Beneath the Willow

by J. R. Erickson

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  JR Erickson

  Beneath the Willow

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  J.R. Erickson

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  Beneath The Willow

  A Short Story Prequel to the Born of Shadows Series

  By J.R. Erickson

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  Beneath the Willow

  "I'll tell mom," Becky squealed chasing after Sydney who raced into the woods ahead of her.

  She skidded to a stop at the gnarled gray tree. A strange symbol seemed to glow and pulse from the trunk. Three half moons intertwined, like a giant had jammed his fingernail into the soft bark.

  Their mother told them never to go into that part of the woods. Becky took heed. After all, their mom loved the forest. She talked to the trees and the flowers and the squirrels. Their father called her the Woodland Fairy for her quirky behavior. If Arlene didn't want her girls in that part of the woods, she had a good reason.

  "The monsters will get you," Becky screamed and her voice echoed and faded into the canopy of leaves.

  Sydney had disappeared from view. Even her red shorts had been consumed by the shadows of the forest.

  Becky waited and watched. She started to turn back toward their campsite and then changed her mind. She took several steps toward the tree. In this part of the forest, the orchestra of birds and chipmunks and bugs seemed absent. Where were the cackling crows and the chorusing crickets - as her mother liked to call them.

  She touched a tentative hand on the grooved symbol in the trunk of the graying tree. She felt a throbbing, like a distant heartbeat, and immediately jerked her fingers away. She took another timid step and another. The forest around her transformed. The ferns looked greener, almost toxic in their vibrancy. Peculiar sounds came to her. The far off tinkle of laughter and then a wretched, ancient sounding sobbing. She turned in circles as she walked, afraid that something lurked just behind her in the shadows.

  Deep into the darkest part of the forest, she saw a dazzling red glow. As she moved toward the vision, an enormous red weeping willow slid into view. She stopped and clutched for a tree to steady her quaking hands. She slid behind a large oak and watched the willow as if observing a tremendous beast. The willow's scarlet branches hung down to the earth and ended above an equally red, mossy floor.

  Becky rubbed her eyes and wondered if she had fallen and hit her head. Weeping willows were not red, plain and simple. Green yes, maybe brown in the winter, but never ever red. And bleeding. As she stared at the willow, she felt sure that it's gnarled branches dripped blood.

  The willow shivered as if alive and Becky shoved her fist into her mouth to keep from screaming. The tree shuddered a second time and then she saw two legs that ended in terrifying gray feet moving beneath the canopy of the tree.

  The feet were deformed with long yellow toenails curling forward. Becky thought she saw sagging, gray flesh hanging from one of the skinny ankles. The feet shuffled as if they belonged to a very old woman. Suddenly the person beneath the willow flopped down and Becky could see her, it, laying on the sticky red moss that carpeted the earth beneath the tree.

  The woman did not look alive, but like an animated corpse. Her mottled skin hung from her face and neck. Spider black eyes roved through the forest and though Becky ducked fully behind the tree, she thought the creature had seen her. She bit back tears and clenched her eyes shut, sure that the monster would reach her in seconds.

  "Becky," her name startled her and she snapped her eyes open to find her mother, worried, standing before her. "What on earth are you doing back here?"

  Becky burst into tears and jumped into her mother's arms, sobbing.

  "There there, it's okay sweetie. Mommy's here." Becky's mother petted her head and held her.

  "There's a woman over there, a monster," Becky's voice trembled and she pointed a shaking finger beyond the tree.

  Becky's mother peeked around the trunk of the great oak.

  "I don't see anything darling," her mother told her gently. "Have a look."

  "No, please, don't make me," Becky moaned, terrified to see the woman a second time.

  Becky's mother took her shoulders and firmly guided her away from th tree. She opened her eyes slowly, but where the weeping willow had stood, she saw only pines and ash trees and maples. Trillium and ferns, normal green ferns, lined the forest floor.

  "But it was there mom,"Becky insisted as her mother guided her back to their campsite.

  "I believe you honey, I do," Arlene assured her daughter. "That is why we never go into that part of the woods."

  "But Sydney went first mom. I just followed her."

  Arlene glanced down and sighed.

  "Sydney's been at the campsite all afternoon. She made you an ankle bracelet. She's been so excited to give it to you."

  Becky shook her head, disagreeing.

  "She went first mom, I saw her. I never would have gone in there otherwise."

  ****

  Becky didn't sleep that night. She lay in her tent quaking with waking nightmares of the corpse-like woman. She rolled to her side and watched her sister fast asleep. She felt an irrational desire to reach over and pinch her. It was Sydney's fault that she went to that part of the woods. She should have been the one to see the monster under the red weeping willow.

  Finally she sat up and scooted to the tent opening. She pressed her ear close to the zipper and listened.

  Was that rustling outside? A shifting of the leaves? A twig snapping? The longer she listened, the more she felt sure that someone or something moved outside the tent. Becky decided in that instant that she hated camping. When she had a family, she would never make them go camping. If they went on vacation, they would stay in clean hotels with crisp, white sheets and polished bathroom counters.

  Again, she heard a rustling outside. She wanted to crawl back into her sleeping bag, but she would never sleep. Not that she intended to go investigate. No way, that's how people disappeared. One moment you're standing in the forest and the next you're lost and gone forever.

  Now she heard a whisper and then a light, high laugh. Her mother's laugh. Maybe it wasn't as late as Becky had thought. If her parents still sat by the campfire, she could join them. She could sit in her dad's lap for a change. Sydney always got there first. 'Oh Daddy you're beard is tickling me,' Sydney would squeal and he would laugh and rub his face on her neck. Sydney stole all of their father's affection. She did it everywhere the sisters went. All eyes fell on Sydney. Sydney with her long blond hair and her big blue eyes. Sydney who joked and teased and knew the right thing to say.

  Becky looked again at her sister. Her golden hair fell across her pillow. Becky had a tiny pair of paper scissors in her bag. She could get them out and cut a little hunk right out of the back of Sydney's hair. She could say the monster in the woods did it.

  "Where's the lantern?" she heard her mother's voice again. Quietly, she unzipped the tent and looked across the clearing toward the fire. The embers still burned low, but no flames broke the darkness. Her parent's chairs sat empty. She scanned the space and found them. They stood near their tent. Her mother had an arm extended and her father searched through a plastic tote of camping supplies. He found an old style lantern.

  Her mother took the lantern. Though Becky did not see her light a match, the flame within the glass suddenly shone bright. It lit her mother's face.

  "Come on Jack," Arlene whispered, squeezing his arm. "It's almost time."

  They started to walk into the forest and Becky nearly cried out to stop them
.

  Didn't they know the horrible things that lived in there? What if they never came back? Becky and Sydney would be orphans. They would have to go live with some distant aunt who hated children and lived in a rickety old mansion stuffed with cats and smelly furniture.

  Becky scrambled out out of the tent after them. She stuffed her feet into her sneakers and laced them quickly. She wanted a flashlight, but didn't have time to find one. Already the bobbing light grew further away.

  She ran after them, but as she entered the black woods, she slowed and stopped. The trees rose huge around her. A spot of moonlight shone through their branches, but low lying clouds moved fast across the sky and blocked much of the light. She bit her lip and turned back toward the tent. She could go back, crawl into her blankets and lay there the rest of the night wondering what horrible creature had eaten her parents in the night.

  Sydney would laugh at her. Sydney wouldn't be afraid to go after them. She would call it a thrilling adventure.

  Becky turned back toward the light, faded, barely visible and raced towards it. Brighter, she saw it weaving among the trees and then a larger light loomed before her. Somewhere deep in the forest, a giant bonfire reached for the sky. She moved behind a tree. Peeking around the trunk, she watched her parents continue toward the fire. She darted to another tree and another until she stood close enough to see the silhouettes of other people standing around the flames.

  "Rhea," a woman called and Becky's own mother, Arlene, lifted a hand and waved.

  She went to the woman and they embraced.

  "It has been too long," Arlene told her.

  Becky's father hugged the woman as well. They went around the fire, hugging and kissing and laughing with the strangers. Becky counted six other people at the bonfire. She did not catch most of their names. Though she thought she heard her mother call the first woman Lioness.

  The six people did not settle into folding chairs. They stood huddled together and two of them broke away and retreated from the fire. Becky watched her father and another man sit at the base of a tree. They talked, but she could not hear them.

  Becky's mother stood with four other women. One of the women went to her bag and pulled out a stack of blankets. She handed each of the women a blanket and as they put them on, Becky realized that that they were cloaks.

  Her mother draped a silver cloak over her body. Arlene tucked her blond hair beneath the hood until only her face remained in the swaths of shimmery fabric. They moved around the fire. Becky watched one woman shaking a jar of white powder over the forest floor. Another of the women held a paper sack and threw handfuls of something that looked like leaves and twigs into the flames. The flames glowed strange colors. For an instant, Becky thought she saw a face in the flames and shook her head to banish the image.

  Becky's mother swayed and held her arms up to the sky.

  "Guardian of the North,

  Earth solid and true

  My feet are planted

  I bow before you

  Make light this vessel

  Release my binds

  Untether this witch

  Break free our minds."

  Another of the women, her long red cloak billowing, though Becky felt no breeze, began to chant.

  "Guardian of the South,

  Fire blazing and bright

  I throw myself in your path

  Consume me tonight

  Open the doorway

  Let us walk through

  At the mercy of your power

  We succumb to you."

  Now the woman in black held out her arms. Taller than the others and broad like a man. Her voice did not match her shape. A soft melodious sound filled the air when she spoke.

  "Guardian of the East,

  Air spacious and clear

  My body sways with your song

  In wind, your voice I hear

  Make easy our travel

  Let clarity be our guide

  We give ourselves to you this night

  Through the void we'll ride."

  The last woman, her cloak a turquoise color that reminded Becky of the feathers of a peacock, grinned beneath her hood. Dark curls poked out from her cape. She held slender white hands in the air.

  "Guardian of the West,

  Water flowing and pure

  I feel you racing through my cells

  I taste you in my tears

  Tonight we call upon your strength

  To Venus we do speak

  Remove the locks upon the gate

  Cleanse the path we seek."

  Mesmerized, Becky watched the flames leap higher. The four women continued to chant, but Becky could no longer distinguish their words. Their song flowed together until it sounded like the wind in the trees and the crackling flames. Becky's dad and the other man watched the women, but did nothing. They both sat perfectly still.

  At the base of the fire, Becky saw a shadow climbing up the flames. A black hole yawned in the blaze. Becky's mother took a step towards the fire and then another. She walked into the dark chasm and Becky tried to scream, but her voice got sucked into the night. The other women followed. One by one they stepped into the crack and disappeared

  ****

  Becky woke in the early light of dawn. Curled in the fetal position, at the base of a tree, she blinked at the dewy ferns hovering inches before her eyes. Remembering the night before, she scrambled onto her hands and knees and looked toward the fire. Nothing remained of the previous night's blaze and all of the women were gone. Becky stood and walked slowly to the place where she knew the charred ground should be. The dense forest floor, thick with ferns and wildflowers, spread out in all directions. She searched for crushed grass, ashes, any evidence of the scene that she had witnessed, but nothing remained.

  Had she dreamed it? Why then did she wake behind the giant tree rather than in her tent? Obviously something drew her into the night. She kicked at the ground, thinking perhaps they had covered the fire's remains, but found nothing.

  She returned to their camp slowly, confused and frustrated.

  Her parent's gray tent shone with morning wetness. No one stirred. She looked at her own tent. Sydney would still be fast asleep inside. She wanted to wake her and tell her what had happened. But had anything happened? She had never dreamed anything so vividly in her life. She rarely dreamed at all. When she did, her nightly jaunts included mundane shames like showing up at school in her underwear.

  She yawned, suddenly exhausted. Knowing that her parents would not wake for hours, she climbed into her tent and back into her sleeping bag. She curled on her side and watched the rise and fall of Sydney's chest. Reluctantly, she drifted into sleep.

  ****

  Sydney bounced out of the tree and landed at Becky's feet with a thud. Becky screamed, arms failing, and went over backwards. Sydney watched in horror as Becky's head hit the forest floor just inches from an exposed root.

  "Oh no, I'm sorry Becks," she apologized, holding out a hand to help Becky up.

  Becky looked at her through hurt, angry eyes.

  "You did it on purpose," she hissed.

  "Well, yeah," Sydney admitted. "But I thought it'd just give you a little spook, not a full on heart attack."

  She cracked a smile at her younger sister, but Becky only glared at her as she struggled to her feet. She wiped the pine needles off her jeans and stalked back toward the camp.

  Sydney knew that Becky would tell her parents. Nearly everything that Sydney did or said spurred a full reporting by her sister. She didn't know why and, in truth, she didn't exactly care. She and Becky were not simpatico. Sometimes it made Sydney feel sad. She remembered when her mother announced that a baby sister was on the way. Sydney, a hopeful two year old, spent days choosing the perfect doll to present to her new sibling. Unfortunately, her parents did not bring home a sister, but a squalling, fragile infant that Sydney dared not touch for fear of caving in her head or breaking her floppy limbs. She learned to keep her dist
ance from Becky, known to her parents as Bumpy Becky, due to her tendency to run into furniture.

  The sister's just never clicked. Sydney once overheard her mother telling a friend that they were chocolate and vinegar, not a good mix. Not for lack of trying either. Sydney wanted a confidante. She begged Becky to play make-believe games growing up. They could wear their mother's clothes and pretend to be cursed princesses or secret mermaids. Becky hated the games. 'It's not real,' she would complain and throw off their mother's pearls to watch TV instead.

  Now at thirteen, Sydney felt less inclined to include Becky. She still loved her stubborn little sister, but she had accepted that they liked to do different things. Not to mention thirteen and eleven might as well have been a hundred year gap for how different they had become. Sydney had already begun to kiss boys and daydream about living on a yacht with a wealthy spy. He would take his helicopter and disappear for weeks while Sydney stayed behind to swim with dolphins and learn weird, difficult languages like Greek and Hebrew. When Sydney asked Abby what she wanted to do when she grew up, she always offered the same answer - 'I don't know.' She didn't know and apparently she didn't care. She never wanted to imagine what someday might look like.

  Sydney's mom said Becky had a lot of earth in her. She said sometimes people with deep roots don't think so much about the future and the possibilities, they think about what's in their hands and under their feet. Their mother called Sydney the perfect blend of air and water, an empath and a daydreamer. Sydney loved the words and labels that their mother used. She was a special woman, their mother, and Sydney didn't say that just because she was their mom. Sydney knew, she had seen things that other girls had never seen. Their mother knew magic, she communicated with forces in the world that no one else could see or hear.

  ****

  "Rhea...," the sound drifted like a lullaby through Becky's dreams. She stirred and shifted. "Rhea..." serene and distant and soothing. A woman's voice. A song in the night.