The Tangled Forest

by Marion Grace Woolley

  My father had been a trapper, walking through the woods in search of deer and foxes. One day he found my mother collecting water from the brook. He stopped to talk with her, and by the next full moon they were wed. I do not remember my father, for he disappeared in the snow one winter and never returned.

  I did not know that they had first kissed beneath the twisted crabapple, and I wished my mother had never told me, for all the sadness of losing that beautiful tree returned.

  I told her that I did not know who cut it down, for I wanted her to like the woodcutter’s son, and I knew that she would not if she knew the truth.

  8

  By the Thursday I was to dine, all the snow had melted from the ground. A few stubborn drifts circled the trees by the path, but there were no longer animal tracks to follow, or snowballs to throw. As I walked to town, I wondered whether I was being watched, but I had not felt my friend’s presence since the day he saw me with the woodcutter’s son.

  I didn’t care what the witch said. I knew that he did feel something, and that is why I had not seen him since. We had played together as children, we knew all the rules to our games, yet the game I played with the woodcutter’s son – he did not know that. How separate he must have felt from our world. How separate I must have made him feel.

  I kicked lumps of wet leaves along the path until I remembered where I was heading, and that my shoes were of satin not leather.

  The woodcutter’s son met me by the fountain and walked me to the door of their fine house. It was built of the best wood and beautifully carved, the eaves painted in blue and red. His stepmother opened the door. Her dark hair was pinned behind in a severe bun, her eyes examining me as though I were a strange species, unsure whether to roast me or broil.

  Their dining room was cosy: a long wooden table with high-backed chairs and an open fire. My cheeks were soon aflush as I allowed the woodcutter to take my cloak. I had forgotten how tall he was. The firelight danced off his doublet, highlighting the gold in his hair.

  “Take a seat,” his wife said, indicating the end of the table.

  I sat opposite the son, whilst she sat opposite the father.

  “So,” the woodcutter said to his son. “You finally found something of worth in those woods?”

  I felt a jolt as the woman kicked her husband beneath the table.

  “Be polite,” she warned.

  “I only meant that this young lady is more pleasing than most of the things he drags home. She is neither rough nor rotting.”

  “Forgive my husband,” the stepmother said. “He was educated by peasants and raised on rum.”

  I smiled and was grateful for the soup which was carried from the kitchen by a maid.

  We sipped from our spoons in silence before she asked about my family, about my interests and my objections. I felt as though I were under interrogation by a palace guard. I told her that I lived with my mother, I enjoyed walking in the woods and collecting herbs, and that I objected strongly to the smell of the hogsty on the other side of town. This caused her husband to laugh, bringing his fist down hard upon the table so that the silverware clattered.

  His son remained silent throughout much of the meal. I did not think him afraid of his father, it was just that the woodcutter’s presence was so large in body and voice, that he filled the room. It seemed we could only speak in the spaces in between, and there were few.

  It pleased me to see that they ate quickly.

  When their meal was eventually finished, and we had taken our fill of sugared almonds and strong black tea, I found myself once again on the doorstep. The stepmother told her son to fetch my cloak. In his absence, she took me by the crook of my arm and led me into the street.

  “You are a pretty girl,” she told me. “Quite charming, in fact.”

  “Thank you,” I replied, surprised by the compliment.

  “But you are not suitable for my son.”

  “I beg your pardon?”

  “You are unsuitable,” she said bluntly. “And you should thank me for telling you straight, for he is much like his father. More like him than he’d care to admit, I’m sure. You would have a difficult life together.”

  It was at that moment my woodcutter arrived, carrying my white cloak. He placed it about my shoulders and walked me to the edge of the woods.

  “What is it?” he asked. “You haven’t said a word since we left the house.”

  “Nothing,” I replied, shaking my head with a smile. “I am just tired, that is all.”

  “It is a long way home. Would you like me to walk with you?”

  I shook my head again.

  There was a strong sense of relief at finally being alone, hidden beneath that dark canopy, away from bright lamps and enquiring eyes. I breathed the scent of damp earth and my shoulders began to lower.

  That is when I heard a twig crack.

  I turned, expecting to see my friend between the trees, yet there was no one.

  “Hello?” I asked the waiting woods.

  Listening hard for the sound of steps, I eventually turned away. I smiled a little at the thought of my woodland friend. He had finally returned after all this time. His unseen company lifted my feet a little higher as I walked.

  *

  It was the next day that the Woman in the Woods found me.

  I was peeling bark from a fallen birch when I turned and there she was. Dressed in a skirt of fawn and moss, I almost didn’t see her. She blended so well with the trees. I had never known her beyond the Western Woods, and could tell from the way she was standing that something was wrong.

  “Would you come with me, child?” she asked.

  “Why? Where are we going?”

  “To my cottage.”

  There was something about the way she asked that caused me not to question. I took the empty basket that she carried, following in her steady stride. As we approached the gate, the scent of gingerbread caught my throat, its sugar slightly charred.

  “What is it? Why have you brought me here?” I repeated.

  As the door opened, my question was answered.

  A figure lay on the witch’s straw bed. The fire in the centre of the room had been allowed to burn low, and it was almost as cold inside as it was out. As I approached, I realised she had done that because my friend had a fever. Sweat beaded his brow, his lips flaked like the birch bark in my pocket. I reached out my hand before drawing back.

  “You can touch him,” she said. “He’s been bitten by the black viper, not the plague.”

  I reached out again and pressed the back of my hand to his forehead.

  “Don’t you keep a cure?”

  “The black viper is the only snake for which I know no cure,” she said, biting her lip and looking away.

  “How long has he been this way?”

  “Three days now, and it’s getting worse.”

  “Three days? But that is impossible—” I began, thinking of the night before when we walked together in the woods.

  “Of course it is possible,” she snapped. “I have been here, bent over his bed, the entire time.”

  “Why did you come for me now?”

  “Because I do not know how much time he has left, and I thought you would want to be with him.”

  Her words chilled me. I stared at him again, reaching for a candle to see his face clearly. He was as pale as my cloak, only his cheeks held a little colour. Beneath his eyes I saw thick smudges of soot, his hair ploughed into rows of sweat.

  “What can I do?” I asked.

  “Tend to him. Fetch cold water from the stream and keep a compress to his forehead. Drip milk and water against his lips and sing to him, if you can think of a tune. I know of an old woman who lives far deeper in the Western Woods. I have only visited her twice in my entire life, and now I must seek her thrice. She is the only person I know of who might possess a potion capable of calling him home. It will take me three days to walk there and back.”

  “I promise, I will not lea
ve him.”

  “He may be dead before I return.”

  “And he may not.”

  She looked at me hard and nodded.

  “There is food in the pantry. Don’t forget to feed Proudfoot. I will pass by your mother’s cottage and leave a note.”

  “What will it say?”

  “That you have found a new path to travel and wish to see where it ends. Your mother will worry less on the reason, so long as she knows when she’ll see you next.”

  With that, the Woman in the Woods left.

  As the door closed behind her, the sight of my friend gave way to the sound of his ragged breathing. It wheezed and gurgled through his lungs, causing him to struggle for every moment of life.

  I did as the witch suggested, fetching ice-cold water from the stream and pressing a cloth to his face. I sang to myself as I did this, simple songs my mother had once sung to me as a child.

  By sunset, his fever had turned from fire to frost. He felt as cold as a corpse and shivered constantly. I took the birch bark from my pocket and placed it in the centre of the fire. It caught quickly, flaring bright and bold in the dark. Piling on kindling and logs, I coaxed a healthy blaze.

  Feeling my own belly tighten, I made a simple broth of onions, wild garlic, and the remains of a chicken I found hanging in the pantry. I ate my share with bread, and used the tip of a towel to place a little in his mouth.

  “You must eat,” I told him. “You need your strength to chase through the woods and climb trees.”

  I asked him whether he remembered the day we’d climbed the twisted crabapple, or the first day he’d followed me to the edge of the garden. I asked him why he kept the red bead about his neck, or whether he’d missed me after I’d left. I asked him a hundred questions and received not one reply.

  The next morning, I woke beside the fire, stinking of ash. I ran to his bedside and at first thought he was dead, for his chest barely moved. I pulled back the covers to rest my ear against him, and as I did so the end of the covers fell from his feet.

  For the first time, I saw the damage the viper’s fangs had done.

  The whole of his ankle was swollen like a head. There were two tiny eyeholes weeping pus, and a broken vein across it like a grim smile. I thought of the swelling as a hornet’s nest; a stinging, angry infestation of swarming pain beneath his skin. I wanted to take a stick and beat it out of him, but had enough sense to resist.

  Instead, I fetched more water and held the cloth to his ankle. The pus oozed all the worse when I did. Green and yellow, with a sickly scent.

  As I pressed, his chest began to rise and fall a little faster. I was not sure whether this was a good sign or a bad one, but at least it meant he was alive.

  After breakfasting on warm milk, I opened the door a little to let light in.

  “You’re not buried yet,” I said. “You should see the sun.”

  His eyes remained close, yet he seemed calmer.

  When he shivered, I built the fire high. When he fevered, I blew it out. I shivered and sweated alongside him, yet hardly seemed to feel it. On the evening of the second day, I placed my head beside him and realised that he smelled stale. I warmed a little water and wiped him down with a cloth. I could not clean his back, and I would not clean between his thighs, but I soaped beneath his arms and down his legs. The water was grey by the time I’d finished.

  Even though there was no room in the bed, I made a small space for myself against the wall. I fell asleep with my nose pressed to his neck, as we had when we were very small, the night before he was taken. I wondered why my mother had been so angry when she found us, for at that moment it felt like pure innocence.

  I woke at midnight. His breathing came in bubbles from his lips. As I held the candle high I was aghast to see those bubbles crimson.

  “No,” I whispered, struggling to my feet.

  For the first time since the witch left, I realised that she had spoken true. He very well might die, and I hadn’t believed her. I felt certain that my presence could pull him back, and now I was not certain at all.

  I tried to think through my panic. Here I stood, in a witch’s cottage, surrounded by herbs. I began pulling down bottles from the shelves. I didn’t recognise half of them: black powder, blue powder, purple and red. I opened the cupboards and upturned the urns. Eventually, I amassed a small pile of plants that I did know. Simmering a pot, I threw in shepherd’s purse, yarrow, and birthroot. I forced him to drink half a cup before heating a knitting needle over the fire and puncturing his wound. The eyes had stopped weeping, crusting to brown. When my needle ruptured his skin, thick sludge seeped all over my skirt.

  It was the most awful thing I had ever seen. After washing the wound with saltwater, I stripped down and boiled my dress. Naked, I hugged myself by the fire until it was once again dry.

  I sat there until sunrise, afraid to close my eyes in case he left me in my sleep.

  When morning came, Proudfoot appeared by the door, calling to me until I fetched him some fish. I was grateful to have a distraction, someone else to take care of, someone very much in the land of the living. The smell of the pus remained in the air, though thankfully faded. My friend was shivering a little less, but his eyes remained closed. I set about cleaning the cottage to clear my mind.

  It was an hour past sunset when the Woman in the Woods returned. She paused at the gate, looking to me in the doorway. When we both smiled she knew that he was still alive, and I knew that she had found a cure.

  “Banshee root,” she told me, removing a black glass bottle from her shawl. “It doesn’t grow in this part of the woods.”

  She went straight to his bedside, placing her hand across his brow.

  “You have done well,” she said. “His fever is down and his breathing is steady.” She glanced about at all of her herbs rearranged on the shelves, but said nothing about them. “Bring me a cup of warm water,” she instructed.

  Emptying the bottle into the cup, she stirred three times and raised it to his lips. The liquid left a black stain on his teeth. I leaned a little closer to see whether I could hear him breathing. The next moment, I landed on my rump by the fire. He was screaming louder than I had ever heard a man scream.

  I looked up at the witch, who was holding her sides with laughter.

  “They don’t call it banshee root for nothing,” she said. “Help me hold him down.”

  I climbed over and took one arm whilst she held the other. The screaming didn’t last long, but the shock of it lasted a lifetime. He took in great gulps of air and expelled them as though he were casting out demons.

  When he finally finished, he fell back against his pillow in a deep sleep. Only, this time, the sound of his breathing was regular and smooth. No more wheezing or gurgling, no more bubbles of blood. He looked at peace, and a little of the colour had returned to his face.

  “Tell me about the Woman in the West,” I asked, as the witch brought a pot of tea to the table. “Who is she? Where does she come from?”

  “She came from here, once upon a time. She is who I will be in years to come. One day, there will be a witch in this house who is not me. I will journey west, and she will journey further west still.”

  “Where does west go?”

  “To the other side of death, my dear. If you walk far enough.”

  “Is the Woman in the West dead?”

  “No, just old.”

  I thought about this whilst I sipped my tea. “How long will he be asleep?”

  “Until morning, I suspect.”

  “May I stay?”

  She shrugged the way she always did when she neither approved nor disapproved of a matter, so I shoehorned myself in against the wall, and pressed my nose back to my friend’s neck. The witch fell asleep in her rocking chair beside the fire, and we asked our dreams what the next day might bring.

  I woke again at midnight, or I thought I did, for the next morning, I doubted it had happened at all. Unlike before, I woke gently. There we
re no sounds of distress. I simply opened my eyes to darkness, and a sense that someone was watching. Raising my eyes, I saw my friend staring down at me from his pillow. Those black eyes reflected the last of the lamplight as moons. We lay there silently, staring at one another, until eventually my lashes grew heavy and I slept once more.

  Come morning, I woke alone. The sheets were pungent and warm, but my friend was not between them. Following the sound of water, I arrived at the door to see him standing naked in a large wooden pail. His back was towards me and the witch was soaping him down with a cloth. She threw a second pail of water over his head, causing his shaggy hair to slide past his shoulders.

  “Child, bring me a towel,” she called.

  My friend turned and I blushed as I raced back inside. I covered my eyes with my hand as I passed the towel to her, and did not open them again until it was safely wound about his midriff.

  In the kitchen, I watched as he bolted down two bowls of porridge, one with salt, the other with honey. He was licking the second bowl clean by the time I was halfway through my first.

  “How are you feeling?” I asked.

  He nodded, but didn’t break a mouthful to answer, sucking a stray oat from his thumb before lifting another spoonful.

  “Drink this,” the witch said, placing a cup of steaming liquid beside him. At first I thought it was tea, but the scent was much sharper. He sniffed it and frowned with suspicion. “You have lost blood and fluids,” she said. “This will help your body to heal.”

  He sniffed again, then took it down in one gulp, hissing between his teeth before dipping his finger in the honey pot.

  “Such a big baby,” the witch tutted, and he scowled at her as she scraped the last of the porridge pot into his bowl.

  I left that evening. Not because I wanted to, but because I knew my mother would be worried. I rarely spent more than a night from home, unless Grandmother was ill. Yet when I arrived back at my cottage, mother was smiling and singing to herself as though she had been licking pollen again.