By Brenna Lonner
(TW: gore, implied/referenced animal death, threats of child death, and minor body horror)
The horizon was a bloody gash against the night by the time the Creature made it to the river where the child would be drowned. The babe had been shoved into the Creature’s recalcitrant arms by the Deep Forest Folk, as even the most wretched among them had no desire to kill it themselves. Perhaps the task was too terrible for even them, despite the stinking, rotted flesh that hung in strips between their teeth. More likely, they couldn’t bear to be around the squalling babe for a second longer—even just the time it took to kill it.
The child was a squat, ugly thing. It had a wrinkled, ruddy face and fat red fingers that wriggled like maggots, grabbing at anything within reach. It had been wailing since they first took it from its cradle, and it would not calm—the Deep Forest Folk had stoppered their ears with bee’s wax to block out the noise.
All manner of the Folk had gathered to make the switch—small, hunched beastlings, crouching and covered in warts like toads, nipped and yelped at one another. There were looming, swamp-dwelling creatures with legs like stilts, covered in slow-growing moss that glowed when the moon was full. Some amongst them were very beautiful, but the faces they wore were just paper. They only took them off to eat, revealing flat, smooth expanses of skin where their features should be.
It was rare to see such an array of them. For the most part, the Deep Forest Folk kept to themselves; they were jealous creatures that counted out their territory inch by inch, marking the borders with smooth, round stones. They only came together on nights such as these when the seasons changed, or to complete the rituals that sang through the sap in their veins. And then, as quickly as they came, the Folk dispersed, disappearing into the dark spaces between the trees.
Out here, in the wild places, they were used to fawns that walked on shaking legs hours after birth, still wet from their mothers’ wombs, bears emerging from their winter slumber with bumbling cubs in tow, birds whose hatchlings stayed tucked in their nests for a few short weeks before they were pushed out, either to fly or fall. Even the changeling they’d left behind in the child’s cradle only took the shape of a babe. The beasts of the wood were born strong, not small and squashed and breakable.
The Creature had never been born at all. One day it Was Not, and the next it Was. There had been no mother to nurse and cradle it; it knew no lullabies. Such were the ways of the Wood.
The water was quiet as the Creature approached. Farther up its course, the river ran fast and swift and loud. Its roar would’ve drowned out even the child’s screams. But in this place without wind, the water’s gentle sighs and the cries of the morning doves sang a song of their own.
The trees here were almost as old as the Creature—they had seen centuries come and go before it had taken its first breaths, and now their trunks were big enough around that a ring of five men, hands clasped, would not have been able to circle the base. Their roots grew so strong and so deep that they might have burst straight through the bottom of the world. The Creature had spent many dawns on these banks—to die here would be peaceful, it imagined. The child would not be swept up by the current, wails swallowed by the white water until her head was bashed against the rocks. Here, she could sink into the river’s frigid embrace, with the shush-shush, shush-shush of the water to soothe her. Perhaps it would carry her until she reached the sea.
The Creature sank to its knees on the river bank, the dampness of the pillow-soft lichen seeping into its robes. The babe squalled louder. Her tiny fists beat against the air, indignant, like she might fight against what fate had in store.
The Creature had seen death before. It had seen trees rise and fall, beasts hunt and be hunted, scavengers pick at the flesh of the fallen until they were nothing but yellowed bones. There was no tragedy in it. They had to die so that the rot might live, and in return, the rot made all things new again.
Once, on a night not unlike this one, when the moon was dark and the leaves whispered, the Creature had found a doe dying. She was on her side, panting, eyes rolling in terror as she fought to get her legs beneath her again. There was a bloody wound on her side, an imperfect circle no larger than an acorn. The Creature had pulled her head into its lap and run soothing strokes down her powerful neck, her heaving flanks. She hadn’t settled, not until she shuddered through her last breath. What a terrible thing it must be, thought the Creature, to die afraid.
The Creature gathered the child closer, crooning wordlessly as it rocked her back and forth. The last, somber rays of the dying sun dipped the dew-damp leaves in liquid gold. Dust motes danced in the twilight glow that had slipped through the canopy. The green river was still singing.
The child’s sobs quieted. She was still making hiccuping half-cries that shook her little body; her face remained wet and red and sticky. Her eyes, which had squeezed shut from the force of her wails, blinked open, squinting into unhappy half-crescents.
The Creature’s hood was pulled over its face. If it had not been, the child would have no doubt been crying still—the sight of it uncloaked was enough to terrify even the most regal creatures of the wood. But the child remained docile in its arms, reaching for it with small, searching hands.
Her eyes were brown, the Creature realized. Brown like the soil and the great, stooping trees that grew from it; brown like the doe’s had been, rolling wildly in her skull, before her quaking body went still. Slowly, with a finger that bent in too many places, the Creature reached for her, tickling her under the chin.
The child’s face scrunched up, and then she was giggling, feet kicking inside her swaddle. She wrapped her hand around the Creature’s finger, her skin petal-soft, and the Creature’s heart—calcified in its chest, like a long-dead tree—gave a single, mighty thump.
To kill her now would be cruel, it decided. She was still hiccuping, her squishy cheeks wet with tears. The doe had died afraid, and the Creature had not been able to soothe her suffering. But maybe it could soothe the babe’s before the earth once again claimed her.
The Creature hummed, though it knew no songs. It mimicked the sounds of the forest, that of the bluebird and the magpie and the sparrow. The child settled in its arms—crying so much had exhausted her. It wasn’t long before those big brown eyes blinked shut and the hitching breaths evened out. The pudgy hand stayed wrapped around the Creature’s finger.
The child was to be drowned in the river. But the Creature, wretched though it was, bundled her blankets tighter and brought her home.
* * *
The child sprouted up faster than sweetgrass in the springtime, nursing from a Fox whose kits had been born dead. She had begun to babble; her eyes had grown wider and so deep a brown that the Creature could not distinguish iris from pupil except in the sunlight, when they shone translucent like purest amber. Sometimes, the Creature could not believe the child before it was the same helpless, wailing thing it had held in its arms all those months ago.
Those eyes reminded the Creature so much of the doe it had found that it could not help but name her Doe in its stead. But where the doe had been dying, the child grew livelier each day. She had learned to roll over. She watched the Fox some days, hands and feet scrabbling for purchase, as if she wished to follow it from the inside of their hollow tree and explore the world beyond.
Then, with little fanfare, Doe started to crawl, chasing after the Fox and pulling at her tail until the beast nipped her lightly. Doe cried then, and the Fox lapped at her tears until she was all sunshine and smiles once again.
The Creature panicked when Doe first climbed onto her hands and knees. It knew not much of humans, yet it had seen those who wandered too deep into the wood, stalking forth on their two legs like cranes in the river. They moved with violent, graceless abandon, trampling the brush underfoot. Perhaps, having lived with only the woodland creatures for company, the child did not know that her kind walked on two legs instead of four. She could not see the Creature’s form beneath its cloak. And if she could, she would have been greeted with the sight of stubby, bowed legs, too short for its body, and arms so long its knuckles brushed against the ground. It lurched along more than it walked—surely, Doe could not copy its gait.
The leaves were changing once more by the time Doe managed to get her short, fat legs underneath her and, clinging onto the scruff of the Fox’s fur, she took a single, trembling step. She had fallen that first time, and many times after. The Creature had been there to scoop her into its arms and rock her, making soft trilling noises that only the two of them understood.
Each day, the Creature thought of killing her, as it had been tasked to do so long ago. Each day, it put it off a little longer. It could not kill her when she looked so happy, stumbling over her own feet, grinning up at the Creature with a solitary tooth sprouting from her gums. But surely it could not kill her when she was sad, either—such a precious soul did not deserve to die crying. Killing her in her sleep lacked honor, but wouldn’t killing her while she was awake cause her pain? Certainly, it could not do it when the air hung hot and heavy and the cicadas screamed. Her little body would bloat and rot too fast, maggots swarming over her, devouring the soft parts first. But to end her life when the trees were bare and the ground was frozen seemed worse, somehow. Surely, she deserved to become one with the earth again, instead of waiting for the permafrost to claim her.
Tomorrow, the Creature told itself, day after day. Tomorrow.
It must have been lonely for her, the Creature knew, not to see a single face besides that of the Fox and the fawns which bumbled through the underbrush. It was human nature to clump together—they lived in colonies on the edge of the wood, like ants in their hills, building dens from the bones of felled trees. The Creature wished it had a face which would comfort her, wished it could smile back at her, cheeks dimpling like hers did when she laughed.
But the Creature knew what would happen if Doe laid eyes upon it. She would see its face, and she would scream. She would reel back, her little pink face screwing up in terror, and the thought shouldn’t have hurt so badly but, oh, it did. Maybe she would flee, like the birds which scattered from their trees when they saw it uncloaked. Even the Deep Forest Folk cringed away from it, snarling when it drew too close. And what if the Creature couldn’t find her until the morning, when the frost and the scavengers had already claimed her? What if it dragged her back home, only for her to sit whimpering in the corner, now that she knew the sort of beast that had raised her?
The Creature wondered, sometimes, whether it was cruel to keep her here, so far away from her own kind, but when it thought of giving her up, something seized in its chest. So Doe remained in the hollow tree the Creature called home, yipping into the night the way the Fox had taught her. When she fussed, the Creature would sit her in front of the crackling fire. In the flickering half-light, it cast shadows along the walls, shaping faces with its fingers, miming birds in flight. Like this, it passed down what few stories it knew, and Doe would sit, enraptured, tracing the silhouettes with wide pupils that shone beetle-black against the night.
***
The seasons changed thrice more before the Deep Forest Folk found her. The Creature had its back turned, gathering the purple berries Doe liked best while she chased the Fox through the underbrush.
The scream, when it came, was so sudden and so violent that the birds scattered from their perch in the trees, swarming in such numbers that, for a breath, they blotted out the sky. Then the sun was pouring in again, and the Creature could see the Beast—a hunched, spindly thing, with cracked skin and rheumy eyes. Saliva dripped from its open maw. The Beast’s gaze was locked on Doe.
For the first time, the Creature discovered the panic of the hunted. It thought of the dying doe’s head in its lap. It wondered if she had felt like this, then; if the rapid thrumming of her heart had set her blood to boiling, so hot it scorched through her veins.
The Creature was moving before it had the chance to think. It collided with the Beast before those clawed hands reached Doe. The Creature barely noticed when the force of the impact sent its hood flying. Its mind raced, filled with images of Doe—bleeding, crying, afraid, those claws raking across the soft, vulnerable flesh of her underbelly.
The Beast reared up, rows of needle-sharp teeth sinking into the flesh of the Creature’s shoulder. The Creature roared, more from rage than pain—the stinking black blood pouring from the wound hardly registered. This Beast wanted to take what it had no right to touch. This was the Creature’s cub, its kit, its child. It slammed the Beast into the dirt, once, twice, thrice, feeling bone crunch beneath its fingers.
It thought about Doe, smiling; Doe, curled in her furs by the fire; Doe, burying her sticky hands in the Fox’s scruff. It thought of the years that came before, stretching endlessly into the depths of the distant past, back when the trees were but saplings, and the river had yet to carve its course through the Earth. It thought of a deer on the forest floor, dying slowly, her heart desperately pumping the blood from her cooling body.
The Creature was gentle by nature—it nurtured the trees, and ate scavenged meat from animals long-dead. But none of that mattered, not when the Creature’s teeth locked around the Beast’s throat.
The Beast’s blood tasted foul, rotten, like overripe fruit. It sat heavy on the Creature’s tongue, thick and tacky—the Creature thought it might choke. But then its teeth met through the mass of the Beast’s mangled flesh, and it tore away, spitting the rancid meat onto the dirt.
The Beast’s body jerked—once, then again, before it went still. Its open, glossy eyes stared up at the canopy, like marbles in its skull.
All was silent, but for the sound of the Creature’s ragged breathing.
The Creature whirled. Its racing heart had yet to calm, beating a rapid staccato underneath its ribs. The Creature studied Doe with too many eyes, searching for any signs of harm. Yet she remained uninjured—the air was clear of the salty-sweet stink of her blood. The Fox had wrapped herself around Doe’s tiny body, her teeth bared.
The Creature turned, searching the clearing for whatever had frightened the Fox so. The Beast was dead, the threat was gone. Unless—
Awareness came upon the Creature like cold water dumped on its head. Clumsy fingers felt for its hood, only to find the fabric hanging limp around its neck. The Fox growled louder when she saw the Creature move, like she thought—like she thought—
The Creature stumbled back a step, raising its arms to shield the wreck of its face. It waited to hear screams, and the rustle of leaves as Doe scrambled away. Perhaps she would try to hurt it, as so many had done before.
It would not fight back. It would let Doe tear it to pieces, if she wished. Better than going back to the way things had been, before it held a child on the banks of the river and thought about drowning it, before it knew the hummingbird-quick beating of a fox’s heart beneath its hand as it pet her scruff, before it knew what it was to hold a warm body close, and cast shadow puppets from the light of a dying fire. It had not known that it was lonely until it ceased to be so.
The Creature thought of all the days it planned to kill her; all the days when it did not. Now, the thought of Doe’s eyes going blank and empty burned like iron. When had it changed its mind? Perhaps it was when Doe laughed for the first time, or when she began to crawl into its lap for comfort. Perhaps it was the first time the Creature had held her and she had quieted at its touch.
The forest had gone quiet—the still, dreadful quiet of dead things—as the Creature waited, its arms curling over its head. But no screams shattered the silence. The air was still and heavy.
A step—crunching leaves, a soft breath. Then another. Tiny hands latched onto the hem of the Creature’s robes and tugged. Doe made a little noise, almost a whine, like the Fox used to get its attention.
The Creature turned its face further from the light. Perhaps it should dig its claws into the skin of its face, pluck out its many eyes one by one. Perhaps it would be easier for everybody if it could never again see or be seen, until the day it returned to the earth.
And then Doe began to chirp.
The Creature recognized the melody. How could it not? So many times it had soothed her with the songs of the bluebird and the magpie and the sparrow. Doe’s imitation was clumsy, the sounds not fitting in her mouth quite right.
The Creature lowered its arms, just enough to let its uppermost eyes blink down at her, out of sync. Doe’s lips were pulled down at the corners, and a little furrow had appeared between her brows—but her eyes were wide and clear, her cheeks unstained by tears. She cocked her head to one side, birdlike, and chirped again as she tugged harder at the Creature’s hem.
Following her wordless command, the Creature knelt, the damp leaves soaking through the fabric of its robes. It did not know what it was expecting—certainly not for those tiny, sticky hands to reach towards it, tugging at the arms that still shielded its face. The Creature let them fall, turning its head away, as though it might shield itself from Doe’s gaze.
But then her fingers were running over the dome of its skull, prodding at the holes in its head where ears should be. The Creature’s eyes blinked all at once. It had never known touch that did not hurt, hands that did not strike and burn. Before Doe, it thought it never would.
Doe’s face broke out into a small, tentative smile. With shudders and starts, the Creature mirrored her, its mouth twitching into a wobbly smile that stretched out too far on either side. Blood was a wet, foul-smelling stripe down its muzzle. It was more aware than ever of its fetid breath, and the teeth like needles crowded together inside the wide, black gape of its maw.
The Creature had never smiled before—for the Deep Forest Folk, to bare one’s teeth was a warning not to draw too close—but Doe chirped again when she saw the Creature’s mouth strain upwards, saliva hanging in streaks between its gums. So the Creature remained, hunched and unmoving, as Doe mapped the contours of its face with her clever fingertips. Even crouched as the Creature was, Doe had to crane her little arms up to reach. The Creature itched to hide itself away again, to retreat back within the comfortable prison of its hood, where the burn of the sun could not find it. But Doe’s hands were still cradling its cheeks, and how had it never known how sweet it would be, like the sap of an old tree, to be touched without the intent to harm?
The Creature felt something nudging against its side and flinched away, more out of instinct than any conscious thought. It tore its eyes away from Doe to see the Fox snuffling into the Creature’s robes. The Creature stayed as still as it was able, waiting for those teeth to tear into it, for the Fox to herd her kit away from the monster she now knew it to be—but then she sat back, tongue lolling in her mouth. Her raised hackles began to settle.
Doe made a little noise and lifted her arms, the way she did when she wanted to be carried. The Creature shook as it lifted her—would she be frightened, to be so close? But Doe only let her head loll against its shoulder, playing with the fabric of the hood still pooled around its neck.
The Fox was the first to move. She trotted back from the way they had come, then stopped at the edge of the clearing. The look in her eyes was plain: Aren’t you coming?
And the Creature—wretched, beastly, ugly, unloved and unlovable, with nothing to its name but a cloak and a hollow tree—stepped forward.