16. Bones
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
BONES
My tears stop at the sound of the voice ringing in the woods around me. The buzzing feeling in the back of my brain that has served to reassure me that Fallow is close by vanishes in the same instant she speaks, like her voice has flung him clean from this piece of The Thicket.
Scanning the woods all around myself, I see nothing and no one, but the air shimmers with a presence, the mist shifting around something as it floats nearby unseen. It swirls and rolls like a sheet hangs on a drying line, disturbing it.
The mist roils.
“Are you the witch I came to find?” My voice wobbles with unspent emotion and fear, making her chuckle. The sound is low in her chest and carries a sinister air, like a villain in a play.
I watch the mist as the invisible woman disturbs it with her movement. She circles me like a pack of red wolves circle a sickly sheep.
“Why should I tell you anything?”
My blood runs cold at the sound of the disembodied voice floating on the air. With Fallow no longer by my side, I feel as unsafe as I did the first day I arrived. This creature could be anything. Perhaps she didn’t send Fallow away at all. Maybe he led me to her and now means to allow her to keep me. Maybe Roil is The Keeper. Like everything else in these woods, I know nothing.
“My friend told me Roil would know the answer to my questions. That is who I seek in this place.”
“Your friend?” She cackles with a madness the likes of which I have never heard before and I tremble so hard my knees quake together. “You poor dear, believing your digger is your friend. He should have known better than to wander here. My piece of the puzzle does not welcome evil the likes of him.”
She is not the first to think me foolish for calling Fallow friend. I suppose I am. Once our cat fell asleep in the henhouse and a lost chick took a liking to her. They became friends, the chick and the cat. The tiny bird hopped around behind the elderly barn cat for weeks, picking up feline habits and even sleeping nestled beside the cat’s furry belly.
It worked out just fine until the cat grew hungry.
“He is as close to a friend as I have found in this place.”
The mist swirls into many whirlpools as the specter flies from one spot to the next. “He is not the man you think he is. None of them are. They all turn for selfish gains. The diggers are the villains in our story. They get us lost. Sacrifice us.” The mist moves and she speaks from behind me. “They are demons. Wretches.” By the time I have turned in search of the witch, she is so close that her breath tickles my ear when she whispers beside it. “Sinners.”
Jumping in a half-circle to catch a glance at the specter, I find no one, but the woods have changed. I know I am not in the same spot I was before, though the strange, white trees and mist remain. “Hello?”
The voice hums.
Taking a step toward the sound, the toe of my boot jostles something on the earth. I peer down to find human bones. They do not sit together as they would in a grave but lie scattered over a small space in the clearing. The head, the lower jaw, one arm bone, a few small pieces that may have once formed a hand. They do not appear to have been disturbed by animals. If that were the case, they would not be so close together. Something would have carried pieces off.
It is as if they were dropped from a great height.
Not really wanting to but forced by grim curiosity, I look up at the tangle of dark, leafless branches overhead. A noose hangs empty. Whoever’s strange grave I stand in hanged themself and has since dropped piece by piece to the forest floor.
Staggering back in horror, I bump into something solid and turn, coming face to face with a woman who looks so ordinary I feel we may have met once in town. She has blue eyes that watch me with something akin to pity, and mousy brown hair streaked with a few strands of silver. She is thin but not gaunt, and her skin is freckled by the sun. The woman stands a few inches shorter than myself and wears a dress that is out of fashion with a pattern more like what one would have worn a decade ago. It looks as new as the day it was made.
She stares past me to the scattered body over my shoulder. To no one in particular, she mumbles, “My bones.”
“They are yours?”
She steps through me, no longer a solid being for me to back into. My skin stings and my heart pauses before pounding faster to make up for the momentary rest like I have been dunked in an icy river. She picks up the jawbone that might be hers and I shiver at the empty stare she uses to gaze upon it. “Alone. My bones.” She turns away from the jaw in her hand and stares at me, her expression crumbling. “My bones.”
Her voice sounds faraway and meek. A tear slips down her cheek. She reminds me of a madwoman who used to wander the muddy streets of New York City. She wore rags and sang quiet diddies about the birds.
“Your bones?” I ask again, this time with greater pity. I speak to her the way I would comfort an old woman, her memories lost to the thief that is time.
Her eyes brim with tears. “My bones.” When she shuts her bruised eyelids, tears form rivers down her cheeks, and she nods. “My bones. Alone.”
She vanishes and the jawbone clatters to the forest floor to rest with the other pieces of her.
“You should not trust your digger. They are all the same.” The disembodied voice of who I think must be Roil returns. In the strange interaction I just shared with the ghost—I just spoke to a ghost —I had forgotten all about her.
“It is my business which wolves I allow to take a bite of me.” Being in The Thicket has made me bolder and braver, even if I don’t always remember it. If Roil reveals herself to be a monster of some variety, I might regret such a haughty response.
From the mists, a new dark figure emerges. She is female, that much is clear from her shape, but she bears no features I can make out. She is just a silhouette of mists in a slightly darker shade of grey than the rest. “Fine. Your wolf is more interesting than most.”
I wish to ask why she thinks such a thing, but I bite my tongue. There are more pressing matters at hand.
She starts walking away from me, her feet of billowing mist leaving no tracks on the damp woodland floor. I chase after her like my fear of her doesn’t exist. Time is ticking away, I’m becoming more lost by the second. There is something I need to do, something I can’t remember, but Roil might. She may hate Fallow, but I don’t hate him and he brought me to her because he thought she might help. I will not allow this opportunity to pass me by. “Wait, are you Roil? If you are not, can you lead me to her?”
I still wish to find the witch. It could be foolish, but there is only one way to know anything in this place and that is by charging forth. The depths of puddles can only be gauged by stomping through them.
I expect her to glance over her shoulder, but she does not. Unlike Fallow, who, among other vague features when in a shifted state like this creature is now, forms sockets for his eyes, she is only a body. I imagine she can see me as well while facing away from me as when she looks straight at me. “You thought to merely pop in on the witch of The Thicket?”
Her voice is no longer so otherworldly as it was when she had no form and swiveled from place to place through the air, but it is the same. It holds power enough to hold the attention of anyone.
“I need to get back to someone who is not in The Thicket, and I do not know how. I also seek one who is lost in here with me. I want to bring him home with me when I leave.”
She pauses in her step and turns toward me again. Gold orbs flash from within her milky form like half dollars catching the light of the sun, though no sunlight breaks through the gloom here. “That is a tall ask. It is a common ask, too, especially from those with a mother’s soul. Always trying to save everyone. Let me guess, you are your own last priority. That won’t serve you well in The Thicket, Odell. They will walk all over you.”
“Who is they? ”
“All those you do not serve. I would know. It happened to me. No one is worthy of your loyalty, save yourself. Do you even remember why you are here?”
The feeling, ever present, that there is one I’m meant to serve above all others that I cannot remember no matter how far I stretch my mind is crushing and all-consuming. My heart sings out that there is someone on this earth who I am meant to do anything for. Someone I should give everything to. The name is on the tip of my tongue. The shadows of a face begins forming in my mind’s eye, but never come together into a whole picture.
I could spend the rest of my life reaching for whoever or whatever it is, and I think that is the goal of those that trapped me in The Thicket.
A little girl darts by my feet, her hair mussed and tangled with leaves and sticks. The hem of her dress is torn and muddied. She turns to me, and I remember why this woman found me crying on the forest floor. It takes everything in my power to keep from chasing after the little vision, even just to keep her close, all over again. Only logic holds me steady as my heart begs me to try once more. Maybe this time it will be who I truly seek.
“Ignore the shades,” the shadow warns.
The thought that she might be giving me a warning about herself, too, slows my steps. “Why?”
The girl, a vision of my daughter, runs to Roil’s side and hides behind the shadow’s legs, giggling like she wants me to chase her. The shadowy creature before me snaps her fingers and the little girl vanishes, reappearing a few feet beyond the trail as only a black silhouette with no features to distinguish it from anyone else. “They are drawn to me.” She sighs the words like the shades that wander in her piece of The Thicket exhaust her. “They seek to make everyone feel worse than they already do.”
“Anne.” The name strikes my mind. Even the faceless shadow in front of me cocks its head at the renewed determination knowing Anne’s name has awakened in me. “I serve Anne above all others. She is stuck in the space between here and our home. She is my daughter and I must save her.”
That I had forgotten sends my voice into a higher octave than before. Already, without her face to gaze upon, my memory grows blurry all over again. Anne. My daughter. I cannot forget her. Reaching into my pocket, I fondle the button from her coat, using its smooth center to busy my anxious fingers.
I will not grow lost.
The woman clucks her invisible tongue and shakes her head. “I do not know which is more tragic. That you remember or that soon you will not.” Her certainty, coupled with how power echoes in her voice through the mist, makes the words sound irrefutable in a way they have not before now.
“You do not know that!” I shout despite how, only moments ago, I did not remember my daughter’s name, and it is already lost to me again. “I do not know why I am bothering with you at all. I seek the witch Roil. If you are her, say so. If not, I will go on with my search.”
“You have found Roil.” Her golden eyes flash again. “Do you even know what questions to ask of me?”
My first thought is that she sent the person who knew the questions away when she flung Fallow from her piece of The Thicket, but with a moment’s thought, I know it is not so. I think Fallow sought Roil out of pure desperation. He does not want to sacrifice me for his own sake. Whatever remains of what he once was is too good. The only thing he knew that I did not was of Roil’s existence and her potential to help.
All at once, she takes shape. It is only for an instant, like a flash of lightning. In it, I get a glimpse of a short woman with a round face, brown skin, and dark eyes. Before I can gain more than the barest picture of her, she is smoke once more. The shadow cocks its head. I might be putting emotions that are not there onto this faceless being, but I think she is sad for me.
All the grief and pity I’m seeing from the creatures of The Thicket doesn’t bode well.
“I do not know what questions to ask, no. Only that I wish to have them answered.” My voice sounds far more assured than I am.
Roil steps toward me and I take a step back. “I no longer remember whether I once said the same. All I am left with is the knowledge that I once had someone I served above all others, but no matter how I tried…” She shakes her head and waves over her shoulder for me to follow her. “You best hope your digger keeps his distance. I could do far worse to him than throwing him clean across The Thicket.”
That answers the question of abandonment or banishment on the part of Fallow.
Though this woman is dangerous, which is obvious by how she sent Fallow from my side, she is so serene, unbothered by me and the world around her, that I am glad to follow her. She is unafraid and it helps me feel brave even with another shade trailing us to our right.
Many shades, actually.
Now that I share this piece of The Thicket with her, it is crawling with the black silhouettes of people of all sizes. They have no eyes that I detect, but they stare at me as we walk.
Others are not so far gone as the black shadows and still bear some of their features to be seen. They are of every color and age. They are mostly women, but some men, too. They wander alongside us, giving a wide berth while watching from the sides of their eyes with vague interest. Mist billows around their edges like it may one day consume them as it has the shades.
One of the wandering women I recognize by her gaunt, naked body and the brass buttons stitched over her eyes. Through them, she peers at me with greater interest than the rest. The notion that she recognizes me back crawls over my skin like the legs of tiny insects I can feel but not see. I pull my attention off of her and back to Roil.
“How did you become a witch?”
“I was brought here by a digger, much like you, and I was let down by him, just as you will be.”
“You bear a mother’s soul?” A few of the shades around us pause in their steps to watch for their mistress’s reaction. I duck my head in a vain attempt to hide from so many smokey, blank faces turned toward me.
She stops and turns to me, golden orbs flashing from within her dark depths. I wait for her to show herself as she did for a single instant, but she does not appear again. I do not think she can control it or maybe she is not even aware of it happening. “I suppose I do. Now it only serves to strengthen The Thicket.” She holds up her arms like a queen surveying her grim kingdom. “Though, with how The Keeper seeks to guarantee you’re brought to him and no other, my desperation may soon be spent. It has been so long that I have been losing myself. It will be a relief to be done at last.”
A sudden chill rushes through my body at her words. “I need to know everything you can tell me about all of this.” I motion to the world around us, mimicking her.
Her face, or what must be her face, shifts skyward and then back to me. She flashes into reality again. This time, I note only that her dress is brown, a few shades lighter than her skin. “You’re not meant to have found me. The shifts are scouring the pieces for you.” Upon seeing the terror that must be plain on my face, Roil adds, “Not to worry. Only The Keeper Himself could take you from me now that you’re here. I will have you for a time.”
“What of Fallow?”
“If he is smart, he will stay away until you’re gone from my side. If his prize means anything to him, he will remain scarce.”
“His prize being to get out of here?”
“Hmm.” Roil nods, unsurprised by my knowledge of Fallow’s stakes in the game of my soul. “Here.”
She holds out her hand and, though it appears an innocent enough gesture, I hesitate to take it. Nothing in these woods is as it seems. She speaks of the one person in The Thicket that I trust like he is a monster. If he is bad, I can think of no scenario where she is not worse. He has saved me time and again. Roil has done nothing to earn trust. “Where will you lead me?”
“My home.” Her voice is so gentle that it reassures me of how safe I am in her presence. It is difficult to remember that she may very well be a wolf disguised in the skin of a sheep. “You can go no other way. Step foot beyond this piece right now and you'll be in the clutches of The Keeper’s servants. You’ve caught the attention of all in coming here. Fallow can only hide you, he cannot fight for you. If you cannot trust your safety in my hands, you should at least trust that you have no choice.”
I hate that she is right and how she can read my thoughts.
Everyone keeps speaking of choices, but each time the road forks in opposing directions, one is a path with clearly defined edges and the other is a cliff into an abyss. I get shooed down one path or chased down another. The Keeper and so many other terrors watch my steps here and manipulate the woods to serve their purposes. The Keeper’s fork is next, I think. I can sense the end of my road fast approaching and I can only hope I find some way of getting to Him before He would have me arrive. If I am left to stand before Him entirely on His terms, it will mean I am too lost to manage my goals, whatever they are. I know I am close to the heart of The Thicket by how far I’ve fallen into the loss of all the memories that tell me who I am meant to fight for.
In the same way I decided to enter The Thicket from the purgatory I began in, I decide to follow Roil a time. As I place my hand in hers, the earth drops out from beneath my feet.