Pete and Mallon helped her over the high bushes and sharp strands of tall grasses, and the three of them stumbled into some medieval depiction of hell. The clearing was crowded with state troopers, park rangers, and local cops firing guns on advancing tree-beings made of branches and sticks. The tree-beings were ripping off limbs, digging into chest cavities, and hurling bodies against rocks and trees. Officers were running, screaming, wrestling, and emptying clips into the creatures. Mostly, they were coming apart or falling to the ground at the branch-hands of those they were fighting.
And in the middle of it all, those infernal vines snaking up from the chasm were greedily grabbing the bodies of the fallen and dragging them back down into its depths.
“Jesus Christ,” Mallon said, taking it all in with a quiet expression of sadness. He unzipped his backpack and handed Pete the blowtorch.
“Anything comes near her,” he told Pete, “and you torch it.”
Pete nodded dumbly, taking the blowtorch from him. “Captain—”
Mallon clapped him on the shoulder and gave him a paternal smile. Then he pulled out the chainsaw and dropped the backpack at Julia’s feet. He took a few steps forward and revved it up. The chaos swallowed any sound it might have made, but its presence was felt, particularly by the tree-creatures. For several seconds, the battles slowed to a stop.
The tree-creatures rustled anxiously, growling and grunting at Mallon but keeping their distance. Julia guessed they had never seen modern technology like that—an ax to the eleventh power, a lightly buzzing, relentless, sawing beast. They appeared to sense it was a dangerous human tool, though, whatever it was.
Mallon strode toward the chasm. He had covered half the distance before a huge tree-creature, much bigger than all the others, with blue pits of fire for eyes, stepped between the captain and the chasm. Julia gasped. She supposed that was the forest king, the one who had gone insane. It was a moving tree-man, a personification of the forest itself, of all that Nilhollow was.
It leaned down and roared so loudly in Mallon’s face that it blew back his hair. If he was scared, it didn’t show. He closed his eyes until the roar was spent, then opened them and revved the chainsaw again. All around him, the surviving officers cheered. The littler tree-beings watched with the eyes of threatened animals.
The giant tree-creature, unlike the little ones, either didn’t understand the tool in Mallon’s hand or was too crazy to care. It raised a massive fist and swung downward, intent on smashing Mallon into the earth, but at the same time, the captain swung the chainsaw to meet it. With a hungry buzzing, the chainsaw ate into the meat of the tree-creature’s hand and it howled. It yanked back its arm, and several of its long, sharp branch-fingers fell to the ground like so much kindling. Mallon jabbed the chainsaw up and buried it almost all the way to the handle in the creature’s arm. It shook itself free only by letting the blade saw from the center of the forearm to the outer edge, and more branches dropped to the ground. Sap oozed up between the splintered and damaged wood, a liquid bandage, Julia figured, while the wound healed.
It thundered in frustration and pain and no small amount of indignation and took a step closer. Mallon moved surprisingly fast, stepping toward the creature and burying the chainsaw into its leg. His arms shook with the force of the chainsaw jerking its way through the massive bark-covered wood and thick roots.
With a bass growl Julia felt in her chest, it grabbed Mallon and yanked him off its leg, shoving him hard across the clearing and bouncing him off a tree. Julia cried out. The assembled officers held a collective breath. The littler tree-creatures grunted and growled, still on guard. Pete shoved the blowtorch into her hands and ran to help him.
The chainsaw skittered across the ground in the other direction, far out of Mallon’s reach, and its safety feature shut it off.
The enormous tree creature took a step forward toward Mallon but the bottom half of its chain-sawed leg dangled beneath it, useless. Some of its roots fell away. It growled as sap oozed between both ends to knit them back together.
Mallon groaned and sat up. The bones in his left forearm were poking through the skin like jagged twigs. Pete reached him just then and helped him struggle to his feet.
When its leg was sufficiently repaired, the tree-creature advanced on Mallon and Pete, stalking them like a tiger. Even in its insanity, it understood Mallon to be dangerous, a being with tools that could cause it undue pain, and it was suspicious.
Julia felt numb, encased in a fog. She didn’t fully register the fact that she had been moving, that she had been steadily limping in the direction of the tree creature, until she found herself inches behind it. Pete’s and Mallon’s attention was on the looming, vicious thing above them. They didn’t seem to see her. If the other officers saw her, they said nothing. Maybe they knew before she did what she was planning on doing, and didn’t want to give it away to either the giant or the littler tree-creatures. After all, if they had never seen a chainsaw, then it was likely they had never seen a blowtorch, either . . .
And then something snapped inside of Julia. Years of anger she had pushed so far down that it had become guilt, tumbled upward. Years of biting her tongue, of accepting her fate, of letting things pass by her because she didn’t think she was worthy enough to hold on to them anyway, surged up from the depths of her soul. Like those fucking vines, tendrils of emotion snaked their way all through her, and the fog was strangled to nothingness. It might very well have been Nilhollow’s crazy-sickness finally taking hold, or it might have been pent-up years of resentment toward Darren and her parents and all the people who had taken and taken and never given back. Maybe it was her admiration for Captain Mallon and her feelings for Pete. Whatever the catalyst, suddenly she was filled with a rage as hot and bright as the pain in her ankle. This forest had taken so much, had caused so much loss and death. It had ruined lives. It had broken people’s bodies, but worse, it had broken people’s minds. It had stolen their sense of self, and to Julia, that was absolutely unforgivable. No more, goddammit. No fucking more.
She turned on the blowtorch and held the flame to the recently restored leg of the large tree-creature, the flame as blue and hot as that loathsome creature’s eyes, and she set the fucker on fire.
It jerked its leg up, away from the perceived source of burning and pain. Its sudden movement startled her, and she fell over. She managed to pull herself out of the way just seconds before the creature brought its burning leg down, shaking the ground. All around the clearing, the tree-beings rustled with nervous energy.
The giant tree-creature, the mad king of the forest, caught fire quickly, a colossal wicker-man flailing as the fire ate into its wood. It stumbled backward toward the chasm, teetering on its edge, and its roar was so loud that the trees themselves shook. It was a primal sound, an ancient sound, a world dying.
The king is grumbling, she thought, and laughed wildly.
The vines reached up from the chasm and dove into the flames, wrapping around the tree-creature’s legs. It took many vines, one after the other, taking hold of the creature’s legs. Julia thought they were trying to pull the creature down into the chasm and she grunted in satisfaction.
They didn’t, though, not exactly. The tree-being, now a fire-being, let out one final roar as the vines yanked, and a bright blue light pulled itself free of the burning body and faded into the sky. The collection of branches, roots, and vines that it had consisted of collapsed in a flaming pile of firewood. The vines pulled the burning wood into the chasm in a flurry of embers that winked out one by one.
The stunned officers said nothing. For several minutes, silence reigned.
Then the little tree-creatures, the elementals of Nilhollow, gathered together. Their movements were solemn and proud. She could feel their emotions, bright like beacons, and those feelings were complicated. There was sadness and relief, anger and respect, weariness and acceptance. Of all the emotions they projected outward, acceptance was the strongest. The little tree
-creatures had lived for tens of thousands of years, and they would continue on for tens of thousands more, and time would continue to change things. Things would live, die, and rot away. That was the way of everything.
A mournful song of the wind, a keening, filled the whole clearing. Julia thought she could hear words in it, but she wasn’t sure. They were not the words of the clearing, not the endless attacks of hate and fear, the malevolent suggestions of depravity. The words were of inner peace, and Julia found the sentiment endearing, even if she didn’t understand.
Then they broke apart into columns of leaves, swirling autumn dervishes that strong winds rushed to carry away. In moments, all traces of the littler tree-creatures were gone.
Julia felt arms around her and turned into them to find Pete had swept her up in a big hug.
“I’m so proud of you. I knew you were tough. You saved our lives,” he whispered in her ear. She could hear the smile in his voice, and it made her smile, too, even as her eyes filled with tears.
A voice came from the assembled crowd. “Is it over?” There weren’t many officers left. Besides Julia and Pete and Captain Mallon, who was making his way over to the couple with his version of a warm and congratulatory smile, there were six others, ragged and bloody and breathing hard. Each of them was looking at Julia with a mix of amazement and appreciation, and it made her feel good.
Then she noticed another person standing at the edge of the chasm, a tall, gaunt, almost skeletal man with a bedraggled gray beard and long gray hair. His clothes were gold mottled with gray, and his skin was desiccated, a sickly ashen color. The eyes were full of copper light.
Julia felt the world go out from under her, and would have fainted if Pete hadn’t been there to hold her up.
I know you, she thought as the world came back into focus. I dreamed you. I hate you.
“Who’s that?” Pete asked, seeing the recognition on her face.
The figure made its slow and stately way toward Julia. “She knows,” the figure said. “So do you, Pete. We’ve met before, remember?” As the thing walked, Perry’s face rippled across its face and then rippled back again.
“You’re the Turning of the Earth,” Pete said.
Mallon looked at him, surprised, and moved silently away, in the direction of the backpack.
“I am the socks and shoes!” it said with insane, hysterical glee. “The peanut butter and the jelly! I am the degeneration. Yes, yes, I’m what has been called the Turning of the Earth, a force before time and space. And our mutual friend Julia has sent away my best pet. For taking something, I feel she should give something in return, don’t you?”
“Stay away from her,” Pete said, stepping between them.
“Oh, Pete,” it said, obviously suppressing a giggle. “What are you going to do about it? You can’t cut me up into little pieces with your chainsaw or send me up in flames. Destruction begets destruction. And beautiful, freeing madness feeds on madness. Have I always been mad? I don’t remember. I don’t care. I am the endless loop of endings.” The Turning laughed as if appreciating some private joke.
Then suddenly it grew serious. “Give me Julia. I’ve decided that I want her.”
“You can’t have her,” Pete said. Then he went flying backward, coughing and sputtering where he landed, like the wind had been knocked out of him.
“It’s not up to you,” the thing said placidly. It turned to Julia and seemed surprised to find Mallon had returned to her side.
She noticed the captain had a few sheets of paper in his hand. He regarded the Turning with cold eyes. Then he spoke to it in a language Julia had never heard before.
To her surprise, the Turning recoiled as if slapped.
“You are not a shaman,” it said, but the smug superiority of its tone had changed.
Mallon spoke to it again in that same language, pulling a fistful of something out of his pocket and tossing it in the face of the Turning. It looked to Julia like oregano, but from the way the thing cried out when the flakes touched it, she supposed it must have been something more powerful. Captain Mallon took a step toward the thing and spoke several words in that same language over and over—six or seven times before Julia lost count—and with each iteration, the Turning took a step backward.
“No!” it cried loudly, trying to drown out Mallon’s voice. “No!” Around the clearing, the wind was picking up. It blew through the trees, rustling the leaves, and Julia would have sworn that they sounded excited, even triumphant. She figured that whatever Mallon was doing, he was weakening the Turning’s hold over the elementals, and they were cheering him on.
Mallon had advanced, matching the Turning step for step in its retreat to the chasm, his deep voice almost chant-like as he unrolled a carpet of words in that strange language, occasionally punctuating what he was saying with a fistful of herbs in the Turning’s face. He was armed with something better than a chainsaw or a blowtorch, apparently.
The Turning’s head darted back and forth. Julia thought it must be trying to draw strength to fight back, maybe from the people around or maybe from the elementals, but Captain Mallon kept going. As they reached the edge of the chasm, he produced a stone knife from his other pocket and cut his palm. Then he squeezed his hand into a fist and dripped the blood into the chasm, never once stopping or even slowing the flow of words. The Turning cried out and tumbled backward into the chasm, its scream fading for a long time before it finally stopped altogether.
Finally, Mallon’s prayer or spell or ritual, whatever it was, came to a whispered end, and he let go of a long and tension-filled breath. He turned to the assembled officers and Julia with a small, satisfied smile. It was replaced by a small “Oh” of surprise as he was jerked backward, and in the next minute, the vine around his leg had yanked him down and he was gone.
Julia screamed. For several seconds, no one moved. No one breathed. Julia’s mind refused to accept it. It wasn’t fair. After all that had happened . . . why couldn’t everything be just fine?
Pete seemed to snap out of his shock and he ran to the edge of the chasm. Several other surviving officers who could still run followed. Julia did her best to limp after them.
Just as they reached the chasm, a hand flipped over the edge and slapped the dirt. It was followed a moment later by the other hand, still clutching the stone knife, its blade sticky with a substance that was clear and kind of jellylike, with threads of loosely clotted blood. It smoked up from the blade.
Hope sprung in Julia’s chest at the relieved looks on Pete’s and the officers’ faces. They reached down and grabbed the arms attached to those hands, and hauled Captain Stan Mallon out of the jaws of the chasm.
Tears of relief spilled down Julia’s cheeks as she caught up to the crowd, and she threw her arms around Mallon in a warm hug. Then she limped over to stand next to Pete.
Mallon glanced back toward the chasm and whispered a few more words under his breath, and the fading copper glow far down in its gullet went dark.
Satisfied, Mallon gave a grunt. “Let’s get the hell out of here.”
Pete looped an arm under Julia’s and wrapped it around her back to help her walk. She turned to him, suddenly overwhelmed by her feelings for him, and kissed his cheek.
“I hope that was okay,” she said with a shy smile.
He leaned in and kissed her on the mouth, and every part of her warmed at the sensation. They only parted when the giggles and amused coughs reminded them that others were around. They pulled apart, both blushing and smiling.
“Nice work, Grainger,” Mallon said with a small smile. “Now let’s get the hell out of here.”
* * *
It took about an hour to make their way back to the road. There were no headaches, no fogs of confusion, and while nothing about the appearance or silence of Nilhollow had changed, the air felt lighter, emptier somehow. She didn’t know if it was the security of having others around her or not, but she felt the fundamental change in Nilhollow. The woods would
no longer show her things or rearrange themselves to keep them lost. They were free, and just as Mallon had said, they didn’t have to burn the whole woods down to do it. It would probably take decades, maybe centuries for the effects of the Turning to be broken down and replaced by healthy, natural woods, but the forest had a freshness about it that she associated with finally and completely being over an illness.
“Captain Mallon,” one of the officers asked. “What was it that you said to that thing to send it back to the chasm?”
The captain replied, “They were words from a time and a people who lived side by side with the trees and their guardians. They were words that there is apparently no written language for. They are only ever represented by these stick configurations, these lattices and pyramids. Three-dimensional representations of words. And apparently, they were words given to these people by . . . well, by those even older than that.”
“Okay, I think I follow. But . . . what did you say?”
Captain Mallon shook his head. “Let’s just leave it at this: I told the Turning to take a hike.”
His tone was such that it invited no questions or further comment. Julia was content with that. Maybe some words were meant only for the speaker and the intended listener. They had worked, had set them and all of Nilhollow free, and to Julia, that was all that mattered.
EPILOGUE
It had been so long since the manëtuwàk were truly free that the rest of that night and many others after were spent in the sleep and habitual restricted movement of the past. They were not burdened with violent anger, and by degrees, they remembered more and more of the old days. They blew on the breezes, rippled through the ferns, rustled in the leaves. They felt new vibrancy in the trees they guarded, and over time, they truly reclaimed their forest.
The moving one with the buzzing beast had spoken the old tongue, the words given to the far-moving ones by the ancient forest kings and queens, the gods of the woods. It was the language of the space between worlds, and it had power over forces older even than they were. They had sensed that a far-moving one had explained the sacred meaning of the words to the moving one with the buzzing beast, and had told him that the speaker kept the meaning of the words to himself. To be the chosen speaker meant carrying the import of the words and submitting to a bond to that other world. The speaker would forever see and hear and know things. It was a great responsibility.
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