5. Goddammit
CHAPTER FIVE
GODDAMMIT
Fallow tried to warn me, and I did not listen to him. I forged ahead because it will not do for me to leave any stone unturned, not if I want to venture on without fear of missing a crack in the wall eating away at my focus. It makes me trust him despite his warnings not to, and I hate myself a little more for it. It is, perhaps, made worse by the fact that he told me so even if he has been kind enough up to this point not to say as much.
Fallow has vanished.
And now I am crying by myself.
Why he seeks to safekeep me is another question that worries my mind. It cannot simply be for the fact that he wants me to be well.
Soon the sun will set and I am no closer to saving Anne or myself. The thought of sleeping away from my bed, alone, on the edge of a place with monsters and who knows what else shakes the exhaustion from my bones, but not my mind. My thoughts whip wildly from one potential horror to the next. In the twister of questions and regrets that my mind has turned into, I can conjure no plan. Sleeping in the middle of the road where I am not in the woods, with my back against the prison wall so there's some protection is the best solution I have. If Henry were here, he'd have a better idea.
My stomach grumbles, a reminder that, although I now dwell in a place between worlds, I still must eat. Perhaps starvation is the push that sends people to The Thicket. There are not many options this time of year in the woods. There are fewer still when I do not feel safe leaving the wall to my cage.
But that must be the goal of whatever keeps me trapped here and I cannot allow it.
Finding my feet, I swipe tears from my cheeks and pinch the apples of them like I might bring some life back into myself along with some color. Leaving the road behind, I walk back as I came and try to think of what I should try next. I cannot lie down and give up after one hard knock from this place.
I’m far from the road and near enough to the walnut tree I started from that I can hear the conversation playing out time and again between the shades of myself and Anne by the time I have a solid plan for my next attempt at freeing us from this hell. Staring up at the tall pine tree I’ve chosen, I untie my shawl and allow it to drop behind me on the forest floor. I’m determined that this plan should work. I need not fold the fabric as I will never come back for it. I will escape this time.
Swallowing all doubt, as doubts can only serve to weigh me down, I crouch low before springing up as high as I can. My fingertips brush the lowest limb of the tree but I’m not tall enough to get ahold of it. I fall back to the earth, roll my ankle, and land flat on my bottom with a curse.
Still reeling from the lights that opened the wall and showed me visions that still haunt my mind, I stand in a rush and search around myself for any creatures that might mean harm after such a show of weakness. The woods once felt so safe to me, but these are not my woods. Even if they were, there would be things to fear. Henry vanished into them, and he was far more knowledgeable of them than me. There is only a scruffy, grey squirrel that runs along the branch overhead. From my goal, it cocks its head down at me with a curiosity and bravery it shouldn’t have.
It is Fallow. I am coming to recognize him in all his forms. “I will not hear it right now. Whatever you are going to say, it cannot stop me.”
I sure hope it is Fallow. If that squirrel is only a beast and Fallow is watching from nearby, I will look foolish to the real shade from wherever he is perched.
Ignoring what is probably Fallow for now, I search the forest floor until I find a fallen branch, then another. Each time I lift one and drag it, I wait for something to jump out and frighten me. Nothing does.
I have rarely felt so jumpy as I do right now. Too much has happened in too short a time and my jaw keeps locking tight, my heart weighs heavy and, no matter how I try, I struggle to get enough air into my lungs. Anne needs me to sort this out, though.
The work of dragging fallen limbs to a pile helps me ignore Anne’s voice playing on a loop like a wind-up music box and the press of the squirrel’s stare on my back. The longer I focus on my task, the easier it becomes to breathe.
Once I have a small mound of wood, I step with teetering feet onto the gathered logs and branches and crouch, ready to make a second attempt at reaching the branch overhead.
The little rodent that I am now certain is Fallow runs closer to the trunk of the tree and seems to brace himself against it. With enough force to drive a groan from my body, I jump again. The logs beneath me shift, tweaking my knee and sending a sharp pain through my leg, but my hands wrap around the branch, and I haul myself up. Pretending away the protest of my knee, I swing my legs onto the branch and right myself on it.Glancing at the earth, I allow myself a moment of pride. Then, eyes shifting to the walnut tree where Anne is trapped far to my right, the pride drops for something more useful. Determination.
Fallow was right to brace himself. The limbs of a pine are not made to hold my weight and the wood creaks beneath me. I shimmy toward Fallow and the trunk of the tall pine where the limbs are strongest and reach for the one above, and the next.
Beside me, Fallow ascends, hopping from limb to limb with ease, especially when compared to my struggle. Each time I meet the gaze of the creature, I sense his silent admonishment. No matter how I try to remain positive that the barrier which keeps Anne and I trapped in this place must have a top that I can breach, I know the odds of there being such a simple solution as scaling the wall are slim.
Not daring to look down for fear of heights, but needing to catch my breath, I pause and gain my bearings by searching at eye level rather than below. My perch is taller than most of the other trees in these woods, and the fields Henry cleared around our home stretch ahead. I can see the cabin and the cottonwoods that grow along the creek side behind it. Like I’m dying of thirst and my home is a mountain spring, I yearn to be there. My body grows hollow and brittle at the reminder that I’m barred from it.
The barrier, if it remains, should only be a few feet from the trunk of the pine where I sit, but this far up, the branches are even thinner, some more like twigs than limbs.
I have no means of getting down the other side of this invisible cliff if there is a top, but knowing whether or not the wall exists this high up is a good first step. I can come up with the next part of my plan after I know.
Prying a strip of bark away from the trunk with my fingers, I toss it with all my might, and it flies clear of the woods and lands in the plains beyond. I make the mistake of following its trail down to the earth and my stomach lurches. Self-preservation courses through my veins with a demand that I climb down while fear anchors me in place.I struggle not to get stuck clinging to the limb beneath me in terror .
I cannot allow myself not to check.
If bark can get through, maybe I can, too. I wish I thought to try throwing objects through the barrier when I wasn’t so far off the ground, but that cannot be helped now.
One by one, I pry my fingers from the trunk of the tree and place them on the spindly limb above me. Rising to my feet, I use it to keep my balance as I inch toward where the wall should be. Fallow remains plastered against the trunk of the tree, all four of his clawed limbs holding himself against the pine. He watches me with wide eyes and starts chattering the same way squirrels do when a person wanders too close to their nests.
“Hush! Do you want me to fall?” The squirrel heaves a beleaguered sigh in response, it’s little chest rising and falling in a too-human way. Fallow grows silent but shakes his head in disappointment as I creep out, the bough beneath my feet sinking lower the closer to the end of it I grow. The wood beneath me cracks and my heart jumps almost as high as I climbed in order to get into this tree in the first place. Falling from a tree would be such a stupid way to die and lose Anne forever!
Fingers shaking and sticky with sap, I dare lift one of my hands and use it to reach out toward the barrier of my prison. I cannot make myself move any faster than an almost imperceptible crawl. If I move too quick the tree will get fed up with me and drop me from its branches like a monster with a will of its own. I do not wish to alert anything, not even the air, to my attempts. For all I know, if I am caught in my escape attempts, the barrier will spring up higher to stop me .
It is all in vain as my fingertips brush up against the wall of the rift. “Goddammit!”
Henry would give me a scathing look for the curse if he were here, and yet I mean it with every fiber of my being.
I hadn’t known I had so much hope for this course of action inside me until it was dashed. For an instant, I imagine myself releasing my hold on the weak top limbs of this pine and falling to the earth, if only to spite my jailers.But I must go on.
With tears in my eyes, I inch back toward the trunk of the tree and find a perch that is stable enough for me to rest for a time. At least it feels safe enough to pause and ponder hopelessness so far off the ground. I struggle to imagine any monsters mad enough to follow me up here. For now, even Fallow has abandoned me to weep alone.
Crying fixes nothing. I should get the words tattooed across my chest like a sailor for how often I say them to myself. Most days the words help me find some semblance of calm, but this place is ripping my sense of self to shreds.
To stop myself from a complete breakdown a hundred feet above the earth, I start my climb down. Having to focus on the task of not falling or becoming paralyzed by fear keeps the torrent of tears at bay. I have held so many tears back in the months since Henry vanished and today, the amount might be doubled. If the dam is ever breached the whole of the world should fear the flood I would unleash.
Bounding up into this tree was a struggle, but at least there was a way to manage it. In this case, getting up was simpler than down. The drop from the lowest branch of the pine to the floor of the forest is only a few feet taller than myself, but jumping from this height is daunting enough to give me pause.
Fallow can jump into birds and squirrels. He can make a body for himself from earth and insects. I wish he could transform into something new. A pile of cushions, perhaps.
I try to imagine how Anne would manage this task. She is small and fearless. If I did not know how easy it would be to break my arm or twist my ankle, crippling me when I need to be strong and whole for her, I would know how to get down just as Anne would.
She would grasp the branch and swing her body down like a little monkey before dropping the final stretch to land on her feet like a cat. Forcing myself not to think of potential consequence, I do just that.
My stomach flies into my throat from anxiety, but it is only half a second before I land on the earth. My knee protests, reminding me that I am no longer a child and I hurt it in my attempts to climb the damned tree in the first place. Still, I can stand and put my weight on it. A little rest and it will be good as new.
Out of plans for now, I follow the sound of Anne’s voice back to the walnut tree where this began. A new feeling settles uncomfortably heavy in my stomach. I will soon have to listen to the only instructions I’ve received and choose to venture deeper into the wood
Into The Thicket.