Her clothes were torn, tears streamed down her face from when she’d cried with frustration and fear. Amelie couldn’t find her way back, she’d become lost playing with the other children and now trod over leaves nosily in the failing light.
She was all alone in the dark wood.
Her father had told her not to go into the taller trees, the older trees. He used to tell her that way was dangerous. ‘In there’, he’d say, ‘is where the true wild things live. In there is where the Bandi-snuffles and Hoppledins prowl the shadows.’
Amelie had thought the idea of meeting a Bandi-snuffle would be fun. They’re so big and fluffy, like a big dog but you could ride them if you wanted. Her dog didn’t like being ridden like a horse, he was too small.
“Awooooo”, called something from the shadows. Amelie jumped out of her skin and turned to see a small bird flutter away through the tall ash trees. It hadn’t looked like any bird she’d seen over the meadow or the greenwood. The image of talons and a sharp beak haunted her as she pressed on.
“I want to go home.” She whispered pathetically as the slow melodic crunch of leaves underfoot seemed to cascade like a deafening wave into the now fast encroaching night. “Huh?” She said startled as something made a creaking noise behind her.
Tears came again as she walked on, not even sure she was going in the right direction. The autumn evening was coming fast and the bite of it would be harsh. Amelie would freeze if she stayed out here all night. “Papa come find me.” She pleaded collapsing into a heap at the foot of a gnarled old tree.
There she sat, for how long she didn’t know. She sat listening to the sounds of a forest alive and scary. She twitched at shadows and movement. She prayed when she wasn’t too scared to think. She prayed her father would find her, she prayed he would come to her rescue and scoop her up in his arms.
Something else found her first.
Dark midnight blue, half asleep with exhaustion she spotted two orbs floating through the trees. Small at first but then getting bigger. Sapphires in the night that shown with fiery boldness, reflecting what little moonlight penetrated the forest roof.
Blue. The colour of death, the colour she’d been warned against wearing or displaying. Blue was the mark of the grey woman, the one her father told her to fear. She was the one Braga would deliver us from.
Amelie rose from the ground tentatively, pressing her back to the bark as she watched. In this nightmare the tree was her refuge, an anchor in the world to hold her fixed. It was a childish instinct brought on by fear but Amelie needed it, she needed something to hold on to.
“Go away, please go away. Leave me alone please.”
But it didn’t leave her alone, it didn’t go away. The blue orbs circled Amelie and her tree.
Always dancing in tandem as if conjoined by invisible thread. She was mesmerised by the display, held in hypnotic terror as she watched them.
She watched them watch her back.
She put the tree between them and watched from around the trunk, always moving to keep it between them. The tree was now her shield, her protector and her guardian. Maybe if she kept it between them she’d be safe, or at least it would buy time for her father to find her.
“Please go away.” She mumbled again as the eye’s stopped sharply and began to circle their way back the way they came. The blue eyes stared right back at her as she kept them in sight; threatening, warning, chilling.
“Twoo,” came an animal in the forest. The sound making Amelie jump and distracting her from the eyes as she peered upward into the trees. As soon as she’d broken contact she turned her head back, remembering the greater threat. She stared into the treeline, then began sweeping her eyes back and forth.
The blue eyes were gone.
For a second Amelie dared to hope the eye’s had decided to accept her request for solitude. That second was the happiest Amelie had been for this entire evening. Unfortunately the happiness didn’t last as reality came crashing down to earth for her as she began to question the shadows even more.
Somehow not seeing them was worse than seeing them.
“Where’d they go?” She whispered to her protector the tree. As if in answer the tree rustled in the wind, a howling wind that had just picked up. Amelie at first thought that strange, winds don’t just happen like that. Then the strangeness of it compounded as the forest erupted into a cascade of animal calls, loud wails and whistles and growls. All at once the forest was alive and telling her something. Amelie didn’t have to guess what that was.
She ran.
Taking her little feet as fast as she could she sprinted through the darkwood in the opposite direction to the wind’s source. More out of instinct then and true decision. It was an instinct that just saved her life as a tremendous crashing echoed behind her, twigs and bark flying over her head as the sound of a tree snapping like a twig exploded into the night.
Then the roar, that was the worst of it. In the middle of the darkwood, unable to see what had just rendered her erstwhile guardian into kindling, garbled throaty roar of an ancient beast rendered her a panicked mess. Running as fast as she could while the forest continued to screech and scream at her Amelie did her best to get as far from that roar’s source as was possible.
She ran and ran until the forest was quiet, until the wind was no more, until her breath was ragged. She ran until her tiny feet bled and her dress was torn. She ran while blood flowed from a million tiny scratches that covered her skin. She ran through bushes and saplings and over rocks and roots.
She ran until she couldn’t run anymore, until she collapsed exhausted into a heap under the moonlight beam of a break in the forest roof. In that sparse light she found a bed of meadow grass and fell into it weeping. She wanted to go home, she wanted her papa, she wanted out of the dark wood. She was sorry she’d disobeyed her father, she’d never do it again. She’d be a good girl and listen to him in future.
She just wanted to go home.
A snarl in the shadows woke her from her fit of terror. Amelie sat upright, staring into the blackness that flowed around the trees like liquid shadow. Into the darkwood’s horrifying core she stared fixed in hypnotic terror. Her breathing a rapid, thunderous testament to the simple fact that she had no more flight left in her tiny body.
The two blue eyes, orbs of brilliant sapphire evil, came for her. They darted between trees, a crashing and cracking announcing where the two collided. They came direct this time, staring straight for her from out of her nightmares. Then the eyes revealed something behind them. A great moving beast, impossibly large.
Amelie got up to run but stumbled with exhaustion, she only needed to get into the trees. She had a chance if she got into cover.
The creature slipped between the pillars of the forest, darting back and forth like a fox stalking a rabbit. Eye’s always on her as a dark hide began to show from out of the shadow.
It was so big.
Amelie got up again and made for the trees, she needed to make it. She needed the sanctuary. Please in the name of Braga and everything holy let her get to the trees. She’d be a good girl from now on and never hurt anyone if she could just get to the trees.
But then the trees weren’t there.
They exploded in a storm of debris that sent Amelie flying back into the moonlit clearing. Something had hit them with so much force as to render them nothing but shards. Something big and strong and….
A snarl, impossibly deep, sounded from behind her.
Amelie rolled over to meet those two blue orbs. Ferocious cat eyes with black slits that shone with all the intensity of the stars. They sat perched in the skull of a shadowy scaled creature, it’s breath stank of old meat and the mold of the forest.
“Please go away.” She whispered feebly as the creature stared at her, breathing heavy and sulphurous. “Leave me alone, I just want to go home. Please just go away.” She cried as the creature turned it’s head like a bird to take her in with one eye.
“Please just go away.”
The creature screeched into the night before opening it’s mouth wide. Row upon row of yellowed teeth showcased in all it’s magnificent but horrifying spectacle. Amelie stared up at them, breath stolen from her chest but what she saw.
Then the mouth closed and Amelie was no more.