grace & Anne
The crushing pain in her head as if it was being squeezed in a vice was the first thing that Grace became aware of. The next was the cold metal floor that she was lying on and the gentle sway and bump of the room she was in. She tried to moves her arms and they were tied behind her back and her legs were also bound. Her eyes felt heavy as if glued shut and she struggled to open them. She had been dreaming of being buried alive and she could still taste the dirt in her mouth. The sway of the room faded away to black and then returned with no idea of the passage of time. Grace opened her eyes and lying across from her facing her on the floor was Anne, her eyes closed and her eyelids flickering as if she was in a deep dream. Grace gritted her teeth as a bright shard of pain spiked the back of her brain. Feels like the worst hang over she thought to herself, her brain felt sluggish and off kilter. She was finding it hard to piece together what was happening, all she seemed to be able to grasp was the mix of sensations of the swaying room, the cold metal against her cheek and a stale pungent odour burning her nose. The blackness pulled her back down again and when another shard of pain pulled her out of it she looked into Annes wide open and frightened eyes.
Grace tilted her head and looked around. They were on the floor of an old flatbed truck with two metal benches on either side. She saw one pair of leather army style boots sitting behind Anne and guessed there was another guard behind her.
“They’re waking up,” a voice from behind her said. His voice sounded muffled and distorted as if he was talking with something pressed against his face.
The man on the opposite bench said, “Do we tranq them again?”
“No its too dangerous to dose them so soon,” he said.
“Can we get some water,” Grace said, her voice dry and raspy.
“Sure,” said the man behind her and she heard a bottle of water being opened. “You try any funny stuff and it’s the end of the good treatment,” he said.
A bottle of water was placed in Graces eye line and she heard the man behind her kneel on the ground at her back. He grabbed her around the waist and flipped her around to face him, and picked up the bottle of water. He was turned away from Grace and she could see he was in his late thirties and had a surprisingly soft and kind face. The man turned around to face her and Grace let out a scream and her feet scrabbled on the ground to try to escape.
The other side of the mans face was pulled back in a sneer, exposing mottled crimson gums and a jagged row of teeth. Clumps of bristly fur stuck out along his jawline and the skin of his cheek was rough and pitted. The eye on the human side of the face was a sparkling glacial blue, on the deformed side a dark brown orb stared out though eye lids squeezed half shut from boney protuberances around the sunken eye socket.
The man held his hands open before him and said, “Calm down. I’m not going to hurt you.”
Grace leaned against the back wall, her eyes wide as she looked from the deformed man to the other guard across from him. He was a large African American with a smooth shaved head and he was looking at her with an amused look on his face. There was something not right about how he was sitting on the bench, his body looked twisted and bent in at an unnatural angle. He wore loose fitting army fatigues and black leather gloves.
“What are you people?” Grace said watching the snarling man, afraid to take her eyes off him.
Anne pushed herself on an elbow and looked at Grace and said, “They’re mongrels. They wont hurt us,” she said and asked the snarling man, “I’m right aren't I? You are mongrels?”
The snarling man nodded his head while he watched Grace.
“Anne what are they?” Grace asked and she could feel her heart like a jack hammer against her ribs.
“They are from the white bear clan, members who have been shunned from ever returning. I always thought they were nothing more than a legend,” Anne said pushing herself up to a sitting position and leaning against the bench.
“How does it make you feel meeting a legend,” the snarling man said and slapped his chest. The human side of his face pulled back in a smile and exposed the transition of his square peg like human teeth into the sharp jagged bear teeth of the transformed side.
“Untie me and I’ll tell you,” Anne said.
The snarling man looked across at the other guard and they both laughed.
“No can do sister. I’m afraid you have to stay like that until we get to our destination,” the snarling man said.
“And where are you taking us?” Grace asked as she slowly got hold of her frenzied breathing and her initial shock at the snarling mans face began to dissipate.
“We are going home and you’re the key to the front door,” the snarling man said tapping Graces shoes with his leather army boot.
Grace looked to Anne in confusion her mind still reeling from the horror of the snarling mans face.
“Tell her what we are shifter, you seem to know so much,” the other guard said.
“Water first,” Anne said.
The snarling man let Grace drink from the bottle first, he held the bottle and poured it into her parched mouth. She gasped and cold water ran down her chin. When Anne was finished drinking she moved to the back wall and sat beside Grace, their bound legs sticking out in front of them and the two guards looking on with very little interest.
“These two gentlemen are mongrels,” Anne said looking at their two captors, “we are told stories about them when we are little children, go to sleep or the mongrels will get you. They are meant to be the stuff of nightmares. When we got older we eventually found out that they are shifters like us and banished from the white bear clan.”
The snarling man interrupted and said, “I ain’t no shifter. Look at this face. Theres no changing back to a soft faced human I’m stuck like this for life. The clan doesn’t want us around to remind them of our deviant nature so they dump us some place far away from anyone we know or love. The deal is we stay away and don't spook the good people of the clan, well then we get to live out the rest of our rotten life living out in the wilderness like monsters.”
“Why involve us?” Anne asked, “the black bear clan has nothing against your kind. Most of us think you are a myth and nothing more.”
The snarling man sat forward and looked directly at Anne, a thin line of spittle ran from his mouth and pooled on the floor. “The clan isn’t going to exactly welcome us with open arms now is it? We need something to grease those wheels and allow us to reunite with our families. That’s where your dark skinned friend comes in,” he said and wiped the slobber off his chin with the back of his hand.
“Why take Grace, she’s a human and has nothing to do with your fight,” Anne said.
The black guard turned and said, “We know all about her.”
“Please,” Grace said, “I don't know who you think I am, but I’m just a normal woman that has somehow got caught up in all this.”
The snarling man raised a fist into the air, “I’m bored of you two now. One more word out of you and I give you another dose of sedative. You do not want to have to go through the pain of two shots in one day.”
Grace and Anne looked at each other and then kept their heads down and looked at the floor. The van rocked gently as it sped along the road and headed in the direction of home.
3
Hibernation
Mor
ning dew glistened on the pale caps of the mushrooms sprouting from the base of the moss covered tree. The mushrooms grew in a circle extending out from the tree and enclosing the space directly in front of the tree truck. In the centre of the circle the moss and tufts of grass had turned a sickly yellow colour and near the edges the moss had turned brown and began to liquify. A sweet scent of almonds filled the air around the circle.
“Hey look at this,” said David Thomson. The nine year old stood at the edge of the circle and gently nudged a large mushroom with the toe of his boot.
Anton Bilson was a year younger than his best friend, in the last year he had a growth spurt and was now a whole head taller. He pushed David hard in the back and he took a stumbling step forward into the circle. A section of the mushrooms was crushed under foot and red liquid seeped out from the feathered gills on the underside. “You’re cursed now,” Anton said as he kicked over the dinner plate sized head of a mushroom his friend had kicked over.
“Very funny,” David said bending down to inspect the underside of the broken mushroom.
“Whats that red stuff coming out of it,” Anton asked.
“Looks kind of like blood. These are plants, right?” David asked. He usually deferred to the younger boy as he always seemed to have an endless collection of facts and figures on a crazy array of subjects.
“Yes they’re plants, maybe that red gunk is sap,” Anton said, “I dare you to taste it.”
David squatted down on his hunkers and looked at the jewel like beads of red liquid dotted on the frilly brown gills. He stuck his finger out and moved it towards the liquid, it hovered a hair width away from it and then he looked up at Anton and said, “What do you think, I’m an idiot. I’m not going to taste that plants goop, its probably on its period or something,” he said grinning up at his friend. He had heard his sisters talk to their friends in hushed tones about periods one afternoon when he was listening in. He had heard blood mentioned multiple times and he couldn't shake the image of his sister running around the house with her nose gushing blood.
“Chicken,” Anton said and crushed another mushroom under his foot. It sounded like a cracker under foot as he crushed the crown into the dirt.
David stepped out of the circle and walked over to a tree and pulled one of the lower branches off. He swished the green sapling in front of him and smiled in satisfaction with the noise it made as it sliced through the air. “Watch this,” he said. He whipped the thin branch through the air and hit one of the smaller mushrooms, the cap spun through the air and landed a few feet away. He swung again and the branch tore a wedge off a large one and it hit the trunk of the tree and stuck to it and then slowly slid down it leaving a sticky red trail. “Eat your cake,” David said as he swung again and decimated a tight cluster of caps.
“Hey leave some for me,” Anton said as he tried to rip a branch off and join in the fun.
“You better hurry,” David said swinging again as he finished off the broken cap of the large mushroom.
Anton twisted the branch and it came off with a long sticky piece of bark. He gave it a test swish and was happy with the sound it made.
Most of the circle lay in ruins. Bare stalks stuck up into the air like stubby fingers sticking up from the ground, crushed caps lay scattered around. “I saved these for you,” David said tapping his toe against a tight cluster of mushrooms, the caps no bigger than a coin. “Try to splatter them on the tree.”
Anton stood before them and flexed his arm in preparation. He whipped his arm down in an arc and the end of the branch hit the mushrooms and sprayed out in an arc of white chunks, some of them hitting the trunk and sticking. Anton stepped back to admire his handiwork and said, “It looks like brains splattered on the tree.”
“Plants don't have brains dumb ass,” David said walking up to the tree and poking a chunk with the end of his stick. “It looks more like,” and he stopped mid sentence, “did you feel that?”
“What,” Anton said swishing his stick back and forward.
“Felt like an earthquake,” David said taking a step back from the tree trunk.
Anton looked at his friend his eyes narrowing, he wasn't going to be tricked again after the last time. “Maybe the mushrooms are pissed with you,” he said with a grin.
David looked at his friend with anger and said, “Funny stuff,” and took another step backwards. He didn't want to look scared in front of the other boy, didn't want to tell him how his whole body was yelling to turn around and run as far away from here as possible. He took another step backwards his eyes not leaving the yellowed moss under foot. A slow rumble was coming up through his feet and it felt like a car idling at a traffic light. He stepped past what had been the circle and was now strewn with broken and crushed mushrooms and absent-mindedly wiped his shoes in the dirt. “I’m telling you I think its an earthquake,” he said and this time he couldn't hide the fear in his voice.
Anton walked over beside him and was about to mock his friend when he felt the same low rumble coming up through the soles of his trainers. He looked at his friend hoping for an answer and got nothing. “What is it? We’re safe here if an earthquake happens, right?” he asked feeling a lump in his throat.
“I think so,” David said feeling unsure.
The thick carpet of moss in the centre of the circle started to bulge upwards and as it bulged it emitted a sound like a piece of fabric being ripped into shreds. The moss split and pulled apart and a cloud of yellow gas puffed out.
The two boys covered their noses with the sleeves of their jackets and Anton said, “That is gross, what is that stench.”
David wiped a tear from his cheek as the stink burnt his nose. “Smells like raw onions,” he said pulling his sleeve away a crack from his face as he sniffed. “It’s going away,” he said.
The swelling in the moss collapsed back and the bare dirt was exposed through the rip in the yellow spongy covering. David stepped back into the circle to try to retain some of his standing as the older boy and the de facto leader. “Its stopped shaking,” he said taking another step forward. He looked down at the tear shaped rip in the moss covering and said, “look at the size of this worm.”
Anton stepped into the circle and joined his friend. A thick worm was sticking out of the soft exposed soil. Its tapered end was sticking up into the air and swaying from side to side. The worms body glistened a deep intestinal pink. The worm jerked and then retracted into the soil and disappeared. The boys looked at each other and then back to the split in the earth. The soil began to move as it was pushed up from below. David took a step back and Anton followed, neither wanted to be blasted in the face by another cloud of noxious gas. The worm poked through the soil again as it coiled back on itself and flayed about. A clump of soil fell away and something as white as a ceramic plate was visible. The boys stood transfixed, Anton's fingers went slack and he dropped his branch to the ground without noticing. The shape continued to push through the soil. The damp forest soil fell away and the face of a bearded man pushed up through the rip in the moss covering. The thick worm was between his teeth and it twisted and turned to try to free itself.
David tried to back away and his feet twisted together and he fell backwards landing hard, his hand pressing into a slimy mess of broken mushrooms. Anton was frozen to the spot as the head continued to rise, muck smeared across its bearded face and embedded in its long scraggly hair. As a pair of shoulders broke free of the earth something snapped in Anton and he turned and ran in a blind panic. David tried to scrabble away from the rising figure, his legs didn't seem to want to work as they kicked out in front of him.
The man emerging from the soil freed his arms and he ran his hands over his face clearing off most of the muck. The worm was still trying to free itself from the mans teeth, until with a sickening slurp he sucked the worm into his mouth and swallowed without chewing. David could hear a sound escaping his body, a rumble from deep in his chest as he looked on in total horror. The earth covered m
an was exposed to his waist and he wore a tattered dark suit caked with dirt. The material was decayed and torn in places, exposing more of his white skin. The man turned to David as if noticing his presence for the first time. His eyes were shut and he tilted his head back and sniffed the air. David froze in place, his chest felt like someone was kneeling on him as he watched the abomination sniff the air. A picture from a childhood fairy tale flashed into his mind and he thought he wants to eat you.
Power surged back into his legs as he remembered the stories of trolls eating children. He was up and running, branches slapping against his face as he ran in a heart thumping panic through the woods. Branches tore at his trouser legs and scratched his arms as he barged through the under growth and headed in the direction of his house. My Dad will know what to do he thought as he ran as fast as possible. He splashed through the small stream that ran across the back of his property and burst through the tree line into his back garden. David glanced back and went sprawling onto the grown cutting his chin open and grazing his palms. He rolled over onto his back and stared at the trees. Everything was still. He lay there watching the trees, breathing rapidly as a thin trickle of blood ran down his chin and into his t shirt. Dad will know what to do he told himself as he backed his way across the freshly cut lawn, afraid to take his eyes off the forest.
The man pulled himself from the earth and collapsed back onto the soft bed of moss. He ripped up a handful of damp moss and rubbed it over his face and cleared off the rest of the mud. He had a jet black beard and long scraggly hair to his shoulders. His face had been as white as snow when he first emerged and now colour was starting to come into his cheeks. His eyes slowly opened and he squinted as they adjusted to the daylight. He wore a dark suit that had mostly succumbed to decay. One of his shoes and a sock was missing and he looked down at his bare foot and wiggled his toes.
