The Witch Wood

The rain tonight was incessant, it poured from the heavens upon the canopy of trees above, the leaves offering no shelter from the deluge, while all the while the wind whipped the tree tops above, the branches creaking and cracking in protest. Beneath the branches the young man struggled, his face betraying the misery he felt. His coat had long since yielded to the ingress of water; his clothes were now heavy and sodden. His feet were wet and cold as he slid along the muddy track in his leaking shoes. The once clear path was now more like a stream, while treacherous tree roots seeming to attempt to trip him.
He cursed his own stupidity. He could have taken up the offer of his friend’s couch, could be warm and dry, his hand clutching another warming glass of scotch… the one he had refused as he wished to get back to the family home. “I’m only staying five or so miles away”, he had said, “And I can take a short cut through Witch Woods.”
“Are you sure,” his old friend had said. “It looks a bit wild out there and you know what that wood is like in the dark.”
“Come on,” he had joked. “We were kids back when we scared ourselves with those stories, and I can remember the way through them… its mainly downhill. If I stick to the old charcoal burner’s path I’ll be ok. If not the old crone will have me!” he had laughed.
His old friend had laughed too, if be it in an unconvincing way, again offering his couch, but he had refused, recounting how he had promised his elderly mother to be back at the old family home that night.
So here he now was deep in the Witch Woods, the path seemed to wind more than the map he carried in his childhood memories, and the old ruined charcoal burner’s cottage, by which he could get his bearings had still not appeared. And still the rain fell, the wind seeming to crest the ridge behind him in the tree tops, searching for him, chasing him. Just for a moment he had a tinge of a boyhood fear, he looked up and behind himself into the darkness, his feet still taking him forward. As he peered up the rain splashed on his face, he heard the crack and groan of wood above, his eyes widened as in the shadows he discerned the weight of timber falling towards him. He jumped to the side as the falling tree smashed into the ground where he had just been.
As for him, he had leapt into the unknown and the ground fell away from beneath him. He landed awkwardly on the slippery slope, gravity taking him as he tumbled over and over, unable to stop his mad descent, the brambles tearing his skin and the tree roots digging into his back. He came to a stop in a hollow, the wind was still howling as if it was following up above, he heard more snapping, more splintering of the trees above as the wind screeched, within it he heard a woman’s voice screaming curses.
The man gave a yelp then, as old nightmares resurfaced, he stood up ignoring the painful bruises, his side covered in slimy mud from his slippery fall. He gave no thought to get back to the old charcoal burner’s track, he could only think of the noise of crashing trees behind him now given form by his fear, he scrambled up the other side of the hollow as branches and brambles whipped his face and then he was running, dodging tree trunks in the gloom, roots tried to trip him; all the while the wind was screaming in triumph, as trees fell behind him, an invisible hand reaching to grab him.
He was aware of the distinctive smell of wood smoke and suddenly there was a cottage ahead of him, its overgrown front garden barely distinct from the forest it stood in. He ran up the steps and pounded on the door, the door opened an old woman peered out at him, her eyes seemed to recognise him... and perhaps the dark thing that pursued him.
“In! Quickly!” she said, slamming the door behind him.
He was shaking and sobbing, his eyes shut, as he heard the dark apparition outside rattle the door and then pass over the roof of the cottage as the wind carried on its way.
“You poor thing, you’re soaked to the skin,” the old lady cooed, "Warm yourself by the fire, it’s not a night to be out in, that winds bringing everything down.”
He opened his eyes, the room was dimly lit by a few stubby candles and a blazing fire, he staggered to the hearth as he shivered from terror and the cold, mumbling his apologies for his bedraggled state and the muddy footprints his feet left on the flagstone floor. He slumped into a fireside chair of smooth polished white wood.
He willed the warmth to seep into his bones as the fire crackled and hissed. He looked up into the gloom where the old woman watched him. “I’m so sorry to impose on you, like this.”
“Oh it’s no imposition, my dear.” Her voice had a melodic quality like birdsong. “You just sit and try to get warm now.”
He looked at the fire, as the flames danced like tiny sprites and turned back to the woman, there she was unmoved from before, her eyes deep-set in her gnarled old face, twinkling in the firelight.
“I expect,” he said, indicating the candles, “That the wind has brought down the electricity lines; it’s a good thing you have candles, while the power is out.”
She smiled, “Candles, yes…”
“I used to live hereabouts, a few years ago. I didn’t know this house was here,” he said wearily, the fire twisting and writhing before his heavy lidded eyes.
“Did you not? Perhaps you have just forgotten?” she replied.
“Perhaps I don’t remember, I haven’t been here for ten years, and my memory of the path was somewhat lacking in detail.” he said yawning, his eyes shut momentarily, his mind wandering, walking the woods in the summer with his friend, stumbling across the charcoal burner’s ruined cottage. He opened his eyes, forcing himself awake, as he shivered. “I’m so sorry, I almost drifted off. I never knew someone lived here in the woods. Have you lived here long?”
“The years go by and sometimes people forget”, she replied. “Don’t worry; you sleep if you need to. The fire is burning, as you see, and you are cold and wet.”
He nodded as he shivered again, he looked at the fire burning merrily and yet the warmth didn’t seem to reach him, he closed his eyes, just to rest them, for a little while.
“Yes you’ve just forgotten… ”, she said in her sing song voice.
In his mind’s eye he was there in the old charcoal burner’s cottage, a roofless, tumbledown, single story building, a hovel, long since abandoned. He was there with his friend, sat inside it on a summer’s afternoon telling stories to each other, the sounds of the forest all around.
“The young often do…” the distant voice said, as woodpeckers hammered in the distance.
His friend was telling him the tale, a true one he had said, of the charcoal burner who was greedy and despite warnings had cut down the oldest and biggest tree in the woods, the one with the bark on its trunk shaped like an old woman’s face.
“The old, however, we don’t forget and I’ve always been here…”
In felling the tree from which the woods were named the charcoal burner unleashed a furious, vengeful spirit upon him; his hovel was destroyed and the man was never seen again.
“I remember you…” she chuckled, like crows in the treetops. “You and your friend, here in this very place...”
Icy fingers crawled up his spine and shivering, he opening his eyes, looking at the empty, dark fireplace, the rain dripped down his face making him look up at the trees crowding over the roofless ruin. He stood up, confused and fearful as the wind howled and screeched above. He looked at the chair, the chair made of bleached bones; and he knew whose bones they once were.
He shook his head, turned tail and ran from the ruined cottage, heedless of the rain, heedless of the tree roots, down the old track as the trees groaned and the wind cackled above.