Pluck (The Woodswalker Novels)

by Emilia S. Morrow

  It was more unbelievable than she could process right now. She may have been rescued, but she was still dying. It was just a longer process than she had thought. She could feel the blurred edges of fever within her, making everything uncertain.

  Light found its way through all of the gaps in the walls to fill the room with a soft yellow glow. Dust floated around on unseen currents. The room smelt of wood rot and history. This was a good a place as any to die, she thought.

  Her savior was standing bare in front of a pile of mismatched clothing. There were bags under his inhuman eyes. It was far past his bedtime. He settled on a green sweater and a pair of jeans. Instead of putting them on, he stuffed them into a small black backpack. As he turned towards her she turned away. Her eyes roamed anywhere but the nude man before her.

  “Where are you going?” she asked, her mouth sticky from dehydration. She did not want to be alone again. Even if he does not say much to her, he was better company than this part of the woods. There was something unnatural about a forest being this quiet. Where were all the other birds who should be singing? Were they too walking around in human bones?

  “I’m going to fly into town to get medical supplies,” he said.

  So she wasn’t hallucinating, he can fly. She was all at once relieved and upset. She chewed on her bottom lip, not wanting to start an argument. If he can fly to town, why am I still here? She thought.

  “Even flying there as fast as I can, it will take me until midday to get back,” he said, sensing her argument. “Even that may be too much time away. You are very weak. It would take much longer for me to lead the rescuers here before it is too late. They can’t fly back like I can.”

  Briar felt it, the disease within her. She could barely move her eyelids; they were so heavy. She wanted to argue but she was too busy dying.

  “Alright,” she said after a heavy pause.

  “Alright.” The word sounded very foreign coming from him. It was as if his tongue was out of use for longer than comfortable.

  “How can you go into town when your eyes look like that?” she asked as he turned away.

  In the sunlight they were as human as hers may seem, their glow stunted to a mild shimmer. But there was still something odd about their depth, as if his pupils continued deep into his skull.

  Briar wondered if the owl was within them, watching.

  “You can see my eyes because you know the truth of us. Others will see what they expect to,” he said, looking back at her.

  “Us? There are other things out there? Am I safe here?” she asked, her voice rising in tone with each panicked question. She had not thought particularly hard about the implications of her being rescued by a previously feathered man. It was just a thing that happened, no need to dwell on it.

  The not-man paused. He did not seem to know what to do with this information. He settled for handing her the hunting knife he used to cut her pants open the previous night. It still had some of her blood dried on it’s dull grey blade.

  “It’s safe,” he said uncomfortably. She could not help but laugh softly at that. It even made her feel slightly better. If the owl man says it's safe, it must be.

  Almost all at once his skin collapsed in on itself as if some unseen plug had been pulled loose. As his flesh shrunk down feathers sprouted and gave shape to the mass. It was much more disgusting than the transformation into his human skin had been. Briar wondered where all of the extra flesh went. As she watched his new body with queasy interest his fresh talons grabbed the bag he had prepared. He spread his wings and disappeared through a broken section of wall.

  ***

  After a few hours of feverishly shifting around in bed, Briar was bored. There was no way of knowing how much time had passed, and no way of knowing how much was left to go. Her life had certainly taken a turn for the interesting as a whole. But right in this moment she was confined to however far she can crawl, and this whimsical decrepit cabin had no television.

  But more importantly, she had to use the bathroom. She had already done unspeakable things as she laid delirious under the tree. She was not going to pee in the bed of a supernatural man. There were some lines she decided she did not want to cross while dying, and that was one of them. Across the cluttered floor of the cabin was a thin wooden door. If there was a bathroom, that was the only place it could be.

  She slowly eased herself backwards onto the rough wood floor. If she was careful enough, she could drag herself there. It was slow going with how cluttered the floor was. By the time she reached the door of the smaller room she was desperate.

  She brought herself as tall as she could without moving her bum leg to turn the knob.

  “Please be a bathroom,” she begged out loud. As she opened the door she fell heavily on her elbows. To her relief there was a wooden box along the wall. Maybe a toilet? She pulled herself up onto it. It had a large hole cut into the middle. Briar could not see the bottom, but it looked like a traditional outhouse. She hoped it wasn’t some secret entrance to a basement or something.

  Well, if it wasn’t an actual toilet it is one now. She pulled herself up onto the box, struggling to pull her pants low enough. There was quite a long pause before she heard her pee hit any surface. Please, be a toilet.

  ***

  From somewhere outside leaves crunched under heavy steps. Only when she was jolted awake did she realize she must have fallen asleep. She clutched the hunting knife tightly to her throbbing chest. Sometime during her nap the sun had gone down. The holes in the walls were large gaping mouths.

  The doorknob turned. She nearly jumped out of her skin. It was the owl, currently a man. She found herself angry at him.

  “You could have said it was you, you nearly gave me a heart attack,” she said, trying to keep her tone light. He was exhausted, his leg muscles twitching under his pants with each step. He did not acknowledge her panic.

  He walked over to her side and began to unpack his bag. He handed her a sandwich. Although it was just a mass produced, cling wrap covered sandwich from the gas station it was the most delicious thing she had smelled in days. She tore into it hungrily, only stopping momentarily to take in deep breaths. It had been too long without a full meal.

  Out of the bag came three separate bottles. She noticed they were not labelled. Out of each bottle a different pill emerged. He handed them to her with a bottle of water, looking at her expectantly. She shook her head. You do not just take random drugs from woodland critters without at least giving them the opportunity to lie to you.

  “What are they?” she asked after stuffing the last remaining crumbs of bread and cheese into her mouth. He looked at her for a moment as if formulating the words carefully.

  “A painkiller, an antibiotic, an iron pill,” he said.

  She wondered to herself how he got an antibiotic without a prescription. But what other choice did she really have in the matter? She trusts him, and she might get better or she might die. She doesn’t trust him, she definitely dies.

  So she took them. If any of them were really a painkiller she would take that chance. Every thump of her heart sent a fresh wave of pain from her leg. Even with four walls around her and a sort of bed to sleep in, she felt exposed and anxious.

  “I’m scared,” she admitted.

  She felt embarrassed the moment it left her mouth. It was like running into a unicorn and telling it a story about a rough time in high school. The unicorn doesn’t care, it is above everything in her boring life.

  It did not truly hit her until this moment exactly how much her life would change. She assumed she would just die, and it would be over. But she would maybe have to keep on living, dealing with the fallout and pain of the experience. That scared her more than dying here there in that cabin.

  “I need to remove the old cloth before anything else. This will probably hurt,” he said, avoiding her eyes. She appreciated him saying so before he began, but she hated him all the same for having to do it in the first place.

/>   He took the hunting knife from her and lightly ran it down the length of her leg. The hairs on her arms stood up. Her leg felt barely put together as he pulled away the layers of material. Without the pressure of the cloth she felt like a rag doll, stuffed with blood and bones instead of cotton.

  When he pulled the cloth away from her leg she could barely look at it. The gash below her knee had turned a sickening green around the edges. The food she just ate threatened to make a return appearance.

  He removed a slick black bottle from the bag and unscrewed its cap. As he poured the liquid over her wound she realized it was just hydrogen peroxide. Her blood fizzled loudly. It did not hurt as much as she expected, but the sound of it made her nauseous. She could not help but think of sugary sodas. It made her strangely thirsty.

  He did not do any further work on it. They stared at each other, her breathing getting heavier with every passing moment. She could feel her cheeks get hotter against her skull. She finally broke the silence.

  “What else?” she asked, uncomfortable. He finally looked away.

  “I’m waiting for the painkiller,” he said.

  “Oh. Thank you,” Briar said. He nodded without a word.

  He gave an experimental poke at her leg. It still hurt, but the pain was dull around the edges. She nodded for him to continue. He rinsed his hands off in more hydrogen peroxide. From the bag he pulled out a needle and thread. Briar stared at him threading it dumbly before she realized what it is for.

  “Oh my god I am going to puke,” she whispered to herself. She decided to close her eyes. After a few moments she could feel the needle working its way into her flesh, her skin stretched like a snare drum to meet the gap. This felt way worse than the original fall, she thought. At least then she got to fly.

  Whatever painkiller he gave her, this was not a commercial for it. She felt every touch, every stitch. At the very least, she felt just a little high. She wondered how bad it would be without the pills.

  She did not open her eyes until she was sure he had finished making new holes in her flesh. The discolored gash was closed by even stitches from end to end. She wondered how he knew how to do these sorts of things. After all, he usually did not own arms, much less thumbs. She did not want to ask.

  He wrapped her leg in all sorts of layers. Some seemed like white padding, others thick plaster. He was careful to avoid the gash just below her knee. In the end her leg felt secure.

  She wiggled her toes. Her foot was still free. She tried to think back to when her friend from middle school broke her leg. As far as Briar remembered, his foot was also wrapped within the cast. She wondered if that was important. She hoped her bones would grow back straight, but at this point she could just hope for not dying of infection.

  He finished applying the cast with a satisfied nod. His hands travelled over her other limbs, carefully checking for other breaks. Every inch left a wake of pain in its path.

  “I don’t think anything else is broken,” he announced.

  She watched as he shuffled around the small cabin. When he turned he pulled out a pair of scuffed up crutches. He placed them next to her bed for her to reach. She was glad she would not have to drag herself along the floor to use the restroom anymore.

  “So what is your name?” she asked, realizing she had not gotten one before. She was generally more polite than this, but running off of a cliff generally derailed your sense of proper behavior.

  “I don’t have one,” he said.

  Her brow furrowed. She had seen the man spontaneously change form on more than one occasion, and yet that response was the most insane thing she had experienced.

  “Oh come on, everyone has a name,” she said. Literally every person, animal, or place she had personally been introduced to had a name. She even owed some figurines she had decided to name.

  “Owls do not,” he replied.

  There was sense in this, she thought. But it’s hard to say owls do not have names when owls also do not become naked men all that often in her mind.

  “But people do,” she insisted.

  From across the room, she could see his back muscles tense. Despite his current status as a human, he seemed offended by the title. She might as well have called him a spider, or a racoon.

  “I am not a person,” he growled, “I am a woodswalker.”

  She opened her mouth to speak as he shrunk away into a puff of feathers. She wanted to ask what that meant, but his new body was not capable of English.

  “Well my name is Briar,” she said with a small voice as he flew through the empty windowsill. She looked down at her battered body with newfound disgust.

  ***

  Her leg woke her once more, reminding her again of where she was. The pain had made itself known throughout the night, waking her to the pitch black of the cabin. Each time she would call out, each time met with silence. Her savior had left her.

  This time at least, the sun had finally arisen.

  “Where were you?” she asked.

  “I was getting you breakfast before I went to sleep,” he said with a yawn.

  He pulled some foliage out of his bag. They looked like tree leaves to her. But her botanical knowledge was even worse than her animal knowledge. She had hoped for another sandwich. But hey, she was willing to try anything at this point. Her stomach growled.

  “I meant earlier, throughout the night,” she asked. Although she didn’t think she had a claim to know where he was all night, she felt she should at least ask.

  He ignored her questions, pulling out two large rats from his bag. They were dark brown, with blood stains on their once cute faces. Briar felt like she might be sick. She hoped he had just brought food home for himself.

  “For me?” she asked shakily.

  “I’m going to cook them first, but yes. It’s just like any other meat,” he said.

  From somewhere in his piles of stuff he pulled out a camping stove, a busted plate, and a knife. He began removing the fur and organs from the rats at the one small table pushed against the windowsill. By the time he was done, Briar was thoroughly disgusted. And also strangely hungry.

  He lit the camping stove and placed the rats over the burners to cook the pale flesh. He placed them on a small cracked plate with some of the greens.

  “What type of leaf is that?” she asked. She tried to distract herself from the meat.

  “The edible kind,” he replied. He shrugged in a way that was definitely not reassuring. “I don’t eat anything other than meat, but I have seen hikers eat this plant before.”

  He took the time to hunt for her, it would be incredibly rude not to at least try it. Besides, when would be the next time she could have food she was accustomed to?

  It didn’t taste that bad. In fact, it tasted better than anything she has had in a long time. The thought disturbed her. Her teeth made a sickening crunch as she ate the creature's bone and all. He passed her three more pills and the refilled water bottle. She obediently took them down. Anything to dull the pain.

  “How are you feeling today?” he asked, reaching over to place a hand on her forehead. He frowned, pulling away. She leaned in, willing him to come closer. She felt so cold, and he was so warm. “Your fever is worse.”

  “Yeah,” she replied. She didn’t have many words left in her.

  “Get better,” he said, like a command.

  She nodded. The movement hurt her behind her eyes. He yawned heavily. Without another look he shrunk back into his old skin. He flew up to roost atop a support beam holding the patchy roof in place.

  “I think I’m dying,” she whispered up at him. He did not reply.

  ***

  Briar had no idea how many days had passed in the dusty cabin. Her days were punctuated by cycles of taking pills, eating whatever was set in front of her, and occasional trips to the bathroom. She vomited up a lot of the food that was given to her. Her mind felt like it was under a heavy blanket, out of sight and unable to escape.

  But most
ly, she slept. When she was conscious enough to try and count the days she wondered why it was taking so long for help to arrive. She tried to ask him exactly why that was, but was met with stares every time. He was waiting for something.

  Her host spent most nights out of the cabin, perhaps hunting, perhaps not. She had no way of knowing. He was barely in his human skin, only using it to cook her food or hand her pills. When he was in the cabin with her at night, he did not speak much. Instead favoring watching and waiting from his perch. His eyes followed every little move with interest. She felt like she was right back under that tree, wondering if he was going to devour her flesh when she died. She could hardly stand the thought of him anymore.

  The pills were slow working, more slow than she had imagined. There were a few moments where she was delirious, burrowing under more and more of the furs despite her raging fever. She was afraid her brain would cook right out of her skull, scrambled eggs falling out of her ears.

  She slipped further into her delusions. On more than one occasion she was sure a shadowy figure was in the room, just out of her line of sight. She began to think it was death himself. Even she thought that was overly dramatic, but so was death, she rationalized.

  She saw her parents there, murky illusions in the distance. They were fighting as they commonly did, streams of past betrayals flowing back and forth between them. Briar thought if she could just die right, they would be happy. Maybe, they would let go.

  At once there was more than one of the owls across from her. They spoke to each other in hushed tones. The man to the right was gesturing wildly at her. His copy to the left rushed him back outside the cabin. Briar was not sure if she stayed with the original.

  At night she could hear the strange voices again, egging her on from just outside the cabin. Briar would scream horrible things at them until her voice was gone. When she stopped screaming, the voices stopped whispering.