By: Lauren MacDonald
The woods are hungry and they must feed. It’s a custom we must adhere to. They border our village, a prison of sun twisted bark stricken with scorch marks, tightly packed like matted hair. Its branches are
hands that demand and consume, scraping the sky in the tangled thousands, emerald in the warmth of summer and frostbitten black in winter. Around here, the seasons are temperamental and are apt to lie to you.
Come spring and summer, the woods lull us to sleep with birdsong and flowers that smell so sickly sweet. Autumn blesses us with apples and fresh meat the forest sacrifices to feed us. We forget during this
time about the true nature of the woods, even as the harvest is bountiful. Winter is a different sort of tale; it’s the season of starving and leaner times, where the usual food sources have long since moved on,
and we have nothing left to eat but the jerky and canned foods from our long barren fields. When that time comes, that is when we remember.
The moment the darkest day of the year crawls out of the moonlit wilderness and freezes the unfortunate as payment, we remember it. Deep down we all remember. For that’s when the forest animals begin
to peer out at night and watch us, eyes gleaming with predatory intent. That’s when the fires start to sputter and vanish despite how much we keep them supplied. That’s when we sense the call to do our duty and feed it. I don’t mean a scream or a spoken command that instructs us; instead, it’s a rumble that shakes you awake in the middle of an inky night and lingers deep within your bones, leaving you jumpy and tingly long after it ends. If you aren’t careful, you might wake up outside in the dark and cold, stripped naked with a basket containing a carving knife in your hands and a note for funeral plans tacked to your door.
The forest that surrounds our humble village isn’t normal by any means. They are hungry and they will feed unless something else is offered in its place. But…it’s not the woods that cry for food. Rather, it’s
the thing that stalks and slinks through the treeline, watching us with moonbright eyes. Be careful and cautious out here. Safety is a privilege, not a luxury.
When the cold starts to seep beneath the cracks of our cottage and the wind howls like an injured man, my father and my sisters look at me with pity and terror. It’s then I know what has to be done. After all,
I’ve done this before and will continue to do so for as long as possible. I am what’s known in my village as a ritual bride. A placating sacrifice.
I gather the apples, I take the veil, and together the three of us venture out into the woods. Not too long, it wouldn’t be polite if I was to get lost long before dark. After all, that is how many died in the first
place.
I know the route by heart at this point; Father taught me how to navigate them when the woods made it clear that both my sisters weren’t viable candidates. Jessabelle, the oldest, still bears the scars on her left
arm while Louise wakes up in the middle of the night laughing the worst kind of mirth until she passes out, drunk from mirth born madness.
We still don’t know the cause even now; only that one day one of our village’s best hunters vanished without a trace into the trees the day before my birth. They found him, or what was left of him, decorated among the branches in neat segments while a proclamation was crudely scrawled on a scroll fashioned from birch bark, left beside what remained of his gun:
Bestow upon us your prized offerings for a winter’s peace. We are hungry, and in need of the best. Heed not this offer, and we will take what is rightfully ours.
We ignored it at first, blaming it instead on the wolves, the starving many that roam these parts. We sent more hunters, more dogs, and closed off the roads to travelers. But when the sacred wine started spoiling, our cheeses curdling within our cupboards, our cattle dying in swaths, and our children wandering far from home at night, the mayor finally put a stop to it. A few nights later, he pushed forth a decree: feed
the woods. Immediately.
So, that is what we did: fresh vegetables and fruits from our vines and branches, the fattest of the livestock, bread still cooling from the ovens, even the finest clothes abandoned among the branches and trunks. But it quickly became apparent that the stranger was particular about what offerings it wanted and who was to be the unfortunate deliveryman. We learned quickly, after it did something to poor Thomas White to make the priest forgo the usual funeral rites. He’s still out there I think, hidden within the trees.
I suppose I ought to have been chosen from birth to carry out this ritual; a mockery of a girl cracked and bled into a woman. My hair is nasty, dark brown and ratty unlike Jessabelle’s golden waves of sunlight. I’m plump where Louise is skinny, and at night Father has caught me watching the woods. A dangerous habit, I know. But I do this at night, when the shadows grow long, and the howling starts up in the distance, and the rattling of a thousand hoof steps surrounds our cottage. Between the woven bark and finger strand twigs. And I wait for the eyes to find me.
It’s not uncommon for the accusations to be slung my way. Witchcraft, they speak with pointing fingers and hushed tones. Dancing beneath the moonlight naked as the day I was born. Singing forgotten
tunes that were not deemed church hymns. Glaring at anyone who dared to speak ill of myself and my family. Gathering the herbs and mushrooms to help our next-door neighbor’s daughter as she lay in bed
dying from her son’s screaming birth.
Her tongue is sharp. Speaks without being spoken to.
She hit the vicar and swore at his son.
She’s bewitched our men. No wonder the wives can’t produce
children.
Someone needs to wed her. Maybe that should keep her complacent.
It’s true. I should have been wed. Normally, that is. I should have been at the altar when my eighteenth summer came. I should have had a beau, singing praises about a man with a shock of dark hair and who makes me smile. I should have had my eldest sister’s fiancé; the brave guard captain fresh from the city. I should have been swept off my feet when the vicar’s son produced a hand carved ring from one of our sacred trees and proposed to Louise.
I should have. I should have.
But I didn’t.
Couldn’t.
Can’t.
It’s dark despite the midday sun. The trees made sure of that. No one who crosses the trails can know how dark it gets. It’s like a net; keeps you in and the light out. Soon the torch will become useless halfway down the path. Eventually, it will go out and I will have to rely on memory and rhymes for safety.
I do not know what occurs within these woods. No one does. I suppose that is a mystery that will forever remain until we finally grow brave enough to cut down every sapling, stump, and knot twisted trunk
until there is nothing left but the bones. But until that happens, we stick to our homes and hovels at night, huddled around fires that burn as bright as it can and warn our children about what happens when the woods decide that the rules can be broken for just a brief moment.
My foot slips on a rock. I fall, the apples spilling from the basket like gleaming jewels, all the way to the ground. It’s steep where I’m at, the forest made it so. Pitfalls and traps to keep you both in and out. In
this case, I had put my foot through an imitation of the ground. I can feel nothing beneath me as I pull free and stand, rattled from the experience. After a few deep breaths to calm myself, I pick the apples up one by one and resume my journey.
I’m heading into the heart of the woods, listening for the pulsing heartbeat that connects the trunks, leaves, animals, and every little thing that shares its secrets.
Something glimmers, two by two through the cracks in the oily blackness. I don’t stop to stare, it would be rude and dangerous if I did. Instead, I set the basket down and place the veil over my face. The cloth
is musty and stinks of the church incense. I know where this veil came from, and I know who last wore it. Both my sisters, last I recall.
Jessabelle had been lucky to be wedded. Louise was more fortunate. I’ve heard the voices of the village weave into a tapestry of what my life could have been. Ought to have been.
It’s such a delight to see such perfect couples come from such a bad
place.
Perhaps the youngest should take a hint. Follow the examples of her
elders.
Have you heard the eldest is going to give birth soon?
Is it a son?
The middle daughter has produced twin boys last I heard.
Honestly, what are we going to do about the youngest?
She needs to grow up.
What is wrong with her anyway.
The miasma of putrefaction slaps me out of the memories. It’s hard to look, and harder still to swallow down my breakfast. Here, the corpses of our finest men lie amid the leaves and rocks. I step around
them, trying not to think about the trees growing into the bones and flesh, trunks stained brown and red. A path of gore and rot, each leading to a special place. One where I ought to be. Strangely enough, I cannot hear the flies or birds or squelch of scavengers come to pick them clean. I chant the rhymes. I swing the basket. And I think of home.
I think of my sisters. I think of my father. I think of the stares and clucks of the tongue from the women both young and old. I think of the secrets I’ve learned through this task, of crushing herbs to make
medicines and listening to bird calls to warn me of danger and where to find food. I think of my sisters’ husbands, tangled up amid the trees.
Most of all I think of what I am going to do when my task is complete.
The more the bodies continue to pile up, the trees interweave, clasping hands of leaves and stringy twigs as the path begins to widen. Here, I can no longer pick out where the corpses end and the trees begin. They’ve woven into each other at this point, faces and limbs and torsos contorted in blissful agony as they stretch and stretch and stretch until the canopy is blended with frozen flesh and bark. Isn’t it grand to
know that birch trees have eyes? Or was that the outline of a man mold-ed into the pulpy wood Sometimes I stop to listen to the whispers that slither through the wind, cold and blistering. I can barely make it out, but the one that stands out the most is repeated through a whispering breeze:
I once was a witch bride oh me oh my
My groom was handsome and tall and strong
But alas my heart was set on the baker’s daughter
Oh me oh my the elders found out
Sent me to die within my mother’s tomb
I cursed them barren oh me oh my
Be wary till I return for you.
I know this song. It’s a rhyme that was taught to me before my aunt passed away. Prior to her final journey to these woods. Coincidentally, it’s also forbidden to chant it back home. And yet it remains
my favorite of the rhymes. Here’s something you should know if you should ever venture into this part of the woods: if the bodies appear and the rhyme is whispered into your ear, the one who lives and guards this place is bound to appear.
Don’t hide. She’s already seen you by now.
There’s a break in the trees where the light shines on through. A spotlight of gold amid the claustrophobic black. Through the veil I can make it out; a slab of rock carved from a boulder surrounded by the watching birch. Dried leaves crunch underfoot as the rotting miasma trickles away, and soon I am standing in the clearing all alone. The air is cool and sweet, nothing like what lingers outside. Birdsong chimes overhead as a brook babbles nearby. In my peripheral I take in blackberries the size of my thumb knuckle laden with juice poking out of the snowy vines.
The task bids me to approach the triad of rocks jutting out of the ground, sharp and jagged like broken tombstones. No. Like a hand, gently reaching out; sharp basalt fingers grazing the bottom of the shrine, covered in dried leaves and vines, and peppered with dried chamomile and ferns. I set the basket down upon a smooth rock in the middle of the rocks, gently brushing aside the snow with the gentle care of a housewife. The apples glisten invitingly with dew, ripe and red as I step back, turning away to face the open mouth that is the woods. Then I close my eyes, letting the dark in for the first time. The air is cold and smells of the first fallen snow, crisp and delicate.
I don’t know how it happens, but I know that she has arrived. A pressure, squeezing at my head until it pops and the immense buzzing of energy as she awakens. Her voice eloquently curls down my back, velvet smooth with hints of thorns.
Thou hast returned once more.
Something cracks behind me, the sound of bark and stone coming loose from the joints. A shadow crests, taller than the rocks that now housed the apples over the treeline. Her shadow bends and slithers as she glides down the rocks until her shadow eclipses the sunlight. Strangely, it’s warm where the shadow touches the land. Warm, like spring weather.
This is gladdening.
Her hand, soft as fawnskin, caresses my cheek right below the jawline. I can’t help but giggle. A quick glance at it shows a paw; a hybrid of a wolf and rabbit yet thin as a human.
Allow me.
The veil drops, landing in a puddle of faded white. The journey was long, but now I am here. And she’s behind me, waiting for my response. I turn to face her, smiling as widely as I can.
“I’m glad to see you, my bride.”
The animal woman behind me is teeth and claws and beautiful in a way I cannot describe. And I as well my ritual bride.
She cups my face for the expected kiss.
Welcome home.