Into the Deep Wood

Out on a walk, she heard her mother call her name somewhere far away.

The sun was just on the cusp of setting, and it was time to return home. Val turned and walked through an orchard - she marveled at how plump and red the cherries on their trees had been.

Just beyond the trees stood Ura’s white home.

She stopped for a moment, looking at the home that would have been hers should fate not gone as it had. No more. Her eyes fell to the doorway. It was open so the summer air would flow through the house. In the depths of the mud room, she saw someone looking out at her.

It was Ura.

She was too far to see his expression, but his stance was tense, back straight, and feet set wide apart.

Val braved a couple of steps forward. All she wanted was an explanation.

Why had he avoided her? Why was he afraid of her?

It had been six months since they’d spoken a word to each other.

She took another step, feeling that if she approached too fast, he would once again take off.

To her immediate relief, he stepped forward too, but that relief changed fast to worry when she saw his face in the light. His eyes were harsh, his jaw clenched, and his mouth turned downward to a scowl.

His voice was hushed, as if he did not want anyone in the house to hear him. “It’s you! It’s YOUR fault!”

Val stared at him blankly.

“It’s your fault the crops failed! It's your fault that families will starve! You brought it here from the forest!” She saw his fingers had been curled into fists. “That thing.”

Val was caught by surprise by his violent wave of emotion. She had not been ready for it.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about…”

“Pigshit, you don’t know!” He no longer cared if everyone could hear. “Should you have any decency, you’d leave us alone, witch!”

She heard her mother call again.

She sounded… strange.

For a moment, she looked into Ura's eyes, so filled with hate. She thought, had she stood closer, he might have dared to hit her.

Val turned, and she ran.

The next morning, the household woke up to a woman wailing outside.

They rushed to where one of the older ladies thrashed on the ground. She was not yet a grandmother, but grays had gently touched the crown of her head. She knelt, her hands clutched to her chest and head low to the dirt.

She cried out, her groans desperate and heart-wrenching. People were surrounding her.

Val tried to get through but was pushed aside.

“All dead!!” the woman wailed. “All dead! We’d gone out there, and they were all dead!”

She collapsed, yowling again.

Dead were the flock of sheep, the largest in the village. Through word of mouth, Val had found out that the wailing woman was the wife of the shepherd - they’d both gone out to the pasture in the morning to find the field full of corpses.

Some had their throats crushed, and some, their heads. Some lay with their ribs picked clean, and some with their guts spilling into the grass - stretching out as if something tugged at them before letting go. The only sheep to escape was the heavily pregnant ewe left in the barn that night.

This was devastating news for everyone. With the winter wheat gone and the livestock reduced by half, they would have a very difficult year.

Talks of starvation were whispered behind closed doors. Truly, they would struggle, but their gardens and what remained of the pigs and cows would do. But these people did not know anything but plenty. Did not know a day without bread or a week without meat.

Some spoke of the wolves coming from the Deep Wood. Some said it was the bears. The elderly insisted it was the devils that came and killed the sheep. And no one was willing to walk alone anymore.

The somber mood hung heavily in the air. There were no fires anymore, no songs. No people walking hand in hand. Everyone had locked their doors and closed their curtains before the sun had even set. The disappearing rays of light rolled slowly across the quiet houses and empty orchards.

This sort of silence had not been felt in the village ever before.

A stillness enveloped Val. By this time, she was used to her long waking hours and sparse sleep. But her legs grew restless this night, tossing and turning in frustration. She tried stretching them and pulling them closer to her body - but nothing helped. She grew so angry that she got out of bed and paced the room. She’d circled it so many times that even that became unbearable.

Val was the reason all of this was happening. She was at fault for bringing it here to the village.

Ura was right. It followed her back.

And now it was haunting them, and she did not know how to make it stop.

Before she knew it, she was outside her home. Her pacing had brought her to the yard. She jumped up and down in frustration, begging the restlessness in her legs to calm.

She left the enclosure of the gates. No one would be out that night.

A mosquito landed on her leg, and she squashed it with the palm of her hand. It was dark, and they hung like a cloud above her. The public bonfire smoke kept them at bay, but this night, she was entirely at their mercy.

Her irritation at everything around her grew. Val felt like screaming into the air until everything that her life had turned to would escape her in that violent breath. But instead of screaming out herself, she heard the pleading baa of a sheep.

The animal had sounded in distress.

Alarm gripped Val in its clutches, the dead animals in the field vivid in her mind.

Careful not to make noise, she crept around her neighbor’s home and listened for the sheep again.

Baaa! Baa! BA!

Growing more frantic, the shrill cry vibrating in Val's ears.

She crept with her back against the shed and stared into the darkness, trying to see inside the barn. No lights were burning, but an opening in the ceiling was left ajar, letting a bit of early moonlight inside.

The air smelled of hay and manure and a thick, nauseating, and sickly smell that she could not name - she could almost taste its foulness on her lips.

The sheep bleated again in panic, and Val heard it struggle against the latch on its pen. The loosely nailed wood shook with the impact of its body but did not open.

She edged closer, the shapes of the stalls and the animal coming into focus.

This was the pregnant ewe that had not been with the others in the field when they’d perished.

But there was something else here.

It was dark against the ceiling, and one could mistake it for a heavy shadow that was disturbingly out of place among the wooden support beams. A limb reached out and grabbed at the joist, pulling the rest of it behind, and descended slowly, the wood creaking under its weight.

Val felt her face grow cold and pale, her stomach tightening, but she could not look away.

The thing reached out what looked to be an arm- or a leg? The joint was facing backward from where the head looked to be. It gripped the stall and lowered itself down the pole and closer to the animal, whose movements were now crazed, pressing itself against the opposite wall.

The sheep baa’ed - and Val saw the creature open what looked to be its mouth, its jaw hanging loosely as it did.

Bahh!...

To Val's horror, it baa'd right back into the animal's frightened eyes, its head not an arm's length away. It was a guttural, mimicking sound, almost like that of the sheep, but just wrong enough.

She saw the lunge and spun back around the corner and against the wall. Her eyes did not need to see because her ears had heard - the quick squeal and easy rip, the wet slosh, and the crack of bones being broken. She’d heard sounds like that when a dog was given the remains of a chicken carcass for dinner. Another baa followed weakly, the ewe still alive.

Val felt like she needed to scream, but the scream wouldn’t come - the next thing she knew, her legs were carrying her away. She ran without hardly taking a breath.

She only wanted to shut the house door behind herself - safe in the room aglow with the light from the stove.