Saved by the rings

“You must never pass the mile marker beside the poppy field, or wander under the guarding oaks, otherwise you’ll be caught by the creature in the woods.”

This was the typical scary story told to children to stop them from misbehaving. There are many different versions;

“Clean your room, or the monster of the forest will get you.”

“Be nice to your sister, or the tree man will take you away.”

“Never wander off from your parents, or the wood thing will find you.”

From a young age, a healthy fear of the forest bordering the town of valae was instilled in all of its residents. 

Sometimes, stories were not enough. 

When I was eleven, I joined a small group of other adventurous children who wanted to see the creature for themselves. Ben was the oldest, and the leader, two years shy of his coming of age ceremony. It was upon his shoulders that the job of leading us had fallen. He took the first step over the mile marker, he was the first to stand in the shade of the old oaks.  

I was two years younger than him, so I crossed second. 

And so on.

Under the trees was a different world from the one we knew. 

Shadows waved from the canopy. Birds sang haunting songs as they watched our small troop wander between the trunks.

We pushed and shoved each other forward. Childish voices laughing and daring each other to take one more step. 

Our little adventure led us to a small clearing. A small chuckling stream winding its way through to the east. A few blackberry bushes perched on the southern side; branches bent under the weight of their swollen fruit. Cheers of delight suddenly rang out, as a hoard of tiny feet stampede towards the thicket. Young minds already anticipating the sweet taste of summer fruit and the feel of fingers stained blue for days. But they never made it. 

A tall figure rises from beyond the thicket and their voices suddenly cut off, although their feet still carried them forward.  

It has the head of a boar and coarse fur down its back and around its shoulders. Tusks frame the shadows shifting within its open mouth, as if silently roaring in anger at being disturbed. 

Ben was the first to find his voice. Yelling for us to run. “The monster!”

We turned immediately. The youngest stumbled at the quick turn. And so did I.

My foot dropped into the turn of the stream and I collapsed. My hands flew out to catch me and they slid down the edge of the bank into the water. 

I remember the shock of the cold water hitting my skin. How it bit into my fingertips. The fading sounds of frantic footsteps leaving me behind.

“Are you alright?”

There was a hand outstretched to help me up. Course and hairy. It belonged to the monster.

Up close, I could see a face within the boars mouth. A scraggly beard hanging beneath a wrinkled mouth. Two dark beady eyes flit between our startled faces. Laugh lines stretching either side, crinkling as he squints. 

It was just a man.

“Who are you? Are you a real monster?”

He laughed then. A deep bellowing laugh, and lifted me up out of the water. 

“No no no, not a monster. Just a hermit,” he looked behind him as a boy came around the thicket, “and his son.” 

The boy was around Ben’s age. Wearing a fox-skin where his father wore a boar’s. Carrying a basket full of blackberries. 

“She’s wet dad.”

“Well, so she is. Here lass, get outta that spoiled frock and into a fur.” 

His son gave me his cotton under-robe and they turned away while I changed.

My dress was laid out on a rock in the sun and I found myself with time to kill.

I spent an hour with the monster of the woods, who was really just a man named Aaron, and he liked to sing. 

His son was named Vix. We gorged on blackberries and played tag. I promised to play with him again.

When I stumbled out of the treeline, fingers blue and dress stiff from drying, I was immediately beset upon by frightened adults. Praising my safe return. 

I was doted upon by my parents after that. 

It was stifling.

I saw Vix maybe six times after that. He showed me how to find my way by listening to the brooks and how to read the moss. How to build and set a basic snare. How to start a fire with flint and steel. His father taught us to sing the songs of the birds. 

While my parents saw me learn to read poetry, cook, and clean. Learn which fashions are in style and which fork goes where.

Six years ago, during the height of summer, when I was a month shy of my fifteenth birthday, my parents told me they had arranged my marriage to Ben. Brave but cowardly Ben. 

I ran. I didn’t want to marry anyone. I was still too young. 

I ran to the only place, I knew they would be too scared too follow.

Aaron and Vix found me crying by the thicket where we first met. They appeared in much the same way too. 

“What’s wrong lass?”

I told him. Everything. I didn’t want to get married. I didn’t feel married. 

“No-one should have to get married if they don’t want to.”

They’d offered to take me back. But I knew my parents, and our people. 

So I asked them a favour. I had a plan.

When I strolled out of the forest that evening, I would have been beset upon by my parents immediately. If not for the fur clad hermits beside me. Aaron carved small wooden rings for Vix and I. He announced to my parents that me and Vix had promised to marry each other, when we had found ourselves. It was a quickly put together story but it worked. 

The stories my parents had been told as children made them afraid. That the “monsters” would curse them if they refused. Even though they could see they were mortal men. The mind is a funny thing.

We called the “engagement” off this week. Vix is more of a brother to me than a husband, and he told me he would rather I be his sister than anything else. I spend most of my time in the woods now. I can hunt, track, cure leather, stitch hide. 

I caught a deer today. It has such a pretty dappled hide, I think I will make my own hood. 

The woods could do with a new monster.