Read by Lisa Rose (second story in podcast, here)
Put your hands over your eyes and count to ten.
No peeking; not even a tiny bit. Block out the light. Don’t let in enough to see red at the edges.
That’s your flesh, you know. That’s your blood. The dark bit in the middle? That’s your bones.
I’ll be around the trees somewhere. You need to know, not just where to look, but how to look. This deep in the forest, light plays tricks. I could be standing right in front of you. You wouldn’t know. I’m hard to see, and I’m even harder to catch. No-one’s caught me yet. Would you like to know how?
It started with the expedition. Me and Moira were best friends, right through school. From Infants to the last year of Primary, now that’s a long time for anyone. Even grown-ups aren’t pals for that long. It was the night Jason Donovan got to number one. Too Many Broken Hearts. We sang it in the street, non-stop. We discussed how we could both marry Jason.
We wanted to have a magical adventure in the forest. Moira said there was a castle hidden in there, right in the middle of the forest, and I believed her. She said they kept unicorns in a paddock. She had a map. She said she knew the way.
While it was still sunny and we knew where the road was, she told me a story about the spirit of the forest. She said he lurked in the shadows, and in all the plants and flowers. Moira said some people called him the Green Man, but there were much older names for him than that. He was there and not there, she said. He could move through the forest like a fish under the water. You had to look for his face in the leaves, the branches, the spaces in between. She said sometimes you could see his face on the bark. Or on a pattern on the leaves, like you see an owl’s eyes on the wings of a moth. Sometimes he would be sleeping, and if you peeled off a bit of tree bark without realising he was there, his eyes would open. That last bit scared me. We’d gone deeper into the forest by that point; it was still daylight, but dark, and the trees seemed to be crowding closer to us.
I told Moira to knock it off, and she laughed at me. You’re such a kid, she said. But it wasn’t long before we were both frightened. And it wasn’t anything to do with the spirit of the forest.
It was to do with a man, a horrible man. His face wasn’t like bark but his beard was straggly and rough, his clothes grubby at the knees, and his eyes opened wide when he saw us. He came towards us soft, on the balls of his feet, as if he glided over the forest floor. His footsteps made no sound. Twigs and pine needles were soft as cotton under his tread.
I’m not going to hurt you, he said, and grinned the way a badger might, or a fox. He had thin, yellow teeth. And we knew right away to run.
Split up! Moira said. He can’t get us both!
We did split up, and he didn’t get us both… Or at least, he didn’t get me.
I was lucky. I hid, in a tiny, tight place filled with bugs and dust, in a hollow where an old tree had pitched over in a storm and died. Its branches and roots were like the probing tips of worms, but they left a tiny, tight space underneath where the earth had spat the timber out. I hid in there. The man ran past, just once. I didn’t breathe. I shut my eyes tight and I counted silently. I’ll hide, I thought. I’ll hide in here until he’s gone.
I kept my eyes shut, and I stayed there. One minute it was sunny; the next it was freezing cold and dark, and the snow fell, then the sun came again and the fungi and the moss and the insects and I knew the cold I felt wasn’t the cold that chases your blood away, because I had no blood. I had only bones. I had stayed there, and no-one found me, in the middle of the woods. Police came close, with their dogs and their lights, but I had no voice. Just something faint on the wind, that you can hear, if you listen. Like you’re listening now.
Just me in the hollow, all alone, hiding forever.
Moira didn’t stay in the forest. She’s somewhere else. I still hear her cries on the wind; she’s far away, somewhere dark. She wasn’t as good at hiding as me. Or maybe she wasn’t as lucky.
So, I’ve become the spirit of the forest. My face appears in shadows, in the spaces between the green leaves, in the creaking branches and the rustling thorns. People come by, once in a blue moon – ramblers, people with dogs, people on bikes. Girls like me. Like I was.
Years and years and years have passed. Maybe it’ll be you, the next time you’re out in the quiet, where the only sound is the leaves and branches rustling in the wind. I’ll creep out and play hide and seek with you. I’ll put my hands over my eyes, like this. If I peek, I won’t see bars of red, like you do. I don’t even see the dark space where my bones were. And when I’ve finished counting… you’ve gone, and time passes once more.
I’m waiting for my turn. Come find me.
(c) Pat Black, 2023
Pat Black (as P. R. Black) is the author of several thrillers, including The Family and The Runner.
Actress, writer & mother Lisa Rose was awarded an Arts Council grant this year and is using it to develop her one-woman show The Power Project about women in the entertainment industries. She has recently recorded ln the Blood, an audio book for Arachne Press, & is in production with her pilot comedy Georgina & Summer, which has already won 7 semi-final film festival awards.
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