The doe transformed mid run, skidding in the mud to land fully formed at his side. The doe was built sturdy, all twitchy muscles and broad shoulders. Her large green eyes focused on the body in front of her.
“He needs help. He is dying,” Briar said, stating the obvious.
The woman’s eyes widen, but she doesn’t speak. She leaned down to grab one of his partial wings, staring at her until she grabbed the other side. He opened his mouth in a silent gasp as they lifted him onto his deformed knees.
Briar followed her lead, dragging him to lay against the stag. He was disturbingly light weight. The doe looked up at her and she understood. At once they lifted him to lay across the back of the stag. Blood mingled with chestnut fur. His hooves tapped back and forth nervously.
“Where will you take him?” Briar asked. Her hands were shaky and slick with blood.
“Away.” She finally spoke, her voice quiet.
“Where?” Briar repeated, her eyes on his shallow breathing.
“That is none of your business, one skin. Leave this place and do not come back,” the doe said before jumping back into her old skin. Briar was offended.
“Hello,” The crow said one last time before the stag turned and ran with the doe. She wished he could stay with her until she found the way out.
“Goodbye,” She called out to the inky black bird as it disappeared from view. It cawed loudly in response.
As she stood there, still lost in the forest she could not help but wonder his fate. She really was messed up. Without him by her side it hardly felt real. Then she looked at her blood-soaked shirt. Definitely real.
She walked off blindly. She wasn’t exactly sure if she was still walking in the same direction, but at this point she did not care. The vibrant green of the forest soothed her as much as it could. The direct threat was over with, she hoped. She thought it would be pretty funny if after fighting off an obsessive killer she just died of starvation a few miles from a trail.
***
Her feet slipped on a patch of smooth ground. She landed hard on her knees, gasping for air. She looked around for the first time in an hour. A thin patch of cleared land, stretching as far as the eye can see in either direction. It took a few moments for it to truly register.
“A trail!” she shouted, crying thick tears of relief. She spread herself out along it. When she was out of tears she stood back up.
The left side of the trail curved upwards and around the mountainside. The right side curved downward, steep steps sometimes cut out of the rock. Whatever trail goes up must go down at some point. There wasn’t a way of knowing which side of the trail would lead back to the road.
“Hello is anyone there? Hello?” she screamed as loud as she could. She strained her ears to hear a response, but none came. She at the very least hoped Eric would be close enough to yell for her.
Well, the right side of the trail would be easier to walk down at the moment. It was refreshing to have a predetermined path to follow. No matter how far she would have to walk, this trail would lead her somewhere.
As the sun set she decided to stop. She would not risk losing the trail in the dark. She just barely trusted the forest after this long living in it. She laid on the trail itself, smack dab in the middle of it. If she awoke and everything around her was different, at least it would be obvious.
It finally sunk in. She was alive. She was free. She was going home. He was probably dead. When she imagined things going back to normal, she wasn’t imagining her minimum wage job and tiny apartment. Although really, her job probably fired her for her attendance by now.
Briar stared down at her hands in the lantern glow. The blood was dried and cracked against the ridges in her fingers. She could not believe her hands would do such a thing. She had never even gotten into a fist fight before.
She could feel the impact of the knife hitting flesh again so clearly. It reminded her of times as a child, hitting her mattress as hard as she could. She had wanted to know what it would feel like to hit a living thing, to hurt, to kill.
Now she wished to be free of the memory.
Likely Passing
The fog rolled in thick down the mountainside. She could barely see more than a few feet in front of her. Not knowing the trail made it hard to decide what was safe and what wasn’t. She didn’t want to go tumbling down the mountainside when she was this close to the end.
She slowly began to go down the trail, stopping every few feet to get her bearings. It was slow going, but safer than rushing and tripping off a cliff. Besides, she wasn’t in any hurry to return to her old life. She can almost feel the quiet disappointment coming off of her parents when they got the news. They probably really enjoyed the sympathy.
After a few hours of slow progress, the sun was high enough to dissipate the fog. Going around a bend in the trail the trees parted for a moment to reveal the mountains around her. Weaving amongst the landscape was a thin strip of road peeking through the trees. There were people, real people out there. They were so close. She just had to get to them.
She could hear the dull roar of the road long before she saw it up close. Somewhere nearby the squabbling of crows raged on. She wondered if her savior was amongst them.
“Hello,” she said politely as she passed. Well, if it was one of them, it did not turn to look. She supposed the score was even between them.
She paused, her heart beating wildly. There were so many things she would never be able to tell about what happened to her. How would she explain where she had been this whole time? How would she explain how she survived? Looking down at herself she found at least one thing she would have to get rid of.
Her cast was an obvious sign that she could not have been alone this whole time. No one would believe her if she told them she happened to have packed supplies to put a cast on herself, just in case.
She sat herself down on the dirty trail. She wasn’t exactly sure what questions she would have to answer once she was rescued. Will her leg have healed enough to walk without a cast? She hoped it would, but if it didn’t someone would easily find her on the trail before long.
Before she could change her mind she rifled through her pack for the second hunting knife. Her other knife was still laying in the soft dirt, covered in dried blood by now. She tried not to think about it, but it kept worming its way into her brain. Hey, remember how you probably killed your lover? It would whisper from the corner of her mind.
She slid the knife down the length of her cast, testing the sharpness of the blade. It was pretty dull, well used by whomever wielded it last. She thought of how much flesh the knife must have seen. It was its purpose after all. She would have to press harder if she wanted this thing off. She hacked at the layers until they slid down to the stony ground.
The leg was strangely bumpy and irritated. She probably didn’t keep it as dry as it needed to be. Her heart ached with the memory of the lake, swimming amongst the stars. The gash was fully healed on the surface, leaving an angry patch of fresh flesh behind. She would carry that scar with her always. She scratched one finger up and down the length of her freshly mended bone.
She began to put the pieces of cast in her pack before thinking better of it. The whole damn point of taking the thing off was to hide the fact that she had it. With a guilty heart she threw the cast over the side of the trail. She had never littered before, ever.
She wished she hadn’t abandoned her crutches somewhere in the chaos from before. Despite their importance she can’t remember where last she had them. She stood before she could think better of it. Her leg held her diminished weight. Looking down at herself she was sure her legs no longer matched.
The mountain must be playing tricks on her. She heard the cars for quite some time now, but they must be bouncing off of the terrain around her. She felt like she was right there, but she must have a ways to go.
The trail gradually shifted from cliffside to smoother meadows. Wildflowers sprouted up amongst the softer soils tha
t make up the lower elevations. Thick bushes as tall as Briar begin to line the trail, attracting all sorts of flitting insects.
As Briar passed, she almost missed it amongst the vegetation. It was an old piece of lumber nailed to a pole cemented in the ground. The text was carved heavily into the wood. All sorts of plant life grew up the sides of it. Until that moment she wasn’t certain that the trail actually was a trail. She let out a heavy breath.
“Scaldweed trail, fifteen mile loop,” she read out loud. The arrow pointed back the way she came.
If the trail sign was here, the trailhead must be very close. Her heart was up in her throat. All she could hear was the uneven thump of it pulsing in her ears. She wasn’t sure if she was excited, or going to puke. Maybe a little of both.
The trail ahead slowly widened, the trees pushed further and further back. The trail curved one final time. A car darted past the opening. The sight of it sent a feverish energy through her, compelling her forward past the barrier of the trees.
She stopped in her tracks, panting at the transition between earth and asphalt. Her tattered boots felt foreign on the hard surface. The small parking lot was vacant. She had the trail to herself. She took one last glance back at the wilderness behind her. She hoped it was the last trail she would ever hike.
Briar stood at the edge of the road. Here in the lower reaches of the valley mist still clung to the air. Beams of light shined down through the spindly trees that lined the road. She breathed in the sharp air before it was over. Here, the maintained wilderness was calm enough to miss.
Briar knew she would not come back.
A small black car wound its way down the road to her right. Her breath caught in her throat, her hand frozen at her side. She was not sure if she was ready to go back to the real world. The car sped up to pass her before she could decide. She could not blame them.
She did not have to wait long for another opportunity. A beige sedan. Again she faced the question. The car came to a skid before her, hazard lights flashing. Briar hadn’t even offered her thumb. She looked down at herself. She had forgotten all the blood dried to her clothing.
***
The hospital was a blur of official people on official business. They ran tests and drew blood and ran tests and drew blood until she was all out of information to give. She felt raw and open like a dissected frog.
The owl had been right about some things. They had not been looking for her.
The clothes she had last been seen in were found torn in a well known bear stomping ground. They searched the area for a few weeks, but it was presumed that there was no corpse left to find. They went so far as to slaughter a bear who was known to be particularly interested in humans.
Briar mourned the bear she never met. She felt vindicated knowing her clothes did not simply vanish from the shoreline. When she asked how they knew what she was wearing, she was told that the couple in the next tent over reported them missing when they didn’t return the next day.
Her parents were notified of her likely passing. Briar was not sure what she expected their response would be. From what she could gather from the buzz around her recovery, she had already been ‘buried’ back home. Somewhere under the earth was a casket with her favorite jeans tucked away inside. The mental image made her laugh. The social worker thought that was inappropriate.
Unlike Briars parents, her Uncle did not stop looking. Despite the ominous circumstances of their disappearance they held out hope that their daughter would eventually be found. They hung flyers at every trailhead. They organized searches. Instead of attending Briar’s ‘funeral’ they stayed in the town and worked hard for their daughter. Briar was proud of them. Aster deserved every moment of that.
She had been gone forty-eight days. Just long enough, the doctors said, for the bones in her leg to be almost entirely healed. Turns out, she had left at just the right moment. They briefly questioned how her leg healed so well, but those questions were of the miraculous nature, not malicious.
When she was finally released from all of the testing they placed her in a semi-private room. She was in a thin paper gown that barely covered her shame, but it was preferable to stolen clothes. She wondered where her pack went. Despite everything she wanted it back. Maybe it would sit, unopened on her floor forever. She wanted the option, at least.
“Briar!” A woman called out.
She was standing on the other side of the room just next to the privacy curtain. She did not look familiar, but then again Briar was not very good with faces. The only thing that stood out to her was her eyes. Under the harsh fluorescent lights her deep brown eyes still glowed.
“I’m Michelle, Eric’s mom,” she said.
The woman saw Briar’s confusion and pulled back the curtain. The man who stood by the foot of the bed had Eric’s face, but with none of the warmth. He took a few steps away from his son at the intrusion.
“Eric!” She shouted, before covering her mouth. She was told her fellow missing person had been found too, but it was different seeing him safe and sound.
“Briar, I’d like you to meet my parents,” he said.
“Thank you for bringing our kit home,” the father said, crossing the room in quick strides to shake her weary hand. There was something unspoken in his behavior. He thought he should have gone home sooner. “William.”
“He got here first,” her tired brain pointed out.
Eric laughed. “Have you eaten yet?” he interrupted. “You sound like I did when I got here. I ate three trays of food.” Briar shook her head once before stopping. It made her dizzy.
“They wanted to run a whole bunch of tests on me so they said I had to wait for after,” she recalled, although that had to be over ten hours ago.
“We will see about getting you some food in a moment,” the mother said, sitting down at the foot of her son's bed. It creaked under their combined weight.
“Have you talked to anyone about it yet?” he asked, his voice hushed.
“Not extensively,” she said. “They’ve been focused on getting me fixed up.”
“I told them I was with you since I got lost. I hunted food for both of us. I was with you when we found Aster. We got separated when we saw a bear,” he said.
Briar’s eyes felt heavy. Being in a real bed, even a shitty hospital one, was the most amazing thing she had felt in months. She put all her concentration on keeping her eyes open.
“The owl doesn’t exist. We don’t know what happened to Aster. Nothing you learned about exists,” he continued.
“It’s a lot for one day,” Michelle said, patting her son's hand to stop him from continuing. “Your world just got a lot larger, a lot more overwhelming.”
“None of this ends today,” she continued. “For the rest of your life you will have to handle this knowledge.”
“If you need any help with adjusting we will be one phone call away,” William said. Although he said ‘we’ he meant ‘any of the others’. “Or you could write.”
“Do you know where they put my stuff?” She asked.
“I’ll get it,” Michelle said. “They brought it in not long ago.”
She pulled her filth encrusted pack out of the stark white cabinet. Briar eagerly unzipped it. The contents were not in the same locations she left them. Briar wondered who had gone through it, the police or the foxes? She pulled out the familiar deep green knitted fabric.
“I still have your clothes.” Briar said dumbly. She turned to look at his matching paper gown.
“Yeah we didn’t think that plan through very well,” he said.
“That tends to happen when people run for their lives,” Briar said.
“True,” Eric smiled for the briefest second. “It took a lot of convincing to get someone to give me a ride to the hospital.”
“I’ll go see about some food,” his mother said, glancing at her mate to follow her out the door.
“I’m so glad to see you,” Briar said.
“I’m happy yo
u aren’t dead too,” Eric said.
Take Care of It
Her first visitors, besides the police, arrived at the moment she was allowed to have them. The pair rushed into the room, desperate to touch her as if to verify that she was real. There was an eagerness in their postures that made her close her eyes.
“Oh sweetheart we are so, so sorry.” The woman said.
Michelle shifted from her seat by Eric’s side, a smile growing on her face. “Are these your parents?” She asked.
“No,” Briar said flatly.
Although she had given the nurse their home phone number when she first arrived. They were probably trying to get time off work, or funds for a flight.
“I could see where you’d think that. I’m her uncle Christopher. Family resemblance.” The man said, gesturing at the complete lack of facial similarity.
Briar took more after her mother’s side of the family, or so she was told. She didn’t seem to believe that either. Christopher and her father were both square men with thick dark hair.
“We should go get some rest,” William cut in, standing abruptly before introductions could be made. The pair crossed the room without a word. Michelle gave an apologetic look at Briar before she shut the door behind them.
“You understand don’t you sweetie?” Her aunt Trudy said as she drew the privacy curtain across the middle of the room. Eric gave a brief wave before being shunned to the other side.
“How are you feeling?” Trudy said.
“Glad to see you weren’t eaten by a bear.” Christopher said.
“I feel like I have used all of the energy for a lifetime in a month.” Briar said. The pleasantries warmed her from the inside out. For a few minutes she could slip back into a better version of her life before.
“I can’t imagine what you have gone through these past few weeks.” Trudy said. “Being out there away from the trails, living like a filthy animal…” She trailed off. Briar snuck a guilty look at her companion behind the curtains.
Pluck (The Woodswalker Novels) Page 19