Into The Woods: Seek and ye shall be found

.............................................................................................................................

Do not go into The Woods, they said.

She shrugged, as she pushed back the dense leafy curtain, took a deep breath and stepped in. A cacophony of colour dazzled her for a moment. She took a step and the colours were wiped away by near complete darkness and a weak warm wind.  

The floor made a cracking noise as something crumbled under her shoes. The place looked like a dark vestibule, with rich smells and sounds.

She advanced further, putting one foot in front of the other, mindful of her surroundings. Something moved to her left and she let out a yelp, freezing in place. When she stopped, the shadow did, too, yet she didn’t notice it.

It was the same shadow that followed her in.

She didn’t know what to expect from this place, only that she came there to find answers. She had heard stories, people who went there and lost their minds, people who came out drunk with euphoria and high on feelings and almost instantly crashed into a pit of despair and wanted to go back, and people who returned every night, hoping to find what they had lost, hoping to lose their minds and gain their sanity, gambling their heart to get a sip of adventure, ready to become and unbecome, to craft themselves into someone new for a night.

Then there were those that was rumoured never came out. How can someone not come out of here? she thought. Surely it’s not as alluring nor as horrifying to have someone trapped here forever. Although…are they trapped if they come in on their own volition? Also, why do all those things happen at night? I guess you can’t really tell in The Woods anyway, I hear it’s always dark here and the light of day seldom makes its way in through a crack in the Canopy.

She delved deeper. Step by step, the cracking noise followed her, and so did the shadow. Step by step, moving in unison with her, in an unwitting and unwilling pas de deux, in which the shadow walked when she walked, stopped when she stopped and came closer while she was captivated by the place. If only she’d turned around just for a second. Or realise that it wasn’t her shoes that were making the cracking sound. She was captivated by the pale lights, too weak to sustain any colour, immersed in smells and noises that were undulating in the air around her, pulling her in down the path. The shadow behind trembled and shook like silk in the wind, then stood still behind her.

She took a few steps and climbed up, closer to the destination, then stopped for a minute to drink from a fountain- what was a fountain doing there anyway? The liquid was cold and immaterial. She looked up to the magnificent canopy- she could barely see the top. She took another sip. The liquid tasted different now, it was coarse and burned down her throat and made her world tumble. Almost losing her balance, she looked back, to see a shadow disappear and a small empty vial roll by her feet.

She felt watched, sensed eyes following her moves and…judging her for drinking from the fountain? There must be many pairs of them here, some…regulars and others lost souls like her. Some righteous and some free, some incarcerated by their own desire for freedom and rigid in their hopes.

She stopped for a moment, to gather her thoughts. The air was smoky and the floor felt foamy. It was very easy to forget in this place, to lose one’s head and banish the future from the present, easy to let go, open the heart, let the poison pour in and the vice come out. She felt as if she was in a dream, an out-of-body experience that wasn’t there minutes ago. She took a look at the fountain, pushed herself up and kept going.

There was a rumour that someone settled there and swore they would never leave unless they got cured. Of heartache, remembrance and the outside world, of passion and pride and others’ presence. That was some time ago. They lurked deep in The Woods, spoke to everyone and listened to no one. They were not ageing and they wore dark clothes and a single red gem on their ear. The place they crafted had its roots resting deep in the earth and its pillars standing proud and tall, like the trees.

The higher she went the heavier the colours became: gold and bronze, dark and lime green, intertwining like poison ivy and building layer upon layer of secret and unknown. The floor felt softer, moss-like and sticky. The steps became more difficult and the sounds deafening. Shadows were now everywhere, moving in synchrony like an immense synergistic organism with no heart and one soul electrifying all of them. She had heard of this level of The Woods and the stories that were told in hushed voices. Some stories had a life and a voice of their own and screamed to be unearthed and discovered, heard and repeated. Others were taken apart and put together in ways that were not meant to be, until they turned into a different story, spun into untruth and the secrets they vowed to cover turned inside out, ugly and naked, coarse like sandpaper, their claws blunted by time.

A sharp sound made her stop in her tracks. A bird’s flight tore the darkness that fell around like a canvas, its feathers spreading light, glistening and reflecting a myriad of colours, a ribbon of red silk dangling from its tail. 

Around her everyone rose from their places, sounds and whispers stopped and eyes blinked. Limbs lengthened, the space around grew and shapes became apparent.

A blinding light crashed over everyone, as a woman’s voice proclaimed: “Thank you for coming to The Woods, we hope you have enjoyed your time and will come back. The Canopy is now closed. Please leave your glasses and proceed to the exit.”

No, she muttered, as she leaned into the arms of a shadow, I am not done yet. 

.............................................................................................................................