Into the Deep Wood

They sat together all night. Val was so exhausted she could not keep her eyes from closing.

Without a real plan, they decided she would sleep with her head in his lap so he could not leave without waking her up. When this immediately did not work, as Marat could not sit still, they settled on one end of the chain being slipped under Val’s pillow.

The morning found them this way.

“I have to ask this of you, and please understand.” He told her as he got ready to leave for the fields. “You have to move back in here. I cannot trust that the chains will hold or that I will let them.”

She nodded, sleep still blurring her vision. They did not say anything else, and both went to do their respective daily work.

“You were not here last night, my dear.” The farmer’s wife met her in the doorway to the main house. “I thought that maybe you would be.”

“I’m sorry, Mother. I was in,” she paused, thinking of what she would have to say next, “I was in the barn. With Marat.”

A smile flowed across the older woman’s face. She took Val’s inability to meet her eyes as a maiden’s shame. “I knew you’d see reason, my dear.”

She welcomed Val into the home, where the business had gone as usual.

During the day, Val worked in the home, the chicken coop, and the orchards. At night, she returned to the barn, where Marat fastened the chains around a support column. He ran a rope through the ends to make it easier for her to pull and secure them together, where he could not reach.

The first night had not been so bad. Val fell asleep, only waking up once when Marat’s shuffling around made the chains clank. He seemed alright. He was asleep, sitting against the support post, his body slumped forward.

This had repeated the second night; this time, Marat had trouble sleeping. He remained awake for a good portion of the night but sat with his eyes closed, humming to himself. It was not a song he hummed, just a vibration in his throat.

Then came the third night.

Lulled into a sense of safety, Val had made herself comfortable, her head tucked into the feather pillow. She was so tired from the day. She had to clean the horse stalls and help Aimak with their horseshoes. Just as she began drifting off, the glow of the coals warming up the small space, she heard a strained groan from across the room. She turned, checking if Marat had been okay.

He sat, his muscles tense, upright as tightly against the column as he could. Beads of sweat on his forehead began crawling between his brows and temples. His eyes were squeezed shut.

“Marat?”

“She cries for me,” He said under his breath, “she begs.”

She sat up and swung her legs down to the floor. She was about to stand, but his eyes shot open.

“Don’t!”

Val was still. Anxiety began welling up inside her gut. Something was happening.

He groaned again as if in pain, straining against the chains, the rough-hewn post digging into his back.

“Bitch!” he let out, too loud. It startled her, and she could not help but flinch back. “She speaks of my father.”

Val sank down on the floor, her back against the bed. Whatever he had been hearing, it must have been terrible. He never spoke of his father before. She did not know if there was anything she could say to comfort him. She didn’t even know if he would hear it.

“It burns.”

She retrieved a bucket used to feed the cattle, and went to fill it for him at the well. Val looked around; the clothes and towels were in the main house. So she took the scarf, the one the farmer’s wife had given her, off her head. She dipped it in the water and set it against his brow. He was feverish. His face was pale. He did not respond to her touch, and the knot in her stomach grew - but alongside it, so did her unexpected calm.

This felt… bigger. Bigger than what happened with her and Amir. Bigger than anything she had felt when he caught her following him. When he had been cruel.

He jerked forward. The only thing stopping him from knocking her over were the chains that grew taut and creaked. His eyes were closed at first, but when they opened, they were crazed. They found her.

“You jealous bitch! Let me go!” He said it through grinding teeth, his jaw stressed, and veins protruding from his neck. “You do not understand it; let me go!”

She shook her head and scooted away from him, back against the opposite wall. She pulled her knees up, silently watching him.

He stared beyond her, his eyes fixated somewhere. She narrowed hers, suddenly feeling that something else was not right. He was looking at a real object, not one in his mind. She jumped up - her sudden movements flashing panic across his face.

“Valeria, please, I need water. Please, go get me water?” He begged her, but she saw his eyes were still just as wild as before. She watched him carefully, and when his gaze darted away from her, she turned and sprung toward where he had glanced.

He was trying to mislead her, to hide something.

“VALERIA!”

Her hands shook a little as she searched. His despair confirmed that it was here. Somewhere.

“Where is the iris?” She asked him, her words balanced, calm, and intentional.

Marat started thrashing. Against the chains, against the wood column, and the floor. Blood stained the back of his shirt where he had rubbed it raw - splinters lodged deep inside. He did not seem to feel it.

“VALERIA! You jealous bitch, if it were up to you, I would never see the light of day! I never have peace, never feel her again! You just want me for yourself! You want revenge for what my brother did! Let me go!”

She didn’t react, nor did she stop searching. It was not under the pillow or in the blankets. It was not under the bed, between the mattress or on the table. It was not tucked away in the hard metal shell of the compass.

It’s been here the whole time. She did not know its significance, but he wanted it - so it could not be here any longer. He hadn’t told her it was there. Yet, he must have known. Before he put the chains on, he knew it had remained in the barn, and he did it anyway.

Her eyes landed on the hand-bound journal. She shook it on its side, the pages rustling as they fluttered together and apart.

It fell out, flattened, and dry.

Val grabbed it, holding it in her hands, and looked to Marat. He’d been fixated on it.

He opened his mouth to beg her, but she dropped it on the red-hot coals before he could. The dry flowers lit up in flames as fast as they had faded and turned to ash.

“NO!”

She sat back down.

The words he threw at her between his body twisting and twitching would have hurt her on another day. But she sat, her chin resting on her knees again, and watched him.

It was a different man that sat there. This was an animal, not Marat. However cruel he could be, however often he had made her cry, this was not Marat.

This was the thing, the thing she had seen in the forest.

And he was right. The creature’s claws had been dug deep inside.