Date: Fri, 12 Oct 2001 10:19:53 -0600 From: Robyn Herrington Organization: University of Calgary Subject: [WRITERS] SUB: CONTEST: The Woods For The Trees Entry number five. Send entries and crits to: rmherrin@ucalgary.ca ----------------------------------------------- THE WOODS FOR THE TREES The trees moved behind us without any wind. The trees grew behind us, their branches longer, fingers reaching after us, clutching at our hair, the hood of her sweatshirt, the straps of my backpack. Some of the trees ahead of us extended their roots, shoving the rocks on the trail out of the way so that they could trip us themselves. I didn t dare look up; the shushing of the leaves pushing their way to the ends of the branches so that they could throw themselves at us was frightening enough. I didn t want to see them changing color as well, turning in a second from green to bright red, just before they flung themselves down. After I twisted my ankle and Sherry tripped and bloodied her knee, we both knew that we had to slow down, at least so that we could see the dangers before they caught us. So we ran slowly, difficult enough in the best of times, and now, surrounded by the trees that hated us and the sounds that reverberated through the forest, almost impossible. The trail marks glowed for a second, and then changed, sometimes disappearing, sometimes turning into hieroglyphs in some unknown language, dripping with incomprehensible menace. "Head for the rock wall," I cried when the large beech dropped across the trail. There had to be daylight somewhere, but we couldn t see it. The trees turned the light sickly and green, a light that threw no shadows, that barely illuminated the ground over which we stumbled. I remembered the rock wall from the maps, and I thought I d glimpsed it earlier in the hike, before everything turned wrong. If I was right, we could hug the wall and find our way back out to civilization, if there still was something like civilization outside the woods. Sherry grabbed my upper arm, pulling me back, closer to her. "This isn t going to work," she panted. "I can t even see the wall from here." Nor could I, now. I tried to detour around the beech tree, but it kept growing longer and longer, its diameter increasing as I looked at it. Now there were branches popping out of its fallen trunk, branches that oriented on us, stabbing at my eyes, catching hold of Sherry s hair. She shrieked and smacked the branch with both hands, but it didn t break. "It s herding us," I said, catching my foot on another root that emerged from the ground as I watched. "It s trying to move us in that direction." "We can t go there, then," said Sherry. Her voice sounded hoarse, from the running, from the screaming. She stood still, breathing hard, looking around us. "That s the way to the pond, isn t it?" "It used to be," I replied. I d dropped my compass some time before. Without that, and with all the marks changing, and the light so uncertain and strange, I had no idea where anything was. "We don t want to go to the pond," said Sherry. Her hair, originally pulled back in a ponytail, now frizzed out in all directions. Her face was marked by scratches and dirt. I m sure I looked no better. "No," I said, holding my arms in front of my face to protect my eyes from the leaves which suddenly flew at me. They scratched through my sweater, cutting into my skin. When I heard the thumping sounds, though, I didn t want to move my arms, didn t want to see what might be making those noises. Sherry pulled at me. "You ve got to move, Ivy. We can t stay here. They re starting to pull out of the ground." That did it. I staggered after her, both of us tripping and stumbling. Rocks rose abruptly out of the ground before us and then sank again as mysteriously. My ankle throbbed, but I couldn t do anything about it now. I couldn t see anything like a trail anymore, nothing cleared of trees and leaves, no dirt, no marks. "There was a hill to the west," Sherry cried, very close to my ear. The roaring and thumping around us made it impossible to communicate any other way. "We could see the highway from there, if we can get there. Maybe we can signal someone." If the hill was still there. If the highway was still there. If anyone could see us or hear us. I didn t say any of those things, because I knew Sherry thought the same things. Our options were rapidly running out. I heard a crash behind us and turned to see what it was. Bad idea. The oak tree bumped along on the ground, dragging its roots behind it like a grotesque parody of a bride s train. The tree had to be five feet around, which made it slow, but it was definitely coming after us. Its long branches extended forward, the ends like claws, flexing in our direction. We ran blindly, because it was impossible to make a reasoned decision when the world had become insane. The forest wanted to kill us, or devour us alive, and we had to get out if we could. I think we were headed in the general direction of the hill that I remembered, but nothing looked familiar. For all I knew, we might have been heading downhill to the swamp, if the swamp was still there. "We have to do something," Sherry gasped. "Don t you think we ve already done enough?" I replied, around choking breaths. The air tasted gritty, not as if it was polluted, but as if there were particles in it, too small to see, too large to breathe. I wondered if they were spores of some kind, if the very lichens and mosses were attacking us now. "We didn t know, Ivy! We didn t mean to create this!" She wasn t saying that for my benefit, but, I thought, for the trees which had turned implacable enemies halfway through the ritual. It had seemed so simple, a healing spell, a life-giving ritual for the woods behind my house. I d never done it before, not with Sherry, but it had seemed like a good idea, and she d been so sure she knew what she was doing, I d been carried along on her enthusiasm. Her wrong-headed enthusiasm, as it turned out, and my willing help, had awakened the forest in a way neither of us had dreamed of. We hadn t even managed to finish the ritual before the trees groaned and grabbed at us. We d dropped the book, and the roots had reached up through the ground to grab the book and drag it under. That s when we realized what trouble we had caused, and I dropped the compass, and we started running, and here we were, surrounded by a furious enemy that was everywhere, that wouldn t listen to reason, that apparently wanted to destroy us one way or another. "What do you suggest?" I asked. She stumbled and nearly fell. I caught her by the shoulders, yanking her upright, pulling both of us back from the boulder that rolled in our way. The great oak continued stalking us, and now I heard other deep sounds, like things being ripped out of the earth, and then thumping noises, as the other trees began following the oak. "We could finish it," she said. "We never finished. Maybe that will bring us back to normal." "We can t finish it," I replied. "We don t have the book." "I remember it," said Sherry. A huge hole opened before us now, and I windmilled my arms to keep from falling headlong into it. Sherry tripped into me, nearly sending us both into the chasm. She grabbed me from behind, and I turned and held onto her. I felt her shaking, although that might have been an effect of the crashing of the trees after us. This new hole gaped like a division of the world, increasing its length until I couldn t see the ends of it. It had been too broad to jump from the moment I d first seen it, and now it was clearly too long to detour around. Something burned on my shoulders, through the straps of the backpack, individual touches, each one adding its heat to the others until I felt as if I were afire. The leaves dropped faster and faster around us. "We have no choice," I said in Sherry s ear. She wouldn t have heard me otherwise. I hoped she did remember. I hoped the completion of the spell would undo whatever we had inadvertently done. I hoped we would live to finish the spell. The air all around me grew cold, a sudden darkness shrouding us. I let go of Sherry and stepped back. She raised her arms and began chanting, but I couldn t hear the words anymore. Branches clutched at my backpack as I struggled to open it, to take out the oil we d brought for the anointing at the end of the spell. I fought the fingerlike branches, wincing from the burning leaves that dropped onto my hands, as I dragged out the vial and twisted it open. The oak loomed behind Sherry, surrounded by other trees which shouldn t have been there any more than the oak should have. Roots rose from the surface of the ground, looping themselves around Sherry s legs, her torso, reaching for her arms. Her mouth moved, but I couldn t hear anything over the wind noise of the trees, the crackling of the branches. She gestured to me with one hand, as a tangle of roots pinned her other arm to her body. I could only see that one hand and a glimmer of her face as the vegetation took over, but I knew, or hoped I knew, what she wanted from me. The rocks moved under my feet, abruptly jerking me backwards. I tried to hold onto the vial, but it flew out of my hands, soaring into the air, the drops of the scented oil sailing upwards, outwards. I didn t see them land, nor would I have expected to, but just before the empty vial hit the ground, I heard a crash like a skyscraper collapsing all at once, and the air filled with thick green smoke, burning my eyes, my nose, my throat. I curled myself into a protective ball, feeling things speeding around me, abrading the exposed skin on my hands. I thought I was dead. I thought we both were dead, and I remember wondering if there really was an afterlife, and if we would have to pay there, too. The world wouldn t be so silent if we were still alive. Sherry s voice came near my head. "Ivy. Ivy, look up. Oh, my god, Ivy. What have we done?" Slowly, I uncurled, taking my arms away from my face. Sherry knelt beside me, her face a mask of horror. I looked around. The trees were gone. The rocks, the leaves, everything that had menaced us moments before had disappeared. We were surrounded by charcoal grey ash, mounded in some places, flat in others. I clambered to my feet, staring, hoping against hope. I recognized nothing but Sherry. The landscape had flattened: no hills, no valleys, no swamp, no vegetation of any kind. We should have been able to see my street, with the trees all gone, but there was no street, no human habitation, nothing but ash and smoke wherever I looked, and a bitter smell like the afterburn of an overheated engine. "Oh, my god," I whispered. "What have we done?" -- ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Robyn Herrington New Currents in Teaching and Learning / InfoServe Phone: 220-2561 Email: rmherrin@ucalgary.ca Story ideas are like rabbits that have ventured unwittingly into view. The slightest noise or movement can spook them and they bolt off into the dark undergrowth never to be seen again. -- Adrian Bedford ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~