All That Glimmers

The village of Yocca was nestled on the outskirts of the metropolis that was the Kingdom of Lacerron. Digg, fifteen seasons old, had only visited the bustling heart of town twice. Once to retrieve a parcel of cheese for her family. The second time was to receive the allotment of five golden lacs and one bag of dense millet. Grain was traditionally given to families who lost someone working for the palace. He was helping construct new decorative arches when one suddenly collapsed killed four men. His untimely demise had been deemed only as valuable as the meager sum (akin to one fortnight’s wages) and supplies that lasted Digg’s family less than ten days between the four of them.  

The sun shone high and bright in a sky that was never so much blue as milky grey, but it warmed Digg’s head all the same. The heat encouraged her on in her daily task of harvesting the few hard-stemmed gourds and the deep seeded onion bulbs that never seemed worth the effort she spent unearthing them. She dug for the smelly, stringy plants that kept evading her grasp seeming to burrow farther the closer her spade got. Digg sat back into an exhausted kneel to wipe uselessly at her brow with an already sweat dampened handkerchief. Greta chirped and stomped impatiently in the small paddock close to the vegetable patch, her horns subtly glistening in the sun. Greta came into their lives as a small sickly creature. Utter red with scratches and raw from use, though her small horns that looked as if they had been dipped in stardust. The little goat had grown steadily after a few weeks of recuperation by the stove in the small house. Digg had found the goat in the cold month that followed her father’s death. The simpering creature had seemingly pulled herself from the roots of the trees themselves using only her front two legs. Unlike the other creatures from the forest that Digg had encountered Greta had immediately accepted Digg as her rescuer and master. She had scooped up the small goat, weighing less than the bag of millet had, and gently brought her into the house. Her mother was immediately up in arms. The goat had come from the forest, it was probably that of the Harvesters and we had no business tending to strange creatures. They would come to find her and then we would be sorry. Digg rolled her eyes then. 

“Plus, that goat looks like she won’t even last the night. The meat is probably bad from whatever horrors happened to her along the journey so we couldn’t even eat her. Not that there is much left to her-” on and on her complaints went. Her mother even in her bereaved state was strong and, Digg conceded, probably right most of the time. But Digg begged her to let her try. Since the chief concern was that her mother simply didn’t think they had the room for Greta Digg tried to assure her the tiny thing would not add to the chaos. Already stuffed to exploding, the cottage held within: a set of twin boys and her mother. The latter rarely left the door frame and who worked out of the home which also held neat piles of clothing, boots, gloves and other such things that needed mending, for men and women from the village. Digg took to the responsibility as easily as breathing air.

But the Harvesters never came and Greta survived the night, and the following night. Months later, she and Digg were bosom friends. Now the goat rolled in the grass and brayed which sounded to Digg like a sharp “thank you” whenever she heard it and made her face crinkle with a smile. She watched the small creature for a while longer, knowing she would have to milk her shortly and knowing the goat would make her chase her in order to do so. Her mystery goat was a feisty girl. She wondered. How had such a small beasty survived the untold horrors within the forest? 

The leaves of the forest’s edge, several strides away, rustled in the soft breeze. A sound that seemed normal to her but to travelers sounded similar to rustling with a quiet and distant shriek of glass on some other hardness distant even beyond fathoming. Digg had never felt the same anxiety about the forest as those around her. Just an itch of curiosity. She had grown up with the same stories that her parents had heard at her age. The older couple who lived nearby and came with pouches of tea for her mother would traditionally, come in to the home and tell stories of the Harvesters while nettle and dandelion tea brewed over the stove. The old man was more likely to be more bombastic and try to scare the twins with gripping details and unexpected scares making the boys jump from their places on the floor. They told the stories of Trune, or Frett, or his favorite Cink The Dunce. But his wife was more metered and her nuaces in her storytelling brought the tales to life. 

Trune was the first of many men who disappeared into the forest, as the old woman told it. He was a fair and quiet man who lived not far from their village, his home stood closer to the edge of the trees than anyone dared build now. She said that Trune for all intents and purposes was a smart and kindly man who was driven to near madness by the sheer volume of the noises from the forest. The day after a strong storm blew through the village, he was simply gone. Only his foot tracks left in the mud suggested his whereabouts and only one person dared enter the forest to look for him. The man poked only a few strides in then retreated moments later saying Trune was surely dead and search was pointless. Digg had never thought Trune was mad or even dead for that matter. She believed he had found what had called out to him. The glittering at the edge of your sight, the treasure. She longed to know for herself often imagining riches that she would bundle up. She would return home with to aide her mother and keep them happy and well fed on something other than stringy gourds and onions that tasted of dirt. The brave heroine of Yocca.

Digg pulled her heavy handled hook knife from her small satchel and bent forward to hack at the stem of a gourd that had hidden behind a large leaf in the patch. After several attempts at carving a wedge out of the hard fiber she stopped. Everything had gone still. Greta was staring deeply into the woods beyond them and the breeze had stilled. Digg waited, listening for an indication of what had disrupted the land’s natural breath. Then it shone. A dot of blue light glinted beyond the visible bows. Digg stood, hook in hand and squinted into the trees. The dot blinked out of sight. She took one tentative step towards the trees. She shouldn’t be doing this but how could she not? What sign was she still waiting for? She checked over her shoulder looking for movement from within her cottage. Her mother must be resting or working and the twins were off with the boys from down the lane. Digg turned back to the trees, and with one last settling breath strode confidently into the forest.

Navigating through dense thicket and trees was slow and rough. Many times along the way her thin boots became lodged beneath vines and overgrown brambles and would have to pull the blade of her knife through the toughness for ages. She thought she ought to turn back and never speak of her brief odyssey. If each passing moment had been any less thrilling she would have considered it more carefully.. Small creatures hurried about in the underbrush, squeaking and hissing and trouncing about around her. Nature captured her attention just long enough to stave off the loneliness. But it did come. Her mother would be furious to find her gone, Greta not milked and chores abandoned. She was supposed to do the boys’ washing today. She could almost smell the hard soap and wet wool. But none of the intrusive thoughts weighed on her like imagining the moment after her mother’s anger abated and was replaced with worry and hysteria. She had already lost someone just a season before. What would she do if Digg never returned? Digg forded onward into the dimness.She would return, and with riches to spare. This was her promise and she said it aloud scaring a doe close by.

She must have been tripping along for some time because the dulled sounds of glass grew louder as the day grew older, the sun disappearing from above and settling somewhere where the light no longer could reach her. Her eyes adjusted slowly to the change, still half blind and feeling her way through the sturdy trunks and occasionally walking through wispy webs of night spiders. Her sight just barely adjusted when a crack rang to her left. Panicked, she ran until suddenly her knee rose up to meet viciously with a large stump. Digg hopped around on one foot trying to not scream out or howl so not to alert whatever had made the noise to her presence. The heat in her knee from the impact radiated outward and throbbed painfully. Seeing no togher choice but to sit atop the offending stump she plopped down and examined the wound. She was bleeding, not terribly but the accident would make progress even more difficult. Blood dribbled wetly over her shin and she pulled her well-used handkerchief from her satchel to stymie the flow. Salty sweat stung as she pressed the cloth firmly to her wound making her eyes water and her breaths come shallow. 

Just beyond her, something scraped heavily the noise coming from the direction she had just come from. A hill she hadn’t noticed before seemed to materialize before her. Her breath caught. Was she being watched? Could the Harvesters be more than a story used to frighten kids to stay close to home? 

Steeling herself, Digg knotted the handkerchief around her knee and pushed through the pain coursing up and down her shin. She counted to three then hauled herself up as quietly as she could from the stump and limped across a small patch of tall grasses. Then she started up the hill scrambling to get away from where she thought the noise had emminated. The climb seemed to take forever and a strange heaviness sank deeply into her bones. Maybe the forest was telling her to turn back, trying to force her back down the hill, back towards warmth and familiarity. The pressure intensified as she climbed higher, burdening her journey all the more. She reached out for a low, sturdy looking branch to steady herself and pulled her weakening body up, up the hill. Digg couldn’t do anything else but keep going forward, falling to a crawl, avoiding going back. 

A spark, much like the glittering of blue she had witnessed from her garden lit the space above her head. Soon many more appeared, pinks, yellow, bright white. The treasure. She had almost reached the crest of the hill feeling as worn as if she had scaled the highest mountain. One last plant of her foot and one last grasp of the earth and she would see it!

The trees screamed.

Ears throbbing from the noise, covered in dirt and sweat, Digg finally saw it. 

The forest just a few steps away was swaying in an intangible wind but the strangest part was that trees looked to be covered in fine crystals and gems. She hurried forward excitement rushing to her head and fueling her forward. No, The trees were made of gemstone. A gloved palm reached out towards her from the brightness. 

“STOP!” the resonate voice echoed and bounced around her. The figure was covered in a dark travelling cloak, face hidden and black gloves shimmering with powered brilliance. Digg skidded to a halt a mear arms’ length away from the first gleaming tree. The tree was a willow, blue as cobalt and bearing leaves of sapphires and strings of aqua colored droplets tinkling together, obscuring the cloaked person. 

“Stop, child. Only danger here.” The person, a man, she thought, moved closer to her but not from within the confines of the willow-like bows. “You  must go back, Harvesters don’t take kindly to newness and that is all you are. Danger. You must leave before you are found.” Digg moved forward and the man balked, shrinking back, afraid.

“I won’t hurt ya, mister. I just need a few of the treasures for my people, we have it rough down there. I only aim to take enough for my family.” She reasoned. If the person said anything she didn’t hear it. The forest beyond the willow was alive with sound. The cacophony she had first heard was now as sweet and alluring as the finest music. Beyond the blue willow was a grove of trees the size and shape of birchwoods and all glimmering with light from within their trunks. Her hand reached out as if of its own accord, caressing the jewels and she made her way forward.

“You must leave!” hiss the man in a whisper. Digg paid him no attention, he just wanted it all for himself. Why not help the people who needed it? Help them prosper, get them out from debt to the kingdom? 

The man didn’t pursue her through the grove, he stood watching her progress from below the tree’s canopy as she snapped a small handful of emerald twigs from a low hanging branch. Then, like all the others, as he had done before, and could not blame the young ones for, he watched. He watched as they found her. Surrounded her. Dozens of hands grabbed at her. Forced her to the sharp ground covered in shards of glass-like grass blades. Interrogated her. How did she find them? Had she touched the Crystal? Trune didn’t warn you? How could you? You’ve ruined us! The first one we’ve seen in decades. Did you bring another goat?! Any food? No one knows you’re here?! How will we ever get out of here? You stupid girl!

They screamed at her and all the while the green jewels in her hand began to slowly poison her. The crystal reached up and burned her, fused with her skin, soul, very being. She was a part of the land now. Like the others, trapped here by greed. Only escape is to know no greed, and wanting to escape is a greed in and of itself. The forest beyond nearly unreachable. A force harder than stone caging them to the groves. Digg cried. Trune, the crystalline golem, looked on solemnly.