The Tangled Forest

by Marion Grace Woolley

  The Tangled Forest

  Marion Grace Woolley

  Copyright ©2018 Marion Grace Woolley. All rights reserved.

  Cover design Victoria Cooper Art. First published October 2018.

  For enquiries: www.authormgw.co.uk

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  Content

  Wolfish

  Red & White

  Skin

  Wolfish

  For Love

  1

  My childhood was a thousand summer days on the edge of Forever. In the evenings, fireflies appeared in the tall grass outside our cottage. I would tiptoe barefoot across the dew-drenched lawn, down to the edge of the woods to watch them glow.

  Phosphorescent lanterns, blinking in the dark. If I held my breath they would continue to glow until I caught one. When I peered through my fingers, their embers cast deep valleys of my fortune lines; each a river of ink forging softly folded mountains. I never thought to fear the shadows, for light always outshone them.

  Above our cottage, the land fell away a thousand feet. I could stand on the ledge and look below to a handful of glittering lights, as though the valley floor reflected back the sky. I knew each of those lights by name: Baker, Farrier, Chandler, Seamstress and Skinner. And there, furthest of all, so as my eyes strained to see, my grandmother’s house. Tucked beside her blazing hearth, in a room that smelled of melted sugar and nutmeg.

  The Soul Singers whistled from the trees, calling me back from the edge. Even as a small child, I had trouble telling how far was too far. I could stand as soon as I left the womb. One foot in front of the other, in front of the other, walking towards a world just out of reach.

  The breeze in those days seemed a beautiful thing. Always soft against my skin. I blushed as it kissed me, cherry-ripe cheeks as bright as rain. I picked dandelion buds and held them to the sky, watching as each silken parasol leapt free of its mother and floated away, sometimes towards the woods, sometimes out across the valley – out beyond the baker, the farrier, the chandler, the seamstress and the skinner. When the wind blew that way, I whispered words to them as they left me. Words I wanted my grandmother to hear, so that she would know that I thought of her.

  My mother and I often walked to Grandmother’s. We packed baskets with bread, cheese and barley beer. Mother stopped to buy shredded tobacco for Grandmother’s pipe, and we often stayed overnight, for it was a long walk. I loved those easy evenings. Grandmother asleep in her chair by the fire. My mother and me on her soft bed, sinking beneath feather-plumped pillows that smelled of harvest and haystacks.

  For the journey home, Grandmother would fill our empty baskets with honey, herbs and lucky heather. Pressing her parchment lips against my cheek, she would tell me to be good. Tell me to do as my mother told me.

  In my memories, the road through the woods was always cast in sunlight. Golden as Grandmother’s honey, dripping between trees to stripe the path like a wildcat’s tail. Pine needles paved our way, springy beneath our feet. We stopped to collect the longest ones for sewing, and to scrape sap to dress our cuts and scalds.

  I was never afraid of the woods when I was little, because the woods were full of trees, and trees were our friends. They stood tall and strong, straight and true. At night they swayed with softly hooting owls, whilst hedgehogs roamed below, prickly with needles of their own. There was nothing to fear in the darkness of the forest.

  *

  My mother bathed me each night in a wooden tub beside the fire. I loved to feel warm water over my skin whilst watching faces form in the flames: sprites with pointed teeth, crunching on kindling.

  Mother would often tell me stories as she combed my hair. She spoke of a farrier’s son who melted metal to mould into keys that unlocked secret doors. She spoke of a door in a cottage, high on a hill, and a key that unlocked the dreams within. She spoke of a key made of living flesh, which unlocked a door with a child inside. She spoke of a key made of a child which unlocked a heart so filled with love that it overflowed the room and ran out through the rivers and the hills and the valleys.

  She would often weep as she told these stories, as though her own love overflowed in salty streams down her cheeks. Once, I caught these tears on my tongue and could not eat for a week. The bread tasted sour, the stew stung my lips, even water was sharp as glass. I never touched my mother’s tears again.

  When winter arrived, the garden became a blanket of white. My most favourite memories are of waking early on frost-filled days to see the untouched snow. I would pull on my little red boots and my thick woollen jumper, and stand for an eternity in the doorway to our cottage. I had to be sure where to place my feet, for once the surface is broken, it can never be repaired. It can never be as perfect as it first was.

  I would tread softly, walking spirals from the door to the centre of the garden, creating a snail shell that touched the edges of the trees. I would walk to the very lip of the cliff, then retrace my path, so that it looked as though I had gone in only one direction – right to the end of never – then taken flight.

  The trees in the forest bowed and bent with the weight of sky, their thick needles providing shelter for all the spirits of the woodland. The forest was like a giant tent with a snowy roof above and a soft bed of leaves beneath.

  We would walk the woods, my mother and me, all the way to Grandmother’s house, whether it was raining or snowing, springtime, summer, or the very depths of winter. For my mother was Grandmother’s only daughter, as I was my mother’s.

  “We must look after one another,” my mother told me.

  *

  Whilst at Grandmother’s house, Mother would leave for long periods at a time. Sometimes from mid-morning until after the sun had set. I would ask Grandmother where she went, and she would tell me that she went into the woods to collect food, or that she visited the baker, the chandler and the soap maker, but when she returned, she never brought gifts.

  She would kiss my cheek softly as she left, and I would follow her to the white gate at the end of Grandmother’s cottage, waving until she was out of sight. Then Grandmother would take me inside and teach me how to crochet squares, which became blankets, and how to knot rags, which became mats. We would work, side by side, into the evenings. When it was time to stoke the fire, I was in charge of rescuing the ladybugs and woodlice which sheltered amidst the logs. I gathered them up and took them into the garden to find new homes.

  Sometimes, whilst we worked, Grandmother would tell stories.

  She talked of the ondines who lived in the river, their silver hair causing light to dance between ripples, and of sylphs who floated on the summer breeze, carrying bees and butterflies from flower to flower. She told me stories of the clouds, and the adventures they had seen beyond the purple mountains, and spoke of the gnomes who lived beneath the earth and pushed up daffodils in spring.

  Every now and then, once a moon or so, Grandmother’s brow would furrow and her tales turn dark. When this happened, she would gaze into the hearth, flames flickering in her ancient eyes. Her lips would tighten and she’d speak of things I did not understand.

  “But Grandmother,” I would say, calling her back. “Tell me again of the Healing Tree and the Upstanding Oak. Tell me of snowdrops and marigolds, and how you collect the lucky heather.”

  She would look at me for a moment, then nod. Reaching for the silver bowl beside the fire, we would pop lemon drops onto our tongues and suck.

  When my mother returned, she was often exhausted. She would lie on Grandmother’s bed and sigh, and I would leave my sewing to fall on top of her, pressing my head against her shoulder and taking her hair in my hands. My mother’s hair was soft as sable. Sometimes I would tickle her with it as she slept.
She would wrinkle her nose and turn her face away.

  In the mornings, Grandmother made a hearty breakfast. Eggs would spit in butter upon a cast iron pan that was too heavy for me to lift. There were rashers of bacon and lumps of black pudding, potatoes fried with thyme, and tomatoes fresh off the vine in season. She would bake dandelion roots and grind them with boiling water, lightened with milk from her cow and thick with honey. My lips glistened with grease and I would go down to the stream to wash myself.

  The road home always felt longer than the road to Grandmother’s. It was the same road, only our house was at the top of the hill, which was harder to climb up than go down.

  The day of the storm, we had been at Grandmother’s. We ate breakfast, washed ourselves in the stream, and packed our basket with goodies to take home. I kissed Grandmother goodbye, then Mother and me began our slow walk home.

  We passed the baker, filling the air with the soft, sweet scent of dough. Mother stopped to buy a loaf. We passed the farrier, filling the air with smoke and soot, concealing within a river of molten metal. A shire horse stood outside. I held a peppermint on the flat of my palm and it snorted warm air, tickling my cheek. We passed the chandler, filling the air with waxy residue. Outside, sticks of blue, green, yellow and red hung up to dry. We bought oil for our lamps and a fat round candle for Mother’s reading. We passed the seamstress, filling the air with lavender and camphor to keep the moths away. Her dresses were so fine, I’d imagine myself a princess and longed for the day I was old enough to wear one. We passed the skinner, my least favourite shop, filling the air with the scent of raw meat. Soft pelts of hare and fox stretched out on large wooden frames.

  Then we entered the woods. I liked it there better than in town. Without any eyes upon me but my mother’s, I would kick off my shoes and run barefoot between the trees. Mother had given me a little knife, which I used to cut saffron milk caps and slippery jacks. The birds would flit between the branches above, the siskin, redwing and shy capercaillie. I knew each of their calls, and would call back.

  When we arrived at our house, I ran in to drop my basket and shoes, then I was out again before Mother caught up. A house is a place for sleeping. A place for warm patchwork quilts and dunking gingerbread cookies in steaming milk. It is a place for reading and bath-tubbing by the fire. All true living is to be done out of doors.

  “Come back before it gets dark,” Mother told me, as she always told me. “The moon is thin tonight.”

  Beneath a full moon, the whole world was bright at night. She would not be cross if I stayed out a little longer. Yet when the moon was slim, and there was no light, she feared I might lose my way. What Mother didn’t know was that, during the darkest nights, the candles in her window burned brightest. It was even easier to find my way home through the dark.

  That evening, I was watching a spider weave its web between branches. Its fine silk strands began to billow as the Soul Singers whispered that a storm was coming. A single drop of rain fell between the trees and landed against my nose, sliding to my chin like a tear. I wiped it away and headed for home.

  At the exact point where the woods ended and our garden began, grey whorls flashed above, erupting into a thousand shards of sky. Within moments the ground formed one, large puddle.

  Mother appeared at the door, calling my name.

  “I’m here, mama,” I cried.

  “Run to me,” she called. “Don’t think.”

  I did as I was told and ran to my mother’s arms. She pulled me to her, closing the door behind. Inside, she wrapped me in a warm blanket by the fire, whilst she heated water for my bath.

  “We’ll get you hotted up,” she said. “Keep away the chill.”

  The entire house shook. Ceiling lanterns swung on their chains, water leapt from the pot in a hundred circles, and windows rattled in their casing. Mother cowered beside me and I was afraid.

  Swift as she could, she stood and brushed down her dress.

  “It’s only thunder, baby,” she said. “It’s only the gods calling to one another across the valley.”

  I longed to be at Grandmother’s house, safe down there in the lowland, not exposed at the top of our cliff. I wanted the trees to grow up around us and muffle the gods’ terrible cries.

  Once the water was ready, she lifted me into the tub and began soaping my skin with a soft cloth. She hummed a lullaby whilst she worked. Outside, lightning lit up the sky. Between flashes I could see my reflection in the window, but when the forks flew to earth I was gone.

  Again thunder came, and I felt the water around me shake as mother poured a jug to rinse out my hair.

  “Oh, mama!” I cried.

  “What is it, little one?”

  “There! There at the window – a face!”

  She looked up, but the lightning had dimmed and all she saw was our own reflection.

  “It’s you, darling. Only you.”

  “No, mama. I know my own face. It was not me.”

  She kissed my shoulder and went to collect a towel from the chair.

  “Time to dry.” She smiled, turning back. “Sit by the fire and stay warm. I’ll put on the milk and bring Grandmother’s cookies.”

  She bundled me up and placed me in the chair, my hair a scragged mess about my face, droplets rolling down my nose and chin. As she straightened, her hand flew to her breast. I turned to the window to see what she had seen, but could not.

  “Wait here, my darling.”

  “What is it?” I asked, but she left without reply.

  My mind was distracted by the fire, the hiss and pop of wood sending up sparks. The way the flames swayed before my eyes, I lost track of time. I may have stared an hour or a day.

  I was brought back to myself by a chill wind which swept through the room, cowing the hearth and lifting the lace from the chair. A heavy hand of rain slapped against the window, as though the sky were impatient to enter.

  At first, I did not see what was in my mother’s arms. My eyes were drawn to her face where a thin seam of red scarred her pale cheek. It was the first time I had ever seen my mother bleed, and the stark contrast of crimson on cream revolted me.

  “Mama!” I cried, making to rise.

  “Stay where you are, baby,” she said. “There was just a little accident in the woods. It’s all right.”

  She knelt by the fire, unburdening herself of her bundle.

  Between the folds of cloth, I saw a face – the face at our window.

  “Who is it?” I asked.

  “I’m not sure. Some local boy who has lost his way.” She dipped her hand in my spent bathwater. “It is still warm enough. Let me bathe him. The poor soul is frozen through.”

  “Did he scratch you?” I asked, tracing the line of her wound against my own cheek.

  “No.” Mother smiled. “He was trapped beneath a fallen branch. It caught me as I moved it aside.”

  I felt ashamed then, for I had thought the boy a beast, when all that time he had been trapped out there, alone and cold, face pressed to the earth with no mother of his own.

  She pulled off the rags that he wore and lifted his naked body into the bath. He was so still, I thought perhaps he was dead.

  As the water began to warm him, his lips parted in a soft cry, like the sound the blacksmith’s dog makes when he thinks you have food in your pocket. His eyelashes fluttered, but did not open. He looked no older than me.

  When she was through bathing him, she lifted him from the tub onto a fresh towel, and dabbed him dry. I left my seat to sit beside them. I reached out my hand and ran my fingers over his chest. It was the skin of a leaf after rain, slippery and smooth. There was a sour smell about him, like milk on the turn, and a thick, knotted scar rode over the edge of his buttock to just above his groin.

  “Was that the tree?” I asked.

  “No,” Mother replied, shaking her head. “That looks much older.”

  That night, all night, my mother held him beside the fire to keep him warm. I slept in th
e chair, occasionally waking to watch them. It was an illusion of childhood, perhaps, but I believed that so long as I remained there with them, he would not leave us.

  When morning finally came, I woke beneath the blanket my mother had drawn over me. The hearth had smouldered to ash, a thin tendril of smoke rising from the last charred log. I knew that I mustn’t let it go out, so I collected kindling from the basket and coaxed it back to life. Only once the flames grew tall did I go to look for my mother.

  I discovered that she had given him my bed. She was seated beside him on a wooden chair with a spinning wheel back. On her lap sat a bowl of milk, which she dapped lightly against his lips with a cloth.

  “Is he awake?” I asked.

  “No, he sleeps still.”

  I went to the door of our cottage and pulled it open.

  The grass sparkled with rain and the sky shone brilliant blue. Between the end of our garden and the start of the woods, a half-hundred branches had fallen. It was almost as though the forest spirits had built a wall between us. Mother would take down that wall and use it for firewood once she was able.

  Along our windows were troughs of flowers, but only shrubbery remained. All of the tall stems had snapped in the wind, and I piled them over with soil. I wanted those fallen flowers to return to the earth, to feed any that remained. I did not wish to look upon their broken beauty because it made me sad.

  The boy did not wake until late evening. The milk my mother gave nourished him back to life, but he was still too weak to tell his name. Mother allowed me to remain silently by his side whilst she prepared our own meal.

  I had collected a handful of snail shells and threaded them into a necklace, which I showed him. Mostly, they were swirls of yellow and black, though a few were bleached white by the sun. His eyes fixed upon them, but he did not raise his hand to touch.

  “When you are well,” I told him, “I will make you one.”