by Aaron, Blair
“Why do you cry, sir?” his little voice said, elf-like and magical.
Father O'Grady smiled from ear to ear. “Because you're home, little one! We missed you so,” he said, burying the boy in his bear-like chest, taking in his heartbeat with his own. The boy pushed back, squirming to get out of Father O'Grady's hands. Ennis jumped down onto the ground, his feet curiously bare, and ran into the crowd of people. “My sir, where are you going?” Father O'Grady called back, before returning his attention to the young woman at his face. He helped her up by the small of her hand, and she smiled back at him. “Miss Lili, did you go off and become a hero for your son?”
“I tried,” she said, looking around the crowd in the waning evening light. She seemed so grateful all her townspeople looked after he so intently.
“We are lucky you have returned,” Father O'Grady said. “This has never happened even once in my lifetime. Please tell us how you made it back?” But she didn't answer him, a tiredness growing in her eyes, as if she had just returned from a long marathon or war. She glanced down at the third figure, whom none of the people in the crowd had ever met. Father O'Grady gasped when he realized he had almost stepped on the unconscious blond man at his feet. He kneeled down to the man, whose upper cheek featured a dark and purple bruise, his ragged clothes hanging in disconcerted shreds from his body. He was hairless and beautiful, blond hair and black eyebrows, perfectly symmetrical about his face. Lili stooped down as well, taking the man's paw in her hand, placing a single soft thankful kiss on his knuckles.
“My hero,” she whispered, as the congregation carried her away before her emotions took over. Holding her in their arms, an elderly couple guided Lili past the crowd of people, toward the safety of the church-house, passing a curvaceous and subtly beautiful woman in the process. This was Elsa, the hero of our story. There were several women in the crowd, and they all seemed to take a peculiar interest in Lili's predicament, but possessed even more infatuation with the stranger in their midst. The fading sun, setting on the girls' round and ruddy cheeks, reflected an interest one might expect from much younger ladies, still in their teens.
“I hope she's okay,” one of them said. “Maybe she brought back a husband for us.” The woman laughed.
“That's such an indecorous thing to say, madam. Take it back. He's so beautiful. Who is he?” asked another lady, her broad shoulders grabbing the aforementioned curvaceous woman, pointing her in the direction of the crowd's concentration. “Elsa, look.”
Elsa could not look, as the throng of legs and bodies blocked her view of the scene. She shifted her gaze back and forth, attempting to get a better look at whom Father O'Grady was talking to. “I can't see,” she said, feigning less interest than she had. “Let's forget it, gossips. We should focus on what we have regained. Lili and Ennis have been returned to us.” The comment had a powerful effect on snapping the two other women back into their places, as flashes of genuine guilt spread over their faces.
“You're absolutely correct,” one said. “We mustn’t speak so lightly of a great tragedy which has been averted.”
They all agreed with the woman, tightening their collars and rectifying their attention to the solemnity of the situation. This didn't last long, though, as the entire crowd moved as one entity, closer and closer, to the man laying on the ground near Father O'Grady. The blond man was in this moment a feature in some exotic show, inadvertently put on by the leaders of the town. The crowd filed in a single line past the man, getting one good glimpse, then moving on for the people waiting behind them. When Elsa's turn came, she saw this young, beautiful man sleeping soundly at her feet, while Father O'Grady called for the local healer to fetch a white sheet on which to carry him. Elsa experienced a strange recognition upon seeing this man, a familiar feeling overcoming Elsa for reasons she was not yet aware of. Around and about him, and between the unsightly forest border and the wheel-track leading into the main area of the town, was a natural pattern which resembled a threshold for the man exiting the forest, a circular red ivy careening around the contours of his physical shape, cradling him in a way that Elsa imagined the ivy offered its fragrance and fragile beauty, as a token for the blossoming recognition growing inside her, beckoning her to take pity on the broken creature before her.
That night, undressing and placing her garments in the washing basin, Elsa massaged her clothes through the warm water, tilting her head as she daydreamed about the day's developments. Her thoughts centered around this man who emerged from the forest. Elsa had never seen the stranger anywhere before throughout the town, as its small population facilitate that its people know each other fairly well, while there were some occasional exceptions. The blond man might have seen Lili walk into the forest and chased after her, though if he had any family, the town would have known he was missing. But there was another possibility--that the man was a forest dweller to begin with, and Elsa's imagination sparked to life numerous ideas, but she immediately felt guilty about them. Her parents taught her she should do everything to remain safe and sound in the towns, away from the uncertain creature which resided in the woods. She rushed to shut down the track her mind wanted to go down, put away her laundry, and went to bed.
CHAPTER 2
The next morning, while she attended daily church services, the congregation was abuzz about the mysterious man who saved Lili. The preacher tried his best to focus on his daily lecture, but the crowd was never as responsive as it usually was.
“Today I'd like to remind my beautiful congregation as Waldensians, we have made a sacrifice of poverty in the name of Christ. We are simple town, full of simple people, and if we wish to retain our nobility as Christians, we must continue this path of humble poverty. To be rich in Christ, but poor in funds, is to be the richest man in all of Creation. Amen,” he said, bowing his head at his wooden lectern. The church house, hot dust swirling through the sun rays, aggravated a sneeze Elsa spent several minutes withholding. She sneezed over the back of a young woman's bonnet. Several of the people ahead of her turned back to give her a stern look, sending embarrassed red flushes through Elsa's cheeks. She looked down to avoid their gaze.
“And we witnessed a miracle last night, outside these very doors. Should any of you doubt the power of our Lord, please look down at the front pew for proof, as our dear Lili sits with us once more, her lovely son Ennis by her side. It has been a long time since one of our own have ventured past the borders of our tiny village, into those Forbidden Forests, and longer still, that two of them have returned to speak and see as they did before they left us.” Lili huddled with her son on the front row, covered in a black shawl, frightened and weary of how the other church members would treat her. They were cordial to her, of course, and kind, as the townspeople were to everyone. But there was a titanic undertow of fear coursing the veins of this little village. They feared what Lili had seen, or worse, what knowledge she had brought back with her from her venture into the deep solitude of the forest. So fragile and innocent this town was, with utterly no defense against danger, with not a single violent member.
“Innocence,” the preacher continued, “has been preserved in this village yet another day.”
“And what about the man, sir?” a young girl spoke out from the altar. “What are we to do with him?” she asked.
The preacher looked out over his audience, at the girl who asked the question. He paused in silence, thinking, though the girl believed herself on the verge of castigation for interrupting a leader.
“I'm s-sorry,” she said, before he could respond. “Please forgive me for speaking out of turn, it won't happen again.” She looked away hiding her face.
“My child, this is a place of worship. You belong here as well as anyone else. As for the man, I know you all are thinking of him. I know some of you fear what he might bring to this community, possibly danger.” He stopped, taking a breath. “After some thought, the governor and I have decided to allow him to stay,” he said, grabbing the edges of the p
odium. The entire congregation erupted into confusion and boisterous chatter. Several lone voices peaked out from the vocal rumble and gossip.
“And what should we do with our children? Who's to keep them safe?” one asked.
“Yeah, we have wives and families we cannot protect from someone, should he want to harm us.”
The preacher made an effort to quiet down his people. “We do not believe this man wishes to harm us. He's very ill and has almost no energy. Leaving one of God's creations out to die, when we can help him, is not our way. All of you know this.”
“He will bring others, more dangerous!”
“We have no reason to think he intends to harm us. After all he brought us our sweet Lili and Ennis home. What motive would someone have to harm us, if they would do that?” The congregation quieted down. “We are following of Jesus, who preached love and forgiveness. This man will not bring harm to this village, I can assure you. We are people of peace and kindness. This was most surely the reason he has returned our Lili and Ennis,” the preacher continued.
“Where have you stored him?” another asked.
“We have not stored him anywhere. He resides, resting in the sable cabin on the outskirts of town. Our dear Father O'Grady, along with the resident healer, watches over him. When there is news that changes the course of this story, I will make an official announcement to all of you. Now, if you please, will you follow along with me on Exodus 3:14…” The preacher continued his sermon, ignoring crowd's unrelenting restlessness, as if nothing had interrupted him to begin with.
CHAPTER 3
“Darling,” Elsa said, holding her friend by the shoulders, her face too close for comfort, “please kiss me.” Elsa then kissed Priscilla on the cheek, as she turned away in revulsion. Two other girls, Sarah and Chloe, squealed with delight at Elsa's jocularity. The four girls stood in a circle in Priscilla's bedroom, several candles softly burning in the corner by the door. The room was tight, somewhat crowded, but this was where the girls held their semi-weekly vigils on gossip among the other young people of the town.
“I can't believe you did that to me, Elsie. God will smite me for kissing a girl,” Priscilla said, rubbing her cheek with the palm of her hand.
“Oh you'll be all right,” Elsa said, her smile stretching across her face, in the way a big sister might after she's put a younger sibling in an embarrassing choke hold. Priscilla fell back on the bed, between twin sisters Chloe and Sarah. The twins were red-headed, with powder blue eyes, and their smiles belied a mysterious secret only they knew, bonding them together, a two-person tribe against the outside world.
“Elsie,” one of them said, looking up at her from the ridges of their crafty brows, “we have something to show you.” The sisters were known for pulling pranks and concocting mischief in their tween years, but the community caught wind of their shenanigans and put Elsa in charge of making sure the girls didn't stray too far from God's way. Elsa, still laughing at Priscilla's reaction to her joke, looked over at the twin girls, immediately recognizing their familiar glare when they were up to no good. Elsa caught her breath, folded her billowing dress down, and sat on the edge of the bed.
“Ok,” Elsa said, “let us see what thing you have stolen from Father O'Grady's shed again.”
“Oh no,” Sarah said, fighting back a snicker, “this is not from the shed,” while the other sister dug through a cloth bag, tossing aside the thousand things in her way.
“It's so dark in here, Elsie. I'm afraid I lost it,” Sarah said, the twin digging in the bag.
“You can't serious Sarah,” her sister said. “This is the best thing we have ever gotten for our collection.”
Elsa watched them toss the conversational ball back and forth, her anxiety growing as she anticipated just what “thing” the girls had stolen. While she waited, she tried to make a point to them about the consequences of breaking their moral code not to steal anymore. “You were so young when you developed the habit,” Elsa said, as she waited. “We--that is Father O'Grady and I, along with the rest of the community--thought you might grow out of it. Girls, it's wrong to steal, you know this. You could hurt someone.”
“Here it is!” Sarah said, ignoring Elsa's warnings. She pulled out a rag folded over some mysterious object, and presented the ball of cloth to Elsa, both the girls' expressions resembling that of a cat who had caught a rat and wanted to show their prize to their master. Elsa took a deep breath, and took the present from Sarah's outstretched hand, trying to guess what the cloth hid beneath its layers. She slowly opened the folds of the cloth to reveal crushed red ivy, folded in an irregular, ugly pattern.
“Girls,” Elsa said, trying to catch her breath. “Where did you get this?”
“What is it?” Priscilla said, trying to peek. “I want to see.”
Sarah smiled without hesitation. “We got it from the man in the woods.”
“Ohmmmmm,” Priscilla said. “You should not have done that. Oh you're in trouble now.”
“Do you mean the man who apparently saved Lili?” Elsa asked Sarah, her eyes dilating with panic.
“Yes ma'am!”
“Oh dear God,” Elsa said, dropping the ivy down onto the floor. Priscilla, though the same age and stature as Elsa, possessed a mind far younger in years than her body. Priscilla approached the wad of cloth laying there on the floor, and it seemed to all of them, the ivy nestled in the rag waited for each of them to hold it, as a baby who's been separated from its mother might. All four girls stood there in silence, before Elsa told them what they were to do.
“Sarah and Chloe, you made a grave mistake. How many times has Father O'Grady made it clear we are not to go near the edge of the forest?”
Sarah could see trouble was on her horizon, again. “Yes, but you don't understand. We didn't get the ivy from the woods. We got it from the man who came out of the woods,” she said.
Elsa thought for a second about the man whom she watched last night, lying in the grass, unconscious, as Father O'Grady sent for medical help to bring him to shelter. The image which had been burned into her mind from the moment she laid eyes on him, a fact Elsa had unconsciously ignored, did indeed feature a beautiful, yet poisonous red ivy encircling the contours of his comatose frame. Her mind raced, attempting to separate the different potential reasons she panicked so strongly upon realizing she was so close to the red ivy. She wondered if Sarah's gift made her nervous because it came so recently from the magical woods that surrounded their village and therefore might still exude intoxicating influences. Another reason, however, might be that the plant and its evocative color reminded Elsa of a still stronger emotion regarding the stranger who ventured into their tiny community, an electric feeling she had put in the back of her mind the instant she became aware of its birth, for fear of what the feeling she had developed for the man might mean for her future. She wiped the sweat from the palms of her hand.
“Listen to me for just a second,” Elsa said, looking at all three of them. “We are not to speak of this to anyone in the village until I figure out what to do. Do you understand what I'm saying, Chloe and Sarah?”
“Of course. But why? Father O'Grady would not have allowed the man to stay in our town if he was a danger. Did you not hear his sermon today?”
“I did. But this is different. You have crossed a line both he and the rest of your guardians have warned you about. This time there will be consequences that you cannot ignore. I am thinking about your safety, do you see?” Both the girls nodded in agreement. “I do not enjoy keeping secrets from my people,” Elsa continued, “but you have given no choice.”
“We understand,” Sarah said, looking worried.
CHAPTER 4
Elsa undressed from services for the day, and as she took off her top, she noticed a red smear on the white cotton area of her brazier. Her fingers were smeared with red, and she wondered for a brief moment whether the ivy had thorns on it. But she wasn't bleeding. She went over to the water basin on the table, splas
hing water on her fingers, leaving a faint pink across the skin. Elsa poured a dollop of water on the area on her cotton dress which was smeared with red. But the water only diluted the color. Panicking, Elsa scrubbed the area harder and harder, making only a small dint in restoring the white on her dress. She began to breathe heavily, feeling as if the evil forest was on its way right now, this night, ready to close her in its grasp forever. The sounds around her tiny cabin home, normally a faint and reassuring gesture from the natural world, in that moment posed a sinister overtone to her life. Elsa felt more isolated with every passing moment, in the faint yellow light that cast a tint across her face, creating playful shadows on the wall, where the white light from her gas lamp and the moonlight intermingled, casting a magical tint over everyday angles and familiar objects in her house. The blue-tinted darkness of the night, spilling through the window, blurred the boundary in Elsa's mind between her real life and the imaginary place in her head, a place she had been warned was dangerous to ever-shackling freedom, but the sight of the red ivy tonight, along with the memory of the strange man from the forest recalled by it, weakened Elsa's resolve. There was something in that man she longed to understand and know, in a more comprehensive way than she had ever known her schoolmates or life mates.
She tried to calm herself, as she crawled into her clean bed sheets, alone in her room, with only the candle at her nightstand and the quiet of the town as it fell asleep with her. She lay in bed, her thoughts circling around that mysterious man with blond hair and beautiful blue eyes. That night, she had a dream about Lili, standing at the edge of the forest, with her back to the town. In Elsa's dream, she could not speak, and try though she might to get Lili's attention, warning her not to enter the forest, Elsa could not make a sound. Elsa waved her hands up in the air, screaming at the top of her lungs, but to no avail, as her dream world kept her silent. Before she took her first steps into the Forbidden Forest, Lili took one look back at the crowd of people gathered near the church, her eyes blood shot and bleary from the incessant longing for her son, her gaze piercing through Elsa's perspective. Elsa felt like Lili was staring straight through her, and as Lili turned back and made her way into the forest, Elsa's heart sank with every step Lili took. Then Elsa bolted out of bed, her heart racing, her stomach drenched in sweat, her head pounding.