He turned from her to pretend she had any modesty left. She shimmied out of the scratchy material of her nightgown. She covered her small breasts with a shivering arm. He turned back towards her and shook his head.
“If you were one of us you would not care,” he said gently. “It's just skin.”
It may just be skin, but it is all she had. He grasped her hand to lead her away. They walked in silence the last few yards, leaving the pocket of light to guard their clothing.
The tree stood unlike any of the peers sharing the space around it. It was larger than most by double in both directions. Although it still had an impressive canopy above it, most of its girth was rotted away. Large pockets of bark peeled away to reveal a dark cavern within.
The large owl who stepped out of the gloom was dwarfed by its home. Briar looked back at him, but he would not meet her eyes. He had not mentioned the elder was another owl, let alone the same species as him. It hopped down onto the ground before them, choosing not to use its drooping wings.
There were other owls peeking out between the rotten husks of the tree. A fluffier owlet was nudged back into the darkness of the bark. They made no other move to join the first.
The man who pulled himself out of the owl skin was an older, crueler copy of her companion. Where soft features dominated his face, harsh lines were instead. Despite his long greying hair and wrinkled mouth he did not carry any of the blurred edges of the elderly.
Some of the softer feathers along his torso do not fall off as they should have. The skin around it puckered red and vulnerable. Briar wondered if some sort of injury prevented him from fully slipping into his human skin.
The older woodswalker looked back and forth between her and her woodswalker. Unlike her companion he wasted no time getting to know her body. Naked eyes on naked skin send a ripple of goosebumps through her. She felt like meat, a corpse before them to be devoured. All that was left was to discuss price.
It’s just skin, she thought.
A stream of language flew between the two men. She cannot understand their words but facial expressions are still the same. The older man was furious, setting more lines in his already creased face with every harsh tone.
Her companion went down on his knees in some sort of show of respect. The old man huffed. When his lined eyes shifted back to her, Briar saw the briefest softening. The man blinked, and it was gone.
“You doubt our decision?” He began.
“I do not doubt your decision. I doubt the wisdom behind it,” Briar said. Her companion clenched next to her.
“How dare you,” The old man replied with a subtle twist of his lips. He scratched absently at his remaining patch of feathers.
“I have come to these mountains every year for over a decade,” she said. “I would not do anything to ruin that. I just want the option to go home.”
“These are not your mountains,” he replied. “You hold no claim here.”
“I don’t make a claim to them. If I did, I wouldn’t be here begging you for my freedom.”
The elderly man directed another stream of angry sounds at her woodswalker. His reply was sharp. Briar looked back at him with a furrowed brow. He didn’t seem too concerned with not disrespecting the man in charge of her fate.
“I have seen weaker councils let people like you go. We have lost too many of our own to take that chance again.” He leaned in closer, stealing glances behind her.
“What can I do to change your mind?” Briar asked. “What can I change to prove myself trustworthy?”
The old man paused, his thin lips spread thinner. Briar felt her heart pound in the silence. Her eyes flickered back to her owl. His shoulders shook like shutters in a hurricane, his fury just as powerful. She shifted her weak leg uncomfortably.
“Our word is final,” the man in charge of her fate said.
“Then why did you agree to see me?” Briar asked. Her fists clenched against her bare thighs.
All at once the men before her stopped breathing. Briar turned to follow the older owl’s eyeline. Heavy footsteps crunched somewhere to their left.
Through the veil of pitch black a beam of light bobbed. The light was all alone. It took Briar a heartbeat to realize why. It was a human, walking just beyond the grove of trees.
She turned back towards the counselor, her lips parted with a question. A cold hand snaked its way over her mouth. Briar wanted to bite it. She struggled against the hand, her drool flowed between his fingers. She turned towards her owl, her brow pulled downward in shock.
He had his eyes closed, As did the counselor. She realized the power she had in that moment, despite her circumstances. They could not tell if the person could see their second soul. There was no way of knowing.
The light grazed the edge of their hiding place as the steps grew closer. Were they a hiker, like she had been? What were they doing out there so late?
Briar watched as her fellow human disappeared into the distance. The sounds of boots faded until she was left alone with the ringing in her ears. She hoped they would find their way home without a hitch.
Her companion removed his damp hand. The men opened their matching eyes.
“Sorry,” he whispered in her ear. She took a step away from him.
“If this is such a massive deal that I know, why am I the only one being punished?” she asked.
“You aren’t being punished for it,” her woodswalker cut in. “If they were following tradition you would have been killed.”
“I’m not talking to you,” she said in a low voice.
“That’s right,” the older man said. “Do you wish for us to change our mind on that?”
“I’m just asking why there are no consequences for him, when he was the one who exposed you?” she asked.
The old man leaned back. His watery eyes shifted back behind her. Briar was just about ready to walk off. They might as well be speaking to each other.
“We cannot afford to lose any more of our own,” he said so quietly Briar had to lean in closer.
Her owl began to tug on her shoulder. She shrugged him off, trying to get closer to the councilor. In response the older man backed closer to the hollowed tree.
“Do not think of trying to escape,” the man said as if reciting a misremembered poem. “We will find you. We will hunt you like so many of you have hunted us.”
He looked down at her mangled leg with a thin smile. “Not like he has to worry about that anyway.”
He, she thought. Why would he have to worry about me escaping? Her companion began to tug her back the way they had come more insistently. Briar did not think the conversation was over, but her weak limbs could not argue with him.
“He has done you no favors.” The old man called out before crawling back into his true skin.
She looked back towards the tree. The owling, now a small child peered out from the tree base, calling out for him in their language. He did not stop to acknowledge it. Briar waved before they disappeared into the gloom.
Honey From Comb
Briar needed advice. He left early the following night to give her some time to think, which she was grateful to have. Asking nicely did not go over too well. He was willing to uproot his whole life to get her safely back to hers, if that is what she wanted. But what did she want?
Without him, she would have been dead. The moment she ran off that cliff her normal life had ended. So was it so bad to stay here, to never come back? She needed someone to talk to. Her heart ached for Aster. This was just the kind of thing that would get her to visit instead of call. This conflict needed vocals.
Briar grabbed her crutches and carefully made her way out into the clearing. She had never tried seeking out the small white rat before, the only times she had seen her was when Pepper had decided to visit on her own. Briar had no idea where her new friend lived.
When Pepper would visit she would always come from the right, crossing the forest in front of the cabin with purpose. Briar was afraid more
than anything that she would walk into the forest and not walk back out.
She went back into the cabin to grab a length of rope. She tied one end loosely around her waist and tied the other to a tree at the far right of the clearing. She would be damned if she was going to let the forest change on her.
Briar set off in the same direction that she had seen Pepper before. The light of the lantern bounced amongst the trunks of the trees, casting a strange jittery glow. She was disoriented even with the rope. She found her wrapping herself around trees more than once, although she swore she was walking in a straight line. It was as if someone was twisting her ropes as she walked, her only discovering so when she turned to check.
Just on the edge of her hearing the forest shuddered. The crunching grew louder as she wandered further ahead. Way above her head two pinpricks of light bobbed in a higher branch.
“Pepper?” she called out, hoping above everything that it happened to be the one woodswalker she was looking for.
To her relief the rat who crawled down the bark was familiar to her. Maybe she was the only one who wasn’t weirded out by the feeling of the forest. Either way, Briar would not look a gift rat in the mouth.
There was surprise in her deep pink eyes as she sprouted in front of her, her pale skin glowing strangely in the lantern light.
“Hello again.” she said. Seeing the panic budding in Briar’s wide eyes she enveloped the taller girl in her arms. Briar breathed in the scent of wildflowers on her hair.
“I think I’m going to stay,” Briar confided. She closed her eyes for a moment. Pepper pulled away with a careful smile.
“But you aren’t sure?” she prompted.
Briar nodded. They sat down on the remains of a mature tree, toppled by some far gone storm. Briar cringed at the thought of Pepper’s bare rump on the rough bark. She didn’t seem to mind.
“My life wasn’t great back home. But there are just enough good things that I think it might be a mistake to give those up.” Briar confided. “Like throwing the baby out with the bathwater or something.”
“It depends on what you want out of life. Surviving in society is definitely easier.” Pepper pointed out.
“How would you know?” Briar asked. She hoped it did not come off as rude.
“I used to live as a pet,” Pepper admitted, her skin flushing heavily.
Briar gasped, although it shouldn’t come as a surprise. There weren’t a lot of little white rats running around the forest for good reason.
“I was born in a cage in town. When I was weaned from my mother I spent time growing and playing with my owner.“ Her eyes gazed off into the distance, her hand tight on her peach fuzz covered thighs. “One day he said he could not afford to keep us. He let us all go at the edge of town. Said we would have a better life out here.”
“It was not better. I’m not meant for this life. I had to learn everything quickly. I was released with my mother and five of my siblings.” Her eyes shimmered with unused tears.
“Did he know you were a woodswalker?” Briar asked softly. Pepper shook her head.
“There is so much danger here. There is a reason my coloring isn’t common in the wild. Only one of my sisters survived along with me, she had brown fur so she stood a better chance,” she continued. Briar reached a hand out to place on hers.
“That’s horrible,” Briar said. The smaller girl curled up into herself. She didn’t seem to have many words left.
“So if you could, you would go back?” Briar asked, her chest heavy with anxiety.
Pepper twitched her head uncomfortably. Her fingers fluttered as if she wanted to escape the question. “At first it was hard to get used to the wild. Now, I think it would be hard to go back to the cage.”
“That doesn’t help me,” Briar groaned. She wasn’t sure which side she stood on. Was she currently in the wild, or the cage?
“Make a list of everything you will miss. Decide what you can live without. Decide what you can change here. I won’t tell you what to do.” Her mood dissolved as if the clouds covering the sun had parted. She gave her a small smile.
“But I need someone to tell me what to do.” Briar said with a groan. Pepper laughed, standing from the log to brush off her backside. Briar reluctantly followed.
“It’s only the rest of your life. You should give it some thought,” Pepper said, placing a quick peck on Briar’s cheek.
***
Briar rooted through her hiking pack for her book. Apologizing quietly to the book itself she ripped out one of the blank pages in the back to write on. The paper was small, but it would have to do. She had a feeling she wouldn’t have much to say.
The small marker she packed ‘just in case’ was finally coming in handy. She sat back down on the porch with her lantern and got to work. Or she expected to. She stared down at the paper until her vision blurred. What did she miss?
She knew what she should write down. People are supposed to miss their families, their friends, their modern conveniences. She drummed her fingers on the page, worry pulling her brow downward.
Briar did not have a good relationship with her parents. Even as a child, she could sense the regret in their worn faces. No matter how wonderful the day it ended in hateful whispers or sorrowful yelps when they were ‘asleep’. Never physical, never in front of the kids, but always on the children’s minds.
Briar began to go further throughout the day to try and stop the fighting. Whatever she was asked to do, she would do. She took the classes they recommended, the major they wanted. She would spend her extra time doing anything to make it a good day. But no day was good enough.
She should have given up, realized it wasn’t up to her. Her older brother had given up on that many years ago. He was more independent, more aggressive. Briar had no idea what they were like before she was born, except for bits and pieces from when her brother was drunk. From what she gathered they had only gotten worse over the years.
She did not write them down.
After graduating college Aster was one of the lucky ones. All of her networking paid off with a job offer straight away. She packed up her life and left Briar behind in their old apartment. Suddenly, Briar stopped getting invited to hang out with her other friends. She realized with dread that she was always Aster’s friend, brought along when Aster was invited too.
She would miss Aster, but they had drifted further apart. They did not live in the same city anymore. It was becoming too expensive to call every week.
She did not write her friends down.
There was not much left. In the end, she felt ashamed that most of her list was simple items or ideas to make life better here. She wanted music, lights, a real bed, a space of her own. Most of these things she could get here with a little bit of work.
As she entered the cabin she noticed a pile of books for the first time near the bed. She was sure she had not seen them there before. They were of all sorts of genres. There were romances, murder mysteries, historical fictions, young adult, even an encyclopedia. The rainbow of covers spoke to something within her.
***
She barely noticed as he entered the room. The sound of a grocery bag crinkling caught her attention. He must have been gone much longer than she thought to get that for her. She cannot help but smile. With luck, she can drown herself in processed food once more.
“Good hunting today?” She said with a smile, carefully standing after laying down for so many hours. Her head was swimming, but she was in good spirits. He returned her smile, but his eyebrows were raised. He didn’t get the joke.
“I thought you would like some of your food,” he said, beginning to remove the contents of the bag. It was clear it was gas station food, being the only thing that was open this late anyway. There were small bags of chips, pre packaged sandwiches, beef jerky, a bottle of soda, even a small tub of ice cream. Briar’s stomach growled loudly.
She grabbed one of the sandwiches and soda, eager to get some caffeine in her. The
soda was warm, and the sandwich mushy but it was the best thing she had tasted in weeks. She made a note to add spices to her list of must haves.
“Would you like to go on another date?” He asked, trailing a finger up and down her arm as she ate. Briar looked up at him, confusion clouding her face.
“If they won’t let me leave the forest, is that safe?” Briar asked, her brow furrowed. his hand stopped cold, his nails pointed down into her flesh.
“We’ll go somewhere deeper in the forest, so it’s clear we aren’t going to town.” He said after a moment. His hand resumed it’s stroking.
“Like where?” She asked, returning to her gorging.
“There is a lake, higher in the mountains. Others meet there to play and discuss matters between communities,” he said, watching her eat without touching the food himself.
“Play?” She asked, although she was sure she already knew the answer.
***
The terrain was more and more difficult as they reached their destination, sweat pouring down his back. The trees were thin, spindly young things that reached high above them. Although they could not see far ahead it seemed that they could stretch on forever. The ground was thick with brambles.
“This is a place for us to congregate with each other in our human skins. They might not take it well that you are there. We have to be respectful.” He said, his voice hushed. Briar nodded, excited to see more of this world she would possibly become a part of.
The spindly trees began to thin out until a smooth pebble shore came into view. The lake materialized before them, as sudden as a dream. She gasped quietly against his back. The water was as smooth as glass, the sky reflected perfectly before them. Hundreds of stars darted in and out on the surface of the waters.
“What is this place called?” Briar asked with a hushed voice. It felt rude to speak any louder.
At the other end of the lake was a group of people, who were very clearly not people. In the dim moonlight they were nothing more than shimmering figures with pinpricks of glow coming from their eyes. They were standing in the shallows, swimming, dancing, and playing.
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