The True Forest

Below the Branches

Esme was freezing when she woke up. Hard lumps in the ground pushed into her back, and dew had settled onto her skin like frozen powder. As her eyes opened, muted noises of birdsong and shivering leaves came to her, and a faint tap-tap-tapping emanated between the tree trunks. The world was blue and grey in the pre-dawn gloom. She turned her head a fraction and winced as a muscle spasmed in her neck.

This forest was nothing like the one she had walked through the previous evening. Then, it had been golden with late sun rays, the air just starting to cool. The trees had been interspersed with footpaths she knew well, airy, and peaceful. She had stumbled along the paths in a daze, her eyes unfocussed as an argument replayed again and again in her mind, a looping conversation she could neither pause nor win. Lost as she was in this mental battle, she had failed to notice the path turn to underbrush beneath her feet, the trees drawing close around her. It was only when she stumbled, foot caught momentarily in the uneven ground, that she realized it was almost dark. Realized that she didn't know where she was.

With this realisation, the forest had started to look and feel very different. The noises of birds and rustling leaves, the sights and smell of the trees and the soil beath her, all usually brought her a deep sense of calm. But the moment she realised she was lost, the very air around her had turned hostile. She was in a space unknown to her, and the trees did nothing but hem her in. 

Retrace, that was the thing to do. She had carefully turned to face the exact opposite direction and began walking. The trees remained close, the trunks here larger and more gnarled than the ones at the edge of the forest with which she was familiar. As the sound of sunset started to fade — birds ending their calls, animals bedding down for the night — Esme had come to a pause, breathing a little harder than was normal, staring around into the gloom.

In truth, a part of her had been relieved when she realised she was lost. It was as good an excuse as any to avoid going back. The relief was short lived however, as she thought about the creatures that were known to live in the forest, the wolf packs and lynxes who's pelts resided on every farmer's hearth in the village; rewards for the endless efforts to protect livestock from the beasts.

By the time she'd collapsed under the tree, it had been so dark that she could barely see the ground below her feet. The moon, a waning flake of silver, had given her no light below the branches. But despite her fear, her eyes had grown tired of staring wide-eyes into the inky black before her. Without her notice, they had fallen closed.

Careful not to bend her neck this time, she shuffled her aching body into a sitting position, looking about in the hope that something would indicate the way she had come. But she knew it was hopeless. This shadowy dawn light was proving just as unhelpful.

For the first time since she had entered the forest, she considered the possibility that she wouldn't find her way out. She had seen maps of the lands surrounding her home, the village of Straith. In fact, they had a small map on the wall in the main room of her father's house, hand painted by the local mapmaker. It showed the houses and surrounding fields as smudges of pale brown and yellow, just above a blue line, the Burn, a river which originated in the heart of a vast ocean of barely-explored green. The great forest of Eivenwood. Wobbly lines showed the sparse paths which barely penetrated beyond the first few lines of trees, and with the exception of the mountains in its centre, the mapmaker had placed no landmarks within those green depths. Those that made their way further into Eivenwood, usually to hunt, did so in groups flanked by dogs, compasses in hand. In fact, the map in Esme's house didn't even show the northern and western edges of Eivenwood, for the forest stretched far past the edge of the parchment. Only the map that hung in the village hall showed the whole forest, and she had only seen it a handful of times. Enough times to know that if she set off in the wrong direction now, it could be over a week before she reached the forest's western flank. She had no illusion that she would survive so many nights in the cold, without food or shelter.

Esme tried to picture the forest as she had so often seen it from the outside, the view from the top of the slope that edged her father's land. She thought of the brother mountains, Adhar and Ghorm, which she had always seen as two grey-blue canines on the horizon, piercing through the green mass of the trees. If she could climb a tree and spot them, perhaps she'd know which way to go. Or at least which direction not to go: towards them, into the heart of Eivenwood. She decided she would climb the tree as soon as it became lighter, and having this plan calmed her a little.

Against the grey sky, the tree was a black silhouette. Esme rolled her shoulders as she looked upwards into the mass of branches above her, considering the route that she might take into the heights of the tree. She would step up onto that root just there, take that branch and haul herself up. The trunk was so wide that she had no doubt it could support her weight, and she noted with appreciation that it was mottled and textured, presenting footholds here and there up the trunk. She stared into the branches and saw a flicker of movement in her peripheral. A bird, perhaps? Automatically, her eyes darted over the spot the movement had come from. Nothing. Then – she squinted – the branches seemed to move over themselves, quite independent of any breeze. In fascination, she stared as a clump of branches slowly migrated along a thick bow, just visible as a criss-cross of shadows. 

Photo source: teaandrosemary.com