Dark Flames

Jadda would never be able to say for sure when and where the moment came. She only knew that she didn’t see or feel it at the time. She only knew that she’d felt hints and suggestions, that she’d seen a brightly-coloured butterfly, or a twisted log; she’d noticed the way the trees bowed and thickened, how the moss and mushrooms grew thicker on the bark, or she’d noticed a growing profusion of forest noises; or noticed the lull in them at moments when the forest seemed to hold its breath and then exhaled the multiplicity of forest sounds back in amongst the trees and undergrowth. In hindsight she could remember these things, but in the moment, they slid by her. The sun was still in the sky, which was blue; and the grass was green, there were occasional trills of birdsong, the rustling of small animals, the chirping of unseen insects. And so, she didn’t really know at all.

It was only when the path petered out ahead of them, flowing beneath a carpet of green grass and red flowers, that she stopped and stared around, fully taking in the sweep of nature, noticing the white underbellies of trees, their roots arching out of the forest floor, broken-backed and sharp around the edges. Leaves culminating in knife-points. Shadows that didn’t match the trees casting them.

When they turned towards the way they had come she saw the path quickly fade away, washed out by a growth of bright weeds.

She looked at Kinsom. Hadn’t he been here before?

His expression was grim. “We’ve crossed the boundary. I don’t know when.”

“Now what?”

“He was here. Somewhere. I can’t… I can’t remember exactly…”

It was only then when it really dawned on her. When she stopped and thought: what have we done? Because this realm they’d entered was massive. Nobody knew how wide it went, how deep, how long. And somewhere in this panorama, maybe, only maybe, Dreok might still be, might still be alive. He was a twig, a seed – something so small in the landscape that he might disappear and never be noticed. Even if he were still here, if he weren’t already bones. And surely… And now, as the hopelessness of her quest caught up with her, she faced head-on the understanding that she might – more than might – never be able to find her way out again.

What have we done?

But she couldn’t share that thought with Kinsom. Not when she’d insisted on her bravery and competence.

She reached for his hand though. “Does it look familiar?”

“Yes. I mean… in a general sense. And… and the feel of it. That part. But I don’t know where anything is. I don’t know where Dreok is.”

She smiled, wryly, fondly. “We have no plan.”

“This is not an easy place to plan for.”

“Tell me what you remember.”

“It’s most dangerous at night. The trees can move. There are things living amongst them that come out at night. I remember their eyes – red and green glows in the dark – and the sounds they made. I can almost… I can’t quite… I can almost remember what they looked like. Big… hairy… or smooth and white, almost like bone. I can’t…

“There were people. But they looked… wrong.  I can’t remember why. I’m sorry I got you into this.”

I got myself into this. Jadda bit back the platitude. “We need to think about Dreok. Where might he go? Is there somewhere you headed last time?”

“I think we tried to turn back, retrace our steps. Except that we couldn’t. Nothing is in the direction you think it is. You think you’re going towards something and suddenly you realise it’s behind you. We got so lost, so quickly.”

“What about people? A path? A river?”

“I don’t think we found one. We may have seen smoke. We probably would have tried to head towards smoke. It would have made sense.”

There was no sign of smoke anywhere. Though, of course, it was difficult to tell, with the tree-trunks being so thick and close-together, trunks and branches so garlanded in vines and ferns, there being such a tangle. “What about higher ground?” she asked.

Kinsom nodded. “Maybe. Makes sense.” But even that was hard to ascertain. The forest was largely flat, and seemed to slope here and there at more or less random.

Jadda looked up the great trunk of one of the trees. She could see a fair way if she got high enough. But it didn’t look like an easy climb, and she had a feeling that it wouldn’t stay still for her, that she wouldn’t be able to trust her feet to its sturdiness, or her hands to its many branches. The trees can move, he’d said. And who knew what might be up there, concealed in the canopy waiting to slide down at dusk like a snake?

Kinsom followed her gaze. “No. It’d never let us go. But I think that’s still north,” and he indicated towards a direction that to Jadda’s mind could have been just about any direction. “Back in the real world, that would head upwards towards Eagle Sights. If we’re lucky it might do the same here.”

Lucky. Yes, they’d need some of that. But maybe, some unremembered years ago, Kinsom and Dreok had talked the same way. Reached the same conclusion. Maybe Dreok could still be there.

#

As they walked, Jadda marvelled at how quickly the forest banished the sun. It seemed as if it did so in time with their journey, the sky drinking a little more of the sun away with every mile. There was an atmosphere - this deep, a pervading sense of anticipation - as if something might reach out or strike at them at any moment. The trees didn’t seem to hold their shape, and yet you never saw one change or move. You might just look behind you and see a different configuration. See flowers growing where there’d been none a moment ago, see trees that had suddenly stretched their branches in threat or supplication.

Jadda thought once she saw a deer. But then... something about its face... touches of what seemed too much like humanity.

A tree, that bent and grinned like a witch.

A grove of flowers that grew in a neat circle, blood red, promising a trap.

“You can’t trust anything,” Kinsom warned her.

He snatched her wrist to stop her moving, as a mound of earth erupted from beneath thick grass and moss. There must be something under it, burrowing, moving it in that frenetic, hunting way. But she couldn’t see what the creature was. And though she saw shadows from overhead that seemed to belong to massive birds, there was never anything up in the sky when she tilted her eyes upwards.

Only the sky. Which turned from a lazy azure to a colour more like peaches, and then more bloody, more fiery, laced with a mist of gold. This colour slid down into the forest like rust, oxidizing its way over the surfaces of leaves, and dripping down amongst brambles and blades of grass.

For a while the surfaces of the trees became reflective. It was like looking into the surface of an undisturbed lake. She, with a wildness about her, hair messed up, clothes travel-worn; and Kinsom with his prickly beard and hair resting on his shoulders. They made a strange pair. But they did make a pair. How far he’d come with her, how much further he’d be willing to go. He’d behaved with kindness and propriety. His arms had been warm enough.

She could, she realized. When it was all over done with, one way or another. Yes, she could. If he would have her.

“Jadda.”

She found that her eyes were glued to the tree. She heard Kinsom calling her name, and she’d meant to turn around to face him, but she found that her head wouldn’t move. Her eyes were drawn to her own eyes in reflection. And to reflected-Kinsom, whose features seemed handsome, secure, reassuring. There was something about the two of them, caught and crystallised there in silk-smooth bark, a matching pair, a… couple…

If he asked her; if wanted her tonight, she imagined she could say yes.

“Jadda.” She felt his arms on her.

“Look at us…”

“It’s better not to look.”

It took a great effort of will to turn her head. To look at Kinsom directly. And the magic disappeared from his eyes as she did. But what she’d been thinking… contemplating…

“Sorry,” she murmured.

“We should keep moving.”

“Of course. Yes.”

And they kept going, wading through the undergrowth, until the dark was well-upon the forest. The noises were bigger now, and more sinister.

“We have to camp eventually,” Kinsom said, “even if there is nowhere safe.”

“I suppose so.”

And she built a big fire, though she feared each branch she picked up to fuel it with. Which one would twist around and suddenly bite her arm? We’ll never leave here alive. Or at all. At least her bones would be somewhere close to Dreok’s, or she could hope so.

“He must have been a good friend to you,” Jadda said, warming her hands against the flame, snuggling up to its light against the threat of the dark.

“He was.”

“To have come all this way. To have kept looking for him. To risk coming back here.”

“We promised each other. There were times when nobody else had our back. We saved each other’s life more than once. And like I said, he talked about a sister. Quite a lot. There was no way I could go on without finding you, without trying to reunite him with you. I know he wanted to go home to you. He always intended to.”

“I missed him. I was alone up there.”

She could almost hear the old crones up in the village tut-tutting her: well, whose fault is that then? There’s eligible men to be had, and you’re not such a bad prospect. Well enough to look at, and you can take care of a house, and you know how to work hard. A man could do worse. And a girl doesn’t want to be too alone.  And she was reminded again of what she’d thought of when she looked into the tree. Was it the mirror-surface that had conjured that up in her? A little trick of the forest? Or could there be something real behind it? She tilted her head to take a look at Kinsom, trying to judge him in an objective light. He had been kind to her, he had behaved honourably, his quest to find her brother spoke well of him. Didn’t it? Was it really so out of the question to look at him and consider calling him husband?

“What?”  He’d caught her looking.

“Nothing.”

“You were staring at me.”

She felt her tongue swell in her mouth. She might not have said anything except that she thought she had to say something. She asked him, “Are you married?”

“Married?”

“I’ve never asked that. Or a lot of things about you.”

“I would have shared that. On Firenight.”

“And you never have been?”

“No.”

“It’s unusual not to. Hasn’t any girl…?”

“I could put the same question to you.”

Jadda chuckled. “It’s been put to me enough times. Why is it girls have to field that question twice as much as men?”

“It’s not good for girls to be unaccompanied. Isn’t that what they say? That it breeds unnatural thoughts.”

“They say it,” Jadda answered. But she didn’t think any of her thoughts were so unnatural.

“I have to piss,” he told her.

“Don’t go too far.”

She sat and gazed into the fire as he walked away. Thoughts crammed her mind. She didn’t know what to do with them. She felt as if even the fire showed a little of her reflection to her. She could almost see her face in the way it twisted and flickered. There were colours in fire that you didn’t see unless you looked deeply…

“Jadda!”

She half-turned when she heard the panic in Kinsom’s voice. And she realized as she did so that that was a mistake. She should have backed away, keeping her eyes on the flames. She shouldn’t have given it that unwatched moment. Because the fire took it. She’d barely turned before the creature leapt out of the flames. The creature was the flames. It had a body that was an approximation of the human shape, but there was nothing flesh inside it, just the ethereal heat of the fire.

And it was hot.

And the wind called up by its heat was fierce. It had jumped on her before she was aware of it, and now it’d knocked her flat. Its hands were around her wrists and she could feel that circle of heat and pain surrounding them. There was nothing solid about this creature, and yet it had strength. It had her pinned. She could see into its face – a face almost fox-ish, with diamond teeth, black eyes – and she could feel the flames reaching out from its cheeks and forehead to lick hers, magicking blisters along her skin.

Kinsom was screaming. Terrified.

Of course, she realized, knowing it as if from some vast, theoretical distance. It’s killing me, isn’t it?

Kinsom was trying to drag it off her, but there was nothing to hold onto. He was trying to beat it away from her with a branch, but the flames leapt to the branch and it became a torch. It just fed the elemental. When he threw it down in frustration the fire leapt to the forest floor. One side of Jadda’s skirt burst into flame.

A forest fire. Here.

She could imagine the kind of beast that such a fire would be. She could picture the horror of it. And she knew she was dying. She was even dimly aware of the pain, but it all seemed to be happening in a faraway place. She felt a jolt. Maybe it felt that way to be struck be lightning. But it wasn’t lightning. It was rain. And it was pelting down. Smashing into her burnt, blistered flesh. Coming down so hard it dissolved the thing sitting on her, melted it away in seconds.

A forest fire. Here.

But the clouds were merciful.

Or they feared such a fire so much they would lay down a barrage of rain to keep it from happening.

Kinsom was beside her. She could feel his hands pressed against her cheeks. He was talking to her, but she couldn’t hear what he said. Behind him, around him, it seemed as if the rain turned into glittering figures, women in sheer, shimmering ball dresses. It seemed as if they were all around, a circle, watching, waiting.

“Can you…?” she tried to ask Kinsom.

“Sssh.  Sssh.” He promised her, “you’ll be all right. Stay still.”

“Can you see them?”

Maybe he could, but he seemed to focused on her right now. She guessed maybe that was a bad sign. She was finding it hard to speak, but she wanted him to notice. But then, already, they were fading away, and there was nothing but the rain and almost utter darkness surrounding them.

 

Picture credit/discredit: author's own work