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She’s played in these woods since she was a child, explored them as a young teen, and admired them as a grown woman. This is the first time she’s gotten lost in them, and she doesn’t remember this particular clearing. Surrounded by dark, grown trees, and the sun has set sooner than she expected, or than she noticed. Something howls in the distance, something else rustles in a dry bush nearby. The forest has an eerie feel that she's not used to, not in all her years walking and exploring it.
It feels like it's waiting. Like there's something breathing behind her, but when she listens hard, all that she can hear is her own heartbeat. It's the edge of fall, and there's a chill in the air even though there hasn't been a hard frost yet.
Gem. Her name whispers on the air. She's been in the forest too long, and she's hearing things. She checks her bearings, and though she doesn't know where she is, she knows the boundaries of this forest. She can make it to the edge, or to one of the Parks and Forestry cabins, or to one of the roads.
Gem.
She walks. She checks the trees, she keeps an eye on her path, and the other out for anything hunting. There's always the chance of a predator, even if she's big enough not to be considered prey to most of the denizens.
Gem.
She's not imagining it anymore. The voice echoes around the trees surrounding her, and even though she'd walked away and hadn't crossed her own path, she's back in the clearing.
And two figures are waiting for her. Two maybe-women, maybe-something else. She can't pretend they're not here for her.
“Why do you know my name.”
The two creatures look to each other, and their forms shift oddly in the dappling of moonlight beneath the branches.
“The forest is no longer balanced,” the older one says, her skin showing signs of advanced decay, the off-white bones of ribs visible on her side through her tattered shirt.
“Without balance, the forest will soon be no more.” Her companion is still living, but her mouth is oddly wide and full of teeth, and her hands turn to claws and back.
She doesn’t understand. “But.. why me? What do you need, that I can give?"
They move closer without walking, and she takes a startled few steps back. Closer to the deep dark, and she’s almost out of room. She needs to stay in the moonlight, it’s her only safety from whatever they are.
The younger of the two smiles, and her eyes flash golden as the leaves over her head shift in the wind. “My predators have nothing to hunt, and they will soon starve.”
The older one frowns, and a chunk of flesh drops from her arm to fall into the leaf litter. Mushrooms burst and blossom, releasing spores into the air before their stems dry up into dust and blow away. “The forest needs blood and bones, the remnants left behind of a successful hunt.”
It might just be worse than she thought. “You- is it a sacrifice that- that you want?” She trips over the words, her heart pounding in her chest, and she thinks that they can hear it.
“Not that kind,” the older one scolds, and she flinches, but they don’t move towards her again. Her skin seals up, maggots crawling into her flesh before it closes. “The trees are lonely. They have no one to shelter, no nests in their branches, no burrows between their roots. The silence aches.” Her voice sounds like a moaning wind, carried through the leaves.
The other one crouches towards the ground, and a wolf pads out of the darkness to lean against her shoulder. “There is nothing to chase, and our senses grow dim as we lose the will to move. There are no rustles in the grass, no taunting from the branches, no challenges to keep us fit and agile.”
But what do they want from her? She takes a deep breath, and knows that her knees won’t hold her long if she needs to run. They may not even let her. “What can I do? I’m only one little girl.” Words she wouldn’t bother to say to anyone else, but here and now she is only human, and they are most emphatically not.
“You are one who loves the forest,” the older woman tells her, and her dry hair shifts to a fountain of fall oranges; rust and ochre and pumpkin, before it fades back to a dull grey. “Your voice makes the trees sway, your footsteps echo through their barren paths.”
“Your sweat perfumes the air, your fear and elation drip with the dew and highlight the old trails.” The younger woman sniffs the air, her nose pointed as whiskers grow and fade, and the wolf growls beside her before its eyes close, and it huffs into the reclined curl of a tired pet. “You bring new life and breath to the forest. A promise of food and play we are missing.”
It creeps up on her, like the feeling of being watched by the darkness, like knowing she is no longer confident in her safety. It’s an old story, a poem, a children’s song that she’s forgotten long ago.
The Ladies of the Wood. Mother, Maiden, Crone. The Planter, the Harvester, the Decomposer.
the maiden plants the seeds
young growth, new life, fresh air
in earth, in flesh, in spirit
the mother grows the harvest
tall fronds, strong bones, hunt howls
in earth, in flesh, in spirit
the crone composts the remnants
wood fall, body decay, last breath
in earth, in flesh, in spirit
There’s a third of the triumvirate that’s missing. And no one knows how the Ladies are chosen; if they accept volunteers, if they demand sacrifices, if they reincarnate, if they are immortal. Everything is rumor and myth, stories passed down that agree and contradict each other.
She forgets to keep track of them. And every hair on her neck, her arms stands up straight. She can smell damp fur, and brown decay, and her stomach rebels as her knees give out.
But in the moonlit circle of the clearing, she sits in lush grass and soft clover, growing and blooming up to meet her. Delicate moonflower vines twist and climb on her overalls, and somewhere close two rabbits copulate in the pale light.
“How much do you love the forest?” The eldest stands beside her, light of the moon turning her papery skin translucent, shining through her shriveled organs as they grow and pump and die back again.
The wolf is gone, but its growl is in the other woman’s throat as she crouches beside her. “The forest needs new life, will you give it yours?” She smells of blood, of rich earth and the fullness of summer. It sticks in her throat, cloyingly thick.
And she does. She loves the forest, in all of its seasons. At the height of summer, green and dry, full of grown animals and biting insects. In the fall, when color blooms in the trees, damp leaves on the ground and fat creatures readying themselves for hibernation or the lean winter. At the deepest winter, bare branches stretching towards the weak sun, evergreens dusted with snow, and the lone howls of the hunt, desperate for anything resembling food. And in the first flush of spring, new growth pushing from the ground, budding leaves and flowers, babies born and opening their eyes for the first time, learning the new world around them.
There’s no going back from this. Her life is the forest’s, whether she dies here to feed it today, or becomes something more, to become a never ending part of its cycle, its succession.
She giggles, terrified and thrilled both. And answers them.
“I’ve always wanted to live in the forest.” As a child, when it was simple, and she loved the growing things. As a young girl, seeking out the nests and burrows, watching the creatures grow and hunt and create more life, or give it. As a woman, knowing that all things live and die, in a circle of life that balances itself, that death and decay harbors and makes room for more.
“I could be a part of it,” she whispers, and then raises her voice and her spirit. “I want to be.”
“Something beyond yourself,” the crone says.
“Something beyond your means,” the mother agrees.
“Something beyond my reach,” she promises, and her blood runs cold as both women grin at her.
The eldest touches her chin, cold fingers like bone. “Lift your eyes to the sun’s reflection, and pledge your youth to her.”
The younger touches her arm, warm claws stroking. “Spill your blood to the earth, and pledge to plant new life in her.”
A nail catches her throat, a claw catches her wrist. “My youth for new growth, my blood for new life.” The words are pulled from her, not entirely against her will, but she didn’t know them before this. “My heart for the hunt, my body for nursing, my tears for deep roots.”
Teeth touch her neck, needles sting her thighs, and her tears spill over hotly against her cheeks. She expects to be torn apart, to be a bloody sacrifice to the old forest, part of an ancient ritual long forgotten. She stares at the moon, waiting for it to turn red with her blood.
Instead it grows. Larger and larger, as if it’s falling towards her. Fur springs from her skin, and falls away. Grass and flowers sprout, their roots and vines tear at her before crawling upward, sweeping her hair up with their travel. Her bones crunch, break and reform, and her lungs fill with salt water before purging into the carpet of green around her. Two spikes burst from her head, and she sobs as drops of her blood well up and drip to the ground.
And then her heart stops.
Her body twitches, falls, spills her to the ground as she stares at the blazing moon, certain that each breath will be her last. But she will feed the forest, and her love will continue on with her sacrifice. Her mortal body goes still, and cold, and the moon shines on in her fading sight.
The wolf mother sits on her chest, cracking her ribs open for the wolf. The decaying matron covers her mouth and steals her last breath, the air whistling through her open ribcage. And the plants and insects crawl over her, vines and plants cover her, soft paws and sharp claws dig into her, and the forest itself envelops her.
Beneath the next full moon, the Ladies of the Forest dance. The long winter is ending, and the forest is coming to life once more. Green sprouts in the soil and on the trees, new pups and kits of all sizes gambol while their parents watch from light and shade, predator and prey held in stalemate while the Ladies rejoice.
ZombieCleo, the matron of decay dances, and her bones rattle as her flesh drips nutrients into the ground, releasing their stored compost.. PearlescentMoon keeps pace with her, mother of the hunt and the feast, spreading the beat of quick hearts and sated hunger. And GeminiTay, the maiden of new life and growth dances around them, her antlers hanging with vines and flowers, spreading pollen and seed as she revels in the lifeblood of the living, breathing forest.