The Tangled Forest

by Marion Grace Woolley

  “Don’t think on it. Simply be grateful we have carrots at all.”

  Bern made more than enough to fill three bowls each. When we wiped up the last with a little bread, he placed his bowl down and sat beside us on the floor. I moved a little closer, Rose moved away.

  “I am so sorry for your loss,” he told us. “My own family were taken at a tender age and I still miss them. But it will soon be spring, and the goatherds will return with news and provisions. Have you given any thought to what you might do?”

  “What do you mean?” I asked.

  “Well, will you stay here to tend to your cow and your geese? Will you wait for another long winter and hope to survive it?”

  “What other way is there?” my sister asked, mistrusting.

  “Why not come down off the hill?”

  “And go where?”

  “There are many places beyond this valley. Hamlets and highways, lakes and dells, sprawling cities and cosy fishing villages.”

  “But this is our home,” I told him.

  All of those places sounded wonderful, but my sister and me had been born in this house. We had been sung to sleep by the stream since our very first night on earth. Tomorrow, Bern would help us to break the frozen ground and we would burry our mother beneath the cherry tree on the opposite bank, beside the small wooden cross which marked our father’s memory. One day, we hoped to rest beside her. If we left this place, who would tend to our mother’s grave?

  “You would not have to leave forever,” Bern said, as though reading my thoughts. “There’s plenty of goatherds’ wives who would be glad of a home like this whilst their husbands graze the valley. Offer them shelter if they’ll keep it clean and cut the grass about your mother’s grave. We’ll just go a wandering until we return. How about the Royal City? That’s something every young woman should see in her life, don’t you think?”

  “The Royal City? Where the king lives?”

  “Aye. The king and the queen, the princes and princesses, the knights and squires, the jesters and the magicians, with all the rest besides.”

  My sister and I exchanged looks.

  When we were babes, our mother told us stories. Some nights they would last for hours, all about the adventures of the mischievous fae folk, the lords and ladies of our world and the other. Rose and I would hold hands in the meadow, spinning until we grew dizzy, pretending to be at a fairy ball until we lost our footing and fell down in the grass.

  Our mother told us that she had once seen the castle with her own two eyes. When she was a small girl, her father had taken her there to deliver a message to the king. I wished now that I could recall all the details of that story. I longed to hear our mother’s voice whisper the words as the clock ticked from midnight to morning.

  “I want to go,” Rose said, surprising me out of my thoughts.

  “But Rose, it’s such a long way—”

  “Which way would we go?” She turned her attention to Bern.

  “I beg your pardon?”

  “Which way would we go, to the castle? Up the hill or down?”

  “Down.”

  “Across the open meadows?”

  “Right across them.”

  “All the way to the hills at the other side?”

  “Right up to the ranges.”

  “And through the pass?”

  Bern nodded and Rose looked at me with a satisfied smile.

  “We would have to go through the mountain pass to reach the castle?” I asked, not sure that I had understood.

  “Indeed,” said Bern. “Right through the Western Woods and out the other side.”

  That was all it took to convince me. I had known all my life that my sister longed to cross the pass. She would sit on her favourite rock beside the stream, gazing out to the far distance. I shared her thoughts. Perhaps our father would be found on the other side. Mayhap he simply got lost and if we could lift the mountains we would see him there, wandering with his hands against their wall, looking for the way back. Although I saw her longing, I had done little to encourage it. To go without a guide, and to leave our mother companionless, was beyond all reason.

  Now we had lost our mother but gained a guide.

  “Very well,” I said, nodding slowly. “If that is what you truly wish, sister dearest, then I shall come with you, to share in your adventures.”

  Bern placed a hand on my shoulder and squeezed.

  RED

  We buried our mother ‘neath the cherry tree. The ground were so tough it took the bear a full day to dig. The wren came a weeping in the branches, like Cock Robin lay beneath. After, we huddled by the fire until our skin turned blue to cream and the last of the snow melted from Bern’s fur.

  Course I was sad, but it were our mother went to sleep and we that stayed awake. There was planning to do and provisions to gather. It took three weeks till the first goatherd passed our way. We heard the bells of his beasts and smelt their musky hide long before they came into view.

  “Holla, holla!” cried the man as he approached. “May the May Queen melt the snows and renew your heart! Where is your lovely mother?”

  When I told him of the news, the man pulled his knitted cap from his head and held it solemnly by his side. He offered his deepest sympathies and asked whether there were owt he could do to ease our burden.

  “Yes,” I replied. “Me and my sister need to leave the valley, to take news further afield. We need a goodwoman to watch over our home, keep it tidy and such. We can’t pay, but our beds would be theirs. There are three, and the stream is sweet and fresh.”

  “Never you fret,” said the man. “I’ll go back up the hill right away and return with just the nanny.”

  That’s how Edwina came to us. She was a plump goatherd’s widow with as much hair on her chin as her head. Her arms were wide and wobbly, her jowls drooped and her backside could barely fit in our mother’s chair, but we liked her much. She were quick to laugh and smart with a joke, and she wielded a rolling pin hearty enough that we had no fear for our possessions.

  Bern stayed with us that night. Edwina in our mother’s bed, snoring fit to shake the foundations, me in my bed, Snow in hers, and Bern beside the fire. When I whispered her name, I was surprised to find my sister sleeping. I had been the one so eager to leave, by rights, I should be at rest. Instead, I lay awake, worried. This house was all we had known since birth. These beds the only we’d ever slept in. All this time I’d wanted to venture into the wilds. Now it would come to pass, I felt anxious.

  If only it wasn’t Bern to guide us. That creature smelt of deception. Sure, he was broad and strong and fearsome, he’d protect us from any terror beyond the trees, but at what cost? It still made no sense to me that he’d just turn up here, tell us some story about our father, then offer to walk us to town. What was in it for him? There had to be a price, but I knew not what it was.

  My breadknife lay beneath my pillow and I was determined to take it with us. I wanted to tell my sister to arm herself, but it would only alarm her. In the past, I had always been certain that my sister thought as I did, yet where Bern was concerned, I was no longer sure she would pick my side over his.

  When morning came, we wrapped our few belongings in old tablecloths and tied them to sticks. There were nothing much to take beside clothes and food. Something to stop our bellies mumbling until the bear could hunt supper: goat cheese, boiled eggs and bread.

  With our bindles over our backs, we hugged Edwina farewell and took our first step on a long adventure. The ice were melting fast on the stream as it raced us down the hillside to the frostbitten grass below. A strange delight overtook my sister and me. Forgetting the bear, we skipped and songged our hearts’ content, until so fatigued we dragged our feet behind us.

  “Be mindful,” Bern said, like an elderly uncle. “This valley may look small, but it stretches further than the eye, and we have many miles to go. Pace yourselves gentle.”

  He weren’t wrong, was Bern. The range looked
grey at dawn, red at noon and blue at sunset, yet never any closer. I thought we’d make it before the owl hooted, and we would, but not on the first day, nor on the second, nor even the third. Each night we looked for a goatherd’s shelter. Simple huts half our height, made from bended willow and dry thatch. They were only big enough for me and Snow to fit inside, tightly curled together like two chicks in a nest.

  Bern slept outside, even when the sky were leaking. The rain seemed to slide off him and he snored as though he didn’t notice. Once, I woke in the night. I don’t know what it were that broke my sleep, but my cloak had slipped from me, so probably the cold. My breath rose in white clouds, but I was so huddled to my sister that I prickled with heat. Rolling over, I came face to face with the bear’s yellow eyes. I jumped clean out of my skin, a scream about to break, but something stopped it. His face was so large it covered the entrance to the shelter, his sloppy wet nose pushed just inside, with his breath heating us through. Yet, unnaturally still. I waved my hand before his eyes and he didn’t even blink.

  The bear slept with his eyes open.

  The next night, I managed to position myself on the other side of my sister, so if I chanced to wake in the night, I wouldn’t have to look upon that ghostly gaze.

  On the fourth evening, we finally reached the pass. Now that I was older and a woman myself, I understood what the goatherds meant about the crag resembling Old Cally’s nethers. The pass rose between the open knees of two rock faces, the steep path a tangle of trees as though the hag of legends sprouted them herself.

  “I’m not sure I wish to go,” Snow said. “It looks terribly dark in there.”

  “Don’t be afraid,” the bear replied. “I’ll keep you safe. I know these woods well.”

  In truth, I shared my sister’s concern, though I kept my mouth tight. There was no shelter that night, so the three of us cuddled together just beyond the treeline. The bear’s fur was thick and warm, so much so that I hardly noticed he stank like a cow’s udder.

  My sister and I were restless. So many sounds we’d never heard before. Cries and wails from deep within the woods. I missed the comforting sound of the stream, and told my sister so.

  “Sorry,” I said. “I’ve made you come all this way. It didn’t look so far.”

  My sister smiled and looked to the trees. “That’s all right. I know it’s far from home and the forest tries to scare us, but I’m glad you made me come. I always wondered where our father went and now we get to see.”

  “It’s not too late,” I said. “We could run away tonight, just us two. Run back home to Edwina. She’d make up our beds and a big pot of stew. We could sit beside the fire and simply dream the rest.”

  Snow shook her head. “No. We’ve come this far. It wouldn’t be fair on Bern to leave him here after all he has done.”

  “We couldn’t outrun him, anyway,” I said. My sister looked at me with a funny sort of frown. “Not that we should, I mean.”

  Snow reached across Bern’s back and took my hand.

  WHITE

  The woods held a different light. All our lives we had looked out upon open skies. Only when the storm clouds came did we see anything close to this. As we entered the woods, I thought we might have to feel our way. Holding onto Bern’s cloak, I allowed him to lead me step by step, Rose clutching my hand behind.

  Yet soon my grip loosened. My eyes grew accustomed to the muted hues. What first was gloom became shade. What was murk became marvel. Green and amber slid beneath our feet as we walked below a canopy untouched by winter. Once we had scaled the steepest incline, the path dipped down to a holloway, a well-trod route beneath an archway of branches. Walking became easier, we could stride three abreast, and sunlight dappled the earth so that my sister and I could play hopscotch along it.

  “This road used to go all the way into your valley,” Bern said. “Then years ago, before any of us were born, there was a dispute between the free people of the hills and the King of the Castle. He sent his men to block up the pass and plant thorny scrub. You can get a horse through it now, but not much else.”

  “How far is it to the castle?” Rose asked.

  “Oh, a long, long way,” Bern replied.

  I hoped he might offer some words of consolation, but his eyes fixed far ahead and his boots met the path at a steady tempo. The drum of his feet sent me into a trance and when we finally stopped I could not tell my north from south, my dawn from dusk.

  “We should rest here the night,” he told us. “That bank of fern over there marks the start of the swamp. We’ll need our wits about us to cross it, so best that we start afresh on the morrow.”

  My sister and I went in search of fallen wood for the fire, whilst Bern set about building a lean-to for shelter. I looked back over my shoulder to watch. His brow furrowed in concentration and I thought at first he was taken by his task. Yet, the more I watched, the more it seemed as though it was something else that stole his thoughts, for he dropped the branches and cursed loudly when he caught himself on a splinter.

  “Come on,” Rose said. “We’d best get wood before dark arrives.”

  My stomach agreed with her, for we had walked a long way without eating.

  There was plenty of rough, and we returned with arms full.

  “Good work,” Bern said, as we piled our stash high. “Very good work.”

  He pulled two bucks from his bag. I was surprised, for I had not seen him hunting. Perhaps he had gone before we woke that morning. They still had their winter coats and looked bright against the mulchy earth. He gave one to each of us to skin whilst he set about sharpening sticks for skewers.

  After we had eaten, we lay for a while beside the fire. It felt warmer in the woods than it had on the plain, and early insects chorused their greetings. It gave me hope that spring would soon be upon us.

  I must have fallen asleep there, for when I awoke the fire had faded to embers and Bern’s cloak was about me. He lay asleep on the other side of the ash, his back to me. Propping myself up on one elbow, I looked about for my sister. When I could not find her, I stood to check the shelter.

  “Rose?” I whispered.

  A twig cracked behind and I turned so fast I lost my footing.

  Rose’s hand reached out to steady me. She held her finger to her lips.

  “Hush, don’t wake him.”

  “Where have you been?”

  “Come and see.”

  I glanced uncertainly behind as she dragged me forward. We trod softly through the trees to a small rise, thick with ferns.

  “Where are we going?”

  “Come.”

  At the top of the bank, my breath caught. It was a sight I could never have dreamt of. Honey fungus glowed like eerie eyes as far as we could see, reflected back in a pool of water on which dark shadows floated. The trees drew back like an open mouth, fringing the water’s edge. A thousand unseen frogs sang their burbling songs, and tiny specks of light skimmed the surface further off. Unlike the honey fungus’s yellow glow, the specks were of the purest white, but so small that if you tried to follow them with your eyes, they appeared to vanish.

  “What is this?” I breathed.

  “It must be the swamp he was talking about.”

  “It’s so beautiful.”

  My sister’s hand squeezed mine in agreement.

  We stood for a very long time. A large ball of green light rose, turned white, and fled through the forest. A dragonfly with wings of glass hovered for a second and was gone. The ghostly form of an owl hooted as it swooped across the sky. It seemed as though everything had somewhere to be. Nothing was still or silent.

  “We should rest,” I said eventually, stifling a yawn.

  We returned to our shelter and curled up together. It felt as though we had only just closed our eyes when Bern’s voice hollered in our ears and the scent of baked oatcakes called us from sleep. Rose groaned and tried to push me away, but I tickled her chin until she opened her eyes.

  After brea
kfast, we tied up our bindles and followed Bern back up the bank. I felt such disappointment when I saw the swamp a second time. In the daylight, it was nothing but a stagnant expanse of black water. Those floating shadows we had seen the night before were nothing more than clumps of moss. The honey fungus looked like slimy mushrooms by day and there were no dancing lights twinkling like mischievous stars. Mist laced the surface, making it hard to see a path across. With Bern going first, we began to hop from mossy clump to mossy clump. Occasionally, the toe of my shoe touched the freezing water and I winced. We had no idea how far the swamp stretched, but I had faith that it would eventually end, and that the other side would bring us closer to the Royal City.

  RED

  The swamp was like our stream back home. I mean, the way it changed its coat. In winter, our stream were frozen almost solid. Just a little water bubbling below, forming icicles down the drop. But, come summer, when all the cold had washed away, it came wide awake and roared down the hill like thunder.

  Only, the swamp came alive at night.

  All my life, I’ll never forget that first sight of it. The goatherds told stories of enchantresses high up in the hills. I thought to myself, if such a sorceress did exist, she’d live in a place like this, all aglow, friends with the dragonfly and the owl. It half made me want to be magic myself.

  Anyway, it weren’t like that come morning. Squelch, squelch, squelch, we went as we hopped across the steppingstones. The water was cold as death and I dreaded falling in. The strangest thing were just how quiet it went. After the frogs and the owls and the insects the night before, it gave me the shudders.

  The sun were past the yardarm, as our mother would say, yet still we was crossing. My legs ached with the effort and I could see Snow’s shoulders sagging as she bounced from isle to isle. It were ‘specially awkward for the bear, his four fat paws seeking space. With the smaller patches, he had to leap across, raising his forepaws as his back ones landed. Though he didn’t seem so fussed. It looked as though he’d done it a hundred times before. Even through the mist he found the path.