Dozens of figures perched upon the upmost branches, and all of them stared at me as I followed their numbers deeper into the forest. Even stuffed with cotton I felt a bit like a cowardly scarecrow. I might be able to survive at attack from them, but I’d be strewn all about the place into many bits in pieces to ever get anything done. Unable to move.
I shuddered at the thought, birds are terrifying. It probably would have been less pathetic were they not all jays and robins, the kinds most people consider peaceful and beautiful. Nonetheless, a mass of any creature moving in silent unison is terrifying.
Through branch and burr, brush and stream, I moved keep a close eye on those birds. I couldn’t tell how far I had walked or even how long, I couldn’t track the sun in the dense foliage. I’d only be able to tell when it had begun to set and by then it’d be too late, moonrise would come with it. So, I moved as fast as I could, hoping the whole time that I had no guessed wrong and wasted time.
When the light began to die, I felt the worst of my fears set in. But it was only the forest growing even further. Even one step would take me minutes as I fought the twisting vines that entangled my feet. If I didn’t know better, I would think the forest was merely trying to slowly consume me. Like some sort of snake, wrapping around me slowly crushing the life from me.
Then, I thought I been wrong. The birds were a trap. They had said the Lady didn’t let any one in her forest she didn’t want. But had Iron John been on her side? Fae weren’t known for their loyalties, he wasn’t an exception, even if we had been friends at one point.
I tried to turn back. I had made a mistake. I should have gotten more information. I wrenched my foot, but it refused to move, wedged between two roots. The flutter of wings rose all around me. Were they attacking? Or was it potential prey fleeing at the sight of a predator?
I struggled as the world closed in around me, a trap of wood and plant. My arms became pinned to my torso, I could move them any longer. Vines crept up my legs, wrapping tight. I might not die here, but I certainly wasn’t going anywhere. Then it hit more, or more precisely, cut me. The knife underneath my jacket had pressed against the flesh in my arm. The iron knife.
Plants in Faery are like any other organism in Faery, their bane is iron. I wedged and twisted with the little room I had available to me and tried to work a hand up into my jacket. The space was tight, I squeezed out a final breath, even without lungs it still gave me the room I needed to slip the knife out.
Some already knew it was coming, they escaped at least the faster moving ones. The vines freed me, but the branches took a great time. I stabbed at them, just enough to teach them a lesson.
A forest is like any other living creature. It howled and retracted, angry but scared. As quickly as it had descended upon me, I was free. It cleared a path, obviously wishing to protect itself more than the Lady of the Harvest.
Hell, it gave me a straight shot. There in the distance, a small cabin sat at the center of a clearing. Light shone down from the sky, with the angle and degree I still had time.
I kept a slow and steady pace through the rest of the path though, keeping the knife out and at the ready. The forest was begrudgingly letting me through, if I gave it the chance it would be on me again. And it was doubtful I’d get away as easily the second time.
Buttery aromas drifted from the clearing towards me as I approached. There was no one to stop salivating, it had been awhile since I had smelt food like that, decadently sweet and aromatic you just couldn’t find in Notion City. I thought for a moment the Lady might be baking, and a moment of dread set in when I thought further on what she could be baking, but when I drew closer to the cottage I realized that it was the home itself giving off the smell.
The house was constructed from sweet cakes, candies and other sugary confections. How it survived the elements such as rain, I couldn’t guess. But then things never work right in Faery anyway. There was something about it though, the smell and the sight of all that food. My gut rumbled and I couldn’t help myself, I reached up to touch the wall. It felt like stone, but easily broke away in my hand and slowly its texture change. Hard and brittle, became soft and gooey. The perfect kind of cake, the kind I always dreamed of eating when I was a kid. Before I knew what I was doing, the piece was already in my mouth.
I spit it out quickly, and shook my head, knocking some cobwebs loose. I knew the magics behind the house, it was the same stuff that made me look human. Glamour. It could only really affect senses, just because the house looked and tasted like cake didn’t mean it was cake. Just as on the inside, I’m only cotton posing as a man this house was posing as a cake. The cake was a lie.
The house should itself as it was, beaten and rundown. Ugly and old. The kind of house you’d want to hide under any means necessary.
A creaking of wood send a chill down my spine, the knob at the door had begun to turn and slowly open. With a shuffling step, the old woman slowly exited her home. She was a stout old thing, supporting herself far more with her cane than her legs. Probably nothing but frail bones under her dress. Her ears twitched under the boils of her skin, and hawkish nose crinkled as she got a whiff in the air.
If I was still under the spell of Glamour, she might look like the house, a sweet and innocent old lady. A Lady. Was this the Lady of the Harvest?
Almost as I thought it, her head cocked upward as though she heard something and her mouth creaked just as the door did when it opened, “nibble, nibble, gnaw. Who is nibbling at my little house?’
No comments:
Post a Comment