Willa of the Wood

by Robert Beatty

  She’d never seen anything like it. The man was stealing the water of the river, and then giving it back.

  The shaft in the center of the wheel turned and turned, and something inside the building rumbled with the grinding, gritty sound of stone rubbing on stone.

  She couldn’t understand how he took the movement of the water and changed it into the movement of the wheel, but that was the spell he had cast.

  But then a loud clanking noise erupted from the building and the wheel shook violently, the wood twisting and creaking as if the wheel was going to tear apart. The man lurched forward and closed the divider as quickly as he could, bringing the wheel to a shuddering halt.

  He gazed at his contraption in stunned confusion, then his face clouded with anger and he clenched his jaw, as if he suspected an enemy had purposefully sabotaged his machine.

  He grabbed a tool with a long metal handle, then climbed up the giant wheel and crawled through the spokes into a dense thicket of metal branches. He cranked and he twisted. He hammered and he shoved, shouting out harsh words she didn’t understand.

  When he finally crawled out again, his knuckles were bloody. He went over to the lever and pulled it for the second time. The water came tumbling down as it had before and the wheel started to turn once more.

  This time, he didn’t just look satisfied that his machine was working, he looked defiant, as if he had defeated the most powerful of enemies.

  Over the next hour, he carried large burlap bags into the building on his shoulder. She had seen the farmers in Cades Cove filling bags like these with wheat from their fields.

  She stayed where she was in the forest, but she watched him through the open windows and door of the building. The man poured the bags into a metal mouth where the grains trickled down between two flat stones and were ground into a whitish-yellow powder.

  While the water wheel did its work, the man walked over to the stack of severed limbs and trunks at the side of his house, picked up a killing ax, and started cleaving the logs in half. The wood was from the previous season, so she didn’t hear its cries, but it was still difficult to watch. She hated how he used a wood-handled ax to cut more wood.

  As he split one log after another, he grunted, slamming the ax into the wood harder and harder with each stroke, the wood making a sharp cracking sound as he split it. Sweat beaded on his brow, and he ground his teeth as he hurled the cloven slabs of wood aside.

  It seemed as if he had fixed the problem with the wheel, so why was he so angry? Frustration seemed to be boiling up inside him. It was like he didn’t want to just split those pieces of tree but crack open the earth they’d grown from.

  His breathing got louder and louder. His whiskered face contorted with pain. And he just kept splitting, one log after another, until his hands bled onto the handle of the ax.

  It reminded her of when she climbed the mountain, the way she hadn’t cared that the rocks were cutting into her hands. She had wanted the rocks to cut into her hands.

  Finally exhausted, he hurled the ax to the ground, collapsed beside the pile of wood that he had made, and dropped his head into his cupped hands.

  He rubbed his face and eyes, as if he wanted to smear some memory from his mind.

  In that moment, she remembered sitting by the stream that had carried her away from the lair, trying to rub the images of her mamaw’s dead body away. She remembered the longing in her heart and the sadness in her soul.

  The man’s shoulders drooped as he went quiet. And she watched as his anger melted into a slow and dying anguish.

  He made no noise, but she could see his body shaking as he sobbed.

  His dog, seeming to sense his master needed his help, lay down beside him. The man slowly stopped sobbing and rubbed the scruff of the dog’s neck with his hand as he stared with glazed eyes out into the forest.

  She didn’t understand what was happening to him, why he was acting this way. But she could see that the man did not have his killing-stick with him, and his ax was out of reach now, a few feet away.

  Her heart pounded and perspiration rose on her arms. She was finding it more and more difficult to breathe.

  But she slowly stepped out of the forest.

  And she showed herself to him.

  The man looked at her in surprise, but did not immediately try to kill her. He did not run for his killing-stick when he saw her standing there at the edge of the woods. He did not reach for the ax or pull out the knife he carried at his side. He did not rouse his dog.

  He did not move in any way.

  But she knew he saw her. She could see his striking, bright blue eyes staring at her intently as if he could not quite believe what he was seeing.

  She stood a dozen steps away from him, but she felt the movement of his chest as he breathed slow steady breaths.

  “You’re alive…” he said, his voice soft and low, but filled with a trace of amazement. “And you’ve come back to me…”

  She did not speak, but she studied him, and she let him study her. And for the moment—for the both of them—that was enough.

  Her heart beat in her chest as he looked at her. The quills on the back of her neck tingled.

  This is my enemy, she thought. And he’s seeing me.

  The man stood perfectly still, as if he knew that the slightest movement would scare her off.

  When a breeze swept through the boughs of the trees, she stepped back, blended into the forest, and disappeared.

  The next day, she watched him from the forest. He moved in and out of the house, sometimes working in his barn, feeding his goats and his chickens, or using tools she did not understand. Other times he worked in the building that used the water of the river to turn the giant wheel. He worked quietly and on his own. But sometimes he paused in his work and looked out into the forest, scanning the trees with a careful eye.

  As the sun set and slowly withdrew its light from the trees of the surrounding forest, the man went back into the house. She watched as the window near the eating room lit up with the soft glow of a candle. The stars above the trees provided all the light she needed to see, but she liked watching the glowing radiance of the candle as the man moved from one room to another, the light moving with him, leaving darkness behind, until finally he went up the stairs, into the room where she had once seen him lying asleep in his bed, and the candle went out.

  It was a warm summer evening, with yellow-green fireflies lighting on and off in the open area in front of the man’s house while he slept. She walked over to a stand of beautiful, old sourwood trees growing near the side of house, with their craggy gray bark and their long, wavy limbs.

  “Hello, my friends,” she said to them in the old language, touching their trunks with her open hand as she walked among them. “It’s good to meet you all.”

  Deciding not to make a cocoon that night, she picked the tallest of the trees and began to climb its trunk. “I hope you don’t mind a friend for the night,” she said as she reached its upper branches. Sourwoods weren’t large trees, and they had bitter-tasting leaves, but she loved their nectar when their flowers blossomed and she appreciated their peaceful spirits. She always missed them when they slept in the winter and rejoiced when they came awake each spring.

  She found a good spot in the branches near a tight ball of leaves with a bundle of baby squirrels snoring inside. As the tendrils of the tree gently encircled her body to make sure she didn’t fall, she curled up and went to sleep. It was the first night in a long time that she didn’t dream of stealing.

  The next morning when she woke, the dog was sitting at the base of the tree, his ears perked and his eyes looking up into the branches.

  Had the dog somehow detected her? Or had the nest of squirrels caught his attention?

  He wasn’t barking or growling, and he didn’t seem anxious to attack. But he looked keenly interested, like he was certain there was something up in the tree, maybe the two-legged forest creature he’d seen the day before.
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  “Come on, Scout,” the man called as he walked out of the house, down the steps, and toward the barn. But upon noticing the dog’s position by the tree, he stopped.

  The man turned.

  “Scout?”

  But the dog didn’t move. His nose pointed straight up into the tree.

  This was a truly bad place to spend the night, Willa decided. Now I’ve been treed by the pesky dog!

  As the man walked toward the base of the tree, Willa’s heart thumped. Goose bumps rose on her arms.

  The man stood below her and peered up into the limbs of the tree. His eyes moved from one spot to the next, looking for her, but her legs and arms had taken on the appearance of the branches, and her face was nothing but leaves.

  “What do you see, boy?” he asked as he crouched down beside his dog. “Is she up there?”

  She’d shown herself to them two days before, but she wouldn’t allow them to see her now, not like this, trapped up in a tree peering down at them like an opossum.

  When the man and his dog finally gave up and left the area of the tree, Willa climbed down.

  She watched the man go about his daily work. When he walked through his orchard, she became as dark and crooked as an apple tree’s trunk. When he tended to his vegetable garden, she became as green and yellow as stalks of corn. And at the end of the day, while the dog napped in the shade and the man went down to the river to wash his hands and face, she crouched on a rock nearby, as blue as water and gray as stone.

  The man finished washing up, then climbed back up onto the bank and headed toward the path.

  Willa jumped from the rock she’d been perched on, and followed him into the forest.

  It was there, on the path that led to the house, that she chose to reveal herself once more.

  She pulled in a long, uncertain breath, relaxed the blend of her skin, and stepped onto the path in front of him.

  She appeared before him in her natural green colors, her face spotted and streaked, her arms marked with marbled patterns, her dark hair falling around her shoulders, and her eyes emerald green.

  When he looked up and saw her there, he stopped, surprised, his eyes wide for a moment.

  But he stood very still.

  “I was hoping you’d come around again,” he said.

  Suddenly, Willa became aware of her own breathing, the position of her feet, and the perspiration on her neck. She studied the man, looking for any signs of threat or attack, taking in all the details: his watching eyes, the light brown whiskers on his face, his hands freshly clean but scratched and worn from his work, his wrinkled tan trousers wet to the knees from standing in the river—all so different from any sort of living thing she’d ever talked to before.

  “I’m sorry about what happened,” he said. “It was so dark and you were moving so fast. I couldn’t see anything. I shouldn’t have pulled that trigger.”

  He paused, waiting for her to reply. She wanted to speak to him. She wanted to take a few steps closer to him. But she didn’t know what to say to him or what to do. On the outside, she imagined she appeared to be standing very still, but on the inside, she felt like a trembling fawn, ready to dash away at any moment.

  “But you don’t seem to be too badly hurt anymore…” he said, almost to himself, as if he was mystified that her wounds had healed so quickly. “Listen,” he added gently. “I know you and I didn’t get off to a good start. But I want you to know that I will not harm you. You are welcome here.”

  She had never heard the Faeran of Dead Hollow use the Eng-lish word welcome, but she had always loved the word eluin, which she remembered her mother and father saying to her many years before. “Esper dun eluin una,” they had told her. The trees will always welcome you. It was one of the few memories she had of her parents.

  And then the man said something else that surprised her.

  “My name is Nathaniel.”

  Her ears took the unusual sound into her mind.

  But still she did not reply.

  “Do you understand the words I’m speaking?” he asked her softly.

  Willa looked at him and took in a long, slow breath.

  “I do,” she said.

  They were the first words she had spoken to him.

  As soon as the man Nathaniel heard her voice, his face lit up with a sudden and genuine smile. She hadn’t seen a smile in so long that it brought an unexpected wash of happiness through her, and she couldn’t help but smile in return.

  “I’m glad,” he said. “I was beginning to wonder if you were some kind of spirit or something, or maybe my wits were finally leaving me for good.”

  “I’m as real as the trees around you,” she said. “I’m just not used to talking to…” She let words dwindle and didn’t finish her sentence.

  “I understand,” he said. “Sometimes no words is just the right amount.”

  She wasn’t sure exactly what he meant, but she liked the kindness in his voice when he said it.

  “Are you hungry?” he said as he began to walk toward the house and gestured for her to follow him. “Let’s get something to eat.”

  But the instant he moved, she startled, and she was gone.

  She had reacted quickly and disappeared, a reflex more than a decision. But once she had a moment to think about it, she realized the man hadn’t been trying to hurt her. He had just started to walk up toward the house.

  But after it happened, she felt too uncertain to rejoin him, and she withdrew back into the forest on her own.

  The next morning, when the man Nathaniel and the dog, Scout, came out of the house, the man walked over to the base of the tree in which she was sleeping and set something on the ground.

  “In case you change your mind,” he said, and continued on into the forest.

  When the dog lingered behind to sniff at the plate, the man said, “No, you’ve already had your breakfast. Now, come on.”

  Carrying his killing-stick in his right hand, the man followed the path that ran along the bank of the river, his dog trotting behind him. Soon they were gone.

  As Willa climbed down the trunk of the tree and smelled the plate of food, she realized how hungry she truly was. It seemed like she was always hungry. Did the man know this about her? Was that why he had asked her this odd question about whether she was hungry? The Faeran of the Dead Hollow lair would never ask her this question. They did not care.

  As she crouched on the ground and ate the food, she wondered where the man had gone with his dog and his killing-stick. He had seemed very determined to find whatever he was looking for.

  But that evening, he returned exhausted and empty-handed, the dog walking along dejectedly just behind him.

  As they came toward the house, she decided to stand in the open where they could see her. But she stayed near the edge of the trees just in case.

  Her temples immediately started pounding, and she had to work hard to keep her breathing strong and steady, but despite the anxiousness welling up inside her chest, she kept her feet planted firmly in the grass.

  The moment the dog saw her, he jolted to attention.

  “Scout, stay!” the man said, stopping the dog in its tracks. “Down!” The dog went down on his haunches immediately, his whole body shaking with excitement. The dog obviously wanted to run at her, bite her, shake her, tear her to pieces, but the human’s command held him in place. “She’s a friend, Scout,” the man said firmly. “You’re gonna let her be. You got it? Let her be. She’s a friend. You just stay.”

  The dog’s eyes blazed with intense curiosity as he watched her, but he seemed to understand the man’s instructions.

  When she felt at least somewhat certain the dog wasn’t going to attack her, Willa moved her eyes to the man, Nathaniel.

  He was already looking at her, and he did not look displeased to see her.

  “How was your breakfast this morning?” he asked.

  “Thank you,” she said, because she thought that was what day-folk said to
one another.

  “Yesterday, I introduced myself, my name is Nathaniel, and this here is Scout, but we didn’t get your name…”

  When she thought about telling him her name, her mind flooded with questions. What did a Faeran name mean to him, what did it sound like? In what way could he use it? Could he harm her with it?

  There were many thoughts going through her mind all at once, and many of them frightened her. But unlike the day before, when her reflexes had acted before she could even think, now her thoughts came more slowly, more in her control.

  “What do you wish me to call you?” he asked her.

  “My name is Willa,” she said finally.

  Nathaniel nodded. “That’s a fine and lovely name,” he said. “It’s good to meet you, Willa. Did your mother give you that name?”

  “I do not know.”

  “Is your mother nearby?” the man asked, looking out into the forest. “Or your father?”

  “My mother and father are dead.”

  “I’m sorry to hear that,” he said, his voice filled with something she had never heard outside her own den, a tone, an emotion she didn’t have a word for. “When did your parents pass away?” he asked.

  “Six years ago,” she said.

  “Then who takes care of you out here?” he asked.

  “Out where?”

  “In the forest.”

  “The forest.”

  “I don’t understand. Who feeds you and gives you shelter? Where do you live?”

  “The forest,” she said again.

  “There must be someone—”

  “I left my clan.”

  “Your clan…” The man looked around at the forest as if arrows were going to come flying out at him. “But you’re not Cherokee, are you?”

  “No,” she said. “I’m not Cherokee.”

  “And you live around here in the forest? That’s where you come from?”

  Not sure she understood his question, she slowly pointed toward the top of the Great Mountain, which was visible from the open area in front of his house.

  “You come from Clingmans Dome?” he asked in surprise, but it was clear that he didn’t think he was understanding her. “Don’t you live in a town? Maybe down in the valley, in Cades Cove? Or maybe a new homestead I don’t know about?”