Untitled pt. 2

Deni gripped the hand he put in hers, only lightly, but she walked with him, shoulder to shoulder. Their eyes were on the tree, its trunk vast and a great pile of gnarled roots clustered at its base. Where the last of the scrubby grass and tiny oak shoots ended and the ground became only dirt, the boy stiffened his arm and stopped walking.
He looked down at Deni and, when he saw the look on her face he said her name softly.
She looked up at him, her face open and trusting, and smiled a hesitant smile.
"What is it?" she asked.
"No closer." he said to her, quietly, softly. "This is as far as you can ever go."
His face said that he was serious, all playfulness gone, and a frown creased her brow for a moment, but then she smiled.
"Then let's go around." she said, stepping back and drawing him after her, waiting to see that the seriousness was leaving his face before she turned and started running again.
She could hear him following behind her, if she focused, and, once in a while she did, but mostly she focused on the land. It was rocky here, and cutting her foot on a rock would be very dangerous this far out.
The trail started again on a downward slope just before it curved around a huge rock. On the other side of that rock it would cut down the hill across a field and then turn, cutting back into the woods. They would be at the Green Lady's hollow then. She glanced up at the sun and put on a burst of speed, her heart starting to pound in excitement.
"Deni! Wait!" the boy cried from behind her, but, with a wide smile on her face and the wind in her hair she did something she never did, she ignored him.
She turned to go around the boulder and heard, too late, the sound of claws on stone. She had just enough time to draw in a breath before the grindling slammed into her from the side. The breath she had just taken was forced out of her violently as they both hit the ground hard, and then the world was all claws and snapping teeth and the smell of damp bark.
She fought like a cat, shoving it away and holding it off of her by its shoulders, her fingers seeking purchase in  the gaps and grooves of its skin which slipped and crumbled away like the bark of an old tree. The face, only inches away from hers, was evil and primal, a child's nightmare drawing of a face. The eyes were deep black pits, set far back, but in line with those holes were pointed ears. The whole face angled sharply to a point and the mouth was huge, wide and bristling with needle-like teeth that surely served no purpose but to cause pain.
It screamed in frustration, having thought it had an easy meal, and the sound hurt her ears and teeth, like nails on a chalk board. Its breath smelled like rotting meat. Its claws sunk deep into her biceps and now it was her turn to let out a shrill scream.
She tried to roll hard to the side the way the boy had taught her, but the thing got one back leg against the rocky ground and braced, stopping her dead. Her left arm gave way and the thing came closer, its teeth grazing her neck before hands appeared around its neck and it was jerked roughly away.
The boy yanked hard and it slammed back into the ground. In the seconds that it required to recover its feet he had a long knife out of the sheath on his belt and was lunging.
Deni scrabbled back, like a crab, on her feet and hands, getting clear of the battle and watching in terror as he jabbed and dodged, barely getting out of the way as the thing lunged, and turning to sink the knife into its back.
The creature let out another cry, louder, and more wild, but it could not get around to him, as he still had the knife sunk hilt deep in its back and using it like a handle to drive the beast. The look on his face was fierce and determined, his mouth turned down in a grimace of concentration, but he made no noise.
His shoulders bunched and then stretched as he ripped the knife across its body, nearly cutting it in half. The grindling didn't even make a noise. Its body dropped to the ground, a thick, amber colored fluid spilling from the gaping wound, and running down the hillside.
Deni was frozen, eyes wide, heart pounding in her chest. The boy looked up from the corpse, the savage look fell from his face and was instantly replaced by concern. He scurried over to her, one hand touching her face briefly before his attention went to her wounded arms.
"Are they burning?" he asked quickly, intent on the deep punctures that were already starting to swell with eerie red lines radiating from them.
"A little, am I going to die?" she asked, calmly, looking into his face.
His eyes snapped up and he smiled.
"Of course you're going to die, Deni. Everything dies." he darted in and kissed her lips briefly then jumped up and caught her hand to pull her to her feet.
"Come on," he said "I thought you wanted to see the Green Lady."
Deni smiled again as they started down the path again, more cautiously this time, and still holding hands.
Twenty feet down the path gaps appeared in the canopy and the grass became thick and lush. The path completely disappeared, but no matter. They had come, at last, to the Green Lady's hollow.
The morning had moved on farther than Deni had meant for it to, and she worried for a moment that the Lady would have retired already, but then, at the bottom of the hollow, where a little stream wound through the grass and over the rocks, she saw her.
The Green Lady stood, regal, unimaginably beautiful, one hand resting gently on a thin tree, and her face turned up to the sky, eyes closed in the warmth of the sun.
She was tall and thin like a willow tree. Her hair fell down her back in a wavy mass, long enough to sit on, and was the color of honey in sunlight. Her face was a dream of beauty, not possible in the physical world, with delicate bones set at perfect angles. Her mouth was full and heart shaped. Her eyes, when they opened, were pure and green as jade. She wore a dress that flowed and floated on the slightest breeze, as if it were spun for her by spiders.
That dress was floating around her now, like a cloud sent from the sky to lend her modesty. Deni stopped, stopped walking, stopped breathing, not wanting her to notice this gawky and rough creature that had come into her clearing.
Deni started to take another step, careful and slow, toward a slim tree with silver bark, but pain shot through her suddenly and she convulsed, her arms and legs cramping and her muscles refusing to respond. A small strangled cry escaped her lips and she fell over, her head scraping down the tree.
She rolled onto her back as it passed, and, almost immediately, her entire body seized again.
This time she screamed, the pain driving all thought of where she was or even who she was, out of her mind. She was no one. She was fire and pain.
The Green Lady's eyes snapped open and she turned toward them. Her jade eyes went straight to Deni, and she moved like lightening across the hollow and up the side to where she lay screaming and writhing one the ground, the boy kneeling beside her, his face pleading, helpless.
The Lady stood looking into his eyes for a moment, considering, her beautiful face dark, a question in her eyes. He looked back, unblinking, one hand on Deni, the pain in each of her screams echoing in his expression.
"Do something!" he yelled, tears streaming down his cheeks, tendons bulging in his neck, his rust colored hair falling across his face.
The Lady dropped to her knees with an uncanny grace and grabbed Deni surprisingly roughly, by her arms, lifting her to sitting. Deni's eyes were rolled back in her head and her mouth was slack, she had stopped screaming, and there were clean tracks down her cheeks from tears. The wicked red lines were reaching up out of her shirt and up her neck, and her arms were swollen and red.
Nothing seemed to happen. Deni hung slack and still in the Green Lady's grasp, but the air suddenly felt like the moment before a storm, thick and expectant.
Slowly, the lines began to recede, and Deni began to wriggle in her hands.

Untitled

    Denison McKenzie sat on the edge of a cliff, bare legs and feet dangling into the abyss, long dirty blonde hair blowing in the places where it wasn’t too weighed down by dirt, twigs and sweat, clear blue eyes looking out at the world, unseeing.  One foot swung back and forth for a while, and then would stop as her expression became more intense, her mind focusing on something inside, rather than out, then her face would clear and her foot would begin to swing again. 
    She had been sitting like that for most of the afternoon as the sky deepened and the clouds passed by.  Now it was starting to turn gold and pink at the edges, the clouds glowing fiercely with the reflected light of the diminishing sun.  Suddenly, her eyes came to life and she looked around for the first time, as if she had just noticed where she was. 
    She looked at the sky, then at the over sized watch on her left wrist and leaped lithely to her feet, completely unconcerned about the cliff so close by.  She started running, bare feet expertly finding the narrow but clear path, ducking under branches and jumping over half rotten logs as if these obstacles were written into her genetic code. 
    She ran through the woods, nearly silent, hearing nothing but the sound of her own breath in her lungs, and the beating of her heart.  She jumped another rotting log and the forest suddenly gave way to a wide clearing.  She skidded to a halt, leaning back so far in her effort to stop that she fell backwards and landed on the seat of her faded denim cutoff shorts, her hands out behind her to break the fall.
    The clearing was large, almost entirely circular, carpeted wall to wall in a deep, soft, and violently green grass.  In the very center of the clearing there was a little structure made of stone, two uprights and a slab top, slightly off kilter, but recognizable as a table. 
    She stood up and slowly backed out of the clearing, carefully putting one foot directly behind the other, eyes wide and fixed on the little table in the center of the clearing.  She took the last step out of the clearing and turned left, then was off again.
    Almost ten minutes later she burst out of the woods and onto a lawn, still running.  A dog in the yard jumped up from an afternoon nap in the sun and started barking in surprise, and the woman hanging sheets on a line screamed and dropped the pin she was pinning a corner with. 
    “Sweet Jesus Lord, girl you nearly gave me a heart attack!” she yelled, and on her chest.  “Is someone trying to kill you?!”
    Denison slowed to a walk as she crossed the lawn, stopping to pet the dog, who had stopped barking now and was wagging her tail excitedly.
    “Sorry, Mama.” she said, hardly looking sorry at all.
    “By the skin of your teeth, Little Miss.”  her mother said looking critically at the watch on her wrist.
    “I made it though.”  Denison said with a smile.  “I’m sorry, Mama, I was thinking and I lost track of time.” 
    “I’ve heard it all before, Missy, and I am no more impressed now that I was then.”  she pinned the last corner of the sheet up and picked up the empty laundry basket.  “You have got to learn some responsibility, Deni, you’re almost a teenager, and before you know it you’ll not be out in the woods, you’ll be on the road and getting into God only knows what kind of trouble, and if you think I’m going to let you take a car somewhere if I don’t know that you’ll be back when you are supposed to be, you’re out of your mind.”
    “Mama, I’m twelve.”  Denison said, with an all too adult tone of voice.
    “Go get showered.”  Mama said, “We’ll be eating dinner soon and you stink.”
    “Yes, Ma’am.” Denison said, climbing the stairs to the back porch and starting through the house.
    Her mother stood in the doorway and watched her steal a cold biscuit from a paper towel covered plate that held the leftovers from breakfast, and head down the hall, stripping as she went.  Her clothes a trail to tell the tale of her passing. 
    The bathroom door closed and she put down the laundry basket by the back door and collected the discarded clothes that lay rumpled in the hall floor before going back into the kitchen and checking on the roast.  She smiled to herself as she strained the potatoes and picked up the masher.  Her daughter was a spirit unto herself.  She ran through the woods all day, came home late at night, eyes wild and hair plastered with dirt and twigs, clothes filthy, always barefoot.  Her father called her his little woodland sprite.
    If it weren’t for Deni taking to the woods as if she were born to them, Goldie might regret moving out of the city.  She missed having things to do outside of  the house.  She missed having friends to visit, and the way that everyone just left you alone.  It was ungracious, she knew, and she always felt a twinge of guilt, but, the truth was, country friendliness didn’t actually suit her.  There were always so many people wanting to talk, wanting to drop by, wanting you to come to dinner and try their church, and stop and talk every time you ran into them anywhere you went.  It was exhausting.
    Deni had taken to the woods, though.  She had made a few friends, but her true love was the forest and the fields.  She would spend days out there if they let her, maybe the rest of her life.  You would think she had been born there, not implanted only two months ago.  The forest seemed to call to some primal part of her that Goldie hadn’t actually known was there.  She came home with stories of fairies and ghouls and all sorts of wild things.  Her imagination had exploded into life, and that had to make all of it worthwhile.
    She started to hum as she stirred the green beans, smiling the contented smile of a parent with a happy child.

    Dawn broke over the forest and across the fields, light creeping into the world and illuminating nature just waking up.  Deni McKenzie shot across the yard and into the woods like a rabbit running for cover.  She broke into the underbrush and quickly found one of her paths and was off again.  Her mother had given her the rare treat of packing a breakfast and lunch and telling her that she could stay out all day as long as she was home before 6, and she planned on making the most of the day.  She was hoping that if she got there early enough, she might see the Green Lady again. 
    She ran through the wood on her silent feet, the Green Lady’s hollow was not close, and she only came out very early in the morning, so time was of the essence.  She would be going farther than was safe, but she needed to see the Green Lady.
The path twisted and turned and intersected others just like it time and time again, a labyrinth of tiny trails, but Deni never paused or faltered. She ran on, sure of her way, sure of herself. Up ahead there was a brighter place in the gloom under the canopy of trees, and the sound of running water joined the sound of her breathing.
Deni slowed and stopped, one foot down and one on the toe, her body half relaxed, half tensed, and her head held up, eyes wide, head slightly cocked. She brushed her hair behind her left ear, listening carefully, before taking a few cautious steps towards the stream.
She stopped on the at the edge of the trees and watched the woods on the other side. She could feel something there, but she couldn't see it yet. It was knowing that precious time was passing that made her step out before she knew what it was, and, in that instant it flew out like a cougar pouncing, muscles bunching and stretching, a cry of victory rending the air and driving birds from trees in an explosion of wings and primal fear.
Deni's hands went up and she hunched down, her lips pulling away from her teeth. The thing slammed into her and she caught it, her hands wrapping into hair and fur and gripping tight, and twisting as its weight brought her down so that it landed beside, not on top of her.
They hit and Deni wasted no time. She rolled and got her knees on the shoulders of her attacker, pinning him to the ground.
"You're getting good at that," he said, laughing up at her.
"You're always doing that." she said, punching him hard in the chest before moving off of him and getting to her feet.
She jumped across the stream and started up the far side.
"Wait!" he said, sitting up. "Where are you going?"
"I want to see the Green Lady!" she called over her shoulder, starting to run.
The boy on the bank jumped to his feet. He was lean and muscular and wearing brown pants and a green shirt with no sleeves and a leather belt with things hanging from it. His hair was the color of rust, long and a little curly, and his eyes were blue like the sky. His skin was a deep tan, and his feet were bare.
He made one long jump and landed at the top of the bank on the other side and was running, like Deni, surefooted and silent. He caught up to her quickly, and they ran together through the woods. After a while they came to a place where the woods changed. The trees became taller, thicker, and the underbrush fell away.
They stopped running as the path opened up and then disappeared. He stepped up beside her and caught her hand in his, and they walked, slowly, toward a great oak tree whose limbs stretched out above them, seeming to go for miles.

A Girl Named Hollow

The bright, ghostly light of a full moon poured in through the enormous window above the bed and spilled over Michael's sleeping form. Hollow sat with her back against the wall, one corner of the sheet pulled across her right thigh, but, otherwise, bare. She let her eyes move over him slowly. This was something she would never do if he were awake. Their relationship was not exactly new, but had never lost the odd timidity and stiffness of a first date. There was a careful distance kept, always, and she wasn't sure at all if it was by her, or by him.
She knew him well, almost instinctively, and she liked him, with all of his quirks and oddities, more than she would have admitted to him, but she was always waiting for the time she'd kiss him goodbye in the morning, and find out later that that was the last goodbye kiss. She was always surprised when he called.
He was sleeping now, and that meant that their time together was over. In the morning he would barely speak, politely waiting for her to gather her things, kissing her goodbye at her car, and then walking back inside and getting back to his life. It would feel almost as if the intimacy of the night before had never happened. Almost as if they were strangers, which, in a way, they were.
He had a life, full of friends and coworkers, a busy life that made these nights together fewer and farther between than she would have liked, but she wasn't a part of it. It was very easy for her to imagine that he had never spoken her name out loud to anyone who mattered to him. He had never invited her to anything. Never tried to introduce her to anyone. When she thought about it, he actually never invited her over. He made it known that he was interested, and then waited for her to make the plans. She wondered for a moment, if she never asked if he was free again, would she ever see him again, and the thought made her snort a quiet laugh.
She thought about him so much, about her feelings and what they really were, about the time they spent together, and how long this could possibly go on, and, only now did she realize, he probably never thought about her at all. She was a pleasant surprise when he had no other plans with the people who got to share his life.
The thought didn't hurt. She knew that  she wasn't some one he would ever date. They were very clear on the subject of where this wasn't going, and she was comfortable with that. The truth was, she would have dated him. Probably not happily, and probably briefly, but he was an experience that she would have flung herself into with full knowledge of the bad ending that lurked around the corner. Knowing that he would never let that happen only saved her from herself.
Chill bumps suddenly ran up her leg and she shivered, realizing that she had been cold for a while. She looked at his face, passive and relaxed in his sleep, and tried to hold on to the image in her mind, just in case she never saw it again, and slid under the blankets to sleep for the few hours left before morning. He shifted in his sleep when she brushed against him, and one hand slid onto her thigh. She closed her eyes and drifted off to sleep.

Papa Legba and the Girl

    The night was sweltering, the kind of heavy, thick, sticky heat that can only happen in the deep south in the summer.  Low rolling thunder spoke of a sky in need of release, and the clouds that must have been there blocked out any light that might have been granted by the full moon that Bella Lee knew was up there.  Still she walked at a good pace through the treacherous land, sure footed in the sucking, slimy mud of the swamp.  She knew these woods well.  She had lived here all her life, and she had followed Grand Pere Didier  while he tracked and rowed all through these swamps.  She didn’t need the light to know where she was. 
    Up ahead she could dimly see the black on black outline of the old iron fence and gates that she was looking for.  The dry ground ahead was narrow, the pools on either side deep, she would have to be careful, places like this could change from day to day, and she had not been here in three years.
    She clasped the bag she was holding to her just-developing breasts and held tight, closing her eyes, and heading on, feeling the land in front of her with the toe of her slipper as she went, moving slowly.  Slide, step, slide, step.  She said a silent prayer to anyone who might be listening to keep her steps true, and, after what seemed like an eternity, her sliding toe found dry ground.  She stopped right there on the border of wet and dry and just breathed until she felt a little steadier. This was not the sort of place that you entered already shaky. 
    When she had stood for as long as she thought she could without admitting that she was putting off the task she had come to do, she opened her eyes and walked calmly, if a little slowly, towards the iron gates.
    Once, a very long time ago, this had been a grand house and its lands.  Finding such a house in the swamp wasn’t as rare as you might think, Bella Lee could have lead you to six without leaving her normal ranging grounds, but this one was special, and that was why she was here. 
    The gates stood crooked and warped by the weight of the fence which ran about ten feet to the left, slopping more and more toward the ground as it went until it finally disappeared into the muck and mire of the swamp.  This was the fate of all grand houses in the swamp, eventually, the swamp took them back.  She edged her way between the gates and tried to get her bearing in the darkness, pulling up memories that she had rarely revisited.  Up ahead she could see the hulking mass of the house itself, huge and threatening, and she could just make out the smaller outbuildings off to the right, so she headed that way. 
    The sounds of the swamp were muted, almost as if she had stepped past a wall instead of a fence, and inside the compound she heard nothing at all.  She noticed her arms hurting and realized that she was squeezing the bag to her chest hard enough to leave marks on both arms and chest.  She readjusted her grasp and dropped the long strap over her neck to let the bag hang against her right thigh. 
    “Come on, Bella Lee,” she said, out loud to herself , “Girl, you got work to do.”. 
    With that she shook off the cob webs and started forward with more certainty.  She passed by the nearest of the outbuildings, and saw her destination ahead, back from the house and away from the main cluster of buildings.  She took a deep breath and blew it out slowly, then stepped out into the open and straightened her back, lifted her chin, and began again with a determined step.
    The doors to the crypt were still solid, as were the walls.  It was a grand old crypt for a grand old family, all stone slabs and  metal.  Above the door she knew the family name was carved in letters two inches deep to stay clear as long as they stood above the murky waters. 
    She dropped to her knees and began to unpack her bag.  When she got to the candle she set it carefully on the steps and lit it causing a small circle of light to invade the blackness.   Once everything had been unpacked she arranged everything just so, rum and cigar, meat and money.  She opened the mason jar and poured some of its contents into a little bowl then took a chicken foot with feathers tied to the ankle end by colorful thread, dipped the toes into the dark liquid and started writing with it on the top step of the crypt.
    “That about does it,” she said, setting the chicken foot aside and smiling at her work before sitting back and picking up a bundle of herbs and beginning to chant. 
    Sweat flowed down her sides and her night gown stuck becoming semi-transparent, she had lost herself in the words of the ritual, and her eyes were closed.  After a while her eyes came open, her back straightened, and a crooked, roguish smile spread across her face.  She laughed a sharp, little laugh, like the laugh of a crow, and swiped up the bottle of rum with her left hand bringing it to her lips and taking a long, deep pull.
    As the bottle came away from her mouth rum sloshed down the front of her nightgown.  She hunched, her left arm propped on her left knee in an oddly masculine pose, surveying the small collection of items in front of her.
    She picked up the chicken and tore a bite from the drumstick, chewing thoughtfully as she did.  She finished that and threw the bone into the swamp, then reached for the cigar, lit it with the candle and pulled hard before throwing back her head and blowing three big smoke rings.
    “It is good, Chile,” she said, in a voice not her own. “It will do.”
    Then her body went limp and she sat still and silent as the cigar burned out.
    She stirred after a moment, setting down the cigar beside the bottle of rum, and blowing out the candle.  The mason jar, the bowl (emptied of its macabre contents), the bundle of herbs, and the chicken foot went back into the bag, the rest she left behind.  She stood and  looked back up at the letters that she knew were there but could not see, and then turned and ran through the night towards the gate, and home beyond. 
    She had made it back to the familiar swamps when the clouds finally groaned one loud rolling groan, and burst open spilling their contents all over her and the swamps that she called home.  She turned her face up to the rain and laughed a loud and whole hearted laugh that was swallowed by a peel of thunder.  The rain felt like redemption, like success, and she enjoyed it and the relief that it brought from the oppressive heat of the swamp all the way home.