The Waking Forest

by Alyssa Wees

  So the prince, without knowing the whole truth, sent the necromancer away, re-clasping the boy’s chains before the guards led him back to the dungeons. The wearied necromancer met his sister in a dream that night and—

  “Is that it, then?” The Witch pushed herself to sitting. “What of the dead queen? What of the cursed princess? Is that the end of the tale? With everyone falling asleep?”

  The Fox Who Is No Fox sat up too. Their shoulders touched, just barely, and his skin felt like smoke against hers, smooth and singeing. “That is not the end.”

  “What, then? Does anyone even try to wake the princess?”

  The Fox Who Is No Fox stared straight ahead, sucking in his pallid cheeks. She eyed the swirl of scars on the backs of his hands.

  “Yes,” he said, “yes. Two, in fact. The nymph and the gray gorgon. But for that, we will need another night.”

  The Witch said nothing, only staring at her homespun sky. The web of the moon had sagged under the weight of a captured comet, a squirming skein of fire hissing like a fly in a snaggle of shimmering strings. The envy-green venom was fading, like a bruise almost healed. The spiders themselves skirted the horizon, slumped with exhaustion.

  The Fox Who Is No Fox looked at her. “Do you wish for me to stay?”

  The Witch said nothing.

  Finally he sighed, and stood. “Do you wish for me to come back?”

  Still the Witch said nothing.

  “Until tomorrow, then.”

  He walked to that place at the edge of the forest where the children and the foxes whirled between worlds. It was so easy for them, wasn’t it? To bounce back into the kaleidoscopic crush of their own lives, worlds with a sun that rose on its own; and trees that did not talk to the wind; and a sky so high, they were unlikely ever to touch it.

  For her such a dizzying quest was not possible. She could not leave, and she did not want to. No, she did not.

  But she could have stories, and it was almost the same. It was almost like leaving, just for a little while.

  “Wait,” the Witch said. “Please.”

  The Fox Who Is No Fox stopped.

  “Yes?” he asked.

  And the immutable, curious, indefatigable Witch said, “Stay.”

  Crossing the clearing, he knelt down before her. Without looking up, he murmured, “I will stay as long as you wish.”

  After a long warm bath and hours of staring at the ceiling in bed, I decide that the only way forward is to win this mad game I’ve agreed to play. And for that I will need a hint.

  I wait for everyone else to sleep, and then I climb up to the attic, the rain gentle against the roof and the windows, barely audible, sounding the way a tingle feels as it slides along your scalp. A liquid lullaby, and I wish it would stop; I wish the whole world would stop for a moment so that I could catch my breath.

  But the world never stops and wishes don’t work that way, not without candles or a star or a dandelion.

  Everyone in the house is asleep, even Gabrielle. Only I am awake, and the Darkness is too. Before I’ve even reached the top of the stairs, I hear him, breathing. Breathing and pacing, back and forth across the small space in the attic, waiting for me.

  I stop before I cross the threshold.

  “Hello again, Rhea Ravenna.” A pause, and then, much more quietly: “I wasn’t sure you’d come.”

  “How could I not? You are the only one who can help me.” Lingering in the darkened doorway, I jam my thumb into each of the five little punctures in my palm, hard, over and over, and the pain feels like the opposite of hunger, the annihilation of it, filling me up now and for always so that I need never eat anything but my own anger ever again, as addictive and delicious as an apple marked For the fairest one of all.

  “I know this is terrifying for you,” the boy says gently. “But it will end. All things end, eventually. Even the very best of stories. And the worst of them too.”

  “Were you there with me today?” I ask, tucking a clean strand of hair behind my ears as a covert gesture for wiping away a tear. “In the cemetery? Were you with me in the woods?”

  “Yes,” he says, “and no.”

  “Which is it?”

  “I am part of you, Rhea.” The knob at the end of the bedpost shrieks as he twists it in its loose socket, around and around and around. “I go where you go. I stay where you stay. I’m lost when you’re lost, and I’m found only when you find yourself.”

  “But what are you exactly? Are you like me? Do you dream when you’re asleep, or when you’re awake? Are we the same?”

  It is a few seconds before he responds. “It is like this: If I am a single star, in a single galaxy, then you—you are the whole endless sky.”

  “You are no star,” I snap, and I can barely speak around the incredulity clogging my throat. “The very last thing I would call you is bright. Tell me the truth.”

  He sighs. “Can I tell you a story? Then you will see. Then you will know.”

  Instead of answering, I take a step toward him.

  “Can you see death?” I whisper, wondering, hoping, dreading. “Do people decay before your eyes? Have you ever had a vision of your own corpse, rotting at your feet?”

  He says nothing.

  Not even a sigh.

  Not even a breath.

  “No. I do not,” he murmurs. “The opposite, actually.”

  The unexpectedness of this confession knocks me off balance. I step back, wrapping my arms around my waist as the anger drains out of me, leaving me exhausted. I have no idea what he means, but I know by now there’s only one way to find out.

  “The story you want to tell,” I say. “What is it about?”

  His words come fast, faster than I’ve ever heard him speak, as if he’s afraid I’ll change my mind and run away. “It’s a story about the Witch in the Woods.”

  It hurts to breathe, and it hurts not to.

  I thought I dreamed her.

  And I did.

  “So there is a witch?” I ask.

  “There was,” he says.

  “I’ve heard her,” I whisper. “Screaming.”

  The Darkness shakes his head. “The Witch never screams.”

  “But I heard her.”

  “No. That sound was coming from inside you.”

  At this, I take a tiny step back. As I do, I hear a sound coming from below, like dull footfalls slinking down the hallway.

  “Okay,” says the Darkness, oblivious. “Let’s start with—”

  “Wait.” I hold up a hand, gesturing for him to be quiet. The sound isn’t like footsteps—it is footsteps. Not loud enough to wake anyone else in the house, but clunky enough to reach me through the hush.

  Could it be Renata? Mom?

  I drop my hand. “I have to go.”

  The Darkness shifts. “What?”

  “I’ll be back.”

  Before he can protest, I find the top step and close the attic door behind me, then dash down the stairs as quietly as I can. My socks slipping off my heels, I rush into the hallway.

  A dark figure at the far end startles, turning. I blink, my gaze sifting through the mundane darkness, and soon I see that it is not Renata or Mom but a silhouette with hair parted into two tight braids, a long silver chain glimmering around her neck in the weak light from the hallway windows. Wearing a tank top and skinny jeans and a frayed backpack.

  Raisa.

  “Where are you going?” I tug at my T-shirt, feeling that peculiar skin-sliding sensation again. “Are you sneaking out?”

  I think she might start yelling at me like she did earlier, might tell me to shut up, shut up, shut up—but she only looks at me like she doesn’t know me. For so long she looks and looks, until I start to think that both of us are dreaming and we’ve somehow stumbled into each other’s
heads.

  And then she raises her hand, taps her fingertip against her temple. Once. Twice. Lets her finger curl slowly into the rest of her fist, hovering there next to her cheek.

  “When—” A thistle of dread scratches and tears all the way down my throat as I swallow. “When will you be back?”

  “Never,” she says simply. “Never ever.”

  I almost expect her to disappear in a puff of pink smoke, to spin three times and vanish, to evaporate in a flash of light. Something dazzling, something dramatic.

  She doesn’t, though. She simply turns and clomps down the stairs, backpack bouncing against her tailbone, her hand sweeping the banister. The click of the front door unlatching and then refastening echoes through the house.

  I sprint after her, nearly tripping headfirst down the stairs. I will bring her back. I will make her stay.

  But when I open the door, she’s gone.

  I hurry onto the porch, careful not to tumble down the steps. The rain has stopped but the ground is still wet. Out on the lawn, I look around, straining to see.

  “Raisa?”

  No one answers.

  “Raisa?”

  Never ever.

  It should not be this easy for people to vanish. Disappearing should be difficult, rough and bloody. They should have to claw, tear, rip their way out, enduring some of the torment felt by the person left behind. There should be firecrackers bursting in their eyes; and stars snagging in their skin; and lightning bolts tangling in their hair, thrust under their fingernails. Explosions, abrasions, shudders, and shouts.

  Disappearing forever should not just be the quick and quiet opening and closing of a door.

  I stand on the front lawn, curling my bare toes into the wet grass, and stare into the stupid, ordinary darkness that has stolen my sister from me, maybe forever, darkness that has opened its moon-toothed mouth and guzzled her whole.

  I gaze into the darkness, and this is what I see: two shadows edged in silver, twisting, twirling, mist trailing from their fingertips, from their glazed and open lips. Pulsing, joints popping, a rush, a release. Floating, spinning to the rhythm of the heartbeat they share, breaking apart and coming together again and again.

  Not a vision, exactly, nothing so garish, so convincing. More like a memory.

  An echo.

  A scar.

  They dance on the air in front of me, their glow growing crisper, clearer with each step, and I reach out to touch them, curious whether they are made of liquid, or wind, or light, or something else altogether, something that cannot be changed or contained or destroyed. But just then the porch light snaps on, and the figures fade into the night as I jump, turning so fast toward the house that I nearly fall over.

  Someone stands in the open doorway. It takes me a second to work out who it is, still half dazzled by the dancing shadows.

  “Rose! You scared me!” I cry, my heart skittering as I regain my balance. “What are you doing? How long have you been standing there?”

  Peering around the doorframe, she blinks once, twice, still half asleep. Her hair is long and loose, and there is a thin sheen of sleep-sweat on her chin, her cheeks, her forehead. “Only a second or two.”

  A tingle twines up my spine, and I wait for her to leave; I’m impatient to glimpse the ghostly figures again, certain that I could never tire of watching them, so long as I lived.

  But the seconds drift by, and Rose doesn’t leave.

  Instead she holds out her hand, her elbow cracking as her arm extends. She says nothing, but she doesn’t need to. I sigh, quietly so she won’t hear, and then I cross the short space between us, step up onto the porch, and slip my hand into hers.

  The pain is immediate and immense, much more than it should be from such a simple touch. It’s the sores on my palms—they itch, and they hurt, searing like stars set into my skin, a true and ancient omen in the shape of a scythe fated to cut my world apart. A sudden, strange thought: From now until the end of time, will I burn everything I touch?

  I look quickly at Rose, but if she takes notice, she doesn’t show it; she doesn’t seem to even feel a thing from this unlikely wound I received in a dream that was not quite a dream.

  A dream can’t hurt me, though.

  Can it?

  A realization like a hiccup, convulsive: I never thanked the Darkness.

  I never thanked him for carrying me safely out of the not-woods.

  I have to go back, I think, tremulous with something like sleeplessness, something like the urgency of hunger. I have to hear his story. I have to—

  “Come to bed,” Rose says, squeezing my hand as I try to pull it away. She keeps on squeezing and does not let go. “Please—I don’t want to be alone.”

  One last time I glance back at the ordinary darkness, in the direction Raisa went—but now there’s nothing there. I nod to Rose and let her lead me inside, shutting the door behind us. It closes without a sound.

  Up the stairs and to our room; Gabrielle is snoring at the foot of my bed. The window curtains are closed tight, and Rose’s night-light is practically as bright as a second moon.

  “Can we unplug it?” I ask, pointing. “Just this once?”

  “Okay,” she whispers, and watches while I yank it out of the socket, drop it onto the carpet. Better, but still—it is not enough. It is not my darkness.

  As soon as she’s asleep, I tell myself. Back to the attic.

  But then: swiftly, silently, she slides into bed next to me, the way she used to before we were both too big to fit comfortably, drawing detailed pictures on the other’s back with our fingernails, scratching messages into soft skin for hours, too restless to sleep; or during a storm, giggling and whispering, That was an angel tripping up the stairs, after each thunder-scrape that sounded the way a skinned knee feels. Or when I woke shivering with visions already fading, Rose pulling a blanket over both of us as she climbed in beside me. Somehow she always knew when I needed her.

  And sometimes she insisted even when I didn’t.

  I scoot as far to the edge of the bed as possible without tumbling overboard, on my back with my face straight up to the ceiling. The side of her bare calf touches mine, smooth and cold, so cold that I don’t know how she stands it.

  In this dark I see color, smears of it, red and blue and violet, iridescent. Exactly like a butterfly’s wings.

  “Do you believe me when I say that there’s the boy in the attic?” I whisper, wanting at least one person I trust to tell me it’s all going to be okay, to reassure me that whatever I released when I opened the door can be contained and locked back in again. To tell me that I can win this game. “Do you believe me when I say that our family is disappearing?”

  She doesn’t answer, and I start to think maybe she’s already sleeping.

  But her breathing is jagged, and her legs are so tense and motionless, like she doesn’t want me to sense that she’s still awake.

  “Do you?” I ask, but again there is no answer.

  Until morning we lie here, my sister and I, side by side, each waiting for the other to fall asleep first.

  The Witch of Wishes took the Fox Who Is No Fox by the hand and led him into her castle, pulled him onto the dais.

  “Sit,” she said, pointing to her throne.

  He sat. He stared up at her, waiting for her next command.

  It didn’t come.

  She stood beside him and said nothing for so long, looking up through the open roof at the spiders as they clambered home to the trees, that finally he hooked one arm around her waist and settled her sideways on his lap, her legs draped over his knees. The Witch stiffened, and he held his breath.

  This, the Witch thought, is the safest place in all the worlds.

  And then she sighed, sighed and let her head fall against his shoulder. The scream in her throat rel
ented, retreated, and the bone bloom in her heart closed its red petals. The Witch breathed against his skin, in and in and in. He smelled like a wish that you think is finally about to come true. Sweet and sharp. Apples and cinnamon. She crushed herself more tightly against him, edging ever closer.

  “Speak,” she whispered into the cradle of his neck, breathing out and out and out.

  Except for the necessary rise and fall of his chest, the blink of his eyes, the beat of his heart, the Fox Who Is No Fox did not move, as if the slightest disturbance would be enough for the Witch to change her mind and order him away. His arm around the small of her back, he told the next stretch of his story.

  While the prince was sequestered in the temple, waiting by the queen’s side, the first inklings of revolt percolated outside the palace walls. The dissenters gathered near the center of Graiae Forest, just on the other side of the narrow river where the princess slept.

  We must find a way to break the curse, said the manticore who had introduced the princess to the woods. We cannot abandon our friend.

  She made a choice, said the sylph who had taught the princess the incantation to change the direction of the wind, a fast whorl of words that the obstinate air would often ignore. I think we should respect that choice, even if we disagree with it.

  But what of the king? Perhaps this is a chance to depose him once and for all, argued the manticore.

  This is not our war, said a deep-voiced sphinx. We don’t bother the king, and he doesn’t bother us. Why should we insert ourselves into the affairs of humans?

  The manticore lifted her head. If we have a chance to make the woods safe for everyone, then I think we should take it.

  Eventually it was decided to let sleeping sovereigns lie, but they would plan a first attack against the king. Meanwhile the princess’s best friends, the gray gorgon and the nymph, were devising schemes of their own. Because they were young, they were left out of the war council, and so they rebelled in the biggest way they could think of: they were going to take back their princess.