7. Mothers Wander
CHAPTER SEVEN
MOTHERS WANDER
I follow a step behind, trying to convince myself that I’m not too weak to move no matter how heavy my feet have grown after my flight. It is night when I hear the stream, its babbling no longer a calming noise after what attempting to drink from it brought me. Over the rippling water, I hear Anne and my heart weeps, half with relief and half with grief. She remains right where I left her. It is a mercy and a horror.
The cricket veers off from the path with the walnut tree in view, leaving me as alone as I ever have been in this place, it seems. I find the boundary of my prison and slide down it to the earth.
My eyelids are heavy enough that they slip closed time and again without my consent, but I fear sleeping in this place after all that just happened from cupping water in my hands. I cannot fathom what horrors The Thicket holds if the rift between my world and the next is so frightening.
Like merely thinking the name of The Thicket has brought evil upon me, the brush to my right moves, making the underbrush of the forest floor shift. Giving up all pretense of finding rest, I fly to my feet and scan the woods in every direction but find nothing. Even in daylight, I might never spot what made the sound, but in the dark night I do not stand a chance.I imagine everything in these woods can see better in the dark than I can.
Whatever it might be, I do not suppose it can hear or see the apparition of myself and my daughter that are still living out the same moments over and over around the walnut tree. I am not certain anything can see or hear them but me. Birds fly right through them. Squirrels have collected many of the fallen walnuts around me through the evening, always running through the specters, unafraid and unhalted.
The two—things—I have met out here have been sentient. The creature in the stream was pure evil, I think. If it is to be believed, mothers wander this place at night. There is hope that whatever slithers beyond my sight might be friendly.
It could also be a cougar ready to eat me or a madwoman ready to skin me alive. This place could do terrible things to one’s mind over time.
“Hello?” Nothing answers from the darkness, but the thing that shifts in the woods pauses, the sound of movement stopping at once. “Is something there?” My voice quakes more than I would like. It gives me away as frightened when I think curiosity might serve me better.
The familiar sounds of hooves on the damp earth reach my ears. A huff of breath escapes one of the beasts reminding me a little of Dolly, our mare. There is more movement sounding in the brush ahead, a herd of deer, perhaps.
Deer would not be enough to make me nervous in broad daylight. Wild animals, no matter how calm on the outside, should be given distance and I would step back a few yards and leave them to it. That the night is so impenetrable around me makes these deer, if they are deer at all, feel menacing in a profound way. After the day I have had and the creature I faced in the wet cave, the hooves I hear could be anything. For all I know, they belong to demons like those illustrated in old books.In defiance of the sinking feeling, I speak aloud. “Oh. A doe.”
A twig snaps beneath the feet of the creatures and the sound ricochets through my body like a rifle shot.
Another sound, a slithering and hissing, reaches my ears. A gradual light shines forth as something swivels in the grass, creating a circle of light around a hellish beast. Beyond it, another light circles and another. The woods become filled with wreathes of light surrounding massive animals, but I can only make out the details of the one closest to me.
A creature rises on its hind legs a few yards from where I shiver with fright so powerful sweat trickles down my back. The other animals in the distance follow, their hulking silhouettes blocking what little I can make out of the dense woods beyond them and their lights.
I do not need to possess any knowledge of time, place, or circumstance to know that I am not safe. I should run but, for now, the beast stands frozen. If I flee, it will have me. With its great size, it could overcome me in a single bound.
Standing on hind legs, the creature possesses long, spindly hands bearing crooked claws.Its body is furred in a similar pattern to a deer, but it has the torso of a woman with breasts upon her chest and a human waist and navel.
And as the light travels up from the grass toward her gaping mouth, I find myself looking into a hideous and twisted reflection of myself. She is near human, but her cataracted eyes have shifted toward the sides of her head and they lack any spark of human intelligence. Her foaming mouth hangs open, making her appear gaunt.
The others are the mothers that wander the rift. I know it like I know how to breathe and see. It is so obvious to my mind that it feels as though I was born knowing it. Perhaps the creature in the water I met by day planted the information in my mind so I could recall it upon seeing them.
The beast standing before me, she is what I will become.
Seeing her in the light is the final knell for my frantic heart. To loose the scream blocking my breath would take more control over my body than I can boast.
Tumbling back, I scramble toward the base of the walnut tree, thinking to climb it. The woman—the monster—takes a step toward me, sniffing the air to sense me without the use of her eyes. I am frozen in my tracks. Like a mouse cornered by a rooster in a coop, I can only shiver and wait.
Something crawls down from the tree to rest on my shoulder. I dare not look to see what it is. The weight of it tells me that it is much larger than any cricket or roach. Whatever it is, it pads closer to my ear on many legs and whispers. “She’s as docile as she appears. She can’t be allowed to touch you.”
Though this voice is more a breath than a buzz, similar to how the air vibrates after a drum is struck, I recognize Fallow.
We have been through much in a short span. I must be careful to not be caught expecting him when danger strikes. At some point, he might stop coming.
For now, I will be grateful.
His voice is somewhere between a whistle and a hiss in my ear. “Throw something.”
With an order to follow, I rip the creature off my shoulder—a massive brown spider the size of my hand laid flat—and huck it into the night. It is large enough to land with a thump somewhere in the distant wood. The monster wearing something like my face and her circle of light both rush into the woods after the spider that spoke with Fallow’s voice, leaving me to run as fast as my legs can carry me toward the road.
A bird squawks from the tree, possessing the same bearing as the flies earlier in the day and the spider a moment ago. It caws, “Not the road!”
I have no reason to argue with Fallow. Though he has told me not to trust anything I meet here, I have no idea which direction may be safer than any other. Listening to him is the only sensible way forward. Even if he ushers me into the belly of a beast, I would never blame myself for following his word. My own thoughts have flown in all directions like shards of a crystal glass when thrown against a brick wall.
Turning, I dart down the line of trees, keeping the barrier of my prison to my right to not get lost. All around me, monsters rise, illuminated by their travelling lights. They ignore me, though, their focus on the barrier beside me. As they trek toward the barrier between the woods and the fields the night fills with a cacophony of children’s voices from sources I am blind to. There are too many to be picked out, but I know they must play on a loop and Anne is among them.
These are the mothers that never left their children’s sides for The Thicket. Those that never dared risk becoming lost in order to find a solution.
Covering my ears, I turn and run deeper into the woods until all is silent around me again. With nothing chasing me, so far as I can tell, it is not long before my heart stops pounding with fear and instead from exertion.It has been a long day of running and still, the most tortured muscle in my body isn’t in my legs, but my chest.
My heart.
For a long time, I force one foot in front of the other in a drudging pace despite feeling as though my bones are made of lead and my soul is shredding apart. When I come to the stream I have frequented often before, including earlier today, I pause. I am parched and will need to drink soon, but last time I cupped my hands in that water I was swept away .
Breathing so hard I can taste a hint of blood on my breath from my overworked lungs, I drop to my knees beside the stream. “Please, no tricks.”
There is no answer and, feeling I have no other choice, I cup some of the icy water in my hands. The earth remains just the same beneath me now as it had before. As I lift the water to my lips, the bubbling brook eases my heart into a calmer rhythm, its song helping to edge the panic into something more manageable.
Part of me considers working to light a fire. Even after all my running, the air is chill and it will grow colder each night as autumn finds its full strength. I fear lighting one would draw more danger toward me rather than scare it away. Those creatures, mothers, with whatever light possessed them, they were wanderers. But the one that bore my face was a hunter. Like so much in this place, I can only make guesses, but it felt like its goal was to change me into a monstrosity, too. The thought alone warms my chilled skin to a nervous sweat.
Like a rabbit, I withstand the respite from danger, no matter how brief, with my ears twitching, waiting for the next evil thing to emerge from the trees ready to make a meal of me.
That this is my life until I escape, or it ends, almost sends me into a new frenzy. Just surviving until morning in this place feels impossible with how every sound makes my skin crawl. The fear in my body begs the question of souls. Each time a beetle waddles through the underbrush, it feels as though my soul is trying to leap from my skin. If I am but a shard of a larger whole, the entirety of a human soul—a mother’s soul—must be mighty indeed .
Walking hand in hand with my fear is the question of Fallow, who follows me in these woods. Though he is what brought me here, and has admitted as much, he did not appear to have any desire to stick around when he came to me by day. Now, he has saved me twice while wearing different forms.
That he could be anything or anywhere, watching me, was a frightening prospect only a few hours ago. The more he helps, the more comforting the thought becomes. He said I should trust no one, especially not him. Still, maybe even untrustworthy company would serve me better than remaining alone.
I came to my mother when she was already old, and my grandmother and grandfather died when I was little. Even in the brief time I knew them, I could tell they barely tolerated one another. My grandmother hounded my grandfather about a great many things, and he called her a nag, shrew, and any number of cruel synonyms. Not knowing any better, I once questioned my grandmother why she put up with him at all.
She had instructed me with a finger in the air like a great orator, ‘It is impossible to describe the difference between being alone and having one ally.’
She could have answered that he kept her afloat. That a woman alone in the world was nothing. That the clothing on her back and the money in their accounts was not hers, but his. I would have accepted any answer at the time. I was so small that I knew nothing.
Her answer, though, bore a great deal of honesty in its own way. They did not need to like one another to face everything as a united front—everything that was not one another.
It is almost enough to make me call out for Fallow and see if he is still near enough to aid me. Terror holds my tongue. Last I spoke in this place, a devil rose from the dark.
Daring to find another seat, I lean my back against a tree, no longer concerned with the insects that might live on the bark and find their way into my hair. Weariness weighs down my eyelids, but fright raises them every time sleep draws near. It is as though the best-case scenario for my night is to end as a meal for some massive beast so fast that I never knew I was made into dinner. The only benefit would be that it would not be slow and obscene.
Pulling my shawl closer, I lament not crawling into bed beside Anne last night, unaware that it would be my last chance for her soft snores to lull me into the sleep of the exhausted. There is no comfort to ease me into rest without them near. I have not felt so homesick since Henry vanished, when I learned that a pair of arms can be missed with unmatched desperation.
Heartbreak is the first thing since sunset to shatter the fear that’s keeping me silent as a mouse.
Pressing my cheek against the nearest tree, I curl my knees to my chest, wrap myself in my shawl, and wait for the tremors I’ve been holding back all day to finish wracking through my body. To the night, I whisper the name of the man I wish was beside me more than anyone else, the person who could comfort me in his embrace just by being present. Henry, though just a man, would be able to keep me safe. I trusted him with my whole soul. “How do I save Anne? How do I get home? ”
Somehow, though my questions are different, they ring the same to my ears and something in my bones knows they have the same answer.
The Thicket.
The invisible bars to my prison will not disappear by will alone. The solution to this problem is not so simple as waiting out whatever forces keep me trapped here. There are monsters in these woods, whether there always have been or if I am trapped in a strange, mirrored world where they dwell is yet to be seen. They have no qualms over eating me whole if I remain helpless, pacing the outer wall of my cell.
Tucking my tears away, since they serve nothing, I force my eyes shut with a deal. If I survive the night, I will seek answers. I will find shelter, food, and clean water. Perhaps I will find something or someone willing to help me navigate this new world until I can leave it.
Fallow, most likely.
The plan comes with a caveat that, at this point in the night, is almost comforting.
If something comes to rip me apart and lick its claws clean of me, I might just allow it.