Into the Deep Wood

“You could have done something!” She found herself nearly screaming, unspilled tears casting a blur across her vision. “You could have saved her!”

He was able to hush her until they returned to the safety of their home. But now, it was as if a dam broke, and it was all pouring out, as he knew it would.

“What would you have had me do?” He asked calmly, sitting on the bed and looking at the small pacing form. “Attack it with my fists and then fight off hundreds of people who would swarm me before I could get in a second punch? What would you have had me do, Valeria?”

“Anything!” She was inconsolable. “You could have done anything! She screamed!”

Her voice broke.

“The way she screamed…”

He wanted to stand and touch her, stop her shaking, but his own rage welled up faster than his compassion.

“Valeria, it was a test.” He said, his voice rising now. “You speak as if we are one with them, but we are not - they do not trust my word; it was a TEST.”

“She was so young!” She screamed back at him. “She was barely younger than me when the Hag had come! You let it take her JUST like the Hag had taken me!”

Amidst the sympathy, her blood boiled with memories of her own. The girl’s shrieks had torn through her, although her own had been silenced long ago.

“Again, Valeria, what would you have me do??” He stood, and suddenly, it felt to Val as if his form had become menacing. There was undeniable awareness that, compared to him, she had been very small. “Get us exiled? Killed?”

“She was the same as I was, Marat!” The tears spilled, and her hands shook.

“And who is she to me?! Who?” He threw up his arms.

“Who was I to you when you had pulled me from the Hag?”

There was not a pause, not even half a heartbeat.

“No one, Valeria! You were no one to me, then! You were a means to my freedom. And she is no one to me at all!” He retorted, immediately knowing she would not hear his words as he intended.

Val froze; there was no other time she wished that Marat held his tongue.

“You could have left me there because I was no one, yet my life has come to matter to you.” She said quieter, the words being pushed through her teeth. “Just like her life matters to her parents and her friends. She matters.”

“Past tense.” He spat back, and she lost it.

She screamed.

“Get out!” She hit her hand against the door. “Get out and do not return! I do not want to see your face again, you selfish, thoughtless, you…”

She could not think of another word. She’d held so many tender feelings for him yet knew his downfalls. Words she could feel at the base of her throat were not ones she could return from, so she swallowed them even in her rage.

“Care only for yourself!” She finished.

He swung open the door, his anger too hot to reply to her. He did not look at her as he slammed it forcibly shut behind him.

She collapsed on the floor against the bed, this time the tears pouring so hard they shook her entire body. She wanted to run after him but could not.

Val was not done; she did not want to be done screaming. She did not want to be done trying to get him to hear. But he was gone. And she was alone, and it was unresolved.

Angry and hurt, her heart cried out for the girl. The screams were burned into her mind. So slowly, the creature had dragged her. She had so much time to be afraid.

Do you know what it feels like to drown?

She screamed into the air so hard that it felt like her scream tore her throat apart.

Marat slammed the door as hard as he could restrain himself. His blood boiled; she was not listening, she screamed, and she threw her body around as if it were her mother taken at the river. He walked fast past the yard and down the hill. He did not know where, but his skin was hot, and he felt that were he to stay, he would have said something he would regret. But, he regretted no words spoken. He had told her the truth; she did not want to listen.

He approached the stables, and for a moment, he considered taking Aditi and riding out past the gates. But he knew it would be hard to return once he crossed that line. And so, he turned. He walked, directionless, through crowds of people returning from the celebration. They were jovial, their conversation light. Not one had mentioned the girl or the creature. Many were carrying goods with them that were not eaten during the feast.

He found himself past the crowds, past the bustling streets. He stood at the door of Khaleel’s workshop, its windows dark. He pressed himself against the door, forcing a crack open.

It smelled of cut wood and dust.

Walking past the planers, saws, and stored lumber, the cedarwood and pine let off the soothing smell of the forest.

He pulled a cloth cover out and laid it on the workbench. He has slept in worse places.

The night was young and ripe for dark thoughts.

Val cried herself to sleep, wrapped tightly in the blankets atop the mattress. Her stomach twisted, and still, her chest jerked with sobs.

She was so tired from crying, so lonely in the bed - so tired of wishing that Marat would return and comfort her. She did not need apologies, she was past that for the night. She only wanted his warmth, his reassurance. But she had fallen asleep without.

Her dreams had grown increasingly troubled throughout the past few weeks, but this night they were worse.

She dreamt that Marat left.

And then, her dream had turned.

Val found herself in the Cathedral, the long room at the end of which stood an empty podium. There were no benches, no candelabras set against the marble pillars. Instead, there was a long, thick oak table. Its edges were roughly cut as if it were a makeshift one inside a peasant’s hut. It stretched far, but not so far that she could not see the figure at the end of it.

The Hag sat there opposite her. But, she was not as Val had remembered her in the meadow. She was not even as she remembered her chained in Midtrade City.

The Hag did not have chains fastened to her, although the iron collar remained.

She sat atop a wooden throne. Her palms were down on the table, and a metal device had held her upright. It circled her forehead, running down the sides of her face. Small hooks on the ends of chains were lodged into her brows, pulling her head upward—the smooth holes, where her eyes should have been, stretched taut. The metal strained against her every movement.

From the contraption protruded rough bolts. They were tightly screwed into the bones of her jaw, rendering it unable to open. It ran in a half circle across and underneath her nose - small spikes hooked into her lips, pulling them back in a snarl, showing her yellow and decaying teeth.

Her lips did not move when she spoke.

What is wrong, little bird? Have your wings been clipped? Can you not fly? But have you ever truly flown?

The Hag’s voice echoed inside Val’s head. She could not answer, for her own jaw had been screwed shut now too.

You hide, you think I cannot see, but we see all. I am all the eyes that look upon you, little bird.

Val thought to jerk away from her, but only pain shot through her, the metal restricting her movement.

You took what is mine, stupid girl. What is mine I will take back, you will see.

Val felt pain drive through her.

As if an invisible cord pulled tight, tying into her very being, had been yanked forward and toward the Hag. Her body twisted, the tether growing more taught as if it was going to pull Val’s insides right out of her straining flesh.

Stupid girl, let a stupid man, wicked man, sew the field - now rot and death is what you’ll yield.

Wet, she felt wet.

Had she not woken up when the intense urge to relieve herself had struck in the night? Had she wet herself?

She’d been too hard asleep. She was afraid this day would come and could not help but be grateful that it had not come when Marat was in her bed.

But… it was sticky... and thick… there was too much of it, and it had not soaked into the mattress, instead sitting on top of the linen sheets. Her hand reached down, fingers gliding over the slickness.

No…

Gods…

No…

She scrambled forward, up, to find a lantern - candle - anything, but her body would not listen. Her abdomen seized, the pain forcing her into a curled position—the tether she felt in her dream pulling at something inside.

…please, no…

Tug, tug, and then another.

She felt the warmth now, pooling between her legs and cooling into sticky, gummy clumps.

With every throb, there was more.

She tried to squeeze her legs shut, but her muscles ached and gave way when the pain shot through. Curling into it, she felt her breathing was shortening, her lungs hardening just like her muscles.

A rip. Opened.

She felt the movement within her body. Cold, scratchy hands. The chipped, overgrown nails dragging against soft, fragile tissue. Uncareful, reaching, so cold inside her.

Val pulled at the sheets, crying out when she fell from the bed onto the hard, cool floor. Her hipbones bruised hitting the wooden boards.

She rolled onto her side, instinctively her hand wrapped around her abdomen, grazing the ugly scar. When she tried to scream, it sent a spasm through her, only a pained breath escaping from between her clenched teeth.

She crawled, not knowing where, but forward, away from her own blood. A trail of it glistened in the moonlight that spilled through the open window. Her already worn body shook, and muscles gave way under her weight, denying her escape.

She felt something dislodge—an organ, perhaps her mortal soul.

The hands retreated back into the abyss, full.

Her skin burned.

Her last thought, before her consciousness had been swallowed up by the night, was of how cold the floorboards felt against her naked thighs.

Fly, little bird, fly.