The Redwoods Rise and Fall

by Ross Turner

  The door shook and rattled on its hinges, barely remaining within the doorframe as it bent and buckled under the huge blows. Eyes darting left and right, Vivian scanned the dim room for something she could use, somewhere she could hide.

  Anything.

  But it was useless.

  There was nothing.

  This time, it seemed, there would be no escape.

  Crumpling to the floor then, sliding her back down against the shaking door, exhausted and defeated, Vivian dropped her head into her hands.

  Then, for some reason, a passage from the text she’d read only the day before threw itself to the forefront of Vivian’s thoughts, reciting itself in her own voice.

  ‘Her subjects would flock to her at her beckoned call, for the wilderness was more her home than any other place…’

  She hadn’t understood it when she’d first read it, only yesterday, but then the fog in her mind began to lift and fade away.

  ‘In time she would discover that such a call to the wild, such unification, would be the only way to save them.’

  Perhaps, after everything that had happened, the time that the text spoke of was now: these final days of suffering.

  And so, Vivian rose slowly to her feet once again, placing her hands against the barely standing door in the darkness, and purpose once again lighted her blue eyes, though they were barely lit at all after the lifelong, lingering suffering that was her world.

  Vivian closed her eyes and tried to focus, doing her utmost to blot out the black bears’ angry, vengeful roars as they smashed repeatedly into the door, barely still on its hinges.

  She didn’t have long, probably not even thirty seconds.

  Focusing on the Redwoods as best she could, drowning out everything else with the silence of her own thoughts, she searched for the animals that lay hidden and concealed amidst the trees. Scanning high and low in her mind’s eye, young Vivian Featherstone swept her vast gaze across the endless forests, summoning all that lay within to her aid.

  Vivian had absolutely no way to know if she was having any success, and so she simply kept trying, urging on and on.

  After what felt like a lifetime, the bears finally managed to break through the stout wooden door, raking through the split planks with huge claws. Able to once again see Vivian, their rage intensified, and their bellows deafened her, breaking her concentration entirely.

  However, their great roars were followed by others, echoing down through the corridors, and Vivian smiled with heavy and obvious relief, as the creatures of the Redwood Forest, supposedly under her protection, came to her aid.

  Red wolves and bears all charged forward, at the very front of the advance, and leapt upon the black bears that had Vivian cornered. With bared teeth and claws slashing this way and that, they began systematically ripping the three black bears to pieces.

  Eager to aid her fellow creatures, Vivian burst from the storeroom, blowing what was left of the door off of its hinges, and assaulted the black bears also, her vigour and strength suddenly renewed with fresh hope. She battered them with invisible blows and great hurling streaks of fire, cutting through them with devastating effect.

  Soon enough the three bears were overcome, quite easily in fact, but that was not the end of it. Terrible howls and cries echoed out in all directions then and more black wolves and bears poured into the corridor, their raging anger getting desperate now, for their ranks had been severely depleted. The odds were turning against them now that Vivian had summoned these creatures to her aid, and they knew it.

  The battle raged on, with teeth and claws ripping and tearing fur and flesh in every direction.

  Eventually, realising they had erred, the attacking, plague ridden monsters fled the scene, making their escape swiftly, pursued by the animals Vivian had summoned.

  The wave of black charged away down the corridor, followed immediately by the surge of red, biting and snapping at their heels.

  Vivian laughed weakly and collapsed to the floor, now alone, exhausted, and looking on after the creatures that had saved her life, disappearing in pursuit of the vile, blackened beasts. Relief flooded through her, and she gasped meekly, trying to regain her breath.

  But then, relenting not even for a moment, in the darkness beside her, another low, throaty growl caught Vivian’s attention. She snapped her head to her left, only to see an injured wolf amidst the strewn carcasses of the dead, staining the floor with red and black, eyes trained on her.

  Its look was bloodthirsty, just as all the others had been. But now it had her all alone, and clearly she was spent.

  Wasting no time, knowing she could at any moment turn the tables, the beast seized the element of surprise. Ignoring its injuries in its moment of triumph, the creature launched itself at the young, unprotected Featherstone.

  This was it. Vivian knew she had come to the end now.

  Having no time at all to react, she simply closed her eyes and sighed. All that fighting had in the end boiled down to this final moment, and at last she could accept it. She had not the strength nor the time to fight back. She simply knew and accepted that it was over.

  “VIVIAN!!” A voice suddenly yelled then, and just as she opened her eyes, seeing the wolf mid-leap, mere feet from claiming her, the shadowy figure of a man collided with the great, hulking monster, catapulting into it with such force that they were both thrown madly down the corridor.

  As she watched them go, shocked and mouth agape, Vivian recognised the shout, and the more she watched, as the moments turned to dreadful seconds, she recognised too the way the man moved, the way he fought, tussling with the wolf on the cold and bloodied stone.

  “Kael?” She whispered softly, unable to believe what she was seeing.

  But then, soon enough, disbelief turned into horror, as the fearless man’s blade bit down heavily into the wolf’s ribcage, piercing the demon’s heart and lungs, and the monster’s teeth clamped around Kael’s neck, drawing blood in heavy fits and spurts.

  “KAEL!!” Vivian suddenly screamed, screeching at him even as she launched to her feet and raced over to the two of them, driven on by desperation.

  But by the time she got there, their efforts had both ceased, and the wolf rolled off her Kael lifelessly, the wind rushing from its gaping lungs as it crumpled into a heap on the floor.

  Coughing and choking, covered in blood, Kael spluttered, and Vivian couldn’t tell how much of the blood was his own, and how much was the wolf’s.

  “KAEL!!” She screamed again, throwing herself onto the floor beside him, not knowing what else to say or do.

  Her question was soon answered however, as his wound gaped and seeped and flooded blood instantly, spraying and spreading far and wide across the cold, unforgiving stone.

  She cradled him into her arms and he fell limply against her, unable to support himself.

  “What the hell are you doing here!?” Vivian demanded, tears streaking down her cheeks, too shocked and too exhausted to even begin gathering her thoughts. Those were not the words she had wished to use, but in her dismay, those were the first ones that came to her lips.

  But Kael didn’t reply. His neck was ripped to shreds and tatters by the wolf’s final attack, and he used all that remained of his strength to place his hand, cold now from loss of blood, against Vivian’s cheek.

  Shock and anger and denial gripped Vivian all at once, and not one of those emotions could prevail over another, leaving her simply unable to do anything other than hold Kael close.

  He looked up at her tenderly for a moment, the faint glimmer of a smile touching his lips, not regretting even in the slightest his actions, for he had saved her life, and that mattered more to him than preserving his own.

  Vivian clutched at his hand tightly, unwilling to let him go, but it fell weakly between her fingers.

  She attempted to gather her thoughts to heal Kael’s wounds, but by that point he was much too far gone, and she was so weak it would have been impossible.

&n
bsp; Unable to speak, a heavy lump set in Vivian’s throat, and her heart raced heavily in her chest. A terrible barrage of overwhelming emotions flurried through her then, coursing through her weak and feeble system, engulfing her like destructive wildfire.

  By the time Kael’s life slipped away, tumbling from Vivian’s grasp, his hand dropping to the floor symbolically, the distraught young woman was screaming and bawling into the darkness. She did not have the time, nor the strength to save him, and her pain and her agony echoed endlessly down the blackened corridors of her old home, her suffering reverberating in every direction, hysterical for all to hear.

  19

  The anger and fury inside of Vivian then was both unmatched and unprecedented. The blackness all around her was engulfing, and it received the full brunt of her furious, spiteful wrath, though of course it paid no heed.

  Retracing their steps back along the corridors, after having chased away the vengeful blackness that was the final intruding remnants of the Greystone’s accursed plague, the animals Vivian had summoned from the depths of the Redwoods sat around her in a wide, arcing circle. Though of course they were not human, they moved very much in a manner that seemed as though they were, or at the very least that they understood the human emotion and suffering that Vivian was undergoing.

  They looked upon her, at first, silently, their expressions sorrowful and understanding and comforting. But hard as they tried, it didn’t matter.

  Vivian simply could not cope with this any longer. Kael’s body lay still in her arms, drained of all colour and now completely lifeless.

  This had to be stopped forever, and it had to be stopped now, else the world would never be free from the Greystone’s darkness.

  “Why did you come?” Vivian asked then, her voice shaky and fragile. Her question was not aimed at one creature in particular, but rather at all of them collectively. They looked between each other for a moment, and she waited silently for an answer.

  Eventually one of the red bears spoke up. His voice was deep and wise, and his muzzle tinted with grey, much like Emerson’s had been, but Vivian could tell this bear had not known her family personally, but instead simply knew of them through folklore.

  “Because you summoned us, Miss Featherstone.” The great, shaggy bear replied, his jaw moving in a bizarre, humanlike manner as he talked, just as Red’s and Clover’s and Emerson’s had done. “Because we are of the Redwoods. Because we are loyal to the Featherstones.”

  Vivian thought for a moment, coughing to clear her throat. If what the great red bear was telling her was true, then it seemed she had summoned the creatures of the forest many times, knowingly or not.

  She closed her eyes then, focusing her concentration as best she could in her distraught state, still holding Kael’s lifeless head in her hands. Stretching out her thoughts, Vivian searched for the elusive Redwoods all around her. It was difficult though, in part because she was in the Keep and not amongst the trees, and in part because the last time she’d spoken to them she’d been so defiant and rude, and she still felt very guilty about that.

  Just as they had always been however, when Vivian eventually managed to silent her racing thoughts enough to hear their whispering voices, the Redwoods were kind and understanding, patient and forgiving: traits which they had in turn passed on to the red bears.

  ‘I’m sorry.’ Vivian formed her first words immediately, her thoughts sincere, for though in the heat of the moment her feelings always overwhelmed her so, she of course regretted what she had said.

  ‘It is of no matter Vivian.’ The hundreds upon thousands of hushed voices assured her, ringing in her mind like countless sounding bells.

  ‘I should have listened to you…’ Vivian admitted then, fear and regret welling up inside of her. But the Redwoods were not looking for further explanation or apology.

  ‘Hush, Vivian.’ They quieted her painful emotions, and instantly they were quelled. ‘There is still more danger ahead. We fear deeply, Vivian Featherstone, that though your life has been fraught with peril, you have not yet reached the end.’

  The question that came to Vivian’s mind then was perhaps not the most rational or pressing query. It was however the one which Vivian longed for the answer to more than any, since Emerson had not been able to give it to her.

  ‘What was the point?’ Vivian asked of the Redwoods, exasperation clear even in the tone of her mind. ‘Why separate Emerson from Red and Clover?’

  ‘It had to be done, Vivian.’ The Redwoods assured her. But that simple answer wasn’t enough.

  ‘No, I know that.’ Vivian replied, frustrated. ‘If the whole point was for something to happen so that I could kill the Greystones, then why are they still here!? I killed them all! Why didn’t their plague die with them!?’

  This was the question she really wanted the answer to, for Emerson had not been the one to give it to her.

  Vivian knew for a fact that that responsibility lay with the Redwoods.

  ‘It’s not that simple.’ The Redwoods told her then, their countless voices firm, even stern.

  ‘I’m sure it isn’t.’ Vivian responded, calming and composing herself, quieting the anger from voice in her mind, but that didn’t mean she was any less persistent. ‘But you have to answer my question.’ She insisted. ‘I have to know.’

  ‘The point, Vivian…’ The Redwoods began, clearly seeing that she would not budge on this matter, though somehow their countless voices were laced with sorrow, and perhaps even guilt. ‘Was to make you suffer.’

  The truth in their words was not harsh, but it was undeniable, and all their age old wisdom could not take the sting from them.

  Vivian was silenced. Their blunt and brutal statement took her aback, wiping her thoughts empty, leaving the young Featherstone without a clue as to how to respond.

  ‘Wha…’ She started, barely even able to form that thought, but the Redwoods cut her off, their tone crystal clear and to the point.

  ‘You have more power than anyone else has ever been granted.’ They explained. ‘But that doesn’t come lightly. If you couldn’t control it, it would surely destroy you, for without control, it would be far too much for any one person to handle.’

  ‘But how does that…’

  ‘Hush, Vivian.’ The Redwoods silenced her then. ‘Listen. Try to understand. Your parents were taken from you. Emerson was denied his family, though you didn’t know of it. Red was taken. Clover was taken. And now you have discovered Emerson’s sorrow, and Kael’s love, only to have those ripped away from you too…’

  Vivian’s heart wrenched and screamed as the Redwoods words cut and pierced her, their cruelty relentless and like nothing she’d ever heard.

  “Stop…” Vivian begged, even speaking the words aloud in her torment. “Please…”

  Tears coursed down her cheeks, but the Redwoods continued.

  ‘How do you feel, Vivian?’ They asked of her. ‘What does your pain tell you?’

  “STOP!” Vivian yelled then, jumping to her feet, abandoning Kael and covering her ears with her hands. But of course that made no difference, and the Redwoods flurrying, whispering voices did not relent.

  ‘How do you feel Vivian!?’ They urged, repeating their question harshly.

  “No…” Vivian whispered, her voice shaking, barely able to control her rushing emotions behind her weakening façade.

  ‘What do you want, Vivian!?” The Redwoods almost shouted at her then, demanding that she answer them, destroying the barrier she had hidden behind almost entirely, and finally breaking through to her.

  “STOP IT!!” Vivian screamed, startling the creatures sat all around her, forcing them to flinch and back off, afraid.

  ‘WHAT DO YOU WANT!?’ The Redwoods roared silently, their false anger controlled and calculated, never without purpose.

  Vivian’s screeching response echoed throughout the abandoned and bloodied and tarnished Featherstone Keep, filling it all of a sudden with angry life.

 
“I WANT TO KILL THEM ALL!!” She exploded then, her words filled with vengeful malice and hate. “I WANT TO MAKE THEM SUFFER!!” Vivian physically shook with her outcry, the echoing sound filling her ears with her sorrowful confession.

  She managed to calm herself enough to stop screaming, but it was nowhere near enough to steal the spite from her tone.

  “I want to kill them all.” She repeated slowly. “And then I want to die.”

  The Redwoods remained silent for a while then, and Vivian stood tall, her fists opening and clenching slowly, fiercely, desperately trying to restrain her raging emotions. It wasn’t often she let these evil thoughts get the best of her, and usually it had only ever happened when she killed.

  The lust and the vengeance always overwhelmed her in those moments, but usually she could control them.

  Things were different now though.

  The Redwoods had done something; Vivian didn’t even know what. They had awakened something inside of her, opening it for her and for the whole world to see.

  ‘Without that emotion, Vivian…’ The Redwoods began again. ‘Without that incredible composure when faced with death, your power would have overwhelmed you long ago.’

  They ceased their painful words, mercifully, for a minute then, allowing Vivian a precious moment to collect what few thoughts she could muster. She did not speak however, or even form a response. She simply nodded in acknowledgement of their words, knowing, finally, that they were right, and at least that all of her suffering had not been for nothing.

  The Redwoods spoke again then, their limitless voices much softer and understanding, for they had not enjoyed what they’d just had to do. But then, of course, as had always been the way, Vivian would not have been satisfied until she’d had her answer.

  ‘It was said, most truthfully, and quite some time ago…’ They began, speaking as if they were delving deep into their furthest memories. ‘That satisfaction and contentment may be achieved only through dedication, perseverance and, sadly, sacrifice.’

  If the great forests all around Vivian then could have sighed, they most certainly would have done, and the young Featherstone sensed somehow that her suffering wasn’t the first they’d witnessed, or at least the first that they had knowledge of.