The Hunter

The girl tightened the blanket around her slight shoulders, huddling into a fetal position. In her sleep, her thumb slipped into her mouth; a motion she hadn’t made in years. A murmur of discontent escaped her, and beneath her closed eyelids, her eyes darted from side to side. Her dreams always began the same way: with her waking up in her own bed. The moment was so mundane that it felt impossible to discern her dreams from her waking hours.

*

At this moment, sunshine filtered through the soft gauzy curtains, which undulated from a slight breeze. The girl liked to keep her window open a crack whenever the weather was warm enough to permit it, and the flutter of the fabric caught her eyes now. She was either waking, or just beginning to dream.

The girl’s breaths made soft white clouds that disappeared as they neared the lilac curtains. It reminded her of her friends at school, giggling and holding up two fingers to their mouths to breathe out vapour as if it were cigarette smoke.

The girl stood up and slipped on a sweater the shade of vermillion, musing to herself that this must be real. The floorboards in a dream would never feel so cold under her feet, because who would want to dream of something so unpleasant? Leaning her weight into the window to help her, she pushed against the window until she heard the snick of the mechanism allowing her to lock it. Rubbing at her eyes, she yawned and stumbled off to the woodpile. No one else stirred, not even her mother, and the hearth was full of ash. Grumbling to herself that she was the only one who ever did anything, she took the fire poker and swept it away to the side with a motion of her hand. Placing her logs and kindling with precise movements, she arranged things before lighting it with a single match. Her father had taught her how to light a fire, before he had disappeared. She wished that he was here beside her to witness the flames licked at the paper and kindling greedily, consuming the lighter stuff before becoming a blaze.

Sighing, she held out her hands to the nascent flames and stayed there until the warmth had sunk into her bones. Stretching out like a cat, she knew it was time to get her day started. Mother had still not stirred behind the shut door, as far as the girl could tell, so she shrugged on her cloak and shoes and trotted outside with a basket. The sharp, clean smell of pine greeted the girl, and she shivered with happiness. She loved it all; the snow, the trees, and that near magical sense of being alone.

Passing the woodpile, she considered doubling back and leaving some wood for her mother, who did not like to touch the axe, but decided against it. The wood was chopped and stacked neatly, and her mother could do that herself.

Wandering down the path, the girl kept her eyes peeled for the soft glow of the mushrooms she was searching for. They would be exuding a pale, buttery gold light and smell faintly of black licorice.

A rustle of leaves stilled her movements, and she crouched down. Her sweater wasn’t bright, but it was still red and stood out like a sore thumb amongst the more muted shades of the pine trees and snow. Like a splash of blood. For a minute, it seemed that the only sound in the entire forest was the slow exhale and inhale of her breath, and she could feel the snow melting underneath her. Even the birds had gone silent in their perches, and the sense of foreboding grew in the girl. Finally, she heard the rustling sound again, but further away. She waited until it was completely gone before getting up, her legs aching and the knees of her jeans soaked through. Without seeing it, she couldn’t be sure what it was, but the forest was home to many creatures that she would rather not encounter.

Scanning the trees again, she continued searching. The mushrooms she was after would taste like buttered toast, and would make the perfect snack with some tea. After what seemed like ages, one caught her eye, nearly at her knee level and growing along the side of a tree trunk. She bent down, and plucked it delicately, and from this vantage point she was able to see the promising glow that emanated from another tree nearby. Like breadcrumbs, there was a trail of them. She kept walking further into the forest, picking as she went, until her basket was full. She was so immersed in the joy of finding more that she failed to notice the sun moving closer and closer to the horizon. Turning around, the girl tried to walk home, but she didn’t know where to turn. She had followed the glow of the mushrooms away from her house, and there was nothing to lead her back. Already, the sky seemed to be darkening, though that hardly seemed possible. Hadn’t she just woken up?

Fretting wouldn’t help her find her way back though, so she picked a direction as best as she could, and walked. She decided against moving too quickly, on the chance that she would streak off in the wrong direction and waste all her energy. Holding the basket in front of her like a torch, she sent a quick prayer to whoever was listening that she would find her way home before they found her.

Panicking would do no good. Losing his head, although her mother had never said so, was what she was sure had been the end of Father. He had stayed out too late, and they had never seen him again, although his axe was buried in a tree stump not a hundred paces from their home. There had been no other trace of him in the forest, although they had looked in the daytime. He must have gone off in the dark and become maddened by the things kept at bay by the light.

It was a grim proposition, staying the night outside, but it was possible. The girl's cousin had done it once, caught outside when stalking a deer too far from home. She traipsed back the morning after, skin pale and waxen like she had seen a ghost, but she had come back. Keeping this thought in her mind like a talisman, the girl walked with steady, sure footfalls. Light bled out of the forest around her like a punctured waterskin leaking water, but still, she walked. She ignored the whispers that began in the trees high above her head, and refused to look up at them.

A familiar rock ledge appeared in front of her, taller than she was, with an intricate carving of a four leaf clover. Her heart sang, because this meant she was close to home. Daring to move a little quicker, she clutched the luminous basket to her chest and kept going. It was then that she felt more than saw the mist pooling around her ankles, inky black and completely obscuring her shoes from sight.

A shiver racked her thin frame. When it felt as though the temperature had dropped by ten degrees, the girl decided to run. The whispers grew louder, becoming vicious and menacing instead of just background noise. The grass swished against her legs, and she felt like crying. More than anything, she longed to be home. She wanted her mother to fold her in an embrace and tell her that everything would be alright.

In her peripheral vision, she could see the reflected light of eyes glowing in the darkness. Tearing her gaze away, she kept her eyes averted and focused only on the horizon. Her house had to be here, somewhere ahead.

Something shot out of the undergrowth and clamped around her leg. Or was it a tree root? With a shriek, the girl tumbled to the ground, her basket spilling. The mushrooms seemed to make a fairy ring to the girl, and she crawled away from what had tripped her. Refusing to look backwards, she left her foraged items behind, and rose, half tripping, to scramble forward. The whispers in the trees chittered with laughter, and she felt a deep doom that she was not going to leave this forest alive. Just like her father.

The thought of leaving her mother all alone gave her the resolve to keep moving, desperate sobs escaping her lips. So blindly was the girl running, that she didn't even see the figure until it was too late, crashing against someone tall and solid. The girl screamed, becoming a fury of thrashing limbs and kicking feet, until the figure restrained her arms.

"It's me," the other person said, repeating that over and over until the girl was able to see that her mother stood in front of her.

Crumpling like tissue paper, the girl lost all the strength in her limbs and sagged into her mother's arms.

"I'm so scared, Mom," she whimpered.

Gathering the girl up in her arms, the woman carried her daughter back to the house. It was still dark, but the girl couldn't hear the whispers, and soon they had reached their front door. Opening it and deadbolting the door behind them, the woman stoked the fire and settled the girl into her bed.

"Go to sleep, darling. You're safe."

*

The girl woke up in her bed, and looked around. Was this a dream too? She never could tell, but her mother was settled into a rocking chair, asleep at the side of the girl's bed. In her hands, she clutched a single mushroom. In the sunlight streaming in from the window, it almost appeared to be glowing.