Whispers of the Forest

I’m jogging along the edge of the forest when I hear the screaming. It’s the blood curdling scream of a woman getting murdered. I rush into the trees following the sound, but it’s as though it shifts every time I think I’m getting close. It echoes off the trees and bounces around until I can’t tell which direction it’s coming from at all. I’m running frantically trying to find her as the screams get louder and closer together. Finally, it stops. I look around and see nothing. I grab my phone out to try and call for help but there’s no signal. The sun is starting to set, so I use the torch to keep searching for a while. When it’s so dark that I can barely see my feet under the light of the torch, I decide to head home and try to call for help from there. The only problem is that I don’t know where I am, or which way is back. For hours I try to find my way out, but I must be going in circles because everything looks the same. My legs ache as I drag them through the dirt and when I trip over a root, they won’t let me get back up. I console myself with the thought that once the sun’s up I can follow my footprints home. For now, though, I shiver in the cold midnight air with nothing but my workout gear to keep me warm. 

The sun on my face wakes me, bringing warmth and life back into my bones. It’s later than I expected; the sun is already well overhead. I stretch out my aching muscles and assess the situation around me. There are no paths through here, just an endless sea of tree trunks, dirt, and fallen leaves. I get up and check for the tracks I left last night, but they head in almost every direction, like I went through this spot over and over again. There are no tracks leading back the way I came. It’s as if I just appeared here and started walking in circles. With no clues to tell me where to go, I just walk straight ahead and keep my eyes out for a sign. 

You’re going to die out here. A voice whispers.

I spin around but there’s no one there. Did I hear that or just think it? I shake it from my head; I’ve got to stay positive. 

No one will ever know what happened to you. The voice whispers in my ear.

I scream at the trees and the echoes of last night’s screams answer back. This place is scarred by the torment of those who enter. 

Go back. The voice says.

I turn and turn but every time I start in a new direction the voice urges me to change course again. It has me zigzagging through the bush carving a trail that no one will ever follow. I scream and cry for surely I have gone mad. Up ahead I see the stumps of trees that have been cut down. Someone’s been out here. I run toward them, stumbling with exhaustion and already breathless. A large area has been cleared by hand and rough stumps poke through the dirt across it. On the far edge sits an old cabin, and although I want to cry with relief, no tears will come. 

It’s covered by a thick layer of moss and vines. The forest will claim anything if it’s left alone long enough. I approach the door with caution; it’s not carpeted with greenery like the rest of the building. I twist the handle and it’s unlocked. The door swings open with a creak, and I hear a shout from inside. A tall blonde woman rushes toward me with a hunting knife. 

“Who are you?” 

Her voice is raspy and low. She has a fierceness in her eyes that terrifies me, and from the way she holds the knife I can tell she knows how to use it. 

“Oh shit!” I say, throwing my arms up to show her I’m unarmed. “Sorry, I thought this place was abandoned.”

“I said, who are you?” Her eyes narrow and she grips the knife tighter so that her knuckles go white. 

“Um, I’m Desiderio. Desi if you prefer.” 

I drop my arms back down and stick my hand out to shake hers. She looks at it hanging in the air like a bad smell, and bares her teeth as sharp as an animal’s. I let it fall back to my side. 

“I didn’t mean to startle you, really. I got lost in the forest last night and I’ve been trying to find my way back out. I saw this place and thought maybe I’d find a map or something to help me.”

“Well, Desiderio,” she looks me up and down, “I guess you found what you came for.” 

“So, you’ll help me?” I ask and feel a sense of hope starting to ease my fractured mind. 

“I know the way out, but you’ve come almost to the very centre of the forest and it will take us a few hours to get to the edge. I don’t want to take you there and then get stuck finding my way back in the dark.”

“No, of course.” I say. “I had no idea I’d managed to get so far in. Maybe you could take me in the morning.”

“Maybe, but that would mean you’ll have to spend the night here.”

“I can stay outside if it makes you feel better. I’m not trying to intrude. Just maybe you could help me out with some food and a blanket so I don’t get so cold; my clothes are still damp from sleeping on the ground last night.”

“No.” She says. My face drops and I feel hope drain from me as quickly as it came. “No, I won’t have you sleeping outside when there’s plenty of room in here. You will stay with me until the morning.”

I sigh and hold my hand to my chest as my heart struggles to get back into rhythm. “Thank you. Really, you are saving my life.”

“You didn’t give me much of a choice did you.”

I look around, not sure what to say. 

She laughs. “I’m just kidding. I don’t mind. I don’t exactly get many visitors though, so you will have to put up with the limited amenities.” 

“Oh, no honestly anything is fine, I’m just glad to have a roof over my head for the night and the chance to go home tomorrow.” I smile. 

“Well how about we get you some food. I’ve got some stew already on the fire, you actually came at the perfect time.” She slips her knife through her belt and my muscles relax. 

“Thank you, I’m starving.”

She turns on her heels and heads back into the shadows. I follow cautiously behind her and the door swings closed on its own. Inside is lit only by the fireplace, so our shadows dance and flicker on the walls.

“What’s your name?” I ask.

“Atalanta.”

“Like the Greek goddess?”

“Yeah, I guess so.” She shrugs.

“I hope your father didn’t abandon you out here.” I joke, though I regret the words as soon as they’ve left my mouth. She turns around to smirk back at me. 

“Oh, quite the opposite.” She laughs.

She grabs a fire poker and stirs the coals, blowing the heat back into them. A few small logs are piled up beside her and she tosses some onto the hearth. As the fire builds up, she positions a large pot to hang over it and stirs the stew that’s already inside. With the extra light in the room I can see just how basic the furnishings are; only a table, a chair, and a bed fill the open space.

“You don’t have a fridge.” I say.

“What?”

“You don’t have a fridge to keep your food after it’s cooked, and that’s a lot of stew. Were you expecting me, or did you plan to eat all of that on your own?”

“Oh,” she chuckles, “No. There’s no meat in this one so it won’t spoil if I leave it out for a little while. I make up enough for a day or two and reheat it when I need to.”

She grabs a mug from the table and wipes it out with her shirt. I bite my tongue and turn my face so she doesn’t see the judgement in my eyes. 

“I only have one bowl, so you’ll have to eat from a mug, I hope that’s ok.” She says as she fills it with hot stew.

“More than ok.” I say. 

I take the mug from her and wrap my hands around it, trying to draw the warmth into the rest of my body. She fills a bowl for herself and sits at the table while I stand not knowing what to do with myself. She looks up at me and realises she’s taken the only chair.

“Oh, sorry. Like I said, I’m not used to having guests.”

She gets up and goes outside, coming back moments later with a large stump in her arms that would be far too heavy for me. She sets it down next to the table and gestures for me to sit. I take a mouthful of the stew and it warms my body from the inside out. I don’t know if I should be as surprised as I am, but it’s possibly the best stew I’ve ever had.

“So, why are you out here by yourself?” I ask.

“I could ask you the same question.”

“I was going for a run along the edge of the forest yesterday and I heard a woman screaming. It was a horrible scream - the kind that makes your throat bleed. I thought she might be getting attacked or something, so I ran in to find her. Next thing you know, I’m lost.”

“So you hear someone possibly getting murdered and you run toward it? That was wither very brave of you or very dumb.” She laughs heartily and I see those sharp teeth again, but the fierceness in her eyes has softened. 

“I guess more dumb than anything, because I didn’t find her and now I’m lost.”

“Well I wouldn’t really say you’re lost anymore.” She smiles. “You’ve found yourself here, and in the morning you will be going home.”

“I guess so, but I still want to know what happened to the woman. I hope she’s ok. Could you hear her out here?”

“No, I didn’t hear her. Sounds tend to get lost amongst the whispers of the forest.”

“Yeah, I noticed that. It felt like the sound was bouncing all around me, coming from every direction but the one I was headed.”

“I don’t think the trees like to be disturbed.” She says and stirs her bowl of stew pensively with her finger. “I think they do it on purpose to keep people away.” 

“Is that why you’re here?” I ask.

She smiles. “I’m not here to keep people away. This is just where I was always meant to be.”

She notices my cup is empty and so grabs it to go and get me some more. 

“The stew is very tasty, by the way. Who taught you to cook like this?”
            “I figured it out on my own. I’ve had plenty of time to experiment out here.”

We talk for hours, and she asks all about my life in the world outside. When I tell her that I don’t have any family to depend on either, she understands my pain completely. The night wears on and the fire burns back down to embers. She invites me to come to bed with her.

“I don’t want to make you uncomfortable or put you out any more than I already have,” I say. “I can just sleep on the floor.”

“Don’t be ridiculous.” She laughs. “You will sleep with me tonight.”

So we climb into her bed that groans like old bones and she pulls me into her arms. Her embrace offers more comfort than I have ever known, and I lean into it. She takes off her clothes as well as mine and brings me into her fully so that I might feel our shared pain ease a little.

In the morning I wake to find the bed empty. I sit up and see a note fall off the bed. It says that since I liked last night’s stew so much, she’d like to make something special before I leave. She’s gone out hunting and will be back soon. She must have built the fire back up before she left because it is blazing once again. I look once more at the bareness of the room and am already bored by it. My clothes that were left scattered on the floor last night have been hung on a wire beside the fireplace. I pull them off and get dressed, silently thanking her that they’re finally dry. I walk outside and shield my eyes as they get used to the sunlight. There’s a barrel of water at the side of the cabin, so I get the mug, the bowl, and the empty stew pot and try to wash them as best I can. I don’t know how long it’ll be until Atalanta is back, so I wander around the clearing a little more, exploring the gaps between the rough-cut tree stumps and collecting the tools she’s left scattered around. The sound of singing fills my ears and when I look up, I see the birds; hundreds of them all trapped in their own little wooden cages. They sing a warning song, as if they know something I don’t, and a shiver runs down my spine. I watch the sun get higher and higher until it starts to dip again and wonder if something has happened to Atalanta. I don’t have to wonder for very long though. She breaks through the line of trees with a rabbit strung over her shoulder and blood on her hands.

“Sorry.” She shouts as she approaches. “This guy took longer to catch than I expected, and I lost track of time.”

“Do you think we can still make it out today?” I ask.

She looks up at the sun. “I’m sorry, but I think it’s getting a bit late. I will take you tomorrow instead.”

 “Ok.” I sigh.

She sets down the rabbit on one of the stumps and begins to skin it. Her hands are confident and steady and she pulls the skin back after only a few cuts. 

“Don’t look so impressed.” She laughs. “It’s really not that hard. I can show you how to do it sometime, if you like.”

The birds sing their warning song again and dread flushes through my veins. I don’t think she’s going to let me leave. 

When I wake in the morning and find her gone again with another note left about hunting, I jump from the bed and scramble to put my clothes on. I grab a hammer from the pile of tools I collected yesterday and start running. I hit the tree line at a sprint but have to slow when I see the tangle of roots that covers the ground. As soon as the clearing is out of sight I can breathe deeply again. 

Go back. A voice whispers.

“No!” I shout at nothing.

You’re going the wrong way. 

“Get out of my head.”

I swing wildly around me with the hammer and hit nothing but air. I realise how mad I must look. I block my ears with my fingers and march onward. 

You’re lost. Turn around.

I pull my fingers out of my ears and scream. I subdue the urge to rip my hair out, and instead fall to my knees and cry. I can’t do this.

“Desi? Are you out here?”

I hear Atalanta calling out to me and the whispers quieten. She calls again and her voice is all that I can hear. I feel her hand on my back. 

“Desi, where have you been? Why did you leave the cabin?”

I look up at her, tears still staining my cheeks. “I was looking for you and got lost.”

“I left a note to say that I’d be back, you didn’t need to worry.”

“I know, I’m sorry.”

She takes my hand and leads me back to the cabin. We walk in silence and I wonder if she believed me. The trees open back up into the clearing and I see two dead rabbits on the ground; she must have dropped them when she realised I was gone. She walks me past them and into the cabin where she sits me down in front of the fireplace. Once she’s stoked the fire back to life and hung a pot of water to boil, she turns back to me and places a tender hand on my face.

“You rest up while I sort out dinner. It won’t take long.”

I watch her leave and drop my head into my hands. When I have enough in me to stand, I shuffle over to the bed and flop onto it. Something cracks, so I roll off and lift up the mattress. One of the slats has snapped and when I lean in to check it, I see a wooden chest underneath.

I drop the mattress and run over to the door, opening it just enough to see her empty the guts of one of the rabbits onto the ground. I shut the door as quietly as I can and turn back to the bed. The chest is pushed all the way to the back, so I have to slide under the bed to reach it. In the light of the fire it looks sinister. There’s no lock, but it feels almost too private to look, and I hesitate for a moment. I lift the lid slowly so that I can only see a sliver of its contents at a time. It looks like it’s filled with rocks at first, but by the time the lid is all the way up I can tell that they’re skulls. I slam it shut and shove it back under the bed. My hands are shaking. My heart is beating so fast I can see it pushing to get out of my chest. I hear Atalanta’s footsteps outside and run back to sit in front of the fire. She pushes through the door with her hands full of chopped rabbit and I scooch out of her way so she can get to the pot. I try to act normal as she works on dinner, but can only manage silence. 

“Is everything alright, Desi?”

“Huh? Oh yeah, everything’s fine.”

She gives me a look that tells me she knows something’s up but doesn’t say anything more. We stumble through stilted conversation as we eat; I can barely offer more than compliments on the food. After we’ve finished, I suggest that I wash up since she did all the cooking. She agrees, but keeps the knife securely in her belt. 

When it’s time for bed and she goes to take my clothes off, I stop her.

“Do you mind if we just cuddle tonight?”

“Sure, Desi. Are you sure everything is ok?”
            “Yeah, I’ve just been thinking about my parents a lot today. I miss them.”

She embraces me, and despite myself, I feel comfort in her touch. We lay down together and I pull her in close. It only takes a few minutes for her soft snores to fill the room and I lift my arm off her to check that she’s really asleep. She doesn’t move, so I reach down and carefully slide the knife from her belt. She rolls over in her sleep and I feel a pang of guilt now that I can see her softened features. I close my eyes, take a breath, and plunge the knife into her chest. She explodes into a fury of leaves picked up by the whirlwind of her own demise, and I weep for what I’ve become. The whirlwind slows and the leaves fall back to the bed in the shape of her. We lie there, murderer and murdered, until sleep finally takes me.

With no fire to light the room, it’s pitch black when I wake. I open the door to let the morning sun in and look back at the aftermath of last night’s act. The leaves are scattered now, but the knife remains where it fell. I walk out and close the door behind me. The birds are singing a song of freedom, but the forest is quiet. Even as the cabin and the clearing fall further and further behind, the whisperers stay silent.