Work Text:
It always happens in stages.
First there appears an X. X-marks-the-spot. Here there be dragons, or treasure. Each curling line cuts deep, scores the bark with hatred and passion. There might be footprints stamped into the moss and bruising the roots, but there rarely are. Whenever there’s footprints it takes two people to find them, because the first one doesn’t come back.
Next comes the carving. Ribbons of bark litter the ground and crunch and snap beneath a boot. Each one is peeled from the trunk with a dangerous kind of precision. Spots of black smear the pale exposed wood and stipple the shorn ribbons, but we can never tell if they are born of disease or something far worse. We keep a close watch on the trees after the second stage has been inflicted but we never quite manage to catch the start of the third and last stage.
We keep away after the third stage starts. Too many people go missing if we stay and no one wants to be next.
The last stage is the worst.
New lines cut deep into new bark and leave scars. Our seers and mystics go quiet after the start of it. All they will say is that they can hear it happening. I don’t know what the trees sound like, not like the mystics do, but I imagine it must sound like screaming. The start of the third stage has everyone scrambling to find tasks that will keep them in the centre of the village. Anything that will keep them away from the woods. Not even the dogs leave the fence.
After the mystics get the colour back in their worn and craggy faces, after the birds return to the village, after the dogs sniff about the gate with caution shivering in their fur, we leave. It always takes a while to find the tree again. Any path or marker we leave will vanish. If we leave ribbons or twine they might reappear, tied around the posts of the gate in pretty swirls and bows. Ribbons are all that ever come back. No trail of breadcrumbs will guide us back if we lose our way.
No one ever knows what the runes say, but I think they’re pretty. They cut deep into pale wood. Black blood lines the carvings and mixes with sticky sap and stains our hands and boots. Ribbons of it seep down the trunk and paint the roots dark. It’s bad luck to leave the stained moss where it lies, so we burn it. We burn as much as we can.
Mystics send for woodworkers and carvers and loggers. Together they scrape and hack at the unfortunate victim until no blood remains. What i left is felled and split into splinters. Then we burn the splinters. We pray that this was the last. Who we’re praying to, I never know. It seems to change with the weather, depending on who you ask. We would leave this place behind us if we could find a way through the trees, but they hem us in on every side. Some days it seems like they move just to spite us.
I was young the last time it happened—young enough to find joy in the search, to trace honey -sticky fingers over the dark runes without reprimand. I found the hunt curious, the chase thrilling. Now the bay of a warning horn chills my heart.
I’m old enough now to be sent out alone. The woods are heavy, yes, pressing down on all sides and whispering behind my back, but there’s beauty in them too. My basket grows heavy with fruits and roots, my hair fills with the flowers I pluck with gentle fingers. I’ve never found an X. Some days I wonder if I will. On bad days I think I’ve found footprints and wonder who they’ll send out after me, when I don’t come back, and yet I return to the woods almost every day.
Most days I’m out alone. Sometimes I see others, baskets clutched in calloused hands and pockets spilling over with bright berries. Those are good days. On these days breath leaves my mouth as song and I add my voice to the chorus of birds overhead. The wolves observe a respectful distance. It is too easy to let my guard down under the trees.
I can see someone through the trees as I compose this in my head. He will slot into the words with which I frame my thoughts, take up a careful residence framed by brambles and the sweet tardiness of the berries that burst between my teeth. His hat is strange, bound with a thick band of leather. I will ask him about it once I am within shouting range. He has no basket with him. No berries spill from his pockets. I do not recognise him, but that is not unusual. There are many villages beneath these trees, after all. His hand is gloved in metal, nothing like the worn knives and shoddily hammered tools of the village. I wind my way between words and roots and think of all the ways I could frame it in my mind’s eye. Shiny is too easy, low-hanging fruit. Out-of-place springs to mind, but only because I cannot place it. There is something strange about the ease with which he wields it. It is as familiar to him as it is unknown to me, a friend. In his hand is clutched a stick dripping with black blood.
Time crawls to a shuddering stop. The air whistles from my chest and trails into naught. That black blood is familiar.
As if he can hear me—and he probably can—the man stops. Lifts his hand from the deep scrape of the cut he has made in the bark. Stills. The blood splatters to the ground, dyes the moss, and so the moss will die. A stray thought informs me that we will have to burn those husks of what was once green . It’s bad luck to leave it there.
If I drop my basket, will I run faster? Probably. It doesn’t matter. I wonder who they will send out after me to find the footprints. I can’t see them now, but that means nothing. They will be there.
With no movement to betray his thoughts, he swings the stick into the trunk of the tree. It sticks, quivers, slips. It stays. His hand as it lowers is stained with black in faded dapples. His fingers are lumpy and thin, like something you see in your nightmares, his hand curls into a claw, beckons me closer. My feet betray me.
Moss tugs at the soles of my boots. Brush scrapes my knees, tears a hole in the thin fabric of my trousers. They were new yesterday. The last thing my stiffening fingers allow is the tugging-free of the ribbon in my hair. The curtain of it spills to frame my face. A glint in the man’s eye strikes fear into my heart. He knows what I’m doing. He smiles. I know he will return the ribbon for me. I hope he will return the ribbon for me.
It slips through my fingers, catches on a stick, and it is gone. The dip of my head as I grow closer is revealing. I wonder how we have never realised that the footprints are those of our own. Oh, well. There will be time for them to figure it out.
It always happens in stages, after all.