In the Forest of Light and Dark (35 page)

     As we then continued to sip our drinks and watch the other couples dance a few numbers. After a while it had dawned on me that an awfully long time had passed since Katelyn had left with my phone. I then had asked Tucker if we should go look for her and Owen but like any guy not wanting to be a cock block to his buddy he just told me that we should give them a little more time.
     I really didn’t want to give Tucker another chance at getting back on the topic of him moving up here to New York  to be with me, so I insisted that we go find them. Claiming that we shouldn’t have our group separated for too long given the fact that Abellona was out there somewhere.
     When we had made it out to the parking lot Katelyn and Owen were nowhere to be seen so Tucker and I then went back inside and started checking the hallways. I thought that maybe we would find them at Katelyn's locker but they weren't there either. So, we ended up just searching the school for about another ten minutes or so with no luck and at that point I had found myself becoming a little tense. A sinking suspicion was growing within me that something was wrong and panic was now beginning to take hold.
     I had asked a few of the other students—the ones that would actually talk to me that is—if they had seen Katelyn and Owen, but they all had said that they hadn't. So I was about to go in search of another phone so I could call mine, hoping to get a hold of Katelyn that way, but before I could do so, Owen had unexpectedly shown back up. He looked upset and had seemed out of breath.
     “I've been lookin' all over for you guys!” he said panting.
     “Where have you been? Where's Katelyn?” I asked.
     “I don't know. She locked me in a damn janitor's closet.”
     “What?” I inquired, having been stunned by Owen’s revelation.
     “Yeah, we were about to go outside to the parking lot so she could make her call, but before we even got out of the building, she said, ‘Come here’ pulling me close and layin’ one on me right there in the middle of the hallway.”
     “Nice.” Tucker quipped with a stupid grin taking over his face.
     “After that, she took me by the hand and led me over to this janitor’s closet full of mops and buckets, cleaning shit, all kinds of stuff like that. I thought I was about to get lucky so... You know, I was game. But, then she… She says to me, ‘Wait here for a second, my locker is right down this hallway. I have some protection in there. I'll grab one and be right back.’ and I figured, okay, no problem. So I just stood there in the closet waiting for her to come back.”
     “Really, Owen? You really thought she was going to bang you in the school’s custodial closet?” I asked him, surely sounding disgusted, but yet not at all surprised given how stupid guys can be.
     “Well, it seemed that way. A guy can dream, can’t he?” Owen pleaded.
     “Hello, Penthouse forum.” Tucker then said, chiming in his own worthless two cents.
     “Alright, whatever, perverts. Then, what happened?” I asked.
     “Well, after a while, when she didn't come back, I decided to go look for her, but when I grabbed for the doorknob I discovered that I was locked inside. I was stuck in there for at least another ten,
maybe
even
fifteen minutes yelling and pounding on the door before somebody finally let me out.”
     “Well, where did she go?”
     “How-the-hell-do I know?” Owen said in a huff as if he was becoming even more agitated than he already was. “That girl's a little squirrely, isn't she?”
     “You don't know the half of it. But we gotta find her.” I told him right before taking off down the hallway, heading for the nearest exit.
     On the way out of the school, I had seen Billy Lambert with his date and I’d stopped to ask him if he'd recently seen Katelyn. He told me that he had, that she had run out of the school in a hurry, but he didn’t know why or where she was going.
     “Cera, what's goin' on?” Tucker then asked me as we began to run through the school’s parking lot, and I told him we had to get over to the historical society as fast as possible, which only seemed to confuse him and Owen even more.
     I knew that Terra would be closing the place up for the night soon and there was a chance that she might no longer be there by the time we got there, but I had to try. She was my only hope at this point.
     A little ways away from the school, I had stopped for a moment to catch my breath and in doing so I told Tucker and Owen to head back over to my house to retrieve their truck. I had reckoned we were going to need wheels if we were going to find Katelyn before she’d gotten herself killed and running through the village was just taking too damn long.
     I then carried on alone (my shoes in hand) to the historical society, and when I had gotten there, like I’d figured, it was already closed with no signs of Terra anywhere.
     According to the village clock located in the square across the street, Terra had closed up twenty minutes early which told me she was definitely involved in whatever it was Katelyn had planned.
    I didn't know what to do next or where to look. But if I had to guess, I kind of had an idea as to where Katelyn was most likely headed—the forest
.
     I looked off in the distance at Mount Harrison and was just about to start making my long trek over to it when I heard a loud meow that came from somewhere off in the shadows to my right. Then, in the row of bushes that lined the historical society’s front walkway there was a sudden movement. I focused in on the area, but couldn’t make anything out at first. Then suddenly, the vociferous little creature came forward, stepping into the wash of a streetlamp. It was Midnight, and she seemed eager to get my attention. She ran right up to me arching her back up against my legs like she had a tendency to do, so I picked her up clutching her close to me.
     “Hey, where's Katelyn?” I asked her. “Did you see Katelyn, Midnight, where is she?”
     Midnight mewed loudly again and then began to squirm her way out of my arms, so I quickly put her down, not wanting to drop her. She then took off running for a few steps, stopped, and paused for me to follow.
     She knew where Katelyn was alright. I could feel her trying to tell me like we shared a consciousness.
     I followed her as she headed northward towards the forest and Mount Harrison. As she guided me up the back side of the village I found myself struggling to keep up with her, which forced her to periodically halt, then look back and ruefully meow at me. I kept going though, and when we had approached the bridge on Camron Street, which spanned the Genesee I had to stop momentarily again for a breather.
     As I sucked in lungful-after-lungful of the brisk autumn night air, I felt my blood pressure begin to ease, taking with it the fast-paced tempo of my pounding heart that was banging wildly in my chest and ear drums.
     Midnight cooed an impatient meow at me as if she was becoming annoyed with my needing to rest, and then she suddenly turned from me to stare across the bridge at the forest. She quickly arched her back high, drew her fangs, and then snarled into the darkness. I couldn't make out just yet what had her so upset, but I had a damn good idea of what it was.
     From out of the night’s darkness Abellona appeared before us stepping into a streetlamp’s illumination.
     I stood frozen, not knowing what to do or say. I had fooled myself into thinking I was ready for a confrontation with her if it ever came down to that, but at that moment, I knew I wasn't ready. I was completely scared shitless.
     Abellona stared at me for a long moment in silence, her long, black hair gently blowing back around her face in the night's mellow breeze.
     “Do you think I don't know what you are trying to do?” she called out to me. “Did you think I would not
see
this coming, you stupid little bitch?”
     I didn't know what she was talking about, and my mind raced to catch up with what she’d said.
     I tried to speak, tried to say something,
anything,
but I just remained silent, completely deadlocked in terror.
     “I can’t believe you have the audacity to come after me with these pretend witches, and in
MY
forest.” Abellona belabored me. “I'm far stronger than all of you put together, and you think you’re going to take me
on?”
     Just then it had dawned on me, Katelyn locking Owen in the janitor's closet, then suddenly taking-off from the school with my phone. My phone with that picture of Abellona's grave on it. Then Terra, having closed up the historical society early along with having mentioned before that there were other witches in Mount Harrison who were willing to help me. They were all going to find Abellona's grave. They were going to destroy the seal etched into it, thereby destroying Abellona's ability to protect herself here in Mount Harrison.
     “I... I don't want any trouble with you.” I said back to Abellona, my voice shaky and weak. “Just let me find my friends and we'll leave the forest. You won't have any more trouble from us.”
     “I won’t have any more trouble from you and your kind, huh! You stupid Barretts are all the same. I’ve had nothing but trouble from you and your kind for almost three hundred years, and I've had just about enough of it! I told you before that if you wanted to live, you and your mother needed to leave Mount Harrison—go crawl back under the rock from which you came. And, take that stupid hick step daddy of yours along with you. But, NO! YOU WOULDN'T LISTEN!”
     At this point Abellona was clearly seething with me and I felt myself shrink a little inside, as I looked for an Inscape, a place to hide within my mind. But then she went on, “You had to be
so
brave by not adhering to my warning. By not running like your mother had done all those years ago. Or... Are you nothing more than just a stupid, ignorant, little bitch that’s too damn foolish to leave? You really are just a dumb hick, aren’t you? Just as dumb as your mother was for coming back here and just as dumb as your grandmother was for coming into my forest and thinking she could take from my Mountain. Now your friends are going to die for your stubbornness, for your ignorance, and there’s nothing you can do about it.”
     “Leave my friends alone.” I told her barely managing to get the words out, the effort taking everything I could muster.
     “Or, what?” she snapped back at me derisively like a parent scolding a child. Her black inkwell eyes fixated on me to the point that I felt like I was suffocating.
     As I struggled to keep myself from hyperventilating there was a crack of thunder in the distance. Abellona then turned to look back in which direction it came.
     “Really, Cera?” she said now refocused back on me. “Enough with the rain crap already. Do you think I’m the wicked witch of the
west
or something?
I'm not going to melt if I get wet, you know? I’m not going to spin around in circles saying,
What a world… What a world!”
     Abellona then paused for a moment, looking back up at Mount Harrison.
     A moment later I caught on to what it was she was looking at pitched up on one of the mountain’s slopes. Through the trees I could make out a little glimmer of light—fire—it was small, but it was steadily growing.
     Abellona turned back towards me giving me her detestable, little smirk and said, “Looks like your friends just let it be known as to where they are. Shall we get the night’s festivities started?”
     And, with that, she was gone, having vanishing before my eyes.
     I took one more look at the light coming from the center of the darkened wall that was the forest of pines on Mount Harrison's lower slopes and I knew I had to get up there before it was too late. I knew I had to stop Abellona before she got to Katelyn—before she had gotten to Terra and the other witches.

Into the Darkness
 

I hurried off down Camron Street headed straight to where the road dead-ended and the forest began.
     As I ran, I thought of Tucker and Owen and had hoped that they’d made it back to their pickup safely. I also wondered what fucking good it was being a witch if I didn’t have a broomstick to fly on? It sure as hell would’ve made my getting to the forest a lot faster.
     When I had reached the end of Cameron Street the pavement had given way to dirt and low-lying brush. Beyond that was an entanglement of small trees whose branches interwoven one another, each armed with one inch thorns. Weaving its way through the thicket, though, was a narrow path that was barely noticeable in the darkness, but it looked as if it might lead me right to the very edge of the Pine Barrens.
     As I hesitantly followed the path, only being guided through the thick, suffocating cocoon of spiked branches by the light of the full moon high above. I thought every sound, every twig snapping and every crunching of leaves under my footsteps was Abellona coming through the darkness to kill me.
   I pressed on though, and as I did I felt the thorns of the branches scratching and digging into my bare arms and legs. It hurt, but I didn’t have the time to stop and find a better way to navigate through the brush more carefully. The only thing I did do, could do, to protect myself as I made my way through the thicket was to keep my head down and a hand up so that I wouldn’t take a thorn in the eye.
     Luckily though, it wasn’t long before I was through the thorn trees and bushes and into the beginnings of the forest of spruces.
    I quickly brushed myself off and felt something warm and sticky on my arms and legs. I reached up to smell and then taste it, first thinking that it may have just been tree sap, but it had that familiar irony taste, and I knew it wasn't. It was my blood. The thorns had cut my arms and legs up something awful, but I would live, though, at least for a little while longer.
     I looked back to see that Midnight had made it through the brush with no problems what-so-ever.
Must be nice to be as small and as sleek as a cat sometimes
, I thought as I watched her lick her front paw while staring at me from atop an old deadfall log that was halfway rotted. She soon finished cleaning herself, as so did I, and then she gave me a meow as if saying,
Move your ass, girl,
before taking off through the pines.
   I followed her ascension up a hill and through the spruces, but found myself struggling to keep up. As I would trip whenever I got my foot stuck in the occasional rabbit burrow or snagged on an exposed tree root or downed branches.
     Soon, though, I had made it to a spot in the forest where thickly entwined trees became so dense that they prevented any moonlight from coming through to the forest floor just like how overlapping shingles prevents water from coming through a roof. Only in a very few narrow spots did slivers of light manage to sneak its way through the canopy allowing the moon’s reflected shine to reach all the way down to me.
   In the darkness, every creak, every rustle of leaves, every crunch of dried pine needles breaking under my foot, every scurry of a forest critter, caused my heart to skip up into my throat at the thought that it might be Abellona.
     But I pushed on as scared as I was and the ground soon began to increase in pitch, and I began having to climb over rocks and boulders that were sporadically getting in my way as they pierced out from the side of the mountain.
     Even though I couldn’t see more than a few yards in front of me, I instinctively knew from the few times that I had been in the forest before that Midnight was taking me on the right path.
     The breeze suddenly had picked up, and all the trees began to sway, and with it I thought I could smell wisps of smoke—campfire smoke, though I couldn’t yet see any signs of fire through the trees. But, then after another wind had blown through the forest, this one stronger than the last, the intense smell of pine and burning timber was unmistakable.
     I pushed on for another look-see, and then there, through a clearing and down in a valley below I could see the yellow and orange telltale flickers of a fire in the distance.
     Midnight had taken me passed them. Well… Not only passed, but also higher up the mountain in elevation because I now found myself looking down on whom I thought was Terra and her sister witches. I quickly climbed up onto a nearby granite rock ledge that pushed itself up and out from the mountain’s hillside, hoping to get a better view.
     I tried to focus in my vision. Assuming that surely by now my pupils must have been fully dilated and had adjusted to the darkness, but it was still a struggle to see. Still, I paused for a good long moment and just stared. In the soft, distant glow of the fire I thought I could make out Terra wearing a brown tunic. She was holding hands with several other women in a circle around the fire, none of which looked like Katelyn as far as I could tell. Their heads remained lowered, and they appeared as if chanting or casting spells of some sort, but I couldn’t make out just what it was being said, and probably couldn’t understand it even if I could. Their voices had all blended into unison and drowned on like the distant hum of a machine.
     I took a deep breath, sucking in a harsh lungful of the cool night air. It stung my chest’s insides like needles, and I thought that the temperature seemed to be dropping by the minute even though tonight had been unseasonably warm to that point. (But, being from Alabama, every autumn night was a warm one for me growing up, so what did I know.)
     Making my descent off the boulder I began looking for a path—aided only by moonlight—that would lead me down to Terra and the other witches. But after I had taken only a mere few steps in my descent, Midnight unexpectedly lashed out her open claws at me, bared her teeth, and began wailing at me like I was trying to drown her in a bucket. She quickly managed several hard swipes at my already torn up legs before I had stumbled back in fright of her sudden ferocity towards me, not knowing what had gotten into her.
     I had landed square on my ass, and my ass square on the granite boulder that I had just gotten down from. I winced as I suddenly felt pain radiate up my spine from my tailbone while also shooting down my legs in pulsating waves that reached as far as my toes.
     Midnight inched towards me and I struggled to push myself away from her as fast as I could in fear of another one of her violent outbursts.
     I couldn't breathe or speak, my muscles had suddenly locked up on me in cramps, but I could still hear, and what I heard wasn't Midnight hissing at me anymore. What I had heard was the sound of timber snapping. It was growing exponentially louder, quickly, but I had no clue as to what direction it was emerging from.
     I hunkered down and hugged my legs tight up against my chest as I ducked my head down into my arms. The whole area, then rapidly felt and sounded like it was coming apart.
     Next to me came a tremendous whoosh of air that could have been hurricane force. It had blasted me head on, and I felt my hair whip up and be aggressively pulled back from my shoulders.
     A pine had struck the ground before me with a heavy thud that echoed throughout the forest. Its thick branches and sharp needles raking across my forearm and legs as I continued to hold tight.
     When the tree had finally settled into its new position and stopped moving I slowly picked up my head.
     There before me lay a hundred-foot behemoth of a spruce, probably a year old for every foot. My Step Daddy Cade had called them
widow makers,
and now I could see why.
     I just continued to sit there for a moment, giving myself time to collect my thoughts and nerves, but the only thing I could think of was how badly I didn’t want to go on. How much I just wanted to go home. But not wanting to move unless it was in the other direction, back to the safety and security of my home wasn’t an option. I knew I had to suck it up and keep going even though I was outmatched, out gunned, and frightened to death. Because sitting here crying like a scared little girl wasn’t going to help. Not if I wanted to save my friends. Not if I wanted to save myself. I knew I had to push passed my cowardice.
     Warily, I got back on my feet and then slowly looked around calling weakly for Midnight. I couldn’t find her at first, but then off to my right, up at the base of the newly downed tree, under a small section of its thicker branches, I saw her head pop up through the greenery. Her green eyes glowing and reflecting the moonlight like neon in the darkness. She let out a soft, low meow and then hopped up onto the fallen tree’s shaft walking towards me.
     “Thank you, girl.” I whispered, having realized that her outburst of hostility towards me a moment ago was nothing more than her way of warning me. Her way of getting me to not walk straight into a trap that she must have sensed was coming.
     From that moment on, I knew that if I wanted to get out of this forest alive, I was going to have to be a lot more careful. I was sure that this tree—which was still solid, lush, green, and very much alive—didn't just fall over on its own. Abellona had something to do with it. And, I was right in thinking that, because I didn't have to wait long to have that theory confirmed.
    There before me she suddenly stood having materialized out of nothing and becoming almost luminescent as if she were glowing. She seemed to hover above the ground—suspended. She smiled that depraved little smile of hers at me, and I felt my body begin to tremble still in my dance shoes which were now, sadly all filthy, tore up, and ruined
.
    
I had felt ashamed at being so afraid of her, at the feeling of being so utterly powerless. But, being alone with her there in the woods, her presence so powerful, so consuming, it was just too much for me—possibly anybody—to handle. I had felt like a small child being cornered by Cujo.
     “Looks like you've got nine lives just like these goddamn cats do.” she said to me as she looked down at Midnight who was arching her back, showing her fangs, and ready to fight. “Don't worry though... I'll get through all of them before this night is over.” she then added.
     “Just... Just l-let me g-get my friends and I'll go.” I stuttered out, feeling myself shake and quiver as I spoke. “We'll leave the forest and I'll leave Mount Harrison forever. Me, my mama, and my step daddy… We'll pack up our things and leave this place for good. You’ll never have to see us again. I give you my word. Just don't hurt anybody.”
     Abellona then paused, staring back at me for a long moment as if contemplating what I had just said. She then put her hands on her long black hair that was draping over her shoulders and began running her fingers through it. A moment later she let out a bellowing laugh that I could have mistaken for a cackle that of a witch in a children’s book.
     Contentiously Abellona shouted, “What have I told you a Barrett’s word is
worth
to me! You’ve had your chance to leave my mountain. Now you’re never going to leave it. I'll have your soul just like I have your grandmothers and all the others. And, the Mount Harrison cemetery will have your corpse, but first...”
     Abellona then took another long pause as she looked back down the hillside at Terra and the other witches congregated in the valley.
     “First... I'll let you watch your friends die.” she said to me, her face soured with resentment and disdain.
     And with that, she was gone, having faded into the darkness of the forest from whence she came.
     I frantically looked around for her, fearing she was only playing a trick, that she hadn't really left, but I still couldn't see very far into the forest’s blackness, my vision cutting off just beyond the first few of the nearest trees.
     I closed my eyes, trying to sense what was all around me, but I couldn't hear anything or perceive anything either. But I didn't have to, because again Midnight beat me to figuring out what was going on.
     The coal-black cat had jumped back up on the shaft of the newly downed pine and began rearing at Terra and the other witches down in the valley below us. I peered down at them holding my breath in silence while trying to figure out what had Midnight so upset, but I saw nothing down there in the valley that wasn’t there before. It was still just Terra and the other witches continuing to hold hands while chanting away in their prayer circle. But then, out of nowhere Abellona was there, having reappeared before Terra and her sister witches like she had just done before me.
     The fire at the center of the witches suddenly erupted into white-hot flames with her presence and then began stretching skywards like a geyser.
    Abellona just hovered over the fire’s combusting logs as she looked out over the witches through the encompassing flames that were engulfing her like a goddess of fire.
     I wanted to help. I wanted to tell them to run, but all I could do was watch what was about to happen from afar, completely powerless to do anything.
     Abellona through the flames started to gesture at the witches by pointing her extended index finger at each one of them in anger, but all Terra and the other witches did was just continue to chant, ignoring her, their heads remaining lowered.
     The flames began to rise higher, turning whiter, than indigo, culminating into a searing blinding light. As the flames grew, Abellona seemed to grow exponentially along with them, her anger boiling over at the witches who were disregarding her.
     To me, from my vantage point, it looked as if Abellona had grown twice, maybe even three times her normal size.
     Then, with a wave of her hand the fire spread forth from the base of the fire, shooting out in rows along the earth, and darting in between each of the witches before connecting with the forest beyond them. The flames, then quickly gathered in strength around Terra and the other witches as the forest behind them spontaneously erupted trapping them in burning walls.