Shadow Witch: Horror of the Dark Forest

by J. Thorn

  At first he thought he saw a trick of the light caused by the moon and stars. But as he peered at the rock, he saw a faint glow from the writing across the top of the boulder. The symbols flickered like a candle burned to the wick.

  The crunch of leaves spun him back to the woods. The night chill thickened, causing him to shiver. Arms quivering, Thom forced himself to step forward, pushing his body toward the darkness spilling from the forest and flooding the shelter in utter blackness.

  One more step.

  “Why do you hide among the trees? I am here, if you dare face my sword.” The brittle rattle of his voice bellied his false bravado.

  His stomach lurched. A shrill tone came from everywhere at once, like a hundred children screaming. He dropped the sword and clutched his hands against his ears. The air wavered, shook and a force threw him backward into the rock while locking his arms at his sides. He felt the hand of a giant wrapped around his body, fingers squeezing the life out of him.

  His sword laid three paces away, gleaming. The tone increased in volume until it became deafening. His head turned from side to side. As the unseen force threatened to crush every bone in his body, he saw Kira and Delia sound asleep. He tried to call out to them, tried to scream, but his voice produced no sound.

  “I know you, shepherd.”

  The woman’s voice came from the trees, from the rock behind him, from the sky above. It resonated from everywhere at once in a rasp that made him think of vermin crawling through rotted food bags. His ribs screamed and his head throbbed.

  “Do not fight, for you need not fear me.”

  Thom recognized the woman’s voice from his dreams. His head swam, filled with images of a forest without an end, and of a house of smooth stones turned to human bone. He felt the icy fear from his nightmare returning. He believed it was coming for him. And for his daughters.

  “You are skilled with the sword. So much so I doubt you truly are a shepherd. How many of my soldiers did you defeat on your way northward?”

  The woman’s voice carried with it the crackle of dead leaves and the hissing of snakes. The pressure on his body increased, as though pythons constricted his ribcage.

  “Your sword is of no use against me.”

  Thom’s eyes widened. Something grew at the edge of darkness, a shadow that was not there before. He knew the woman who haunted his nightmares walked among the trees.

  “Fear not, for neither you nor your family need come to harm by my hand. I come to you with a generous proposal, and if you accept my offer, you will not die on this night. Nor on any other. How does eternal life sound to you? I can grant you powers you never dreamed existed.”

  The air shimmered and Thom saw the shadow amid the trees, its head several paces off the ground. She stepped forward, staying at the edge of darkness where he could not see her.

  A powerful scent filled the forest, sweet like boiling syrup and autumn honey. He breathed and the scent rushed through his body like it was alive.

  His eyes filled with a light brighter than the midday sun and scalding. He felt a power vibrating his muscles into taut cords. Images flashed through his head. His sword dripping with blood and ripping through the darkness. The savaged bodies of the Mylan Guard lying at his feet. An empty throne adorned with ornate carvings. His cloak flapping in the wind as he surveyed his kingdom from the turret at the outer wall of Mylan.

  He floated within the light, unencumbered. The strange brightness stretched away in all directions and he looked down as his sword appeared in his hands. The weapon pulsed with a power that vibrated his skull and chattered his teeth. He slashed the sword through the air and heard it whistle with the screams of men who would serve him forever. He slashed again at the light, the hilt warm in his hand. The sword cut through the air with a thin trail of flame floating in the wake of the blade.

  “That’s right, shepherd. Powers you never dreamed existed, at your command. My soldiers to do your bidding. A kingdom to rule over as you see fit.”

  He felt his body hurtling up through the light as though propelled toward an alien sun. He breathed the sweetness and no longer felt sickened by it. His muscles twitched beneath his clothing, the threads straining against his power. He tried to remember who he was and why he was here—a wife and daughters, a simple home on the outskirts of a village—but his mind kept filling with the power, his thoughts washed clean by the pristine light stretching into eternity.

  Several symbols, words he recognized from the boulder in the forest, danced before his eyes with meaning. His eyes centered on two of the symbols and when he spoke them in succession, he felt the earth tremor and saw the impenetrable walls of Mylan crumble. He reached his hand into the light and the floating symbols steadied, awaiting his command. He pulled three words forward, reordering them on instinct alone. He saw bountiful crops with colors so green he had to squint. They grew within and beyond farm fields. He both saw and felt an eternal springtime in a kingdom whose people would never again starve or perish in the enduring months of winter.

  “This is all yours. Your wife and daughters—eternal, too. Never a need to fear what night will bring. Power and riches will be yours forever. I only ask two things of you. Your hand in mine, and your name—”

  Thom blinked. He was no longer rising, but falling through infinite space. His stomach rose into his chest and somewhere deep in his subconscious, he heard a familiar voice. A voice he should have recognized yet couldn’t.

  You must never speak your names to her, Thom Meeks.

  Thom Meeks. Was that his name? He tried to remember who he was, tried to—

  “Your name, dear shepherd, and my powers will be yours.”

  He fell faster now, the wind screaming in his ears and his hair trailing his body in the endless sky. He closed his eyes and felt his stomach roil with sickness as the light whipped past at increasing speed.

  Do not tell her your name, Thom.

  The light warped before him so quickly that if he blinked he would have missed it. Then he remembered the village of Droman Meadows, the memory like a dandelion seedling he plucked out of the wind. His memory roared back at him, seeing flames snapping as the Fair Haven Inn crumbled to the earth. He smelled burning flesh, heard the howls of the dread wolves and saw his family fleeing through the night toward the king’s road.

  “You must tell me your name. Now.”

  The woman’s voice crackled like the searing flames of a barn fire.

  He drank again of the sweet power and a moment later, his descent slowed. He opened his eyes to confirm he was no longer falling as fast. The strange symbols drifted on the breeze but followed his path, there for him to grab. But the symbols now appeared faded, their contours washed out and sinking into the light.

  “Your name.”

  Again the light warped, as though he watched a bed sheet flutter in a midday wind.

  Hold your tongue, Thom.

  The sorcerer’s voice, unmistakable and as loud as thunder, boomed inside of Thom’s head. The power fled his body and the light evaporated like morning fog baked by the sun. The forest materialized—the looming silhouettes of the trees, his wife and Delia curled next to him on the ground. He shook his head free of the cobwebs clouding his thought, grasped the sword lying between his outstretched legs and pushed himself away from the boulder.

  As he stumbled from the oaks, a filthy longing left him hollow and at the edge of sobbing. He felt the power of being at one with the unending sky, but now it was gone. Everything was gone. His three oldest daughters. His village. His sanity.

  Staggering back to the oaks, he sat upon the cool ground next to Kira and his daughter, as far away from the boulder as he could. He didn’t want to look at the rock, fearing the symbols would glow in the night air like embers, calling to him. And this time he would not have the strength to turn away.

  Chapter 22

  Jasmine awoke to a menagerie of stars shining against the dark ocean of night. She squealed and brushed at her clothes t
o rid herself of invisible spiders and centipedes. She jumped to her feet and stood in the middle of the clearing. Krea and Sarra were curled into balls at her feet, shivering on the forest floor, as far from the pine and spruce trees as they could get. She peered at the shadows brooding under the thick, coniferous boughs, expecting to see a swarm of legs and fangs scurrying out from under the trees. But only the moon glowed through the trees, painting the clearing in a checkerboard of blues and blacks.

  If her sisters had not seen the spiders too, she would not have believed the macabre scene to be real. They had felt the air warp and shimmer and they had seen the centipede-like things crawling out of her mouth.

  My God, how could they have gotten inside me?

  The guardian conifers watched her from all points along the outer circle of the clearing. They had no answers for her.

  She lay down next to her twin sister, turning one way and then the other, first feeling the scratch of pine needles and then the pain of a sharp-edged rock sticking into her ribs. Her entire body itched at once, as though the invisible arachnids returned, crawling up her skirts and creeping across bare flesh. Jasmine sat up with a sigh, knowing it was folly to try to sleep on rocks and pine needles.

  Jasmine had to pee. She crossed her legs and wished for sunrise. She didn’t think she could hold for much longer and her skin prickled into gooseflesh when she looked into the deep shadows surrounding the clearing. It was as though the woods filled with thousands of black eyes, watching her from the trees and waiting for her to come to them.

  “Krea,” she said, shaking her twin sister by the shoulder.

  “Mmmmm,” Krea said, deep in her slumber.

  “Krea, wake up. I have to pee.”

  Krea mumbled something below her breath and rolled over, her back to Jasmine.

  “Fine. I’ll go on my own.”

  Jasmine adjusted her skirts and started toward the southern border of the clearing, not wanting any part of the northern border where the spiders crawled. As she neared the outer edge of the circle, the shadows seemed to grow deeper, as though black storm clouds massed outside the periphery. She swallowed, her throat tightening and her heart thrumming from her chest into her head.

  Hurry, before you lose your nerve, she thought.

  Images of centipedes burrowing out of her stomach, creeping up the insides of her throat and clawing at her tongue flooded her thoughts.

  Several paces away from the tree line, she imagined the spruces had arms that would grasp her at the clearing’s edge. Indeed, in the inky black perimeter, the trees appeared as the storybook trolls that haunted her as a child. But her bladder grew heavy and she began to doubt she could walk another few steps without ruining her skirts.

  Jasmine stepped into the trees, feeling a chilled wall of air like the cold warning of autumn. Shivering, she raised her skirts and squatted down, relieving herself in the deafening hush of the trees. She did not blink. Her head darted left and right, expecting something—a dread wolf—to crash out of the thicket at her. She went a long time, the heat from the stream warming the backs of her calves. When she finished, she felt a cramp in her bladder from having held her urine for too long.

  She held her skirts so they did not dip onto the wet ground and then stepped forward into the forest and froze. Peering up at the trees, she imagined them uprooting themselves and stepping on her, grinding her bloody body into the forest floor. The chill of the forest seemed to grow colder, sending waves of goose bumps across her skin.

  She turned back toward the clearing. Her heart raced. She couldn’t see the break in the perimeter because of the thick trees. If she stepped in the wrong direction, she might lose herself in the forest as she and her sisters lost their path to the meadow. She looked left and right. Shadows lurked all about her and she was no longer sure of the location of the clearing.

  This is ridiculous. I stepped straight ahead. All I have to do is go back the same way and—

  Movement caught her eye.

  A branch snapped twenty paces into the forest. Her heart pounded through her throat and her mouth went as dry as desert sands. She stood transfixed, frozen to the ground, as a pallid figure wove its way through the trees ahead of her.

  A ghost?

  There were no ghosts. Were there?

  Sure there were, just as there were dread wolves and haunted forests which you can never escape.

  Her heart pounded faster, harder, as she watched the phantom presence cross her vision.

  As it came closer, she recognized the skirts and the dark brown hair.

  Sarra.

  What was her sister doing, running into the forest in the dark of night?

  Jasmine climbed through a row of pricker bushes, feeling thorns tear red lines across the flesh of her arms. She broke through the bramble, ignoring the flash of pain and desperate not to lose sight of her fleeing sister.

  “Sarra. Sarra, where are you going?”

  Her sister kept running and Jasmine felt a cold, dead touch on her shoulder. She spun her head around but nobody was there. She turned back around, searching for Sarra in the woods.

  Is she running from dread wolves?

  Bracing for the howls, she darted around trees, nearly colliding with trunks blending into the gloom. She ran as fast as she could, her skirts snagging on limbs and bramble with the sound of tearing fabric trailing her through the trees. Yet as fast as she ran, Sarra ran faster. Her older sister became smaller and smaller in her vision, the ghostly resonance of her skirts fading into the woods.

  “Sarra, where is Krea? Come back.”

  Sarra did not acknowledge her. She raced deeper into the trees as though the devil bit at her heels. The snap and pop of branches drew further away until Jasmine could barely see or hear her fleeing sister. Her eyes locked upon the faint, silver dot that marked Sarra. Jasmine ran without abandon, risking a collision with a tree or a punctured eye from a low hanging branch.

  “Sarra, why are you leaving us? Please, wait for me.”

  Jasmine picked up her pace. The forest remained a dark blur at the edge of her vision. As her heart pounded through her chest, her breathing came in strangled gasps, sucking in the chill night air. She ran faster and faster.

  She leapt over fallen logs materializing out of the darkness and ducked under boughs that would break her neck if she was a moment slower. Jasmine ran through the trees, gaining ground on her sister. Sarra’s spectral figure ran no more than fifty paces ahead now, constantly disappearing within the maze of trees and causing Jasmine to lose ground again. Jasmine didn’t stop when her outer skirts snagged on a dead branch and tore apart at the seam. She looked down and her shoes were a faint blur of movement on the dark abyss of the forest floor. She gained on Sarra, her sister now no more than thirty or forty paces ahead, darting through the trees like a faun sensing a huntsman.

  “Please, Sarra. I can’t find Krea. You mustn’t leave us alone.”

  Jasmine’s voice echoed through the forest, morphing into arra-arra-arra and then to ahhhhh. She cried out, her scream ripping through the woods, ricocheting off of trees and riding the night wind. Sarra did hear Jasmine’s cry—from the forest clearing where she was curled asleep beside Krea. Sarra stirred in her slumber as the ghostly wail echoed back to her.

  The apparition Jasmine believed was Sarra rushed ahead through the forest, skirts billowing behind her like curtains over an open window. Jasmine stopped, her breath caught in her throat. She sensed a dark memory rising up from the back of her mind. Something about the figure she thought was Sarra was both familiar and haunting. But her eyes told her Sarra went deeper into the forest and Jasmine ran after her.

  The figure vanished through the trees some fifty paces ahead, devoured by the shadows. Jasmine called out again, running for a row of ash and oak where she last glimpsed her sister.

  As she ran forward, she had the sensation of standing still while the woods raced toward her.

  Then she broke through the trees.

&nb
sp; She gasped, bent over with her hands on her knees. She stood in another clearing. The moon shone bright upon the grass. The stars flamed overhead like sparks from flint struck against the pitch of night. Her head throbbed, blood pulsing upward in nauseating waves. She waited for the sickness to pass and for her heart rate to slow before raising her head.

  She did not see Sarra, but as the azure glow of the moon rendered the terrain in winter grays, she noticed a home sitting at the back of the clearing. She frowned and clasped her hands together before walking toward the building.

  Who would be living out in the middle of nowhere?

  Despite the strangeness of it, she could not bypass the home, for it held her only hope of finding Sarra. In fact, Sarra could already be inside, warming herself by the fire with a cup of tea.

  But Jasmine didn’t smell a burning woodstove, nor could she fathom why Sarra would have run toward the isolated house in the first place. Edging forward through the silver glow, Jasmine studied the house from afar, searching for signs of life, candles burning in the windows. As far as Jasmine could tell, the house had no windows at all.

  As she approached, the moon rays caught the side of the home and rendered it in greater clarity. The structure appeared built out of nothing but smooth, round stones balanced atop of one another. She couldn’t understand how the house stood, let alone how one would manage to fit in a window or door. And where were the windows and doors? Surely they must be on the opposite side of the house, facing away from the clearing. Otherwise, she looked at nothing but an oversized tomb with no entry or escape.

  She swallowed despite her parched mouth. From thirty paces, the stone-faced walls shone like still waters glimmering at midnight.

  “Hello?”

  Her voice died in the shadow of the forest and at the doorstep of the strange house that fronted it. She saw no sign of movement from within, nor any way to enter the structure. When she looked at the stones, she thought again of the centipedes and spiders—the waking nightmare she must have imagined. Her skin prickled.

  “Sarra? Are you in there? Is anyone home?”