Woods

by Finkelstein, Steven

  Tad could feel things growing in the air, blossoming from out of nothing and expanding. He wished very much to see them and experience them as he was sure the other two were doing. He felt that it was vitally important, and he could feel his very desire impeding his ability to do so; it was counterproductive, to want it was to push it further away. But what was taking place could not be completely concealed, even from a novice like himself, and he could see the effects it was having all around him. The trees and the rushes and all the green growing things were all standing up as tall as they could go and leaning forward in anticipation or stimulation or excitement, they trembled and sighed, and the water bubbled and palpitated ebulliently as if sleeping creatures beneath it were stirring and shifting their mighty backs. The stars were shooting dizzyingly by, a black and white slideshow in fast motion. He was at the epicenter of an event of cosmic importance, the formation of a black hole, a rip in the fabric of reality. “I don’t understand,” Daddy murmured, almost inaudibly. “Hmmph! Hem!” His shoulders jerking each time. His tongue, like the head of a snake, protruding from his mouth long enough to moisten his lower lip.

  They had stopped circling. Daddy stood on the bank with his back to the swampy pool, Daisy faced him from a distance of about ten paces. Where Tad knelt (he was still unable to move) he could see both of them in profile. Daisy looking impossibly small, but radiating a kind of calm that spoke volumes, Daddy in costume with his head lowered, the horns pointed at the young girl as if considering goring her. “Go away,” she whispered again, and then she raised her right hand. At first her fingers were relaxed, and then they straightened up, slowly, like a flower bud opening as the sun’s rays strike it. Her hand now held with the fingers straight up and the palm out, like a police officer signaling a halt to traffic. And Daddy stiffened, his eyes bulging out more than Tad had ever seen. He looked like he’d seen a ghost, or his own sudden reflection in a mirror. He swallowed, as if there’d been a huge lump in his throat, and at the same time put both his own hands up, throwing them in front of his face as if to shield himself from a blow.

  “No,” he said, low and throatily, and then repeated it several more times, shaking his head vehemently, like a child who has just heard for the first time that their favorite fictional character doesn’t really exist. A truly hateful look crossed his face, and he pointed a finger at Daisy, at the same time continuing to cry out “No, no, no!” It was as if every other word had suddenly vanished from his vocabulary. The forces were gathering. Tad cringed at their coming; this was the storm that the calm had foretold, and the heat now was a heaving, smoldering thing that boiled the water of the pool and threw tidal waves across his upturned face. He could hear the branches of the trees fairly crackling, and there was a flash of lightning that rent the naked sky.

  “Go away,” Daisy whispered again. She retained the calm and tranquil look on her face, and she continued to hold out the palm of her hand as if to ward off Daddy. But she was doing more than that. Tad knew it, if he was uncertain as to the finer details of whatever process was taking place before him. And Daisy, was what she doing the result of study, or of some naturally occurring ability that she possessed, as Stitch had claimed was the case with Tad? Was she acting on instinct now, attempting to defend herself and her brother? How much calculation was involved? Each of these questions passed through Tad’s mind, but he did not know the answers. One thing was certain. Daisy’s revealing of herself was even more of a shock to Daddy than it was to him. The man wasn’t that good of an actor. In Daddy’s current, extremely unbalanced mental state, Tad didn’t even think he would have been able to make any pretext of it. And before his eyes, though they were largely blind to it, a struggle for power was joined.

  Tad could sense the link, similar to the many unnoticed links that he’d begun to recognize as existing in the world, connecting the man and girl; they had fastened onto each other and now grappled on the mental plain, each of them hardly moving. Tad sensed the give and take as surges of what felt like pure will passed between the two of them. But Daddy was unable to remain composed, just like the natural world around the two combatants, the living things that he had a grip on here in this place that could not help but be affected. He twitched and fidgeted, and the trees and other plant life did the same, twisting and creaking as he tried to shackle and contain the mind of Daisy Surrey. But he seemed unable to, and Tad marveled at that even in his fear. Their faces told all. Daddy’s flickered rapidly from fear to anger to frustration. He stuck out his tongue, wrinkled his forehead, and swatted at the air as if beset by invisible foes. “Not funny,” he cried. “Not fair!” His voice began high and ended low, cracking like that of a teenage boy. “Bitch! Contemptible harlot! I shall see you pursued and devoured by all the demons of all the levels of infernal hell! Ahem!” The head jerking. “My father will not allow this! He will strike you down! You will be left a pile of cinders!” His hands had formed into claws, and he was ripping at the air, pivoting his hips from side to side. Daisy’s calm in the face of this explosion was uncanny. She remained in the same position, her hand held out. She did not speak again, but her lips were moving. Tad could read what she was saying, though she made no sound- go away, go away, go away. And then Daddy took a step backward. He started, doing a double take as he glanced down at his feet, and again the look of monstrous, unmitigated hatred came over his face as he turned it back toward Daisy. “No!” he cried again. He took a step forward, then another, now reaching his hands out and aiming them in the general direction of Daisy’s throat, clearly with the intention of throttling her should he be able to close the distance between them. But he could not. He was still a few feet away when he picked his foot up and held it quivering in the air, then he placed it behind the other one. He was being forced to back away. Daisy, with her palm held out, was unapproachable.

  Tad had tried to rise when he’d seen Daddy advancing toward Daisy with the apparent intention of harming her physically. But his muscles would not obey him; they were quite useless, seeming to have atrophied in the five minutes or so that he’d been kneeling on the ground. He still had his injured arm held to his chest, his hand over his heart like a child at school reciting the pledge of allegiance, but all of his other limbs had turned to jelly. Watching as the drama continued, he was again sharply reminded of the incident at Decadence between Much and Whitehall. But while Much had been drawn in toward Whitehall and consumed, not to be seen by Tad again apart from in his nightmares, this seemed like a similar situation in reverse. While Much had been caught in a tractor beam that had pulled him in, kicking and screaming, Daddy was being pushed away as though caught in a wind tunnel. And there was nothing to grab hold of. He continued to scream curses and threaten vengeance, but slowly, surely, he was being forced backward and away from his minute but relentless antagonist, and away from Tad who knelt nearby. Daddy looked from Daisy to her brother, and made an entreaty to Tad, holding out his hands while trying to brace his feet. “Make her stop,” he moaned. “Tell her it’s what you want! You want to go with me! We’re friends; tell her! I’ve been a friend to you! I’ve taught you! Showed y…” He stopped, looking down at his feet again, as his last step had forced him nearly off the bank. He was teetering on the edge.

  Then Daisy pushed him. It was as obvious to Tad, watching from his knees, as if she had walked over and physically shoved the agitated man in costume. She made a firm motion with her outstretched hand, and Daddy overbalanced and stepped off the bank. There was an audible splash as he entered the water which reached at that point about as high as his boot tops. Tad remembered the look of the water during the day, certainly not clear, but not so murky that he could not look into it and see the bottom; he thought of the many times that he’d listened with rapt attention to Daddy’s ramblings on the habits of the aquatic life while watching them unconcernedly going about their business below. Here at night, however, even with the moon and stars so bright above, the water was as black as ink. Daddy tried to step onto
the bank again, but Daisy’s restraining hand was still held up against him. And her face was no longer peaceful. It had begun to betray a bit of emotion again, although Tad, who had known this girl for all of his life and all of hers, was not able to easily identify it. He thought her eyes, the set of her jaw showed pity, perhaps tempered with disdain. If she was conflicted, though, there was no other outward sign. Her hand remained steady, and as he looked on, she shoved Daddy again. He wavered, muttering another startled curse, and then once more he set himself against her. The link between the two of them secured one to the other as soundly as a pair of shackles, and they went at it soundlessly, in an earnest game of tug-a-war. All about them moved as they moved; the trees shivered and spoke in their dry voices, and again overhead the thunder boomed and the anxious heat pressed in. But Daddy was unable to remain silent for long. He was getting the worst end of the deal, somehow, impossibly, and the blow to his pride was perhaps what was effecting him most of all. How could this be happening, he, a master of the arcane arts was being thwarted by a mere scrap of a girl, and he let loose a torrent of curses, damning each and every member of the Surrey brood that had ever drawn breath since the time of the line’s inception, every man and woman, every child, every family pet. Let them all choke on ashes in the deepest pits of torment, in the special hells reserved for those that opposed him! His father would see it so. In many voices he cried out, and again he begged Tad to call off his diminutive attack dog. But Tad did not speak a word. He did not know if was capable of speech, but in truth, he was not willing to try. This would play out, now, without his aid. He knew this, and trusted the knowing. He knelt, mute, and watched.

  Daddy could not regain the shore. Daisy would not allow it, and now she took a step forward. Tad could see a single bead of sweat forming on the right side of her temple, as she held her hand out, steady and sure. Daddy, still spitting venom, tried to push his way forward, but Daisy’s will held him fast. He battered against it, his fists slamming against the empty air, but not only could he not break through, he was being forced slowly and steadily backward toward the deeper water as Daisy advanced toward the edge of the shore, step by careful step. The voices in Tad’s head gabbled excitedly together, threatening to shatter the stillness that he sought to hold onto, as all around the natural world cringed and shuddered. Birds fled shrieking through the trees. The thump of the bullfrogs slammed like rifle shots against Tad’s eardrums. The stars themselves howled as they whirled in the heavens. And in vain the man in the devil costume threatened, coughed and sputtered, begging in his many voices as each of the identities he’d created flickered across his face, their mannerisms appearing and disappearing with the speed of the lightning flashes that crackled above.

  Daddy no longer tried to accost Daisy. His mind now obviously on nothing more or less than escape, he was trying to move parallel to the bank, avoiding the center of the pool and the deeper waters that waited. Daisy followed after him, still led by the hand that had begun to shake, sweat glistening on her palm. Tad could still see her voicing soundlessly, over and over again, the two words- go away, go away, go away. Daddy looked now only scared and lost, mewling and mumbling piteously, and Tad, still kneeling on the bank as if in supplication, felt his heart go out to him despite it all, the deceit and the malice and the greedy thoughtless desire. This man who had fled from his given name and lived as an outcast with his mind broken beyond all hope of repair. But still he did not lift a finger or speak a word.

  Daddy, still moving backward, could not pull himself free of Daisy’s grip, nor could he advance toward her. He was moving into the narrower area between the banks that fed the pool, near to the high hedge of reeds that separated the secluded spot from the rest of The Bottoms. Here there was a sort of sandbar toward the center with shallow inlets on either side of it. Whenever Tad had pushed his way through the reluctant guardian reeds, risking the loss of his sneakers and the ruination of his pants, he had clambered up onto this sandbar and from there made the final leap to the shore. There was always an unpleasant sensation that he’d felt as he’d scrambled through the sinking mud just before pulling himself out onto this bastion of solidity, when he could feel no true ground beneath his feet but rather a shifting paste that held him in its grasp for a moment before it allowed him to leave; the many weeks of drought had still not been enough to dry the moisture that lurked in the deeper places beneath the unsteady ground. But at such a time he’d known that he’d only be safe should he continue moving and struggling constantly until the true earth was beneath his feet again. The danger was in remaining still.

  Moving backward, Daddy was unaware that he’d entered the left hand one of these inlets, the one further from the bank with the Surrey siblings. On top of the rich soil compound stood about two inches of actual water, with the merciless sucking mud beneath it that was, in some unlucky places, nearly the consistency of tar. It was one of the dangers that Marta had warned her children against, back in the time before Tad had even given any serious consideration at all toward braving The Bottoms. Daddy, who had tried to distance himself from Daisy by circumnavigating the sandbar, had entered it backward at about waist level. He had not noticed the danger, being more focused on evading the relentless Daisy, but he become abruptly aware of it when in his backpedaling he reached a particularly unsteady patch and sank into it up to his neck. He gave a frightened yelp, his eyes seeming to protrude a full inch from their sockets in his terror, and he lifted his hands and arms clear of the muck to try and swim to the opposite shore, which was nearer than the sandbar. But he was stuck fast, and there was nothing for him to grab onto to pull himself up. His shoulders slipped below the surface, then they appeared again as he tried an ungainly breaststroke; the process repeated itself a dozen more times as he tried with all his strength to keep his mouth and nose above the surface. He’d tipped his head back and was making a noise that was at first a string of nearly incoherent pleading before it changed to a wordless howl that finally caused Tad to move. It resounded in his head and deafened him, drowning out his own voices and the voices of all else, and he tipped over onto his side, crying out his own agony as he flopped and convulsed on the bank, holding his hands to his ears, mindless to the injured shoulder and arm. Daisy had moved to stand between Daddy and her brother, and she remained level with the man’s exposed head with her shaking hand still raised as she continued to mutter the again and again the two words- go away, go away, go away. And then there came the moment. Daddy stopped struggling, and his head remained above the surface as he spoke with perfect clarity, four words. “Please Daddy, help me.” Tad heard him, even in his agony, and he would forever after remember what he had felt at the time, the strangeness of not the whole situation so much as that moment, when it had seemed almost that the man was asking for help from himself. And then the head slowly sank, the black mud sliding over the mouth, the nose, and the bulbous, still open eyes. The last to sink were the two red horns, which remained visible for just a second longer than the rest. And then they too were gone, and no sight nor sound of Daddy, or James Crawley, remained.

  Daisy knelt by her brother and stroked his face. He tried to stand but she restrained him, helping him instead back to his knees, where she threw her arms around him and held him for what seemed like an endless time. Tad, who felt that he’d been growing used to the tricks that time was prone to play, did not want the embrace to end. But it was Daisy who pulled away at last, and helped her brother to his feet, where he stood with his arm clutched like a wounded bird against his chest. They could hear the sounds of the night again, the frogs, the crickets, but something had changed, or many things. The trees and grasses no longer moaned and groaned, and the tension that Tad had felt, so palpable when he’d left the house in a panic, was no longer there. As the Surrey children breathed easier, the night did too. They walked away hand in hand, Daisy holding lightly onto her brother, avoiding the spot where they’d last seen Daddy, moving carefully but quickly though the reeds and out
of the mire till they could stand on the solid ground again. As they started for home they heard a peal of thunder, and a cool breeze, feeling as refreshing as anything had ever felt to either of them, blew past their faces. Within moments the first drops of cold rain had started to fall; the drought was over, and the Summer in Between was waning. Tad allowed himself to think of the school year that was to come, and was surprised that his feelings were something like anticipation. He gave a contented sigh, and many voices in his head sighed along with him. “Daze,” he said.

  “Yes,” responded the younger Surrey child.

  “Would you rather your enemies’ fondest wish be granted or live your true loves’ worst day?”