Chapter Text
Enoch is not merely the vessel he inhabits.
In fact, he is all of Pottsfield.
Everything in Pottsfield that can be conceived of as a face is Enoch's face: the edifice of a house, its windows his eyes; a triad of knotholes resembling a scream in a fence post; an old jack-o'-lantern with a rot-smeared grin.
The soil in which his parishioners are interred is his flesh, and when a new arrival begins to sprout he feels it as a flickering warmth to be cradled in his generous heart. He cherishes his potter's field of castoffs: criminals, vagrants, deviants—all those buried in unmarked graves, souls laid not to rest but simply to death, appear in his soil like wild onion bulbs, and when the season turns and they emerge from the ground he welcomes them all without distinction.
Enoch's dark harvest—that is, taking those consigned to darkness and coaxing them gently into light, like potted flowers in want of more abundant sunshine—is a labor of love without end. So long as there are mortals living and dying, there will be those cast out by society at its margins, and so too will Enoch be there to welcome them into the fold.
This is his work, and in it he finds fulfillment. He is a spirit of plenty, and he has so much to give.
But he has always been fascinated by the dark forest that lines the margins of his own community.
It cradles his humble town with emaciated, weeping trees and jagged brambles, exuding agonized rot like an empty grave. Occasionally, it evinces a traveler or two, but for the most part it lies dormant. Seething.
All the departed in Enoch's fold arrive with sharp edges of their own, and he does not smooth or prune them down so much as take them as they are, and in the warmth of his welcome their souls are enticed to soften and supple of their own accord like trees aging in reverse, tender as saplings in the shade of his beneficent boughs.
Part of Enoch recognizes his powers would not accommodate the scope of such a project, because the forest is not a person. But it feels so patently hostile that it almost resembles one: its rotten wood and ever-shifting winds repel him with such ferocity that he can scarcely approach it no matter what vessel he wears. Even his rich soil is fallow in the places where its roots grow deep, clinging begrudgingly to Enoch's warm earth, as if that font of nourishment is a poor substitute for its true desired sustenance.
What other sustenance the forest could be seeking with those sharp and grudging roots, Enoch couldn't begin to speculate.
But he is fascinated by the mystery, and so in the course of his duties as mayor of Pottsfield—officiating ceremonies, presiding over festivals, adjudicating disputes, overseeing the smooth operation of harvests both mortal and vegetal—he watches that dread forest from a safe distance.
On one such day, there is a dispute in the market over the price of tomatoes, resulting in a vitriolic altercation with many red casualties dashed to the cobbled town square. As Enoch daintily presides over the argument in catskin at the town's center, he gazes also over the pumpkin patch at the edge of town from a scarecrow's button eyes. The pumpkins are still small and yellow, fresh young things awaiting the maturation of the season. In truth, it would take but a thought to pour his plenty through their vines and fill their hungry cores to bursting. But it would be uncharitable to burden his flock with an early harvest.
And where would be the fun in that, anyway? There is comfort in familiarity, and satisfaction to be found in the arrival of a long-awaited bounty.
Enoch is patient. Very patient.
And there is joy, too, in witnessing the slow growth of nature's course. A dark green vine supping on sun, carrying the soil's nutrients through capillaries to the tight white fruit. Enoch can feel it all, can sense that incremental growth as clearly as one sees the course of clouds crawling lazily across a bright blue sky.
The disputes of the townsfolk are just as natural, in Enoch's eyes. And so too could he use his power to hasten the resolution—make them drunk with satisfaction, compliant in devotion, enough to let bygones be bygones without assigning blame or demanding restitution.
But that is not his way.
And Enoch is patient.
Very patient.
His mind drifts contentedly in the placid light of that temperate afternoon, and he savors it deep in his soil.
Until suddenly, his contemplation is broken by an unseasonable chill drifting across the scarecrow's spine—settling like a shiver over pumpkin vines.
Enoch turns his attention toward the forest.
Its boughs cast deep shadows upon itself, modest and mysterious. In pursuit of clarity, Enoch turns his scarecrow vessel toward it, and as his head turns he finds movement therein. A cold light shines out between the trees, like a star upon a blanket of night.
Enoch holds his breath, and correspondingly, the air grows still.
That icy gaze cuts him to the quick, like a winter chill piercing straight to the bone—though except through communion with his parishioners, Enoch has no bones to speak of. It is novel to experience in his totality of form, having no true locus of sensation to which he might ascribe such a feeling.
The scarecrow comes alive: it sheds the nails which bind it to its post like buttons springing loose from an old shirt, sprouts ribbon-roots to ease it to the ground, writhing over themselves like an octopod's tentacles—though Enoch himself would not know to make such a comparison, having always presided over a realm far inland and away from any sea.
The hay sprouting from his sleeves tightens into soft, claw-like fingers. They will have to do.
Enoch dusts off his belted tunic, tutting with a newly-unseamed mouth as clouds of pollen puff from the coarse fabric. He adjusts his woven hat, and turns his attention again to the forest.
The pinprick of light is gone. But he perceives a gap in the bulwark of the forest's hostility, coming from the same tree behind which he'd glimpsed that curious light.
Enoch approaches, marveling to find that he even can.
He stops short of the fence. They say that good fences make good neighbors, and by Enoch's reckoning it is a very good fence indeed: though shoddy-looking, its posts are sturdy enough to lean on, the slats distant enough for just about anything to crawl through. He does not begrudge the wildlife access to his garden. He can always make more.
And if they are so eager to offer themselves up to be Enoch's eyes, let them.
"Hello there," Enoch rumbles, smiling with straw teeth.
The forest gives no answer.
Enoch chuckles as he leans on the fence—sturdy enough for that and more. "Are you a lost spirit? Or perhaps an emissary of the forest? Don't be shy. I'm always happy to make a new acquaintance."
Enoch's petition is rewarded with not one light, but two—unmistakably a pair of eyes, set in a dark countenance more rigid than even his scarecrow vessel's when uninhabited.
"Those who make my acquaintance are rarely pleased to do so," the figure informs him, in a voice deeper even than Enoch's and twice as imperious.
It sends a thrilling frisson down his spine, and Enoch straightens with languorous ease to conceal his excitement. He doffs his hat and presses it to his chest. "Permit me the privilege to defy your expectations," he entreats.
"You may certainly try," the figure drolls with airy skepticism. "Have you a name, Pottsfielder?"
Enoch is elated. He so rarely has the opportunity to converse with someone who does not hold him in esteem. If this stranger thinks him a humble townsfellow, then that suits him well. "Enoch Fields, at your service, sir." Still holding his hat to his chest, Enoch extends a hand across the fence in invitation.
The stranger considers Enoch's hand of woven straw. At length, he extends a hand, too. The afternoon sunlight throws cruel clarity onto the stranger's disfigured wooden flesh, pocked with the screams of countless destitute souls, like a dryad watered with sorrow.
It is all Enoch can do not to burst into chaff from anticipation.
The stranger takes Enoch's hand, and it is a shock of vibrant cold to Enoch's soul.
But the moment of contact is all too brief: the bright yellow straw, already dead but only recently, withers in an instant, shriveling and wilting as it spills from his sleeve and between the stranger's fingers.
The dark dryad does not falter; he merely crushes the brittle straw in a fist, then slowly releases it, dropping the dead dust as if to demonstrate for Enoch the dangers of making his acquaintance.
Enoch lifts the limp end of his sleeve to his face.
"You have a strong handshake," he observes.
The dark dryad reclaims his hand and tilts his head, like Enoch's reaction is something he can't make sense of. Enoch is delighted to provide even half as wonderful a mystery to the dryad as the forest offers him.
Enoch replaces his hat and graciously asks, "And what is your name, stranger?" He flips the limp sleeve in a gesture which conveys just how little he thinks of his lost hand.
As those pinprick eyes narrow, the dark dryad replies, "Those who revile me call me the Beast."
The Beast. Not even a name, but an epithet only. Even Enoch has a name, for his parishioners had asked him for one, and he is helpless to oblige their harmless requests.
'Beast' was what many of his flock were called in life, among many other unflattering names.
Enoch thinks he would not mind adding this one to the fold as well.
But because propriety must be observed, he voices none of these thoughts and only hums with polite curiosity, as if this is a fine name indeed. "And what do friends call you?" he inquires, in the tone of one who would like to be one.
The Beast exhales derisively, just short of a scoff. "I have none."
Enoch smiles. "Perhaps you will permit me to be the first."
The Beast observes Enoch with placid suspicion. "Perhaps," he says doubtfully. His head tilts minutely toward the cross-post from which the scarecrow descended, and Enoch turns his head to follow his gaze. "Are you always out here?"
"Oh yes," Enoch assures him, neglecting to clarify that he is always everywhere. "Sad to say I'm not much for scaring crows. But I like to watch the pumpkins grow."
"Is that not a dereliction of your duty?" the Beast dryly asks.
Enoch chuckles. "Only if you judge by my appearance. But we have plenty, so there's no need to be greedy. If the crows are hungry, then let them eat. They'll spread the seeds and make more."
The Beast hums skeptically. "Then perhaps I will meet you here again," he offers. He turns back into the forest, making no sound at all as he retreats into the cage of brambles and gnarled roots.
"Perhaps," Enoch says to the Beast's retreating back.
The cold hostility of the forest returns like a curtain over his new acquaintance's departure, and Enoch is forced to retreat. It takes a monumental effort to turn away from the treeline, but he has his duties to attend to. He returns the scarecrow to its former place, albeit tilted just so toward the forest, that he might catch a glimpse of the Beast's return in advance of that telltale unseasonable breeze.
The dispute in the market square has long been resolved, the mess almost tidied completely but for the faint pink smears on the cobbles.
Were Enoch not so inescapably repelled by the forest, he would run right in after the Beast, too eager for their next meeting to wait for the Beast himself to come calling.
But Enoch is patient.
Very, very patient.
And all things come in their own time: the ripening of fruit, the flight of migratory birds—and new friends, too.
This is what he tells himself, in any case. Perhaps it is simply the novelty of encountering something truly new for the first time in his eons of existence, or the elusive nature of a being so far beyond his reach, the intrigue of a creature not only resistant to his power but anathema to it—
But for the first time in his long and ageless memory, Enoch thinks he feels just a little bit impatient.