Shadow Forest- The Complete Series

by Eliza Grace

  The scratching has also been eaten by the blackness.

  “Mom, what was—”

  The grip I have on her nightgown is broken as she whirls around, possessed and invisible. Then her hand is slamming into my mouth, slowly and deliberately so no sound is made. Because it is not over. The thing that was outside our safe area has not gone. It is listening. I close my eyes, even though that is not necessary since the dark is so absolute. I want to see what has come, whatever thing that is so frightening. Then again, part of me wants to remain in blessed ignorance. Despite my conflicted desires, I envision M.H.

  He is no longer in the café. He is walking the streets slowly, his modern shoes clicking against the cobblestone of a side street that has been around since the town was first established. There are a few stones that he avoids. I am not sure why until he pauses, backtracks, and kicks one with the toe of his right loafer. It wobbles with the impact. Bending down, he picks it up and turns it over. He confuses me so—he is free, he could be doing anything, yet he is still so close by, walking an ordinary street like an ordinary man.

  For a moment, the vision of him blurs dramatically and I am cast like an unwanted remnant of food back into the blackness. The scratching has resumed. The protections around the forest room are pulsing. I can feel the force of it, as if sparks from a fire are settling to die against my body.

  It isn’t a pleasant sensation. I put every ounce of my strength and concentration into returning to M.H. This time, I am not an observer. I am thrust into his body like a possessing spirit. He jolts, nearly drops the stone, but I control his hand now and I save it from falling. He fights me, doggedly, but I can understand what my mother meant about the magic not belonging to him. It is a living thing, swirling about his body, but not attaching. When I am within him, the power comes to me like a magnet, attracted to my blood.

  An involuntary groan sounds from between my lips. No, his lips. His fighting is brutal. He attacks my mind. An axe against a tree trunk.

  But I am deep within, snaking my way into the crevices of his psyche. My magic reaches out with tendrils, gently wrapping around me.

  I can feel how he is feeling with the moonlight illuminating his skin. It is not warm like the sun would be. It’s a cold thing, but it satisfies him greatly. But that is buried deep now—his satisfaction—because I am ruining it with my presence.

  Get out.

  His command is not weak. It batters me as physically as a fist would against the tender flesh of my stomach.

  Get out.

  I hold on, with all my might, but it is not enough. I had taken him by surprise, I realize. My entrance into him was so abrupt that he could not keep me from invading. He’s recovered now though. He is forcing the magic to reject me.

  And it is burning.

  God it is burning.

  My scream is soundless. He speaks this time, a vocalized utterance. A spell to ruin the cord that binds. The language is not English, but I understand it fully.

  “My body. My soul. My magic to use. My body. My soul. My magic to use. I reject the invading spirit. I reject her claim to the power. My body. My soul. My magic.”

  Being thrust out of him and back into the void is even more violent than my entrance.

  I hum with residual magic; the morsels that cling to me that will dissipate so quickly that if I do not use them instantly, I will lose my chance.

  When I open my mouth, I am speaking the strange language that I have never learned. “Show me.”

  My eyes see through the dark like I am wearing night vision goggles. I twirl slowly, taking in the forest beyond the refuge. I stop in my tracks when I see the thing that is sniffing and scratching and hunting. It is bent over on all fours, yet it is not a quadruped. I can tell that its normal posture is upright and I know that the thing was once human. Once a woman. Perhaps a beautiful woman, not unlike the mother beside me that I cherish so much.

  No longer handsome or pretty though. Feral. Changed and…as the magic dies, I get a spark of who she is and… and there is no soul there, no morsel of humanity despite what she once was. She is other.

  I am in the darkness once again. The protections are holding. I can feel the pulsing.

  We wait.

  At some points, I forget that my mother is there. I forget that she exists and I wonder if she also forgets that I exist. The forest of shadows is enveloping us into itself.

  We wait.

  Eventually, I know I am mad. That this will never end.

  We wait. I can stand no longer. My body crumples to the ground, but I am cognizant enough still to make the action silent and slow.

  We wait.

  And the scratching stops. The quiet unfolds. A howl punctuates it after some time.

  And then, when I think I will never see color and light again, the lanterns come to life in a blaze of blue-tinged yellow that verge on green to match the bushes that flank the natural room.

  Mom is still standing. Her body is shaking and her chest falls and rises erratically. It is not until the moonlight reappears, sometime after the candles have lighted, that her knees buckle and she lands on the ground beside me.

  I reach out to her, my hand hesitant. She is still vibrating. There are faint lines spider-webbing across her skin. As if she is glass and the strain of keeping us safe has taken a toll that even she has not expected. Borrowed power. Not her own. What would it do to her if she kept using it, when her body and soul is no longer wired for magic? Deciding not to touch her, I drop my hand. I hadn’t realized that her eyes were slammed shut, with so much force and concentration that the lines around her eyes are deep crevices.

  Even though we are no longer stood in darkness, I feel like I am back in the dark. I do not understand what is wrong or how I can help.

  Without warning, Arianna is back. She flies high above us and then dips low enough to hover above Mom’s left shoulder. “You shouldn’t have tried that on your own. Too weak.” It is the first time the fairy has spoken properly instead of repeating a single word three times. “Help, help, help.” And then she is reverted to the thrice-spoken communication that is beginning to grate my nerves. Or, perhaps it is not so much her as it is the experience we’ve just had… and the knowledge that the feral being is lurking in the woods at this very moment.

  “You could not…” My mother’s voice is low and weak, but the lines along her skin are fading. She takes a deep breath and continues speaking. “have stayed, Arianna. Your light is too bright to be hidden by this borrowed and temperamental earth power.”

  “Extinguish, extinguish, extinguish.” The fairy has alighted on her shoulder now and is pressing her body into the expanse of mom’s lean, graceful neck.

  “You know how dangerous that is for you. Even diminishing your light for a moment could take you out of existence.” Mom’s voice is strengthening. The web-like cracks on her body are nearly gone. It reminds me of a character in a story that I read so long ago- about a girl made of porcelain. She lives her life so carefully, caution with every step, until the day when she thrusts herself in front of a car to save the boy she loves, who is not made of porcelain but of glass. I know that my mother would do as the little porcelain girl had. She would throw herself in front of danger to save me. And I don’t want that.

  Now that Mom seems more herself, I speak. “I thought you said fairies don’t die? That they just become and then live. That there is no end once they exist.”

  “No, My Little Witch, I said they never die of natural causes. It is… it is wholly unnatural for a fairy to diminish its light. To snuff it completely? That is nearly always the beginning of not being and no fairy would do it willingly.” She leans her head slightly so that she can feel Arianna’s wing against her cheek.

  “But Arianna just said—”

  “Arianna is not thinking clearly. She is not herself. Do you know how long she was imprisoned in that tree?”

  I shake my head.

  “Since 1670. Almost 350 years. After his arr
ival in this forest, after his incarceration began, Matthew became obsessed with the very thing he’d sworn to destroy. Witchcraft. He used everything he’d gleaned in his years of hunting to learn the ways of these woods, to discover how the magic of our bloodline clung to every living thing. Through trial and error, he began to practice. Some of his attempts had disastrous effects. Some the spirits and creatures in this wood found humorous. A bug turned into a cup. A tree changed gold instead of brown and green.”

  “But why did he target Arianna?” My eyes find the fairy that is flying once again.

  “One of the disastrous outcomes of his meddling. He was trying to cast a spell of destruction, but he is human, not born with the skill. His aim was wrong, his control abysmal. Instead of splitting a large stone, his spelling found a fairy circle. Arianna’s life mate was tending the moss and mushrooms. His light was…” She stopped speaking as the light rain that still fell beyond our room spread inward, wetting the sheets and books and causing the flames within the lanterns to flicker.

  Looking up at the same time, we saw Arianna. She was sat atop a cloud. Her tears were the rain that fell upon our faces.

  “I am sorry, Arianna. So sorry.” Mom lifts a hand to offer Arianna a place other than the cloud to land, but Arianna turns her damp face away from us. “After her mate died, Arianna turned all of her attentions on Matthew. She wanted him to feel her pain. He overcame her though.”

  I want to say I am sorry also, out of solidarity if not true sympathy. I did not know her life mate. I barely know her. She stands, her small feet sinking far enough into the cloud that I can see her small feet outlined on the bottom. It thins and thins until it is the wispy vision of strata and the false rainfall is gone. Touching my face, I am surprised to find that it is no longer wet.

  “Mom, you act like you knew her before I released her. How is that possible?” As I ask, I realize I have another question. One that is more important. “I don’t understand also…”

  My mother looks at me, waiting. I swallow.

  “If you have the ability to borrow magic, to use the power of the woods and such, why didn’t you free Arianna before I arrived? Did he keep you from doing it?”

  “He kept me from a lot of things.” She frowns and her face goes blank. I wonder what she is remembering. “Yes. He would not have allowed me to free Arianna. This,” she gestures around us, “was his home. The books are a pittance, a bitter salve, bestowed upon him by Elisabeth. Pages and pages full of the things he would never have again. Full of life, human life. Carriages and parties and feasts and family. When he was here, I was isolated in a small section of the woods. A dark section; in so many ways, a little piece of hell. Arianna, although I could neither see nor touch her, was my sole companion. She pushed her magic through her prison and it was just enough for her to keep me sane. You do not know how much effort it took to send even the smallest part of myself into the woods and across the barrier to guard you from him.”

  “But the magic is our family’s. It was your birthright before it was mine. How could he control it better than you? How could he send his awareness across the barrier so easily? At times, he was so real I could touch him.”

  “A life spent studying witches. Over three and a half centuries learning this forest and lassoing its power. How could I stand up to that? I was never a high priestess. I never fully accepted my magic. After I was parted from this place, from my childhood home, I did my best to forget, to live normally. Had I known this would fall onto your shoulders, my love, I would have dedicated my life to becoming a true Salem witch. I would have done everything in my power to protect you. I would have been honest. Honest. And maybe,” she swallows and the sound is so loud that I worry the other thing, the creature, will hear the noise and return, “maybe none of this would have happened.”

  I look down at my legs, at how they’re folded into one another. Criss-cross apple sauce, like I am back in kindergarten waiting for the teacher to open the story book and read. “I would be finishing high school. I would be opening acceptance letters and going to prom and still dating Aaron.”

  “Yes. You’d still be you, Tilda. Not trapped here, whole and a prisoner, or trapped out there in a broken body.” Tears are rolling down my mother’s face now, but her grief does not cause clouds to form above nor rain to fall.

  “Nothing could be like it was. If you had been honest, then I wouldn’t be myself. I’d know what we were, the people we came from. In that way, in knowing that, I would be a different person. You couldn’t have changed anything and kept me… me.” I reach over, placing my hand on her knee, the silkiness of the nightgown feeling smooth and yielding beneath my touch.

  “I’m tired, my love.” Mom stands, the spider web fractures gone from her skin, but her voice sounding ready to break. My hand slides off of the fabric of her dress. “Let us sleep and tomorrow we will begin.”

  Standing, I follow her over to the large brass bed with the thin quilt and lumpy pillows. “Begin?” I run a finger across the metal rail and my nose crinkles involuntarily as I see the dirt staining my finger.

  “Helping you learn. Helping you claim who you are. Helping you get back what is yours—both freedom and magic.” She pulls back the quilt to reveal a fitted sheet so old that I’m surprised it hasn’t disintegrated into nothingness. “There is both no time at all and all the time in the world.”

  “I don’t understand.” And I don’t. It feels like I’ve been here seconds, yet also forever. The forest is a paradox of passing moments.

  “I know, My Little Witch.” Mom is staring at the bed, her face thoughtful. “What can feel like a month here might be a day outside these trees. Or, it might be a year. Or, an hour. There is no telling. So we must work fast and hope that time is on our side.”

  Glancing over at the books strewn about the floor, I sigh. “I really don’t understand any of this. I don’t see how I can learn what you know fast enough.”

  “You will, Tilda. Trust that I know what I am talking about.” Mom is still staring at the bed.

  I want to move past this conversation, this talk of magic that I do not possess any longer because he took it. “Maybe the pile of books will be more comfortable and,” I look at the pad of my pointer finger again, “cleaner.”

  “Yes. I was wondering how to solve that. I haven’t needed to sleep in so long. I’d forgotten the need. Oh, well, perhaps this will help.” Mom speaks a few words in the strange language that I am beginning to realize is intuitive to those who can harness magic, she gives the quickest flick of her hand, and the bed rises a foot into the air, pulses with golden energy, and then falls with a thud back to the ground.

  It is no longer brass or tarnished or furnished with filthy, ripped bedding. It is bright gold and unscathed. The pillows and comforter look like heaven. I wonder if it is real or illusion, like my youthful face, but I do not question it. I am so tired.

  More tired than I’ve ever been.

  Climbing in without invitation, I scoot to the other side of the bed and wiggle my body. The mattress compresses to cocoon me and is so plush and comfortable that my eyes begin to droop even before mom is settled in beside me. She used to cuddle with me this way, back before, when my family was alive and whole. Sleep breezes into my body like morphine. It lulls me and fogs my head. I can already feel the images of dreaming push their way into my thoughts.

  As I fade into whatever dream is shaping inside my mind, I feel a kiss on my cheek and another short sentence in the alien language that is becoming more and more intelligible to me. “Dream only beauty. Dream love. No darkness in your mind.” It is a chant, a wish, a spell.

  A Journal Darkly

  -Hoyt-

  Shortly after Tilda disappeared into the woods.

  I am stood several feet from the fence now, staring into the darkness of the forest, and gripping the strange book that appeared out of thin air. It has been hours since she disappeared. My throat aches with the effort of calling her name and getting no
answer.

  Walking forward to stand as close to the fence as possible, I will myself to cross into the ever-changing shadows caused by the fading light filtering through the canopy of leaves. Something distracts me each time I approach. Some thought I most follow or some need I cannot delay. And as soon as I walk away from the battered pickets with peeling paint, I remember her.

  I don’t understand it. I remember screaming her name, standing with my body pressing into the fence, knowing what I needed to do.

  And then the book had fallen, landing at my feet. From the moment I’d held it, something had begun to alter my perception of reality. The damn thing is empty. Not a single clue. Pages and pages of nothing.

  Blinking, I realize I am no longer next to the fence line.

  “Dammit!” I harshly expel the word in a rush of breath. “How does that keep happening?” Now that I am yards away from the forest, Tilda is vividly in my mind. I can see her walking… walking… across the meadow, the pale pink of her dress stark against the green expanse punctuated with lavender flowers. This time, I race to the woods. I put my high school track and field training to good use. My body slams into the barrier.

  It is as unyielding as a mountain. “Tilda!” I yell her name. I yell it and yell it until I am once again involuntarily moved away from the forest. Further than ever this time. Nearly to the large oak that lives behind her house. I am standing in the long shadows of it which reaches out like tendrils onto the grass as the light continues to fade.

  “Hoyt?” Jen’s voice, speaking softly as she walks toward me and away from the police. She’s wearing her gown for the gallery show. It drags across the ground, the material dark enough that the dirt that’s fouling the beautiful material isn’t obvious. I know she is as frantic as I am, but in this moment, I cannot see the fear on her face. Only concern. For me. She glances down, sees the burgundy book in my hand. Her face scrunches, wrinkles forming across her forehead, as if she is desperately trying to remember something. As if some important memory is playing at the edges of her subconscious.