Darkly Wood II

by Power, Max

  He watched her circle him and again he felt something rare. It was like that day on the beach with the young girl wearing no shoes. Wormhold looked down at Daisy May’s bare feet. They were the same tiny, delicate feet and he knew now who the girl had been. He always knew in truth but Daisy wasn’t finished. She stopped in front of him and looked into his eyes. He felt it rise, thump…thump.

  “It wasn’t you who took away my control? Who then? Did you conspire with another? Was I overthrown by an outsider with your help? That’s it isn’t it? You wanted to feel the rush for yourself. Well how has the loneliness been?”

  She was in his head completely now. Thump…thump…thump...Wormhold tried to cover his ears, but found that he couldn’t move at all now. He was completely paralysed.

  “This is my home Wormhold. Darkly Wood and I are one, can’t you see that. I know you didn’t bring me back to lose your power, or where you that foolish? You were weren’t you?”

  She realised what he had done and Daisy laughed at him as he knelt before her helpless and for once frightened.

  “You have brought me to this place time and time again through your waifs and strays. You tried to be with me through all this time and every time you failed.”

  Once more she laughed only this time it was long and loud. She was almost hysterical and he knew she could see through all of his trickery now.

  “You tried to have me bear your child…you found me in other women…you looked in all the wrong places.”

  Something moved in the wood behind him. But he was oblivious to the movement. Daisy May had him completely under her spell. Wormhold had forgotten what it was like to be so powerless. She picked up on his feelings of helplessness.

  “I understand you know. I understand it all now.” Daisy got to her knees before him. She gently removed his scarf and held Wormhold’s disfigured face in her hands. They were soft and wonderful just like he remembered.

  “You only give up your power when you don’t think you have any. That’s what my father was trying to teach me all those years ago. Fear takes away your power and you took away mine.”

  “But it wasn’t me – I never…”

  He tried to explain but Daisy knew already.

  “Oh I know you didn’t TAKE my power. You are not capable, not now, not then. But you did keep it from me. What was it Wormhold my dear old friend eh? Were you just lonely? Did you think you could play with me and come back time and time again to force me to be with you…your play thing…your comfort blanket? Did you not consider that someday I might remember?”

  If he could have moved his head, he would have bowed with shame. She knew everything. It was all coming back and he had neither excuses nor anywhere to hide. Wormhold had used his power and conspired against her, but he had missed her once she was gone. It had been his plan to usurp the only woman he had ever truly loved. He had been foolish and he knew that now but Wormhold couldn’t help but draw her back time and time again. Love it turned out was a far more powerful influence on him than he could ever have imagined. He had underestimated the impact of her loss and it was unbearable. Unfortunately for Wormhold, he had gone too far and now she had returned for real. The only problem for Wormhold was that she now knew some of what he had done. He hoped that she would not discover the true depth of his treachery for that was something she would never forgive.

  “You did have some nice touches I’ll grant you that. I love the graveyard, it’s so you.”

  She laughed and the movement behind Wormhold now became more than a rustle in the scrub. All around him he could hear them. The creatures of the wood were there now in force. Beasts of his creation or were they Daisy’s? Wormhold could feel even his thoughts begin to cloud.

  “The mistake you made was bringing me here as a child. What was that about?”

  Once more he tried to defend himself.

  “That was not me…I swear, I never…I wasn’t even…”

  “Ssshh.” She placed a finger over his deformed mouth.

  “It’s an old sin that has come back to haunt you Wormhold. Old sins cast long shadows.”

  She stood up and waved her hand as though slapping him across the face with the back of her hand but without making any contact. He fell backwards onto the forest floor and Daisy turned her back on him and walked right to the very edge of Darkly Wood. It was only a few paces, but to Wormhold it felt as though she was abandoning him.

  The beasts, the ‘Woody’ creatures as a young Daisy May Coppertop might have called them, all moved closer. This creature on the floor of the forest had been their master, their controller without them ever understanding any part of it. They belonged to him and did his bidding almost without thought. Now, while there was some recognition, things were different. This thing on the floor, this creature, held no sway over them. It was not that there were just one or two, they were many and as Wormhold lay there helpless, he began to lose count of the creatures that gathered around him, waiting.

  “Get away!”

  He roared at the beasts but they only tilted their heads in curiosity. They looked to Daisy May but she had given them no instruction. Each beast knew exactly what they wanted but they didn’t want it yet. That desire was at the behest of Daisy so they waited. He called out to her.

  “Please…please…don’t do this…”

  She ignored his pleas. Something else was on her mind and she stared off into the distance towards Cranby looking for something.

  CHAPTER SIXTY TWO – SOMETHING UNFAMILIAR

  Change is inevitable. Seasons come and go, empires rise and fall and the world keeps turning. Through the passage of time, Cranby sat nestled in the shadow of the great wood at the top of the hill and while the world changed and time passed, it seemed that only one thing remained the same, Darkly Wood.

  Wormhold had a tight control throughout much of that time, or at least for some of it. He was a singular creature who existed in many forms across time but he was also a constant. But not even time was a constant for Wormhold. Things could be changed, affected, altered. He moved between worlds with such ease it had even become something of a chore for him. The only thing that changed for Wormhold was the presence of someone even more powerful. She was there before him and now it was her turn to rise again. She was a very special creature of the wood and Wormhold loved her. It was his love for her that took away his happiness. It was her rejection of him that sent him spinning into misery and drove him deeper to his twisted pleasures.

  Over time he missed her. Her disappearance was sudden and even though he had conspired against her, he never discovered exactly why she had gone. Wormhold only knew that in missing her, his life had lost much of its meaning. That she went in the first place was one mystery he had yet to uncover the truth about, but that he kept finding her throughout the passage of time in one form or another was no real surprise. She came to him, the woman who never wore shoes, she came to him often but she never knew who she really was until now. There was one exception of course. When she had appeared on the beach that day, Wormhold should have known. She was finding her way back to Darkly Wood. Things had already begun to change and much of the fault lay with Wormhold. He simply could not help his desire to seek out the love he missed.

  In the village, Holly Coppertop woke up in a familiar bed. For a few moments it felt like a normal morning, but once the light of the day sunk in, she began to remember and Holly sat bolt upright in her bed.

  “Mum?”

  She called out more in fear than in hope for she knew there would be no answer. Holly went to the door of her room and called again.

  “Mum?”

  There was no reply and Holly searched the house. She could feel her stress levels rise, her anxiety grow as the terror that she had come through began to fill her mind. She had no idea how she had found her way back to their house. The last thing that she remembered was the strange man in the wood and then nothing until the moment she awoke.

  By the time she had searched the hou
se, Holly was near frantic. She ran to the front door and burst out onto the narrow street that separated their house from the great meadow which led up to Darkly Wood. There was no one around. Cranby was a quiet town but it was early on Sunday morning and at such a time it often felt like a ghost town.

  People slept in their beds, not knowing what had happened to Holly and her mother. How could no one know what lay behind the line of trees just up there out of reach? She ran along the road until she came to the little wooden foot bridge. Holly crossed the stream which ran by the road side and out into the meadow where she stopped.

  In front of her, the meadow looked vast. Darkly Wood peered down upon her and she remembered those eyes. Holly sensed the terror creep back in. She had no idea what to do. The horror that she had encountered now paralysed her for the first time really. It was different when she was confronted with it first-hand. In the moment, in the heat of the flight, Holly had been forced to act. It was one thing to find your bravery when you were faced with no choice, but an entirely different thing to go and face something of such magnitude in the cold, distant light of day. She didn’t feel brave. All Holly knew was that she had somehow left her mother behind. That was the opposite to brave.

  Her inaction became a state of mind as she stood there and it simply grew and grew. Holly felt as though she were frozen to the spot. A gentle breeze brushed her cheek and she felt it carry something with it. For a moment she couldn’t be sure but as she waited, it caressed her and she heard the whisper on the wind. The voice was familiar and soothing.

  “Holly.” The sound calmed her and although it was barely a sound at all really, she knew the wind was calling her name.

  Atop of Cranby, at the skirt of the wood, Wormhold lay there still unable to move, surrounded by the horrors of Darkly Wood. Nearby, resting her right hand on an old sycamore tree, Holly’s grandmother looked down on the young girl. Daisy May remembered the time the wind had carried her name to her all those years ago and she whispered the name to be carried across the meadow.

  “Holly.”

  She watched and she waited and even smiled for a moment. But then something else caught her attention. The air in the wood changed. The very light shifted and the creatures that had become increasingly agitated around Wormhold, all flinched as one and sunk back a little and sniffed the air. They were agitated, nervous even and when they caught the familiar scent on the wind, they all backed off a little more. They disappeared into the shadows.

  Daisy May Coppertop had felt the sense of great power again, but that it seemed, was to be short lived. A voice whispered on the wind, much like it had done when she was a little girl.

  “Daisy May…Daisy May.”

  She pricked her ears and listened again for the voice. It was unfamiliar. At first she couldn’t make out anything. She looked down along the meadow and across the line of the trees that made up the edge of Darkly Wood but she could see nothing. The voice called again, ever so softly.

  “Daisy May.”

  She picked out Holly, still standing alone and standing completely still beside the little wooden bridge near the road in the village. For a moment she saw nothing unusual but then her eye was drawn to her old house. She could see the bedroom window where she once slept. It was the same room that Holly now occupied and it was open.

  From such a distance she couldn’t make it out properly. There was someone there in the bedroom, standing at the window. It could have been anyone to Daisy, for she could only make out a shadow. But that shadow was that of the man who would change everything. Druzle Leek stood there motionless with a little leather bound book, open in his hand. Tales of Darkly Wood by J.S. Toner. It was the book that had changed her life once and it was about to do so one last time.

  Druzle closed the book and in his head he called Daisy’s name and she heard him call. Daisy May Coppertop had returned to Darkly Wood for a reason. She didn’t know it yet, but Druzle was going to make sure that she found out. He threw the book on Holly’s bed and walked down the stairs and out through the front door.

  The strange man that nobody trusted walked up the road and across the little wooden bridge to stand beside Holly. Daisy May watched him. An overwhelming sense of dread took hold as she watched him take Holly’s hand. She allowed him to take the lead as though in a trance and he walked her back across the bridge and took her to the door of their little house. Holly walked inside and Druzle lingered there for a moment looking up at Darkly Wood, staring straight at Daisy May Coppertop. Then he simply walked inside and closed the door. The world had turned.

  The End.

  Thank you for your purchase. I hope you enjoyed my book and if so I would be most grateful if you could leave a review on amazon. Remember reviews are the lifeblood of all Indie authors.

  Coming soon... Darkly Wood III …

  All Max Power books are available to download from your local amazon store online and include;

  Darkly Wood http://getbook.at/Darkly-Wood

  Darkly Wood II The woman who never wore shoes http://getbook.at/Darkly-Wood-II

  Bad Blood http://getbook.at/Bad-Blood

  Larry Flynn http://getbook.at/Larry-Flynn

  Little Big Boy http://getbook.at/Little-Big-Boy