The Bargain With a Spirit

Naki was on her way back home from the Lorvale village, her rucksack full of healing balms and yet to be made into paste plants, which were hard to grow in their village because of the dense trees surrounding it. The Lorvale village, even though even deeper in the forest, had a big clearing available that they used for growing produce. With the corner of her eye she saw a will-o'-the-wisp to her right above the tall fern. She turned on her heel two times and clapped her hands to ward it away. It worked.

For a minute. There it was again just off the trail.

She did the warding off ritual again, but the will-o'-the-wisp was back in seconds. Naki knew better than to follow it, but the fact remained – this was strange will-o'-the-wisp activity. She kept walking, but the will-o'-the-wisps didn’t lay off. When one appeared right in the middle of the path, Naki stopped. That was just something that never happened. The will-o'-the-wisps were wild but unobtrusive balls of faery fire that played pranks on inexperienced travellers, which Naki was not. So there must be something they were asking her to do.

There weren’t a lot of things will-o'-the-wisps knew how to ask, only one thing actually – to follow them.

Naki tried the warding off ritual one more time just to be sure, but didn’t hold much hope. As she had suspected, the will-o'-the-wisp didn’t lay off, only flickered to her right again. There must be something gravely wrong to warrant the cooperation of will-o'-the-wisps. She dug into her bag, took out the new knife and strapped it to her belt. Then she stepped off the path into the tall fern.

The will-o'-the-wisp sparked brighter as in excitement and flashed further ahead. Naki walked carefully, aware of possible snakes or hidden spike pits waiting for her fresh blood, but she hoped the forest spirits weren’t that pissed off. Forest spirit involvement, though, was undoubtable, as for no other being would the will-o'-the-wisps bend their nature.

Of course, this was a sure way to get cursed if she couldn’t do whatever would be needed. Or maybe the being that bent the will-o'-the-wisps was an evil one and that’s why they were acting so out of character. She thought in circles and circles, profoundly doubting herself every three steps but walking forward.

The forest looked and sounded well. She hoped whatever was wrong was something she could actually help with, as spirits, when in need of humans, tended to overestimate their powers. She mulled over the fact that if she got cursed she couldn’t return home and would have to live alone until the end of her days. That was not a joyful prospect. But she had already made up her mind so she walked on.

She could smell it before she could see it. The metallic stench of fresh blood. She picked up her pace. The fern growth was broken by a bloody trench and at its end an animal ley. It was bigger than a horse, ginger fur stained in dark blood and a silver net so tight it had broken the skin. Naki approached slowly. Its breath came in horrible wheezes.

“Greetings,” she said, her voice shaking. Please don’t be a wolf. Be a fox. Be a fox spirit, please.

The wolf opened her eye. Naki froze.

She was in no danger, the wolf was tied up so tightly she couldn’t even move her head and had to roll her eye all the way back to look at Naki. Still, the gaze froze her. Then a restrained growl of laughter made her step back.

Naki walked around the wolf, keeping her distance. There was a net string going through and around the spirit’s mouth, preventing her from speech. Maybe that was a good thing – the spirit couldn’t bewitch Naki if she couldn’t talk. Naki’s first instinct was to help but the image of her sister laying in her bed with eyes open, breath gone was too stark.

“You remember don’t you?” she asked, hugging herself, “my sister, Esme.”

Even if the spirit wanted she couldn’t answer either way. Naki understood the wolf’s pained laughter. Of all the people that the will-o'-the-wisps could have led to the spirit’s rescue they chose the one that might not help. It was just in their style.

“She came back from the forest, went to bed and never woke up,” Naki said her voice trembling. “You did that to her, for what? She walked to close to your godliness?”

Naki kicked a rock and it flew in a high arch over the wolf’s body.

“Not so powerful now, are you?”

The anger was bubbling inside of her together with grief, almost a year had passed but at times she still forgot her sister was not here anymore. Naki and Esme used to be inseparable, not like other siblings they hadn’t even had a period of passionate hatred, they loved one another dearly till the day death did them apart. Till the day the wolf did them apart. This wolf.

Naki’s eyes went blurry with angry tears. She turned her back on the spirit and kneeled down. It was very rude to turn back to a spirit but it was also very rude to murder a beloved sister, so.

Why did it have to be me? Why did I have to find her? Why do I have to choose what to do?

Left here the spirit would probably die a slow and painful death or the will-o'-the-wisps could find someone else to rescue her. If the wolf wasn’t too weak now to control them. Naki threw a look back at the wolf, she had her eyes closed and looked miserable, she might be too weak. So it was a murder if Naki left her here. She looked at the top of the trees, wishing for someone else to decide in her stead.

No one did. She was alone. With the spirit.

She unsheathed her knife.

She walked over to the spirit’s head, not meeting her white eyes. She took a hold of the net string that was tying the wolf’s jaws together. It burned, as she had expected, no regular net could hold a spirit. She started sawing it.

Finally with a metallic ting it gave up.

“Thanks,” the wolf said barely audible, still clearly in pain.

Naki bandaged her hand, ignoring the spirit.

“Tell me what happened to my sister.” Naki waited for a minute before she realised the wolf was blatantly ignoring her. “I could just leave you here to rot, you know.”

“Threatening a spirit, human, that’s not especially self-preserving of you.”

Naki scoffed and picked up her backpack to leave.

“Your sister’s health was bound to fail eventually.”

“SO? Yes, wow, humans die! But not in the prime of their life.”

“Was she in the prime of her life?” the wolf asked.

“YES! She was so happy the days before she died, I remember she made a cake and walked around the whole village sharing it around!” Naki threw her backpack on the ground again, flattening the already broken ferns.

“I knew this was going to happen,” the wolf sighed. She tried to adjust her position but the net was still tight around all of her appendages, including her three tails.

“What? You for once experiencing consequences of your actions?”

The wolf gave her a demeaning look.

“That the humans are going to blame me.”

“You killed her.”

“Technically. Didn’t she say I had nothing to do with her death?”

“You just confessed, why would she say anything like that?”

The wolf was just a queen of belittling looks, she gave Naki another one.

“That is not my place to say, but you should know I am in grave pain at the moment.”

Naki shrugged. It was starting to get dark and she was tired from the long journey both on foot and her emotions. Great, now she would have to spend the night in the fern with a murderous spirit next to her.

It was hard to fall asleep with nothing but a tree between her and the wolf, but once she did, she was blessed with a deep dreamless sleep. On the other hand that meant she was none the wiser when she woke up.

“How were your dreams?” the wolf asked tiredly.

“Didn’t have any.”

The spirit’s silence felt surprised.

“Were you trying to invade my sleep?” Naki looked around the tree at the spirit.

“Not me.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“I thought if you could talk to your sister, it might clear some things up.”

“You killed my sister, how would I talk to her?”

The wolf sighed.

“You do realise I am a forest spirit and I can do more than you humans can.”

“You could make it so that I could talk to Esme again?”

“Not as I am now.”

Naki mulled this over. It would be a small band aid on the pain that was her sister’s death but it would at least be something.

“If I freed you, you could make it so I could speak to Esme?”

“I would need time to recover.”

“And then?”

“Yes, you could talk to your sister again.”

Naki made her decision in seconds. Then she started cutting up the net on the wolf’s back. Deep down she had already known that she won’t be able to leave the spirit to die, but now that she could get something out of it, the decision practically made itself.

It was hard on the knife to saw through the silver net. Two strings in she had to stop to sharpen it. Neither of them talked as she worked, but the forest, as if mocking her somber mood, was full of bird chirping. The sun was shining, some rays even penetrating the dense leaf roof of the forest. Half-done she stopped to drink some water, the wolf’s eyes on her almost burned holes.

She sighed and poured some water in the spirit’s mouth.

“Thank you.”

She didn’t acknowledge the gratitude and continued her work. Now and again the spirit complained about the speed at which she was getting along. Naki bit her teeth and ignored her. When all the strings on her back were finally cut she took a hold of the net and tried to remove it from the wolf. It was heavier than it had any right to be, burned Naki’s hands and was still tangled in the spirit’s limbs.  

The wolf stretched her neck out way further than any normal animal could and moved it from side to side, returning the blood flow to normal. Then she started licking the wounds on her back.

Naki shook out her hands and got back to work, now trying to untangle and cut the net to free the spirit’s six legs. It was tedious work, her hands becoming bloodier by the minute. Finally the wolf’s front paws were freed. The spirit gasped in relief and stretched her back and freed legs, prohibiting Naki from continuing the process.

“Do you want me to finish anytime soon?”

“Talk to me when you’ve spent three days and four nights tied up in a quicksilver net.”

Naki dropped her now quite ruined knife and walked to her bag. Her water flask was almost empty, she could either drink it or wash her hands. She drank it.

“There is a brook nearby, that way,” the spirit said making a miniscule indication with her head and continuing stretching what she could.

“Great,” Naki said, “don’t go anywhere.”

The spirit gave her a threatening glare.

Naki glared back and stomped off into the thick fern. Soon she could hear water running. She had to move the fern with her elbows as her palms hurt. When she reached the creek she kneeled and submerged her hands, the water sung at first but then her hands became numb and she could bandage them without too much trouble.

Lastly she filled her flask and then returned to the flattened fern clearing. The spirit must have trashed for quite a long time before it became too tangled to move. When she approached the wolf dropped the knife from her jaws.

“What are you doing?”

“It might look easier than it is,” the wolf explained sheepishly.

“Oh, really?” Naki took the now bloody knife in two fingers. “I’m washing this.”

The wolf frowned but settled to wait with her head on her front paws.

When Naki returned the wolf was still in the same position. She started to untangle the rest of the legs, concentrating on the mess of fur net and dried blood.

Right after she pulled a piece of dried blood away from the spirit’s hind legs, she  jumped to her legs as much as she could and growled threateningly at Naki. The wolf got her bearings in seconds, but Naki sat back for a moment.

The wolf settled down, looking embarrassed. Naki didn’t think she’d ever seen a spirit look embarrassed before, but to be fair this was the most time she had ever spent one on one with a forest spirit.

The rest of the net was hell bent on staying on the wolf’s appendages. Naki bled through her bandages because she became so irritated with the unyielding net.

“You are causing me more pain than necessary,” the wolf stated.

Naki almost stabbed her own hand when the knife slipped from the net as the wolf moved.

“Be careful! If I stab myself I’ll never finish.”

She did finish, the spirit spent a minute stretching and then curled up a good distance from the remains of the net. Naki refilled her water bottle and found the leftover lunch from days ago. The spirit slept through the afternoon but woke Naki up before dawn.

The wolf looked infinitely better than when Naki had found her. The scars were still visible where her fur was shorter, but otherwise the spirit looked almost healthy.

“Do you have anything that belonged to your sister?”

Naki shook her head.

“But you were close, right?”

“Yes.”

“Then it should be fine, lay down.”

Naki didn’t fancy laying down under the spirit’s gaping yaws, but she obeyed. The wolf lowered her head and pressed her nose to Naki’s forehead.

Naki woke up alone, the sun shining in her eyes. She didn’t remember the conversation with Esme, but the calm in her chest was proof that the wolf had fulfilled her end of the bargain.

As she thought back to the months before Esme died, she remembered the many weeks spent in bed, because she was too in pain to move. She remembered how happy and at peace she had been the day before. She’d walked around the whole village, sharing cake – saying goodbye.

Naki cried violently but then got up and tried to find her way back to the path that lead to her village. She was hungry. Life went on, even if she left a piece of her heart behind.