Heat suspends itself in the air beneath the wooden roof, lounging about and radiating a musky stench. Exhausted by the lethargic humidity in her lungs, Angela sighs. She continues to swirl her crinkled hair between her fingers as the unfinished embroidery on her lap lies dormant. For what seems like ages, the colours stare blankly at her. Empty, and so excruciatingly bored. A patch of yellow-orange light on the flooring lures Angela’s gaze to her favourite window, always generous with a view of the garden. The sunlight on the other side of these walls would feel so fierce and lively on her skin. How different it must be from the dingy milieu of the world inside the room and inside of her; both writhing in irritation. She’s lost in the possibilities of freedom. She can hear it. The beckoning howl of adventure.
She lifts herself from her seat, tender with mortality.
“Oh no, you don’t,” Mother’s objection attempts to break Angela’s determination.
“You know full well that you aren’t allowed outside. Those were the doctor’s orders, dear.” Mother doesn’t even look up from her needlework. How ironic Mother’s soft and insincere words are. Angela’s festering disdain for this house arrest oozes to the surface. “I shan’t be gone for long, mother, just a simple walk outside for some air.”
Mother’s needlework becomes rapid, loud and disapproving. But underlying Mother’s harsh exterior is an undeniable concern, and her precautions turn to leniency as she remembers her own carefree adolescence. Her gut pangs with guilt for her daughter’s unusual predicament. “To the edge of the lawn and no further. Before it gets dark, you’d better be back inside lest you find yourself being rapped over the knuckles.” Mother’s needle punctures her pillow, her judgement is threaded into the pattern as shades of red and orange. A final warning is issued, thimble in hand: “You know how your father gets.” Angela’s father. The man that bequeathed life unto her but is also the empty shell of a man she never wished to know. She winces in memory of what he has done. The fresh, deep scars on her back and on her chastity itch at the very thought of him. And so, hormonal anarchy ensues. In all defiance, Angela marches towards the door. Towards deliverance.
The door creaks open, and the chirping of cicadas flushes through the room. Angela wafts across the lawn, feeling the fresh air appease her restlessness. Soon, exhaustion takes hold and she decides to recover in the shade of the trees, the likes of which shrink every year with her father’s love for contrived gardens and bare grass. She’s grateful for the blistering summer heat that keeps Father's woodcutters from their merciless chopping. Thoughts of the vile men leave her when she crosses the meticulous line of the family lawn into a wave of fresh, lush moisture. Her foot is immediately absorbed by the spongy forest floor. Warm. Comforting. She finds herself lost in the sounds of sentience and the dewy mystery of the path ahead of her.
Relief leads her further into the woods until chills shiver down her spine. A sensation. No, an invitation. She feels compelled to scour the ground as if a forest nymph has possessed her very mind. She falls to her knees and grabs the soil. Her heart is in time with the pulsating life that teems beneath her palms. It’s a real mysterious magic swirling in the deep corners of her consciousness. It’s enigmatic in nature, crawling, menacing perhaps? She can’t be sure. It’s almost as if there are invisible fingers, shapeless, yet tangible, lurking in the shadows cast by the ancient trees. They grip her, gently, slowly, caressing the pale softness of her paper-thin skin. Soothing, the shadow-vines tingle as they climb upwards, moulded by the shape of her body as they come to reach her face. A tender embrace from the shadow vines turns more forceful. Look at the soil that you so recklessly grab. The deep whisper startles her. It resonates with her flesh, bone, body and soul. The shadow vines ebb away through the fallen vegetation. She looks down into the soil, the trees watching her intently.
This is where the beast lies. A beast of curiosity.
Her skin is overrun with terrified hairs, dazzled by this omnipresence. Before her mind can retreat to logic, the voice returns. Now forage! The command shouts. Obediently, she begins her search for whatever it is the forest spirits seem to desire. In a haze, her hands shuffle through the undergrowth, her fingers growing accustomed to the chilled earth.
Crackle.
A noise. Frozen, she waits, fingers buried. Immovable and almost breathless, she exudes beady sweat from her pores, pupils dilated, and blood pumping. Her ears are pinned to the sounds around her. A low vibration reverberates through her. Growling. Desperately, she tries to free herself from the soil’s clutches. She can’t. They’re lodged. She musters all her strength to rip her left hand from the earth, leaning on her right hand to secure herself. Her adrenaline is channelled into the primary goal of escape. Heave! Her hand is violently released, the other still rooted. She blinks, shaking her head in utter disbelief. She sees her brown, root-like fingers covered in a bark-like substance. Tears well up in the face of incomprehensible absurdity. Her scrutiny of this situation must wait. The growling becomes louder. Hungry, it devours the peace that once surrounded her. She looks down, the bark is spreading quickly from her hands, dispersing to the rest of her body. Her heartbeat protests wildly, bewitched by fear. Louder. Louder. Louder..
Her eyes are darting, frenzied, searching for anything, anyone. She spots a silhouette. A man. Sitting. Distant, but present. She screeches, “HELP!” only to hear the woods rustle as he shifts his attention. He approaches. As he gets closer, she’s crazed. Hallucinations can be the only explanation for the sight of horns impaling the air, stemming from his head. As if she’s trapped in a nightmare, he morphs into something awful, revealing his massive torso, arms and fingers. But they are not fingers. They are misshapen, curled into wooden scythes. His body is infected with moss and lichen. She is no longer tethered to reality, only to the terror of the forest demon before her. She’s breathing so erratically, she’s shaking so furiously, panicked and paralysed. He towers over her. With a small movement of his head, the forest demon peers down into her realm of hairless human creatures. She meets his eyes. They are so cold and feral and the brightest most eerie green she could ever imagine. The sinister electricity they share between them is imperishable. Unbreakable. Wretched. He lowers himself to her level, sinking his claws into the flesh of the ground. The cicadas are speechless. The forest is pious. All she can hear is his breathing. All she can feel is his ubiquity.
With his blood-curdling roar, her body is renounced and bound to the overgrowth near her previous existence. Consumed by the deluge of bark, she stares vacantly into the forest, motionless but alive, never to truly live again. Leaves swish in prayer, and the forest demon rises. How foolish these creatures are for underestimating his power over the trees they murder so carelessly. Soon, this little pale one will join him as one of his kind, free to ravage the tree-killers through an incarnation relieved of weakness and dominated by fiendish wisdom. The humans, in their wrath towards all things natural, have awoken the spirits.
A fortnight passes and Angela returns to her moon-struck home led by the last remnants of her human instincts. She walks through the door with proud dominance, in slow, heavy strides, paying no homage to the structural integrity of the house. She manifests at the top of the stairs, horns-first, waking the man sprawled on his bed. Retribution reigns here, as she relishes her reunion with Father by piercing her ligneous claws through his entrails. Two savages facing each other, one lifeless, one lacerated. Her work here is done.
In the corner of the room, Mother is left untouched, to enjoy her beloved shades of justice, the red and orange that soak the walls. Angela glances at Mother and for a brief moment, a deranged recognition contorts Mother’s face. But before Mother can say anything, the call of Angela’s forest companion forces a hasty goodbye. She sees herself out in devastating enormity, cured of the illness that was her father.
Her lungs expanded as she took in a whole new breath. A sweet beginning, with sweet freedom at last.
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