Forged Paradise- Part 2

 

2. 

The Woods

Maxim stepped through a sheet of fog. The ice of it bit through his hat and coat, chilling his arms. He hesitated in the midst, almost looking back, but the tug of the girl’s hand in his pulled him forward. With a final heave he pulled free. 

The girl’s hand slipped from his. Maxim waved his hands in front of him, freeing himself from the last vestiges of fog that still wavered next to his hat. “Hello?” he called, turning about. A wall of fog sat behind him, thick and pure white. The faint lights from the path managed to flicker through, a subtle warmth in the dark and cold of the forest.

Darkness fell heavy between the trees here. The faint light of the moon spilled down over leaves that glinted in its light. Maxim pulled his shoulders up, hunching over himself for warmth. The wind bit his cheeks. “Hello?” He called again.

“Hello?” His words echoed back at him from between the trees. Maxim started, searching in the darkness for the source of the voice. “Hello?”
Maxim stepped closer to the trees. Something lurked there, just out of his view. He pushed aside branches, stepping between gnarled trunks. “Who’s there?”

“Who’s there?” The voice echoed back. The tone was hollow, as gnarled as the trees through which Maxim walked. It bounced between the tree trunks until it was behind him. “Who’s there?” 

A movement flickered at the corner of Maxim’s eye. He turned sharply. Whatever had moved was gone. A faint mist hung over the path, low-lying and murky-gray. Maxim walked forward. His foot sucked down with a squelch. He stared down at his Oxfords. Mud crept up their sides nearly to the laces, darkening the brown fabric sides. He heaved his foot free. The mud gave a protesting gulp, then settled back. 

Maxim peered forward into the trees beyond the mud. Something lurked there. He felt its eyes on the back of his neck as he turned around and walked through the trees in front of him. He kept the wall of fog to his right. It would not do to lose his way in the darkness. 

His shoe squelched sadly as he walked, the wetness from the mud seeping through and soaking his sock. By the time he had walked ten minutes, the fabric chafed against his ankle and his foot was miserably cold. He kept peering through the forest, searching for the girl. 

“Maybe,” he said to himself, “I ought to have thought more before I left the path.” He had assumed she would walk with him, and she knew the woods. At least here, where the forest nearly met the king’s path, the ground was mostly even. A few tree roots stuck out, forcing their way in front of his feet. He stepped over them.

“Maybe…” something whispered behind him. 

Maxim whirled about, the swirl of his coat displacing the gray mist that crept along the path with him. A flicker of movement darted through the trees, now behind him, now next to him, the next moment disappearing into the darkness. “Maybe,” it called back louder. 

Maxim’s face flushed. “Are you taunting me?”
“Taunting,” the voice said. Its tone was sorrowful. “Taunting…”

“Stop that!” 

“Stop…” The movement flickered again. Maxim noticed that whatever it was glowed faintly in the darkness. 

“What do you want?” Maxim walked further from the path into the trees, careful to make as little noise as possible. 

“Want…” the voice said. It came from in front of him and just to his left. Maxim slipped that way, carefully avoiding the fallen twigs and roots that gnarled here between tree trunks. He thought he could see it, whatever it was, partially obscured behind a tree. 

His foot squelched again. The creature flitted away, darting behind another tree yards in front of him. Maxim sighed heavily. He heaved at his foot. This time it had sunk completely in the marsh. He felt the mud seeping into the bottom of his pants. He managed to free his foot, setting it safely on dry land. Clumps of mud clung to the laces, weighing his foot down. He shook it, but the mud clung on. 

“What do you want?” The voice called ahead of him. “What do you want?”

Maxim stared straight ahead, his jaw set. Then he turned and ran towards it. It fled, flickering and darting between trees. Tree branches whipped against Maxim’s face, but he disregarded them. He plunged deeper into the trees, the wall of fog disappearing forever behind him. 

His foot snagged on a branch and he went down. The ground seemed to pull at him, holding him with tendrils of ivy and mud. Maxim struggled to his feet, but the mud clung to his shoes. It sucked him down. He heaved, but his feet stayed firmly trapped. 

The wispy figure stopped running. It drifted closer to him, still obscured by branches and leaves. Another figure appeared, slipping through the trees towards him. Movement flickered in the corner of Maxim’s eye. He turned his head. Ghostly figures emerged from the trees around him, watching him with cocked heads and curious eyes. Their forms were thin, wisps of gray mist. Only their eyes, seeming to glow in the moonlight, betrayed their status as living things. 

“Hello,” Maxim said, his usually-sturdy voice shaking. 

“Hello,” a faint whisper replied. It echoed among the figures in the trees. “Hello,” “hello,” “hello,” “hello,” “hello.”

Maxim shuddered. “What are you?”

“You.” The first figure, the one he had followed into the trees, stepped free from their shadows. The light in its eyes was weak, milky soft. Its phantom muscles seemed to drip free, sagging towards the ground. Its face was pale and drooping. “You.” 

“No,” Maxim said, struggling to pull his foot free. His shoes stuck in the slurping mud. A curious phantom drifted nearer, but he waved it away with his hand, and it hissed. For a moment its eyes turned red, then they returned to the pale glow of the others. “What are you?”

“You,” “you,” “you,” “you,” “you.”

Maxim shook his head. The words seemed to bounce in his skull. He almost felt inclined to repeat them himself. 

“They are you,” a familiar, friendly voice said, “and you are them, and we are all each other.” Maxim looked up sharply to see the little man from the path. He leaned against his cane, his hat tipped at a jaunty angle. “What did you expect, Maxim?”

“Maxim,” a phantom started, but the little man waved his cane towards it and the phantom hissed, backing away.

“They aren’t even real,” Maxim said. 

“They are as real as you or I or any who walk these woods.” The man shrugged. “If you walk here long enough, they will not seem so strange.”

“I want to go back to the path,” Maxim decided. He heaved at his foot, managing to bring his shoe nearly to the surface. 

“What path?” said the voice of the girl who brought him from the path.

Maxim started. She stood where the little man had been a moment before. “What…”

She laughed, the sound clear and high. “Maxim, Maxim,” she said, “you know so little of the woods.” 

Maxim looked around at the phantoms. “I’m not sure I want to learn more,” he said. “Ghosts in the trees… That’s not natural, miss, and it’s never been.”

“Who are you to say what is natural, Mr. KienVera?” She darted towards him, her steps light over the surface of the mud. 

“Who are you?” The phantoms accused. “Who are you to say what is natural?” They bunched in the trees around him, their voices growing harsher. 

“Everyone struggles to get through the wood,” the girl said, her voice growing deeper and more gravelly. “Can you truly judge them if their paths are different than yours?” 

“I need to get back to the path,” Maxim said. He heaved his foot to the surface again, slipping it out of his shoe. He strained and stepped past the mud patch, placing his foot on the rough but firm forest floor belong. He yanked at his other foot, pulling it free from its shoe as well. 

“Oh, Maxim,” the girl’s voice had been completely changed now. She grew taller, her shoulders growing into the broad, hunched shoulders of the old woman. “Everyone walks this road. There is no other path.” 

“There has to be some way out,” Maxim said. His voice caught embarrassingly in his throat. 

“Everyone must walk the woods for themselves,” the old woman said. “There is no magic card to get out.” 

“Everyone walks this path,” one of the phantoms said. The others took up the cry, their voices harsh, their eyes turning red. “Everyone walks this path.” They crowded nearer. Maxim stumbled back, almost falling into the mud again, but he stopped himself. 

“No,”  he said, “this is wrong.” 

“How can it be wrong if you have done it?” The being asked. Its form flickered between the girl, the man, and the old woman. Their voices layered in a discordant harmony.  It cocked its shifting head, looking at Maxim. Its eyes were empty, black pools. “You are here, Maxim, so this must be the way.”

“No…” Maxim shook his head. “There’s another path. I was there… it…” 

“If it was so good, Maxim, why did you leave?” The tri-tone voice asked. 

“Everyone walks this road,” the ghosts whispered. “Everyone.” Cold hands reached for his arms. Maxim threw his hands up, shielding himself. The being laughed once, then its form vanished, leaving only gray mist behind. 

The eyes of the ghosts began to glow. They coiled, their limbs contorting in strange shapes. Maxim scooted back along the mud. A chill shot up his spine as he bumped into something behind him. He looked up. The ghost above him stared back, his red eyes fading into black. 

Maxim scrambled to his feet. His bare feet scraped against rocks and stones on the path below. Then he began to run. He shoved through the crowd of ghosts, fleeing deeper into the woods.

“Everyone walks this path,” the trees echoed around him.

Maxim ran on, shielding his eyes with a hand. Even so, the trees whipped at his face. The ground speared twigs and thorns into his feet. The ghosts followed him. Gray mist pressed closer to him, stealing his breath. 

Maxim finally stopped, gasping, his lungs burning for air and his throat burning for water. He doubled over. Sometime in his run, he had lost his hat. Branches had torn his coat, and his shoes were gone, forever lost to the mud. 

The ghosts waited, floating just beyond him in the trees. “Who are you?” one whispered. 

A pool of water opened before him, oozing from the ground. The mud shone in the moonlight, then sank, leaving behind a murky pool. Maxim crept towards it nervously. The mud swirled gently at its bottom, then settled. The moon, shining through the trees above, turned the surface white.

“What are you?” The ghosts asked again. 

Maxim reached the pool’s edge. 

“Who are you?”

He froze above the pool, paralyzed in the gaze of the ghost staring back at him from the reflective surface of the water.

“Everyone walks this path,” the phantom whispered in Maxim’s voice.