Beyond the Western Sun

by Kristina Circelli

  To recover from his momentary lapse of laughter, Ian nodded and forced a serious expression. He could tell Whisper was offended, and wondered what he could say to make it right. The story was certainly colorful, as was that of his own creation. “That’s quite an origin. More interesting than my own…How does it end, according to your people?”

  Whisper lay back and stared thoughtfully at the sky. “It depends on who is telling the story.”

  Chapter 19

  In his dungeon of a bedroom, Cole sat against the wall, picking at the fringes of his shirt. After wrestling with the idea of changing into the new clothes the strange woman brought him, he had finally decided to slip them on. His old clothes were filthy and smelled like, in his opinion, rotten poop. And even though he hated to admit it, he liked the animal designs that were sewn onto his shirt and pants, and the clothes were really comfy.

  But even though he had broken down and donned the clothes of a dead boy, Cole promised that he would never call himself Fighting Fox.

  Cole closed his eyes and thought of home. He pretended that this was all a dream, and that when he woke up his mom and dad would be ready for a day of canoeing and barbecues. And when he woke up, he was going to ask if he could have a puppy. A chocolate lab that he would probably name Ghost, because even if the little boy ghost made him die, it was still a really cool adventure.

  Plus, he had to admit, the food was awesome. He especially liked Boomie, something slushy and white that reminded him of his mom’s homemade grits. The lady named Gentle Heart brought him a bowl twice a day. The more he ate it, the less he could even remember how real grits tasted, but that was fine by him. And the more he saw Gentle Heart, the less he could remember of his own mother’s appearance. He didn’t like that part, but didn’t know what to do about it.

  The clinking of a key in the door lock had Cole jumping to his feet and folding his arms across his chest defiantly. He would show anyone who crossed his path that he was angry, not scared and confused.

  Gentle Heart stepped into the room, carrying a tray filled with sparkling stones. “Hello, my sweet Fighting Fox. Did you sleep well?”

  “I never sleep.”

  The beautiful young woman smiled and set the tray on the floor. She was pleased to see that he was wearing his new clothes. “You look very handsome. One day you will grow into a very fine young man.”

  Despite himself, he liked the compliment. He edged a bit closer to the tray, peering curiously at its contents. “What are those?”

  “These belong to you, my strong Fighting Fox. With these, you will become an amazing warrior.” Gentle Heart pushed the tray in Cole’s direction, then stepped back and waited.

  After a few moments of eyeing the strange but pretty stranger suspiciously, Cole walked over to the tray. Child-like excitement filled his heart as he knelt down and wrapped his fingers around the shaft of an emerald-encrusted dagger. The handle was crafted from bone, with smooth edges lined in green stone. The blade was made from a flattened stone sharpened to an almost paper-thin edge.

  “That belonged to the Raven-Eater,” Gentle Heart said quietly. “His great-great-grandfather was a legendary Trader. He traveled the Great River and visited many tribes in his long life. He traded a rare white buffalo hide for this blade, and became the richest shaman in our people’s history. It is said to hold power.”

  “What kind of power?”

  “The kind that turns a boy into a man.”

  In that moment, Cole desperately wanted to be a man. A man could play video games past seven p.m. A man could eat whatever he wanted for dinner. And most importantly, a man could beat up the bad guys.

  Gentle Heart smiled. “Your father, the great Raven-Eater, will be pleased to know you like your gifts.”

  Cole made a face. “My daddy’s name isn’t Raven-Eater. His name is…..his name is…..”

  He couldn’t remember. He could kind of picture his parents, but their faces were getting blurry in his mind.

  Watching the boy struggle to remember his father’s name, Gentle Heart felt a part of her soul sadden. She too once had another family, another life that was taken away. And for a long time she had fought against forgetting, refusing to give up her old identity. But after awhile their faces faded away, and she was left with mere impressions of her former life. She was stripped bare of her old memories, whether by magic or time, and the Raven-Eater was her entire world. She loved him now, belonged to him, and couldn’t imagine an existence anywhere else. Here, she had wealth, status, power. She had a husband who ruled the world.

  Gentle Heart reached out to the boy. “Come, my little Fighting Fox. I’ll show you to your new room.”

  After a moment’s hesitation, Cole took her hand.

  After facing the Trickster spirit, Whisper and Ian walked around the lake and prepared to re-enter the Weeping Forest on the other side. Whisper, deciding that there would be no more breaks, no more chances to be caught unaware, was going to push Ian to move as fast and as hard as he possibly could. She knew he was used to laboring long hours beneath a hot sun for his landscaping business, but she would introduce him to a brand new kind of work.

  “So, back into the Leaking Forest.”

  “Weeping Forest.”

  “Yeah, I was just kidding.” He needed to help her acquire a sense of humor. “How much further through the woods?”

  Whisper pushed back a thick branch, fingers already sticky with the black substance that dripped from the treetops. “The Weeping Forest spreads far across the Land of the Dead,” she answered, glancing up at the sky through the canopy. “There are villages throughout the forest, dead souls who have forgotten that they once had better lives. They will help guide us through.”

  “Or kill us,” Ian muttered beneath his breath, not convinced that the villagers would be eager to help. He didn’t trust anyone or anything anymore, not even Whisper. For all he knew she was just another Trickster waiting to seduce and kill him. “This place gives me the creeps.”

  “Many believe the Weeping Forest is…haunted, as the white man says.”

  “Haunted?” Ian glanced around incredulously. “How can a place of dead people be haunted by more dead people?”

  Stepping over a fallen log, Whisper touched the trunk of a wide, gooey tree with her fingertips. “There is a story my people have told for hundreds of years,” she said as she broke off a piece of bark. Sticky black pus oozed from the new crevice. “It tells of an ancient creature, a beast that disguises itself as a tree and feeds on the bodies of young women.”

  “What kind of beast?”

  She knew how he would react, but Whisper placed the bark in her bag, in case she needed it for a future magic, and provided her companion with the answer. “The Giant Inchworm.”

  Despite himself, Ian grinned, his first real smile since arriving in the Land of the Dead. “A worm?” It was so ridiculous, such an incredibly funny image of women running from a worm, that he felt a laugh bubbling up from his gut. “Are you serious? A tiny little worm?”

  “They were not always so tiny, Mr. Daivya,” Whisper replied coolly, not at all

  amused by his lack of respect for her culture. “The Giant Inchworm, Ustahli, was once a great creature, with a massive body and strong limbs. Ustahli was a proud creature and believed he owned all the land. He lived in the mountains and disguised himself as a tree, so that villagers could not tell him apart. He fed off the bodies and souls of young women. One day, after deciding they had lost enough women, the village Elders met and came up with a plan. They made villagers out of rocks and built a great fire, and the men left for a false hunt.” Whisper inspected a tree as she passed, and Ian found himself doing the same. “Ustahli was fooled, and grabbed a rock, thinking it to be a woman. His surprise caused him to stumble into the fire, and the more he moved, the more badly he was burned until all of his limbs were scorched from his body. Finally, all that was left were mere inches, as we know him today.”

  Ian picked at a p
iece of bark, satisfied when it didn’t retaliate. “Well…then, why is the worm feared in the Land of the Dead, if it’s only an inch long?”

  “Because in the Land of the Dead, Ustahli lives in his true form.”

  “Huh.” Ian considered the story for a moment. “So then I guess that means that all the Cherokee stories come to life in the Land of the Dead.”

  “Many stories live in the Land of the Dead,” Whisper corrected him. “My people are not so arrogant as to believe that our way is the only way.”

  She was taking a dig at his own people, and he knew it, but decided to let it go. Instead of starting an argument, or saying something that would only fuel her animosity towards him, he pretended to examine the trees. “So how can you tell a tree from the giant worm?”

  “The trees don’t eat you,” a voice said from behind.

  Both Ian and Whisper spun around, startled by the intrusion. A young woman stood just a few feet away, chocolate-hued hair in tangles, clothes muddy and torn, face ashen and dark eyes tired. She looked beaten down, worn and faded by an eternity in the Weeping Forest. In her hands was a scratched wooden bowl filled with a gooey gray substance.

  The woman dipped hand into the bowl and slung a string of slime on the ground at Ian’s feet. He jumped back, immediately angry. “What the hell was that for?”

  “So Ustahli will not detect your scent.”

  “I thought he only ate women.” His tone was sarcastic and condescending.

  “Ustahli does not discriminate when hungry,” Whisper answered, stepping over the slime and over to the woman. She reached into the bowl and rubbed the goo over both hands like it was lotion. “Did the Elder send for you?”

  “Yes, Kanegv,” the woman said vaguely, using Whisper’s Cherokee name. “He reached out to me in my sleep, and invaded my dreams. He asked me to guide you through the Weeping Forest, to the Barren Plains.”

  Whisper nodded while Ian muttered something beneath his breath about another crappy place with another crappy name. “How do you know the Elder?”

  The woman frowned and shook her head. “I…I do not remember.”

  “What is your name?”

  “My name is…..”

  Whisper pressed her lips together, somewhat sad by the stranger’s loss of

  memory. Being a part of the Weeping Forest for so long had overtaken her mind, pushing away the memories of her living life and replacing them with the sorrow of a dark eternity. Whisper could only guess how she knew the Elder, but judging by the markings on her upper arms, she came from the Cherokee, and likely met Smoke Speaker at a powwow.

  “You are Deer Clan, of the Cherokee?” she asked, pointing to the markings. The woman glanced absently at her tattoos. “So I will call you Fawn.”

  “Fawn,” the woman repeated carelessly. “Yes, I am Fawn.”

  With little regard to Whisper or Ian, the newly-named Fawn walked away from the dilapidated village in the distance. She started down a narrow path, sprinkling the earth with the gray goo.

  “Are we supposed to follow?”

  Whisper shrugged, hoping the Elder knew what he was doing when he asked Fawn to be their guide. He may not have known how far gone she was by now. “I suppose. Keep within the boundaries of the Element.”

  “The what?” Ian asked as Whisper fell into step behind Fawn.

  “The Element,” Whisper repeated. “It is a mixture that only the dead can create from the herbs that grow in the Land of the Dead. It is used to cover scents and protect against enemies.”

  “If you say so.” He obeyed, but wondered how a drop of thick liquid could keep away a hungry beast. Then again, he thought in amusement, they’re worried about some stupid worm.

  They continued through the Weeping Forest silently, dodging thorny limbs, wiping the black goop from their bodies as the leaves dripped, until the path disappeared in a tangle of fallen trees and jumbled shrubs.

  “Now where?”

  Fawn reached down and produced a long blade from the fold of her skirt. A solid three feet of metal with an edge that looked like it could slice a hole through thin air, the makeshift machete terrified Ian, mainly because it was in the hands of a spacey, unpredictable dead soul. She started hacking at the vines and branches, throwing them thoughtlessly behind her so that Ian was forced to duck out of the way.

  Whisper stood back with crossed arms, eyeing Fawn sardonically. They would never get through that mess of woods. She was more than willing to go around rather than hack her way through, but the strange woman didn’t seem aware of any other route. She would tire herself out within minutes, and then they would have to wait for her to rest before continuing on their way.

  They might have stood there for hours waiting for Fawn to make even a dent in their path. No matter what they said, what alternatives they suggested, no matter what they did to help, Whisper knew this road was not meant to be walked.

  “Fawn, there are other paths,” she said, not moving in order to avoid being struck by a flying branch. Fawn didn’t hear, and instead kept cutting. The machete whirled through the purple air, catching the light as she lifted it above her head. “Fawn.”

  “What the hell is wrong with her?” Ian stared at Fawn with both curiosity and irritation. “It’s like she isn’t even there.”

  “She is not with us,” Whisper replied. “She has been in the Weeping Forest for so long that it has become a part of her. The Elder must have misjudged the strength of her mind.”

  Ian sighed. That was just what they needed, some crazy woman holding them back. “Great. So what do we do now?”

  “We try to bring back her mind.” Whisper took a tentative step forward. “Fawn, that is enough. Fawn….Fawn!”

  “Damn it, woman, listen to us!” Ian stepped in front of Whisper, just far back enough to avoid the swinging blade. “Fawn, I said—what!” he shouted when Whisper grabbed his arm.

  “Listen,” she said quietly, holding up a hand to silence him. Her eyes narrowed and traveled to the treetops.

  “Listen to what?”

  “Listen!” The urgency in her voice convinced him to do just that. He turned his attention towards the trees, and heard the suspicious sound. A strange, haunting groan was working its way around the forest, similar to the sounds of oak trees creaking in a heavy wind storm, and the dozens of voices that traveled the sudden breeze reached her ears in a panicked song of warning. “He is coming.”

  “Who?”

  “The—Fawn? Fawn?”

  Ian looked over to the underbrush. Fawn was gone, the machete lying on the ground, abandoned. Dread curled in his gut. “Where did she go? Whisper, where did she—oh, God, she’s…”

  He could do nothing but point up to the trees. Whisper followed his gaze and her knees nearly buckled when she saw the young woman gripped in the gnarled, four-fingered hand disguised as a branch. Her mouth was open in a monstrous display of torture and pain, blood dripping from the corners as her eyes pleaded for help.

  With a nauseous moan of terror, Ian saw the four jagged tips of grimy fingers that were pierced through her back and stomach, gripping the woman in an ironclad hold as her feet kicked and her hands clutched at the one that held her hostage. Blood seeped down from the trees, spotting the ground at Ian’s feet and smearing across his cheek when he wiped at his face.

  “What do we do?!”

  Whisper spun around, desperately searching the trees. She looked for one, just one, that was different, that was posing as a part of nature, but could find only bark and leaves.

  “Ustahli is here,” she said pressingly, grabbing the wooden bowl at her feet. She pulled the gray mixture from the bowl and spread it in a circle around her and Ian, then used what was left to smear across his chest and face.

  “Whoa, whoa, what are you doing?” he protested when she continued to coat him. The Element reeked, offending his nostrils and nearly making him gag.

  “Protecting you,” Whisper answered, wiping the Element on his hands. “Ustahli
cannot track your scent with the protection of the Element. He already knows we are here, and will not stop tracking us until we are caught. I need you alive, Mr. Daivya. Do not move from the circle.”

  Then she jumped over the gray ring she had made.

  “Wait! Whisper, stop!”

  He didn’t step out of the circle for fear of being attacked, either by the creature or by Whisper for not following her orders, and instead watched with wide eyes and a pounding heart as she plucked the machete up from the ground and gripped it with a steady hand.

  “Whisper, now is not the time to be a hero!”

  “Is it the time to be a coward, Mr. Daivya?” Her icy tone, mixed with the Cherokee accent that made everything she said sound important and mysterious, embarrassed him despite his panic. “Ustahli does not offer mercy.”

  Whisper tightened her hold on the handle of the blade and trained her ears towards the wind. The creatures of the forest, the souls of the dead, would reach out to her, aid her in the fight. They told her where the Ustahli stood, where he waited, and the exact moment he went to strike.

  In one swift movement, Whisper dropped to her knees and arched backwards just as the fast and spiked limb of the Ustahli swept across the air and reached for her throat. The claw grazed her chin, easily slicing though flesh. Barely registering the shallow cut, she rolled to the right just in time to dodge a claw that slammed into the ground only inches from her stomach. The earth cracked and wet clumps of dirt burst up from the impact, showering over Whisper as she spun around to dodge another attack.

  He strikes from the East, the voices in the wind told her, and she leapt to her feet, swinging out with the machete and connecting with the limb that grasped for her, cutting cleanly through muscle and flesh. The scream of the beast pierced the air, burning into Ian and Whisper’s ears, and in a spasm of pain the Ustahli dropped its victim.