Keep Moving

This forest is the motherland of gluttony, it writhes in the soil, sluggishly sprouts from the earth, and feeds for eternity. Amidst the forest, amidst the decay lies a heart. A breathing, beating, hungry heart. Its dirt-path veins spread along the forest searching for its next meal like the silk-trap of a spider web. But this forest is nothing if not lawful. Follow her rules and you will be safe, follow her rules and she will remain hungry. 

Debris snuck its way into Sparrow’s sneakers as he shuffled down the dirt path. He cursed Wren for asking him to tag along, he cursed his Dad for making him when he told Wren to beat it. Of course, the twins insisted on coming too. Goldie nearly fell down the stairs with her boots on opposite feet to meet them at the door. Charlie hovered behind her with his thumb sucked between his lips. It’s a bad habit, admittedly batshit habit, for a kid his age to have. 11 and gnawing your thumb like it is a CapriSun straw is fucking wild if you asked Sparrow. 

A blur of yellow made his eye twitch “Goldie stop spinning you’re going to hurt–” 

“Ow!” she squealed, tumbling to the ground. 

“ –yourself” Sparrow sighed, helping his sister back to her feet. Dirt and sticks clung to her yellow frilled dress. Sparrow tried to help her clean up but the second she was up again she took off down the dirt path towards a pile of sticks. With eyes gleaming at a particularly large one in the center. 

Sparrow was not patient enough for this day. But his dad, his fucking father, insisted it was his responsibility to keep them safe, why? Because he was their brother, because he was the oldest because he was a boy. Who had time to give a shit what he wanted to do; the children wanted to play outside. 

Sparrow tumbled a rock as he made his way over to Wren. She cycled through a process of sticking her head into her journal and squinting at the road ahead. 

“Mama is going to kill us if we don’t have them back home before the sun goes down,” Sparrow grumbled

With her eyes still plastered to her journal she shakes her head and replies “You.”

“What?”

“Mama is going to kill you if we're not back on time.” Wren lifts and then cocks her head at the path ahead before shaking it and bringing it back down to her journal.

“Bullshit she knows we wouldn’t even be out here if it wasn’t for you” Sparrow scoffed. 

Ignoring her brother, Wren lifted her journal to eye level. Then aggressively stared at the road again. Sparrow looked in the direction she was, squinting when he saw nothing but more trees, more dirt paths, and Goldie in the center of a pile of sticks holding the biggest to the sky. 

“What? What are you looking at?”

“It’s different” she mutters 

“What do you mean it's different?”

“Look,” she says, pushing the journal into his face. Little labeled drawings formed into a makeshift map “You see this right here” she points to a crooked line “That’s where we are, we’re supposed to meet a fork in the road but the path ahead of us is straight”

Sparrow shakes his head “ You probably wrote it wrong”

“I didn’t write it wrong Sparrow I have been up and down these paths all summer, I know everything there is to know about these woods and I’m telling you this is different,” she argued

Sparrow blinked 

“Are you saying were lost,” he whispered

“No! We’re not lost, we can turn around, it's just…I don’t know how to go forward.” She pushes her glasses back onto the bridge of her nose, looking up to Sparrow with hooded brows “What do you think we should do?” she says 

He runs a hand through his hair and sighs. Secretly he couldn’t be happier to get out of the woods and never step foot again. There is no telling what could be between these trees he almost shuddered at the thought of forest animals gazing at him with beady eyes.

“Look let's just head home we can find the lake tomorrow morning”

Wren's glasses fogged and she looked away from him. “I promise” he assured 

His sister nodded, holding her head heavy. 

“Goldie. Charlie, we’re heading home” Sparrow yelled between cupped hands.

When the group was together they turned around with Wren leading the pack toward home. The twins poked and prodded at the earth with their sticks while Sparrow kept his eyes on them all.

Somewhere down the path, a peculiar sight stunned them. Something that was there that they could all swear was not there before. Tied against the raised roots of the tree edges was a circle of braided branches. The branches stiffed into two odd lumps at the top. In the middle, one side slimmed to a point while the other bloated into it. A crown of evergreen ivy covered the earthy gate, one that shook and whistled with the breeze.

Wren trailed this trail more times than one could count on two hands, she knew this was impossible. 

Sparrow remembered this part of the trail because there was a tree next to the path with bumps mimicking a face that made him snicker. The face tree is still there only now the spot that was once a nose had branches braided into the center. He knew this was impossible.

The twins might have considered the possibility of the gate but without a second thought, Goldie ran through with Charlie at her side.

“Fascinating,” Wren says investigating the unusual sight. She pulled out her journal, plucked the pencil from her ears, and began sketching. 

Sparrow's mind wandered in boredom. The sounds of a ravine’s rushing waters and the cold breeze were peaceful if he focused but goddamn was it boring. He began to count the trees in his sight just to pass the time. He made it to 23 before 24 caught his attention. 

An inapt piece of paper was nailed to its trunk. He veered to the left, off the dirt path, and inches into the trees. Wrapping his hand around fuzzy moss, he rose to the tips of his sneakers and plucked it from the tree. Flipping over the paper he reads its typewritten text. 

Rules:

Do stay on the dirt path.

Do not look her in the eyes

Do Keep moving.

“What the– Hey Wren check this out.” a smirk lifts his lips as he reads out the words to his sister.

“Don’t look her in the eyes? What does that even mean?” Wren asks.

“Who knows, probably some losers larping or something” he replies, crumbling up the paper and tossing it behind him.

“Pick that up” Wren screeches “This is nature, not a flipping junkyard”

“This is nature,” Sparrow mocked while searching for the paper he threw.

“God you are so immature”

“Says the girl who just said flipping” he mutters, slipping the crumpled paper into his jacket pocket.

He looked past her and at the gate with a tilt of his head.

“It kind of looks like a heart,” he said

Wren turned and pulled her brows

“No, it doesn’t” 

“Well if you squinted”

Wren squinted

“No it doesn’t” she repeated

In theory, Sparrow could have let this go, but Sparrow wasn’t the type to let things go.

“Goldie would agree”

“Jesus Sparrow who cares–”

“Goldie” he yelled cutting off his sister

When nothing happened he stared at the empty weaving road and shouted again. 

“Guys get back over here”

Nothing happened. Sparrow began to panic

“Where are the twins” he squealed,

“I thought you were watching them,” said Wren 

“I thought you were watching them,” said Sparrow 

“Shit” they hissed together.

“They can’t be far” With racing hearts they cross through the braided branch gate. 

Their breaths crack as they stomp through the rendered dirt path. Sparrow has become a mess of fear. He is afraid he will never find twins again. He is afraid he will find them, they all make it home safely and he will have to explain to his parents, to his father, that for a brief moment Sparrow had lost their children.

A new fear simmered, one that grew hotter every second the sun dropped. Alone in the forest in the dead of night. He could have sworn he heard a snarl in the trees, felt a glare on his skin. But it was easier to convince himself he hadn’t. So he tensed his shoulders, he rubbed the sensation from his arm and he stepped closer to Wren…to keep her safe. 

They walked and walked and walked with no signs of the twins. Their voices were raw from shouting their name. A succession of Goldie…Charlie echoed into the trees. 

Sparrow jumped as Wren’s arm shot out against him.

“T-that’s not possible” she whispered. 

The same braided branch gate as the one they left behind was now feet in front of them. 

“Did we go in a circle?” Sparrow asked, grateful he kept his voice steady. 

Wren flips open her journal running her finger along the page. 

“It’s a straight path, there is no way we could have looped”

Sparrow never cried, never. Not when he broke his arm, not when his father pushed his head into the mud, not even at his grandma’s funeral. But at this moment he wanted to do nothing more.

He didn’t like this. He didn’t like anything right now. Not Wren, not the twins, not the forest nor the gate. But, 

He didn’t cry.

He kept walking.

For the second time, they crossed through the braided heart. Shouting the twin's names into the wind. One right after the other.

Goldie

Charlie 

Goldi–

“Did you hear that?” Wren said. 

A whimper, a cry, the sound of his children’s terror. He heard it. 

A snarl, a growl, the sound of a feral beast. He heard as well.

Up ahead, around the corner. Something terrible was there. Wren pulled at his arm. He didn’t realize he stopped moving, for a second he forgot how to. Unfortunately, Wren did the moving for him, pulling him up ahead and around the corner. 

It’s a craven wish to make but he wished his sister left him there in the dark. Alone so he could cry without being seen. Instead, a gasp followed by a shriek followed by the most horrific sight he could ever imagine towered above them all. 

It had matted black fur with a body thick in the center but lanky in the limbs, a stubby head with stretched fangs slathered in foam. Its frame pulsed heavily. Huffing like it couldn’t get enough air.

Goldie cowered around the squatting body of a boy sucking his thumb. They whimpered and sobbed as they hid themselves from the beast ahead. It stared at the dirt path. Staring and huffing and growling. 

Sparrow couldn't move. 

He could see his siblings in danger–scratch that– he could see children in danger and he couldn't move.

“Help them” Wren cried, pushing Sparrow toward the beast. 

He could not.

He would not. 

The beast shifted its sight. The flinch of his head made Sparrow turn away fast. Shaking under its stare.

“For fuck sake” his sister exclaimed.

She moved fast, her journal falling from her hand, as she dipped to swipe a massive stone from the ground. She armed it and kept her grip steady. Positioned between the beast and her siblings she repeated five words. Five words were enough courage for her. 

“If it's black fight back” 

She breathed in through her nose and out through her mouth and started the beast right into its red eyes. 

Sparrow watched it all. He watched his sister's bravery and he cursed her for it. 

She was the one to stare the beast into its eyes

And he was a coward. 

Through its growls, the beast lifted its foamy fangs into a grin. 

Wren was as confused as she was terrified. The beast didn’t look much like a bear but she had no other explanation for what it could be. Yet she had never heard of a bear…grinning. 

Still, she tightens her grip into a white-knuckled one ready to swing. 

A heartbeat later the grip went limp.

Over the twins right in front of Sparrow, the beast struck. He barely saw it move. But he heard a tear, he heard his sister's screams, and he watched the grinning beast drag her body off the dirt path into the trees. 

Sparrow went cold. A chill so skin-deep it seemed to freeze time itself. The sound of the earth muffled around him, even his fear lost momentum.

He moved. 

He took a trembling step towards the twins. His foot sank into a newly soiled dirt under him. The squelch lifted bile into his throat. Still, 

He moved. 

He lifted the twins from the ground, he couldn’t look them in the eye he just pulled at them. 

The sounds of Goldie’s cries were muffled to his ears, he couldn’t see, couldn't think, he could do nothing but move.

Charlie pulled against him. Sparrow wanted him to stop. He wanted to make him stop but he felt so weak.

Charlie pushed off of him moving off the path, Sparrow was too slow and Charlie sprinted into the dark screaming Wren’s name. 

Sparrow could only watch his brother thin into the darkness. 

Thinking nothing other than what is he going to tell his father.

Sparrow was afraid of much but he was most afraid of his father. 

Deep inside of him, a small little light of courage knocked against his ribs. He stood there staring into the forest that swallowed his siblings and he thought I could be brave. The light grew the more he held that thought. It grew so big that it turned into a plan. He could find a big stone, one big enough to bash, carry Goldie through the trees, and search for his brother and sister for however long it took.

I could be brave. He thought.

Goldie's cries became clearer now. She cried for Charlie. She cried for Wren and looked at Sparrow as she did.

Sparrow, lured by this intoxicating courage scanned the ground for a stone. His eyes locked onto a meaty one near the forest edges.

He moved. 

The closer he got the braver he felt and with a timid hand he swiped it from the trees. 

A growl rang above him, right above him. 

His eyes lifted slowly and he was faced with the trunk of the beast at his feet. 

Like a gust of air onto a flame the light went out.

He took a shaking step away from the trees once, twice then turned his heel into a run.

Pulling Goldie with him as he went.

No matter how far they got they could still feel the glare of the beast on them.

Goldie stuttered at his side, she couldn’t keep up with her brother. The sob she restrained to run became pressure in her head. She had no time to see the branch blocking her step.

She crashed into the dirt screaming. She tried to get herself back up, back to Sparrow’s side but a searing pain rushed from her ankle up to her skull whenever she moved. She looked at her leg and wailed at the raw mess of bone and blood protruding from the ankle. 

Sparrow heard his sister’s wails and stopped moving.

“Get up” he hissed swiping his hand upwards.

Goldie didn’t respond only wailed

“Get up” Sparrow snapped; he could hear the grunts of the beast not far behind him and he knew they didn’t have long. 

How right he was.

Crawling from the trees the beast hovered above Goldie. Staring at her with red foamy drool spilling from its mouth. 

“Help me” Goldie pleaded, reaching toward her brother.

He looked up. He looked down. Up and down.

Sparrow stood between a girl with a beast on her back and freedom on his.

With his trembling knees and numb fingers. In a fight against a monster, the only thing he could do was die.

He looked down and made a decision that would haunt him for the rest of his life. 

“I’m sorry” he whispered. 

His step faltered as turned. He stumbled down the dirt path away from Goldie, away from Charlie, and away from Wren.

He winced as he heard his sister’s screams but he kept moving. 

Down the path, he came across the braided branch gate shaking against the wind once again. 

Sparrow's body trembled; he didn't know if it was from his fear, his shame, or the cold air; nevertheless, he slipped his hands into his jacket pocket for warmth. 

He felt a poke wrap around his palm. He pulled his hand out and bundled up paper with it. 

He unraveled the page reading its contents again. 

And again 

And again.

And he cried.

He looked to the heart ahead. It rattled and shook, it beat and pulsed. And Sparrow cried. 

But he kept moving. 

Right through the heart. He walked the dirt path with his face numb from guilt until he passed the heart again. 

He walked the dirt path stepping over patches of red until he passed the heart again. Over and over. The sun rose and fell, The forest sang and then silenced. But the path remained the same and the heart was always there. 

Somewhere in Sparrow, he was grateful he couldn’t find his way home. He figured it would be easier for them, his parents, to have lost four children rather than three. 

So he kept moving.   

Trembling with fear he kept moving, sick with shame he kept moving, with the sigh of a beast on his back he kept moving, 

Towards the greedy heart of the forest  

He 

Keeps 

Moving.