The Tangled Forest Read online

  “Is this the way to the Woman in the Woods?” I asked, but none of them seemed to know.

  I felt it in my heart, though. The Soul Singers were silent above, not a whisper of wind through the canopy. I felt sure they would tell me if my direction was wrong.

  The moon grew gluttonous overhead. My eyelids began to droop and eventually I had to lie down and rest. The sounds of the forest sang me to sleep. I had heard them all my life, they were the sounds of home.

  I do not know how long I slept, but when I awoke I knew that something was wrong. The moon shone bright as an oil lamp, the whole forest bathed in muted silver. Yet it was the silence that had woken me. All of the insects had burrowed down into the earth, all of the animals gone to their beds. The fireflies and the honey fungus had extinguished their spark, and all that was left of the world was a soggy taper.

  I pulled the back of my skirt over my shoulders as a shawl. It seemed strange that such bright moonbeams could extinguish all colour. As breath left my body, I was surprised to see it spiral and fold, like the surface of a fresh cup of tea. The woods felt very cold and I began to shiver.

  “Hello?” I called, hoping that my voice might disturb a fawn or a snake, causing it to tell me that I was not alone.

  I called out again as I got to my feet, but not a single thing stirred on the forest floor.

  Rubbing my arms for warmth, I continued on my way. Something had happened to the woods whilst I slept, but what harm can come to a person when they are by themselves? This was my first time so deep on a path I did not know, so I reasoned my sense of unease was no great concern. Once I found the Woman in the Woods, I would ask her about this place.

  After a while I removed my shoes, despite the cold. The earth between my toes reassured me that I still walked this world. There was something dreamlike about this part of the forest, but I could not describe to myself exactly what caused it.

  I was beginning to think that the sun would never rise again when its golden rays crested the horizon. For the first time since falling asleep, I heard life blossom in the trees as blackbird and wren resumed their morning melee. Cupping my hands and pressing them to my lips, I answered their calls with my own.

  As the sun rose further, the shadows of the trees began to thin and separate until I was once again able to play my game, tiptoeing between branches of dark and light.

  My feet refused to move.

  There, right before my eyes, was the pebble-pitted brook with its crossing log.

  At first I refused to believe it, thinking instead how strange it was that there were two such identical brooks in the same forest. Yet, as I drew closer, I could no longer lie to myself. There was the fallen branch where my friend’s leafy flotilla had once made harbour.

  I paddled through the water to the opposite side. It was only once I reached the tangled crabapple that I slumped beneath its boughs and screamed into my skirt. I had walked the entire night only to return to my own front door.

  *

  The years passed, one after the other.

  On my sixteenth summer, my grandmother gave me a gift. A long hooded cloak as white as mink. It was too warm to wear, but I would not take it off. It flowed behind me as I walked, and I loved the feel of the breeze billowing about its soft folds.

  “Really, this is too much,” my mother said, a smile on her lips. “It is so beautiful.”

  “She is a beautiful girl,” my grandmother replied.

  I took to visiting my grandmother twice as often, simply for the pleasure of walking through town in my new cloak. When I passed the baker, the farrier and the chandler, they all straightened to wave at me, whilst the seamstress and the skinner, who had worked together to make it, nodded their approval.

  With every season that came and went, my memory became a little less clear. I struggled to remember the face of my friend, and his scent. Yet, come summer, when the sap rose, I would catch his essence in the warm evening air and remember.

  That first year, I had tried and tried again to retrace the forest path. Each time I grew drowsy and would lie down to rest. Each time I would wake to a silent world which only welcomed me when I reached home. No matter how hard I tried, I could not tell where that path began to bend in on itself, there was never any reason for my return. Over and over I circled myself, and felt the disappointment grow deeper.

  Eventually, I stopped trying.

  Once or twice I came close to asking my mother how to find the Woman in the Woods, but when the question came to my lips, I bit it back. I was afraid that if she knew that I had overheard, she would go to the Woman in the Woods and drive my friend away. Then I would never be able to find him again.

  It was on the harvest full moon that we first met.

  My mother and I had been to town for the festival. The farmers had built giant corn dollies from their crops. Some of them were taller than three men. We sang songs to Jack of the Field, crossed our arms and danced until we dropped as each of the figures burned brightly on the bonfire. We jumped through the flames then cooled ourselves bobbing for apples in wide wooden barrels.

  It was very late at night when my mother returned to her bed at Grandmother’s. Yet I felt restless, and did not wish to sleep. I told my mother I would see her back at our home the following day. Then I sipped down a last cup of mead and made for the woods. As much as I enjoyed the song and the dance, the storytellers and the acrobats, once I grew tired, I craved my own company. Even though my friend had left me years ago, in times of great happiness, there was always a tinge of sadness. A yearning for him to be close, to share in my joy. Some lonely echo in my heart, a wound which would not heal for as long as I knew not where he went.

  I walked that night, far through the forest. I no longer took the path that sent me to sleep, but went the other way, into the part of the woods where the ancient yew tree grew. Next to the tangled crabapple, this was my favourite tree in the forest. Its sap bled red as blood, which made me think of it as human. Human and eternal, for yew trees never die. They simply grow old. They rot away from the inside, sending up new branches in a circle around themselves. This yew was so old it looked like five or six trees, but they all shared the same beating heart.

  I stepped into her centre and sat until the sun rose, smiling at the way the baker had danced with the seamstress, and how the smoke from the fire had caught the storyteller’s eye so that he cried during the saddest part of his tale.

  It was as I was thinking on my mother, and why she never danced with anyone, that I heard tapping. At first I thought it was a woodpecker, but the blows fell too slowly. I raised myself up and brushed down my cloak, stepping out of the circle to see.

  Following the sound, I came to a clearing.

  In the middle of the clearing was a fallen tree. Resting with one foot on the trunk was a young man, his sharp axe embedded in the lumber. His hair was straight and blond, following the line of his jaw. He wore a bycocket in blue and scarlet, and a matching tunic with green stockings. There was a black feather in his hat, which quivered as he wiped sweat from his brow with the back of his arm.

  Sensing my eyes upon him, he turned.

  “Hello,” I said.

  He studied me for a moment, as though I were a deer that had stepped out of the woods.

  “Well, hello,” he replied, taking his foot from the fallen tree and straightening. “Are you lost?”

  I shook my head. “No. I know where I am.”

  His face was exceedingly smooth, his complexion pale but healthy. The dark blue in his tunic made the blue of his eyes seem lighter, and his lips were pink as strawberry juice. I thought that I knew everybody from the town, but his features were not familiar to me. The harder I looked, the more I convinced myself that perhaps we had met before.

  “What is your name?” he asked, wiping his hands down his tunic before placing them on his hips.

  I remained by the trees as I told him.

  “You are the daughter of the lady who lives on the ledge?�
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  “Yes.”

  “Well, I am the woodcutter’s son.” He smiled at me before glancing over his shoulder to his axe. “If you’ll forgive me, I must cut wood. Won’t you stay a while and keep me company?” He lifted the heavy implement and began swinging, the morning light running along its edge as it swept over his shoulder and down.

  Thunk, thunk, thunk.

  I squatted on the ground, my back pressed to a silver birch.

  “That is a mighty fine cloak,” he called between beats.

  “Thank you. My grandmother made it for me.” Thunk, thunk, thunk. “Why are you cutting down that tree?”

  “I am a woodcutter. It’s what I do. If I don’t chop up this trunk, no one will have firewood to keep them warm or to boil their soup.”

  “No, I mean, today is Ploughman’s Day. Were you not at the festival last night? Did you not drink mead and dance? Are you not tired?”

  He rested his axe and looked at me.

  “I do not like festivals. My father attends whilst I sleep. When he is tired, I work in his stead.”

  He reached over the tree for a skin of water, and sat whilst he drank.

  “Why have I never seen you here before?” I asked.

  “We live to the other side of town, and take our wood from there. This summer, few trees have fallen, so we have come to clear this forest.”

  “Do you know it well?”

  “I know all the woods about these parts. I know each path like the lines of my hand.”

  “Do you know of a woman who lives in the woods?”

  He was silent for a moment before answering. “Why would you wish to know that?”

  “I need to find her.”

  “Are you sick?”

  “I need medicine for my mother,” I replied, accepting the lie he had offered.

  “She lives to the west of these woods,” he said, taking another swig from his skin.

  “I know the path, but I do not know how far. When I try to walk it, I fall asleep before I reach the end.”

  He laughed at this.

  “You have not found the path,” he told me. “That is the way it works. The woman who lives in the woods is a witch. She cast a sleeping spell about her land so that those who try to visit will never find her.”

  I felt cold hearing this. Of course, a spell! No wonder I could not stay awake. No wonder I walked myself home.

  “But it must be possible to visit,” I said. “My grandmother went once.”

  “Then why not ask your grandmother how to get there?” he replied, holding my eyes until I looked down.

  “She would not want me to go.”

  “If your mother is sick, I am surprised she did not tell you how to get there herself.”

  I felt my cheeks flush.

  “It is not for my mother I go.”

  “Are you with child?” I did not understand his question. “That is often why women seek her out.”

  “No.” I shook my head, embarrassed by the question. “I am looking for a friend.”

  “The Woman in the Woods has no friends.”

  He stood up and heaved his axe from the tree to resume work.

  “Please,” I said. “If you know how to get there, tell me.”

  “I know how to get there.”

  “How?”

  “What is it worth to you?”

  “Everything.”

  He smiled at this, and I did not like that smile.

  “A kiss?”

  “Pardon?”

  “Give me a kiss, and I will show you.”

  I stood up, uncertain of myself. I had never kissed a boy before, and I did not even know him. A gentleman would never ask such a thing.

  “Come here,” he said, beckoning with one finger.

  I shook my head.

  “Suit yourself,” he replied, swinging his axe over his shoulder and bringing it down.

  Thunk, thunk, thunk.

  Thunk, thunk, thunk.

  I stepped forward and the axe did not rise again.

  “Very well,” I said, ashamed at the thought of it.

  He met me halfway across the clearing. He smelt sweet from the sap, his hand rough against my cheek from years of chopping wood. As he leaned in, the tip of his hat touched the top of my head and I wanted to draw back.

  I was afraid of that kiss, yet when it happened it surprised me. His lips were far softer than his hands. They were dry, not juicy as strawberries. He did not press himself against me at first, but gently paused, until our breath played between us, breathing each other in. By the time his mouth finally met mine, I wanted it to come.

  I felt myself an iron mould in the blacksmith’s forge, molten metal coursing through its crevices. As he stepped away, that metal cooled, as though a hollow space had been filled. Whatever was inside of me was now a part of me.

  He saw the smile on my face and smiled back, rubbing the tips of his fingers across his lips.

  “You are a sweet girl,” he said. “I will take you to the Woman in the Woods. Meet me here on the next full moon.”

  4

  For that entire week, I was unable to work, or speak, or sleep. I would lie awake at night, remembering the hot press of him against me. It caused my arms to pimple like plucked feathers. I would walk between the kitchen and the garden, humming softly to myself.

  My mother noticed the change in me. She asked questions about my dreams, but I would answer only with a single word, or pretend that I had not heard her at all.

  I stared up at the moon through my window, willing it to wax a little swifter. When at last it was full, I tucked my knife into my skirt, put on my cloak, and made my way into the woods.

  He was waiting for me, my woodcutter, standing in the clearing where the tree no longer lay. He held out his hand and I took it. Fingers entwined, we walked along the path towards town until we reached the turnoff I knew we would take.

  “Are you sure this is the way you wish to go?” he asked, as we neared the place where I always fell asleep.

  “Yes,” I replied with a yawn.

  “Then here, chew these.”

  He took a leather pouch from his belt and tipped something into my palm.

  “What are they?” I asked.

  “Starflowers.”

  Their tiny blue petals were dried crisp, flaking between my fingers. He told me to suck on them slowly as I walked.

  “Will you not eat?”

  “No. I will not come,” he told me. “You must go alone.”

  Reluctantly, I placed the petals on my tongue. They tasted both bitter and sweet as I began to suck. I no longer wanted to go alone. I wanted him to follow. When I thought of my childhood friend, it seemed so long ago. Would my memory be waiting for me if I went, or should I stay here, in the land of flesh and blood and real things?

  “Once you get beyond the tall oak, you will find a path to your left. Take it, and it will lead you to her house,” he told me. “I hope you find your friend.”

  “Will I see you again?”

  “I’ll be here in the woods, waiting.”

  Reassured, I thanked him and began to walk. I had always rested my head upon that oak to sleep, yet the tangy taste of the flowers caused saliva to flow across my tongue, keeping my mind awake.

  The path was there, just as the woodcutter had said it would be. Looking back over my shoulder, I could not see him. All the forest was silent and still. With one shaky breath, I turned onto this new trail.

  It was a long way to the house, and with every step the forest seemed to close in around me. Branches stroked my hair, and tangled vines hung from above, brushing against my arms and face. At one point I lifted my hand to brush away a creeper, only to find it was a spider’s web the size of a sunflower. I leapt back, tripping over a branch and landing in the mud.

  Lizards and snakes shuffled across the forest floor, and a jet-black wildcat hissed at me from the undergrowth.

  Part of me wanted to turn back, and part of me wanted to press
on. The thought that my grandmother had brought my friend here horrified me. How could she leave a young boy in such a dark part of the forest?

  When I started to believe that I would never find the house, I stepped through a thick knot of laurel into a clearing.

  I had to blink several times before I could believe my eyes.

  A pretty round cottage sat before me. Its walls washed white, its thatching freshly cut. Circling the cottage was a low stone wall, and within it a garden full of herbs and flowers. Honeysuckle and ivy twisted up the doorframe, and a small stack in the centre of the thatch billowed smoke. The warm scent of gingerbread permeated everything, and my mouth began to water.

  I opened the wooden gate and approached the door.

  Nervously, I knocked.

  Tap, tap, tap.

  There was no answer, so I knocked again.

  Tap, tap, tap.

  I was about to knock a third time when I felt someone watching me.

  “Who are you?” the Woman in the Woods asked.

  She was standing beside the cottage, wiping soil-clad hands on an old piece of cloth. She was a little taller than me, thick red hair streaking silver to her shoulders. Her face was slim yet puffy about the cheeks, making it hard to tell her age. She wore a grey and black plaid skirt with a dirty blouse and worn leather boots. Practical clothes, for housework or gardening.

  The woman looked as untamed as the forest.

  I told her my name.

  “Why have you come?”

  I had thought of this moment so many times over the years, yet now that I was there I found it hard to say.

  “Years ago,” I began, “there was a boy. A young boy with dark hair and dark eyes. He had lost his tongue, and the people of the town sent him here, because no one else would take him.”

  “And if I knew of such a boy, what of it?”

  “I would dearly like to find him. He was my friend.”

  The woman lowered her cloth. Her eyes were green as runner beans, and it felt as though they sliced right through me.

  “Won’t you come in?” she asked.

  Her house was a jumble of dried herbs and firewood. Crude shelves ran around the walls, stacked with jars in every material and colour: red clay, blue glass, woven reeds and carved wood.