Terror of the Trees

The fire was cold. The wind blew. And the book wasn't very well written.

Melinda could have handled the first two problems. There was still plenty of wood for the fire. But no amount of warmth could change the fact that Gothica: Light and Shadow, was poorly written, poorly plotted, but unfortunately, one of the few books that she had in her possession she had yet to finish.

Most people in Iago envied her ability to read at all. Right now, Melinda considered such an ability overrated.

Putting the book to one side and getting up, the chair's former occupant headed over to the fire, adding another log to the embers, kneeling down to fan the flames. Winters were cold in Entsteig, so it being the season of autumn, she had little reason to look forward to what was coming. More cold weather, less food, and more work for her as she used her skills to write requests for aid on behalf of those who couldn't read or write themselves. It gave her gold, and quite a bit of it. But gold was only useful if one could use it, and at this time of year, the only things people were really interested in were food and medicine. If not for Emmanuel's ability to hunt, they-

"Mummy!"

No, Melinda thought, hearing the sound of heavy footfalls coming down the stairs. No. Not again.

"Mummy!"

She put on a smile as her son came running down into the lower level of the house. An area that served as both sitting room, kitchen, and dining area. Larger than most houses in Iago, that consisted of one story and one, maybe two areas, but not large enough for privacy. Not large enough for her to evade Emmanuel's gaze, and arms as they closed in around her.

"Careful, son, careful," Melinda said, returning his hug. "I'm an old woman you know."

Thirty-five. That counted as old for most people. Marrying at age twenty-three, becoming pregnant at age twenty-four, giving birth at age twenty-five…well, it was "outside the usual," as polite people put it. But for her son to have nightmares at the age of ten…that was unthinkable.

Melinda put Emmanuel down on the sitting chair. "Another nightmare?" his mother asked.

"It wasn't a nightmare!" he protested. "There's something in the forest!"

"Emmanuel, there's nothing in the forest," Melinda exclaimed, returning to the fire and fanning the flames further. "You just had a bad dream."

"I'm telling you, there's something!" the boy exclaimed. "I saw it! From my room!"

"A stag, a bird, maybe a wolf who should know better than to hunt so close to Iago," Melinda murmured, still keeping her eyes on the flames. "Nothing you haven't already seen."

"I'm telling you, I saw it! A…a demon! A monster! Something I saw from my window! If you'd just let me show you!"

Melinda sighed, turning to face her son. He looked distraught. This wasn't an act, she had to admit that much. His fear was genuine. But it was fear that shouldn't exist at all. Not for a ten year old, healthy boy who'd hunted many times in the forest before, taking over the tasks once carried out by his deceased father. He'd been like this for the better part of a month. One day he went out, returned with a bird for dinner, but at night…that was when the nightmares began.

"Oh Emmanuel," Melinda sighed, kneeling down and stroking her son's black hair. "What am I going to do with you?"

"Come with me," he whispered. "Come into the forest…I'll show you. Show you what's in there."

"Emmanuel, you shouldn't be having these nightmares," Melinda said. "Not at your age."

"There's something in there!"

"There are many things," Melinda said, getting to her feet, and deciding it was time for bed herself. "But no monsters. No demons. Nothing that can harm you."

"But-"

"Now go back to bed and remember that."

It was the end of the conversation. The fire could burn out. Gothica: Light and Shadow could be read another day, or traded the next time a bookseller made their way to or from Westmarch. And Emmanuel, she prayed, would become the boy he once was. Not this timid child he was becoming.

"Can I take a candle?" she heard him whisper.

Melinda stopped, clutching the bannister harder than she had a few seconds before. "Yes," she murmured, making a mental note to buy more wax tomorrow. "Yes you can."

Light and Shadow. A book where Melinda could already tell that the light would win.

She just wished that in the real world, light wasn't needed to keep imaginary shadow at bay.

"Something wrong, lass?"

Melinda frowned. She didn't like being called a lass.

"Dearie?"

"Or "dearie." But what she disliked more than being called such terms was there actually something being wrong.

"It's nothing," Melinda murmured, putting her payment down in front of Leeta. "Thanks for your time."

"Nothing my foot!" the elderly woman exclaimed.

If there was anyone else lining up at the stall, Melinda could have used that as an excuse to leave. But as there wasn't, she was stuck with Leeta. Sixty-something years of age, and with the vigour to reach seventy, she sold herbs gathered from the Brownstone Forest, located north of the village.

"It's that Robert that did this to you!" Leeta continue, shaking a bony finger and showing her brown teeth that were only just clinging to her gums. "Back before you got all swept up in your books, and your 'learning,' you-"

"Are you done?" Melinda asked.

Leeta sniffed. "I told you at the time, no good would come of it. That's why he went to join the spirits in the hereafter, leaving you to care for your…son."

Melinda frowned. The hesitation before "son" hadn't gone unnoticed.

Robert had come from Westmarch. The western kingdom. A 'progressive' kingdom, as it regarded itself, one of learning, culture, and little of the "superstitions" that plagued its neighbours. Yet if Robert held any such low opinions of Melinda or her people, he didn't show it. He'd taught her to read. Taught her to write. Taught her skills far beyond the ability of anyone in Iago, and by charging for those skills, usually in the service of the mayor, she'd managed to earn a living for herself quite comfortably. She'd done so before the marriage, during the marriage-

"Well, no matter," Leeta said. "Robert's in whatever hereafter he believed in I suppose."

And after the marriage.

"Grey pox, wasn't it?" the elderly woman asked. "Children's plague?"

Melinda nodded, fingering the bag of herbs she'd picked up from her elder. Grey pox. A common illness that swept through Entsteig in the winter, though not a particularly deadly one. Usually it affected children, but most of the time, they recovered within a few weeks. They passed the trials of the spirits, whereas adults who didn't experience it in their youths, rare as they were, were far more vulnerable to its affects in later life. Robert was an adult. Robert was from Westmarch, where the pox did not occur. And when Robert contracted the illness, he'd passed away within the month.

Emmanuel had never contracted the pox. He had his father's blood in him. So for the last five years, Melinda had bought herbs from Leeta to minimize the chances of infection.

"Well, what of it?" Leeta declared, having apparently decided that the one-sided conversation was at its end. "You're healthy. Emmanuel's healthy. Winter nears, but as long as he continues to put meat on the table, you-"

"He's not."

Leeta stared at her customer with her single good eye. "Pardon?"

"Emmanuel," Melinda said, twisting the neck of the bag of herbs while refusing to meet Leeta's gaze. "He's…he's afraid, Leeta."

"A boy of ten? What's there to be afraid of?"

"Nothing. As I tell him." Melinda looked up at the herbalist. "But he won't go into the forest anymore. He's afraid of it during the day, and every night he comes to me insisting he's seen something in it."

Leeta opened her mouth.

"Something that isn't to be hunted."

Leeta's mouth closed.

Melinda sighed, looking around Iago. The sun was setting already. The pathways between houses were thick with mud, courtesy of the autumn rains. Her gaze turned back to Leeta, towards the Brownstone Forest. Thick. Large. But by no means dangerous. She watched as a father and son came out of the undergrowth, the father dragging the body of a stag. Enough to last them into the winter if they ignored the rumblings of their bellies.

"You never did hunt, did you lass?" Leeta asked suddenly.

Melinda turned to her. "Course not. That's not women's work."

Leeta cackled. "Some would say reading and writing isn't either."

"People can say what they want, they still find my services useful when Mayor Parthos isn't using me."

"But Emmanuel hunts," the old woman said. "Or used to. Maybe you should go with him. Show him that there's nothing to fear. Show him that you're not afraid. And then, when he's over that fear by following your example, he can get back to doing what a boy of his age should be able to do."

"Should do with his father…"

"Robert isn't here," Leeta snapped. "You are." She smiled, showing her teeth again. "So make the most of it."

"Well Emmanuel we're here. So make the most of it."

"No! Let me go!"

"Emmanuel!"

Melinda's son stopped squirming, but his mother didn't let go of his wrist, lest he bolt for home. "We're here," she said. "Here to see the monster you keep claiming to have seen."

"But mother-"

"We're here," she repeated firmly. "Here in the forest. The same forest you used to hunt in without hesitation, even after your father died."

"During the day!"

He had a point. The people of Entsteig were natural hunters, but even then, they tended to do so during the day. But Emmanuel's fears were greatest at night, and taking Leeta's advice, Melinda had taken them both beneath the trees, where the only signs of night were faint gleams of moonlight coming between the trees.

"Come on," Melinda said, kneeling down and smiling. "Your monster only comes out at night, doesn't it?"

Emmanuel remained silent.

"So where is it?"

She gestured around with one hand, though still held her son with the other. They were in the forest. Unarmed, as she told her son, to show how completely unafraid she was. In actual fact she'd ground up some smoke pellets – enough to blind a wolf's sight and smell temporarily in the rare event they actually bothered a citizen of Entsteig. But Emmanuel didn't know that. As far as he knew, he was exposed. Vulnerable. And hopefully, that openness would expose his fear to the light of rationality.

"So then," Melinda said. "Shall we head on?"

Emmanuel shook his head.

"Thought so. Let's go."

At a steady pace, she headed through the forest. While hunting was not a path she was meant to take, she'd still been in here when her own parents were alive. Even if she wasn't to take a deer or bird, Father had insisted she at least see how it was done if fate declared that she take up the bow herself. She kept walking. Emmanuel kept following, whispering. Hopefully getting all the fear out. Hopefully-

Crack!

Melinda spun around, letting go of her son in her haste. "What was that?" she asked.

Part of it was an act. The sound of a breaking branch could have been anything. Part of the question was genuine though, because she wanted to know what anything was.

"Hello?" she called out, keeping her voice casual. "Anyone there?"

There was no answer.

"Anyone?"

There was silence. There was her breath caught in her lungs. There was a tightness at the back of her neck. There was-

Crack!

A deer, running through the undergrowth. Not sparing its companions a second thought.

Melinda laughed, turning around. "See, Emmanuel? Your monster? Nothing more than a nice deer who…who…"

She stopped talking. She looked around in fear.

Her son was gone.

"Emmanuel!"

Melinda ran through the forest, terror not far behind, fear just ahead of her. Fear kept her going. Kept her screaming for her son. Kept her moving, because if she stopped for but one second, terror would catch up to her.

"Emmanuel!"

She couldn't take it. She'd felt fear before. Fear when Robert had died. Fear when her parents had been taken from her at different times. But not terror. Never terror. And still running, her lungs burning, the moon's light providing less and less illumination as the canopy became thicker, she tried to keep ahead. To find her son. To catch up to fear, and never experience terror in her life.

Crack!

She fell. Tripped over a log. Fear ran ahead. Terror caught up with her.

"Emmanuel…"

Tears ran down Melinda's cheeks, and not only from the pain that coursed through her. Her son was lost. Gone. And it was her fault. She'd come into the forest. She'd let go of him. She'd dismissed his fear, and she was experiencing terror as the price.

"Emmanuel!"

She screamed for her son. She wept. She prayed to every god and spirit of every religion she knew of. Yet Emmanuel did not return.

Crack.

Melinda wasn't listening. She started getting up from the log.

Gods…Light…spirits…please…

Crack.

Salty water hit the wood. Nothing grew. Feeling her stomach, aching from where the wood had hit her, Melinda remembered the feeling of life growing inside her.

Crack.

If any of you exist, if any of you are listening…please…return my son to me.

Crack.

This crack, she heard. This crack, she looked up to find its source. And seeing the…thing in front of her, she opened her mouth.

She didn't scream. The thing was too fast. It flew into her, sending her flying against a tree many feet away.

Emmanuel…

And it grabbed her, holding her against the tree. The shadow surrounded her. Terror filled her. Terror not just for her son, but-

You smell good…

Herself as well.

"Mother?"

Her son. His voice.

Melinda's head was spinning. Her senses felt dim, the tendrils of shadow from the thing behind her whirling around her. Ears, nose, eyes. It was if she was a wolf that had been blinded by one of the smoke pellets hunters sometimes used. But it wasn't enough to stop her from seeing, hearing, sensing, her son walking up to her from the gloom.

"Emmanuel!" she screamed. "Run! Run! I-"

She stopped. Why was Emmanuel walking so slowly. Why was he holding a dagger? Where had he got it from?

"Nice night isn't it Mother?"

Why was he talking like that? And why, Melinda wondered as terror took root in her, had his eyes just flickered golden for a second.

"Emmanuel?" she asked. "What is this? What-"

"Initiation," he said, coming to a stop before her. "Been trying to get you in this forest for a month. For you to show me that there was no monster to be found."

"Emmanuel-"

"Well, you're wrong," he said, smiling for the first time in a month, yet smiling as he'd never smiled before. "But hey, it isn't all bad. You helped me conquer my…fears."

Melinda went to say something. Scream something. Shout something. But she didn't. Not as the dagger pierced her stomach. Not as pain briefly filled her before being consumed by terror, her senses still dulled. And steadily fading.

"Don't worry mother," she heard her son say. "After all, it's only a bad dream."

Melinda closed her eyes.

Darkness took her.

A/N

This was based on a writing idea/challenge of "recently, your character's small child has become obsessed with the idea that there is a monster in the woods behind their house. Your character decides to take the child into the woods and prove that there's nothing there. But the excursion doesn't go the way your character had planned..." Hopefully it was executed okay.

Update (26/08/2013): Made adjustments as per external feedback.