3. A Mother’s Soul
CHAPTER THREE
A MOTHER’S SOUL
“Mama, are you alright?”
Turning, I find Anne in the tree where she has been the entire time. She is not watching me, though, but a woman collapsed by my feet.
A woman with my face.
She blinks like I am not here at all. The woman gazes right through me up at Anne. “I am alright. I just tripped, is all.”
She speaks with my voice!
To ensure I am not dreaming, I clap my hands and the sound startles me, but no one else blinks or notices my presence. Pinching my wrist only makes me flinch. The vision of myself remains and Anne’s unconcerned gaze follows her, not me.
Anne laughs. “Silly Mama!”
“Anne?” My girl continues collecting walnuts like I have not spoken. Blinking at the woman in front of me—myself—she stands and her body shifts through mine like I am made of morning mist. Frantic, I reach for the woman’s sleeve,my sleeve, and it is like touching air. Even as my hand slips clean through her, I expect to feel something. She should be cold, warm, or dense… Anything.
But she is nothing.
Falling back a step, I look up to Anne, who is staring right at me but without recognition.
“Mama, I see the lights again.” She points at the center of my chest and the woman—me, but not me— stares, her brows creased with concern in the same way mine are. I can tell by the look on her face, frightened and confused at once, that whatever lights Anne can see are as invisible to the woman as they were to me yesterday.
I turn, searching for the lights, and see nothing. Wheeling back, Anne is still pointing at me, dead center, like a hunter aiming a rifle.
The woman lifts her arms into the air toward Anne. “Jump down to me, darling. Let’s find a new tree to climb.” Anne’s eyes remain fixed on me, but she does as her mother, not me, has asked.
Fear that the woman before me is dangerous, a changeling like in old stories, has me reaching out to try and stop them. “Anne! Do not go with her!”
The false version of me carries my girl beyond the tree line of the woods like I am not reaching for her at all. She turns over her shoulder, though, staring me in the eyes without knowing it.
I am the lights. I am… Oh, God!
The terror rising in my body at a rapid rate makes me want to fall back, but I force myself forward, desperate to return to the world of the awake, for this can only be a strange nightmare born of exhaustion or stress. Perhaps Anne hit me with a walnut harder than I thought.
Her face peeks over the shoulder of some version of myself and she is watching the lights in the woods with wide eyes. She no longer appears enchanted by them, but frightened. Jogging to catch up, I brush my fingers along Anne’s face and meet no resistance. Her visage does not so much as blur.
She is watching me chase her. Watching the light chase her.
They break through the line of trees, back into the fields that lead to our house and a wall, built of nothing yet somehow impenetrable, stops me in my tracks. The woman with my face and mannerisms marches at a brisk pace with Anne in her protective arms. I am left to watch from the wrong side of the woods.
The realization that I have been abandoned here crashes around me, making my knees wobble under my weight. Like a wild animal in a pen, I hurl myself at the invisible barrier again and again. “No! Open! That’s not me. That’s not me and my daughter! ”
“Mama, are you alright?”
Twisting about, I see myself having fallen to the earth again. Anne is above in the tree. The woman blinks up at her. “I am alright. I just tripped is all.”
The scene plays out again. Anne points to where I had been standing and claims to see the lights. The other-me ushers her down from the tree. They walk right through me like they are made of air, then it begins again.
“Mama, are you alright?”
“I am alright. I just tripped is all.”
Panic builds into a scream that I unleash at the heavens. Neither specter reacts, as if they do not hear me. They cannot. I am the specter. I must be.
Reeling, my back slams into the invisible barrier locking me in the woods. Getting enough air becomes difficult as my breath comes in rapid, shallow gasps.
“ Silly Mama!”
My hands shake beyond control when I reach for Anne again with desperate, clawing fingers to find nothing in my grasp. “No! No, my girl!”
“You’ll forget them.” The sound of a man’s voice, though it buzzes with an inhuman danger, fills me with horror faster than anything else this nightmare has managed. Turning, the outline of a man is standing before me. He is a shadow made physical by the dirt that sticks to his outermost edges and by the sparse leaves that are plastered to him like he draws them toward himself from all directions. The longer he remains in place, the more leaves, pine needles, and insects find him, filling in what was once empty space.
I would have thought myself incapable of more terror than I already felt over the lights, but a monster has my daughter and another stands in front of me. My knees clack together, wanting to buckle while the rest of me itches to bolt. This creature might chase me, or more invisible walls might stop me. Far worse than monsters and barriers would be if I lost sight of Anne and couldn't find my way back to her. Acid burns the back of my throat at the mere notion. I cannot risk losing sight of that cursed walnut tree. Of my girl.
Out of breath, I find my words and force them around the stubborn lump in my throat. “What did you say?”
The monster shrugs and seeing such a human response from a being seemingly made from the earth itself eases my nerves the slightest amount. A voice in the back of my mind reminds me that dropping my defenses might be what this being is hoping for, yet I’m exhausted in a way I have never felt before, which is saying a lot. No matter how I try, I cannot muster the same level of wariness for this creature as I had a moment ago.
“Mama, are you alright?”
Anne’s voice restarting the terrible play proves that I have found a new level of dread within myself. It is an awful lot like being an empty vase; a dusty thing taking up precious space for no purpose.
“I said, you’ll forget them soon enough. Everyone does.”
Falling to my knees, I watch the second me disappear with Anne over the rolling hills only to reappear all over again, stuck in a loop.
“I would never. I could never.” Tears sting my eyes. “Please, there must be a way to return to that side. I am… Where am I?” Peering around us, I find myself su rrounded by trees and plants I do not recognize. Autumn is deeper here, the leaves of the unfamiliar trees having already turned brown and crunchy on the forest floor. The only tree that remains of Tennessee is the walnut at my back. “These are not my woods!”
Something like relief caresses my burning skin, before the dreadful chill of fear swarms back to chase all calm beyond my reach. To be unafraid would make me truly mad.
“They are your woods. They were your woods yesterday when you rode through them with your daughter, and they are still your woods now. In a manner of speaking, at least.”
The realization that this monster was one of the lights that Anne could see when I could not presses me as if driving me into the earth. It feels impossible that I could ever stand again while bearing the weight of it. Every nerve in my body stood exposed and screaming that there was danger here today, and I ignored it. If this is real, it is my fault.
“There are no birds singing!” The ridiculous explanation for why this cannot be the same line of trees I have been wandering for years flies from my lips in a furious shout.
The shadow makes an amused sound, almost a laugh, though his strange body forces it out more as a rustle. If he had a mouth to smile with, I think he would be doing just that. My fury overboils and scalds through my body. The threat must show on my face, for he takes a step back and, when he does, the birdsong returns.
“They’re just afraid of me, is all.” His tone is one of sadness, like he is truly apologetic for how living things fear him.
Feeling hopeful at the sound of birds singing, I crawl toward the line of trees again butremain barred from the plains beyond. Screaming my frustration at the sky, hardly visible through the canopy above us, the birds fall silent once more. A few even take flight to find a safer perch than the walnut tree overhead.
“That is hardly fair. I brought them back just for you and you scared them off right away.”
“You want to speak to me of fairness! My daughter?—”
Anne.
She has lost so much and now she has lost me, too. I think. Given the woman cradling her in every loop, maybe I’m the one who has lost me. It’s too much to grasp with any certainty. The thought that I brought this down upon her when I am meant to trust my instincts to keep her safe in all things makes me beat my breast. The confusion and guilt remains. My heart is a terrible pulse of I should have known . I have to get us out of this.
Pinching my arm hard enough to leave a bruise, I remain right where I am. Things only become murkier with the realization that this is no dream. Unable to even pretend to be strong enough to face this nightmare another moment, I place my forehead against the invisible barrier and weep.
“Don’t do that.” The creature buzzes his words through the mouths of the insects that have been sucked into his dusty form. Shifting on his feet that rustle with dried leaves, his dark, empty eye sockets downcast, he appears uncertain. I do not think he knows whether he wishes to ease my pain or not. “Your daughter is still in your arms.” He motions to the shade of me who cradles Anne and carries her out of the woods only to reappear. “Even the many magics of The Thicket are not strong enough to steal the entirety of a mother’s soul.”
“My soul?” Stuttering and shaking, I try to calm my limbs to little avail. Despite a lifetime of churches and holy verses, I have never been devout and know little of souls. Regardless of devotion, though, what has happened here cannot possibly be in the realm of souls. No god would allow it, surely.
“Yes. Souls. A mother’s soul rests in pieces. The Thicket could never have all of yours unless it also took your child, and there are rules about children. We are in the wrong woods for taking children. She is paused. She will wait and not even know it.”
The matter-of-fact way he speaks does the work of drying my eyes for me. Every word the creature says is weighted with reality. They spread a calm balm over my burning skin. They carry a certainty or, perhaps more likely, I am desperate enough for any answer to accept his. The more real this becomes, the less I fear for Anne, who is safe from the clutches of this place according to this creature, and the more I fear for myself.
“What is your name?” He does not sound like he wishes to ask but as if he feels compelled to do so. His voice is like that of a man but spoken through the mouths of insects and shifting autumn leaves. It is unnerving to be addressed by so many sounds at once.
“Odell Darly.” My maiden name pops to mind first. No matter the variety, men should be treated with caution. Stories my grandmother used to tell me about the fairies in the woods where she grew up far from here over the sea come to mind. Stories of tricksters, changelings, goblins, and hobs.
He laughs, the many buzzing sounds that create his voice making my skin crawl in the same way it does after walking into a spiderweb. “I would hear your real name, Odell. I’m no fairy trickster. I can do nothing with your name aside from know it.”
Not trusting my gut reaction earlier has brought me to stand before this monster, so I will trust it now. “It is the name I am giving just the same. Who are you?”
The debris of his face rises. I think he might be trying to smile. “I’m called Fallow.”
He speaks in riddles and Fallow is not a true name. With terror still holding me hostage, I turn over my shoulder to find the line of trees I cannot pass through along with the unreachable ghosts of myself and my daughter playing their roles.
“You’d do well not to turn your back on anything you find in The Thicket.”
“Is that where I am? The Thicket?”
Even the name sends a shiver of recognition down my spine. I do not think anyone has ever muttered the word as a place in my presence before, but my blood knows it. The same nagging that told me not to allow Anne to follow the lights in the woods yesterday bark like furious hounds over the name.
He shakes his head. “Not yet. It is where you will go. It requires choice, but you seem sane enough to make it.”
Fallow faces me, the empty space where his eyes should be focused only on me, gauging my reaction. This time, his certainty does nothing to comfort me. Fallow, a creature made of nothing, has told me my new place will be in The Thicket. I do not need to know any more to understand that my best bet is to get out of here as fast as I can. I cannot risk going deeper.
“What are you, Fallow?”
“I’m a friend of yours. For now.” There is an uncertainty to his answer. An unspoken, I think.
I want to tell him that is not what I meant, but he has answered my question well enough. If he told me he was a goblin or demon it would be no less believable of an answer. Despite Fallow’s warning of not turning my back on The Thicket, I stare back at the plains that Anne and the woman who looks just like me vanished into.
They both reappear. Anne calls from above, “Mama, are you alright?”
Though my heart breaks to be parted from her, knowing that Anne is only caught in this loop until I find my way out of these woods eases the worst of my feelings. She could be dead. She could be alive and without me. This is better, I think. “How do I get back to Anne? How do I free her?”
The creature of shadow and earth before me shakes his head. “I have no idea, Odell. I have only my instructions which, for now, are to follow your story and keep you safe until the end reveals itself.”
I will get out of here and rejoin the whole of me. Even if this monster will not tell me how, I will figure it out. “And what of me? What is my story?”
He clucks his tongue, the sound like pebbles being dropped from a tiny fist into a pile. “What of you? You are here now. That is it. You will wander until you choose The Thicket. That is the first step. The rest will come.” A shiver rolls through his form rattling the many pieces of debris that swirl in his being.
“Forgetting? Growing lost? That is the rest?”
With a nod, he turns toward the woods. The leaves and specks of earth that make him up float in all directions, his form starting to vanish before my eyes. Fear grips my heart at the thought of being alone in here, even more than it does being in his absurd presence. “Stop! Wait!”
At my call, every morsel and breath of the monstrosity called Fallow returns to its place and faces me. “What?”
Blank like a stone, I can only gauge his temper by his brash tone.“I do not want to be left alone. Will you help me escape this place?”
“You are wandering in a blank space between worlds until you choose The Thicket. I can only aid you on your path once you choose one. Escaping it is beyond my power.”
“How will you aid me if you are gone?”
“I’ll be around.” He waves his hand at the woods on all sides of us with a nonchalant air. “In the ways I can be. Trust no one, though.”
A single barking laugh escapes me in exasperation. “Trust no one! What of you?”
Reaching down to the red earth beneath our feet, he cups some in his hands and splashes the fine, powdered clay onto his face. With this strange choice in make-up, his features become more pronounced, though not clear by any means. Still, I can see his lips and how they are turned down in a scowl as well as his brow line and how it furrows. “No, you can’t trust me. Did I not just say I have been following you, that I stole a shard of your soul meant to strengthen these cursed woods?”
No. He had not made that clear.
Taking a step away from him, my back rests against the invisible barrier. He chuckles and the shadows slither about him, blurring the lines between him and the woods as he vanishes like steam above a boiling pot. A fly that was once a part of his form buzzes by my ear. “I’ll await your choice.”
Like a panicked horse, I swat at the fly and shuffle back on the earth. It buzzes away leaving me alone to thrash, keen, and throw myself against the proverbial bars of my new prison.