Into the Deep Wood

What should have been a joyous time of the year was overshadowed by the farmers who’d returned from their fields with grave faces. A larva they’d never seen had destroyed the wheat planted earlier that fall and rested beneath the snow cover through the winter. Entire fields were rendered useless. This brought panic for the coming harvest.

They’d now need to rely on buying wheat from the city, which they could barter for with the remaining potatoes. But everyone’s supplies would be slim now; no one was prepared for so many crops to lay dead. All would have to be replaced in the soil.

Everyone in the village helped out, the looming threat of a hard winter ahead.

One day, a merchant came through the village. Quickly thinking, Val’s mother had offered to split the journey costs if they’d let her and Val’s grandmother come along. Between the two of them, they could bring back a lot more than she could trade.

Val was tasked with staying behind, helping in the fields, and watering the gardens. It would be a week until her family was due back.

Exhausted from the difficult manual labor, Val would come home with blisters on her hands and aches in her joints. She’d sit by the basin, dipping her burning face in the cool water before washing her hands and arms.

One day, she came home so tired after a particularly hot day that she’d left the dirty water in the basin. She shut the door to the little room where it was kept and laid down that night, fast asleep.

The crash of metal against floorboards startled her awake.

Val shot up in bed and sat unmoving for a moment. The crash came from the other room. Hopeful that a gust of wind from an open window had knocked it off the small stool, she crept to the door and listened.

It was silent.

She entered, leading with a candle. The basin lay upside down on the floor, partially under the bed. The water was spilled all around, and the stool was knocked over in the corner of the room.

Val sighed with relief and let the candle down. She scolded herself for forgetting to empty it.

As she went to get the basin off the floor, it came to mind that the window had been closed when she entered. She paused on that thought as she reached under the bed –suddenly yanking her hand back.

Just on the threshold of the shadows cast by the mattress, something large had crammed under.

Val pushed herself up and out of the room - slamming the door behind her. She sat against it, feeling her body shake. Overwhelmed, she pressed herself against it, dreading that it would try to open behind her back.

She spent the night against it, unwilling to get up and let go. As morning broke the darkness, she finally stood, her muscles tensed so long that they now ached and burned. She held the knob, listening for just one more heartbeat.

Silence.

Carefully, she pulled the handle.

The candle had gone out and stood cold on the floor. The basin still lay abandoned on the floor. Val bent down slowly to look under, sighing with relief when only dust bunnies greeted her below.

Later, she wished she had looked closer at where the dust had been recently disturbed and wiped away.

Her sleep had only gotten worse from there. Her friends began commenting on how tired she looked. How the bags under her eyes were dark, and asking, was she ill? Val was plagued by nightmares of running through the woods. Something chased her but never caught her before she would wake.

Sometimes, she lay awake all night, dreading the disappointment of not having gone to sleep when seeing the first signs of morning light.

It was midsummer now. Val had not attended the bonfires. Had not joined the young people swimming in the ponds and reservoirs.

Her mother was worried, but as days went on became less involved with Val’s estrangement. She’d set a meal in front of Val and ask her to run errands and do chores, but aside from that, they hardly spoke.

Some evenings, she almost had not dared, but Val recalled the folktales of the wood spirits. Mischievous, they teased travelers along the road. They led people astray and into the marshes, where they perished. They disguised themselves as blind, worn-out travelers and tricked people into the woods, where they would get lost.

She did not feel that her dreams had held these creatures from the tales. There was no dancing in the clearings. No luring into the woods with sweet words or tales of treasures - only the iron grip on her leg dragging her further back through the ice and snow.