Song of the Day | You Greet Her Ghost by Dirty Three | Spotify | YouTube
The Dark Forest of Soda’s dreams didn’t usually have a smell, but this one smelled sour and rotting, like old dead earth. She gripped the Stone tightly, but it was silent. There was a heavy, shallow breathing sound. Evangeline. She glared at Soda, eyes full of fire.
“Where are we? Where is Fate Herself?”
“I don’t know. The Dark Forest. I don’t know why we’re here. Well, I know why I’m here. I don’t know why you’re here.”
“You think you can stop me?” She hissed, glancing around.
“As far as I know, the Stone is the only thing emitting light here,” was all Soda said. She was tired, she couldn’t fight any more. Had she failed? She didn’t know, but at least Evangeline was here and not out there.
“You’re an inconsequential fool!”
She struck Soda to the ground, and she fell heavily. She reached out, hands black and claw-like, to snatch the Stone… but pulled back at the last moment. Soda glanced up, confused, but then grimaced as she saw the shadow boar’s huge jaws clamped onto Evangeline’s misshapen body. They were fighting furiously, their shadow-stuff cutting and burning. But more of the Dark Forest’s inhabitants were arriving, and Soda could see Evangeline’s eyes appear suddenly through the inky blackness, terrified.
“Wait!” Soda found herself calling. Her voice was muffled flat but still sounded shockingly loud to her ears. Silence spread over the shadows as she swayed to her feet, holding the Stone for dear life. “Can I have her?”
WE WILL FEAST.
The Boar’s voice forced its way into her brain like a migraine. She grunted, but grabbed Evangeline’s free hand and set her feet, ready to pull. Cold, rattling laughter echoed around her, sending all the hairs on her neck on end and her guts all watery. The beasts growled and howled around her, tearing at the shadow-Evangeline who shrieked and wailed with inhuman fury. Soda held on, her eyes locked on Evangeline’s as the woman emerged more and more from the muck.
She became an immovable stone of petulant resistance. No. Mine. She gritted her teeth, her eyes closing, until the pulling stopped and there was a soft fwomp. She opened her eyes, barely daring to think about what she might see, but it was just Evangeline, naked and human, shuddering.
She gave a sudden tug and pulled her hand free, her expression wild and unseeing. There were ever more shadows, their glowing gaze all around, drawn by the unusual levels of commotion. Evangeline stood up and struck a defensive pose, power crackling through her. But it was simply no good here in this place; there was nothing alive to sustain her magic. It fizzled. Again came the dry, predatory laughing. She looked back at Soda, the whites of her eyes showing.
“Get closer to me, they don’t like the light,” Soda said hurriedly, gesturing her free hand.
But Evangeline wasn’t listening. She was staring at something directly behind Soda, and she was stumbling backwards in blind fear. Then she turned and ran, as fast as she could, away into the trees. Soda watched her go in weary bafflement, then turned to acknowledge the boar, looming just behind her, its jaws dripping.
It stared down at her impassively.
“Wasn’t that thing one of you anyway?” Soda asked.
“Escapee. This is our prison,” it replied. “Our price. We hunger. Transgressors must be punished. We feast.”
“Are you going to eat me now?”
“Not now.”
“Alright cool. Can I lay down?”
“You must walk the path.”
“Ah, the path. Of course. Right. And if I don’t walk the path?”
The Boar’s eye flames flared.
“Feasting, got it. Please show me the path.”
The Boar turned and looked off through the trees. Beneath her feet, Soda could just barely make out a slightly different shade of grey on the spongy grey ground. Good. Nothing difficult then. She stumbled forward slowly and the Boar took up pace just behind and to the side of her, sliding past the suffocating tree trunks, through the foul mist that clung to the ground. She fancied she could hear distant, horrible noises and she frowned fiercely, trying to concentrate on finding the path.
It was taking an impossibly long time, and Soda was stumbling and falling quite a bit. The path was ever more elusive, and her eyes were getting so blurry she wasn’t even sure if she was still on it. The Boar followed. She turned to it, biting the inside of her cheek. Dare she?
“I’ve lost the path. Will you help me?”
It stared back at her for such a long time that Soda was turning back but then it spoke.
“What will you give me?”
“What can I offer you? I have nothing with me besides the Stone.”
Another long pause.
“A memory.”
“Any memory?”
“…a good memory.”
Soda felt very distant from any memory, any feeling. She cast around in her mind, trying to summon something that might be worthy of what she was asking for. A memory to save her life.
“Alright, I found one,” she said shakily. “How do I share it?”
“Close your eyes. See it clearly.”
It felt like it might never happen, but slowly, she called up that afternoon.
It had been warm and sunny, but everything in the yard was dripping wet from a late storm. She was ten years old, limbs tanned from being outside. Frank was leading the way, in his tight bootcut jeans even in the heat. His belt was made of worn leather and decorated with crocodile teeth. He ducked under the mulberry bush and crouched down.
“Shhhh,” he said theatrically, his beard twitching. “We don’t want to startle them…”
Soda giggled, causing another, more fierce shooshing. Together, they crept deeper into the undergrowth. They heard a rustling, and looked at each other with arched eyebrows. Holding their breath, they peered around a branch and spotted a mouse, very round and twitchy, nibbling on a mulberry from the ground. Soda frowned.
“Awww,” she whispered. “It’s just a mouse!”
“SOOOODA!” Came a distant voice from the house. “Fraaaaank, afternoon tea’s ready!”
Soda grinned at her father and ran back up to the house, with him jogging behind her. Her mother was waiting in the kitchen with cold cordial and fairy bread.
“Did you find any fairies?” She asked with a smile as they all sat down at the little kitchen table.
“No,” grouched Soda around mouthfuls of bread, sprinkles dropping off, “just a mouse stealing a berry!”
“That sounds pretty cute,” Louise countered over her tea.
“Yeah, it was,” Soda agreed after a moment. She smiled at Frank and he gave her shoulder a warm squeeze.
Her eyes were dripping with tears when she opened them, little droplets that floated slowly over to the Boar and fell onto its face, some landing in its eyes. The flames extinguished in little puffs and Soda was taken aback to see very human brown eyes with a faraway look. The Boar sighed after a moment, and shook itself.
“Good. Strong. Will sustain me… a while.”
Soda had no idea what the memory had been, but she felt a deep grief at losing it.
“Were you a man once?”
“Perhaps. Or something like it.”
“What happened?”
“Failed the test.”
Soda grimaced. “Can we please go? I’d really like to leave here, if that’s possible.”
“Possible. Yes. Probable? No.”
“Thank you for the vote of confidence. Is this the test? Or is that still to come?”
But the Boar was silent, and the only change was that it shifted to slightly ahead of her. She followed along behind as it trotted off, even though with every step she fantasised about laying down and giving up.
“What am I supposed to be doing?” She called out, but the fog swallowed her voice and made it flat and small.
“Don’t stray. Don’t lose sight of the Guide. Keep going.”
“Alright, that’s not too many things. Three things. I can do that. I can definitely do that,” she huffed under her breath. The Dark Forest seemed to shuffle closer.
Soda was in a daze when the first beast appeared at the edge of the Stone’s glow, snapping suddenly at her feet. She let out a little shriek and jumped out of the way, scurrying closer to the Boar. But it didn’t slow its pace, or acknowledge that she was now being harassed on the path. Biting things like rats made of shadow worried at her heels, looking for any part the Stone’s glow didn’t reach. She spun and hopped and tripped, gasping in the still, deadened air.
But the Boar didn’t stop, so neither did she. She kicked the harassers and pointed the Stone at her feet, but then they just harried her hair, which was much worse. The Boar was pulling ahead, his shadow-stuff melding gently into the gloom. Hiccuping with panic, she ran after him, heedless of the other creatures.
Then there were clouds of insects, their hum a bone-tingling machine sound. Small things with legs like needles scratched her face and arms, but she was so exhausted she could barely flail her hand, so she just set her eyes into a squint and her entire being became a narrow tunnel of just placing one foot in front of the other and keeping the Boar in sight. She tripped and stumbled, but falling didn’t exist, only the Boar. Keep moving.
And then, Soda started hallucinating. She thought she saw a clump of wildflowers growing by the path. Flowers. The Boar stopped, then stepped off the path, dissolving into the mist. Soda could see ahead suddenly, and the trees were thinning, becoming smaller and rich with greenery. Little birds darted after flies in the dappled sunlight. The tunnel expanded ever so slightly, and Soda found herself managing a shuffling jog as every part of her surged towards the light.
She broke out of the tree-line into a meadow that sloped gently down towards a small valley. Soda could see what might be some kind of dwelling in the distance. The grass smelled sweet and there was a warm breeze. She lay down with a sigh and breathed in the earthy loam beside her face. Well, if this was dying, it was pretty okay. She closed her eyes.
“Hey Soda Pop,” said a gruff voice, along with the sounds of creaking leather, middle-aged grunts and gasps, and then a satisfied ah. Soda’s eyes flew open, and Frank Jones was sitting on the grass next to her, taking off his hat and wiping his brow with his shirtsleeve.
“Oh,” she croaked. “Am I dead?”
Her father gave her a thorough looking over. “Maybe. Hard to say though. Never seen nothin’ like this. How’d you get here?”
She mutely pointed back towards the forest. Frank followed the point with his eyes, and frowned.
“Babygirl, that sure is a tough path. I don’t think many have seen those bluebells, put it that way. No wonder you’re all banged up! But whether you’re dead, well, not too sure. How’s your body?”
“S’okay. I think. Think I left it behind.”
“Did you take the ambrosia seed?”
She nodded, and he grinned a beardy grin. But it died quickly.
“You did good kiddo, I’m proud of you.”
Her lips cracked into a tiny smile, and she gestured him closer with a little wave. He leaned down on one elbow.
“You’re an asshole,” she croaked.
He let out a booming laugh. Then he leaned back in and saw Soda was crying silently. He scooped her up around the shoulders as gently as he could, and held her against his chest. She sobbed for an another minute or two, but then she was genuinely too damn tired to keep crying, so she managed a slumped sit, shoulder to shoulder.
“You really fuckin’ put me in it Frank,” she said, scrubbing her nose with a dirty sleeve.
“I know baby, I’m sorry.”
“What should I do?”
“You always had way more sense than your mother’n me, what do you wanna do?”
“I have no idea. I thought I had all the things lined up - career, relationship, friends, family, and then it was like, everything went to shit at once? Just in a cascading series of fucked up bullshit I had to somehow cope with? Culminating in the most humiliating experience of my life, being fired by Mason fucking Turner.”
“Oh, yeah, was that uhhh… that was your boss at the magazine?”
“Yeah that guy. He fired me for some kid with better internet credentials and bigger tits.”
“That’ll harsh your buzz for sure.”
“Ah, he wasn’t even wrong. She probably was more cut out for the job. I just didn’t want to admit it.”
“Admitting stuff to yourself is harder’n pulling teeth, it’s true.”
She paused, working herself up to say the thing heavy on her heart. “I have no idea if I did a good job of anything.”
“Well you’re here, and everything didn’t get sucked into a cosmic drain hole, so I’d say you did good enough.”
“I had the Stone helping me.”
“Nothin’ wrong with having help kiddo.”
“Dad, I miss you. How am I supposed to do this without you?”
He put his arm around her again and squeezed her hard enough that she grunted with pain. “We can’t be together and that breaks my heart but I’ll always keep an eye on you, don’t you worry about that.”
Soda was overcome with weariness, and she struggled against it with all her might. No! Not yet!
“Even if I got broken down into little bitty bits, my atoms would love your atoms,” he said, smiling. He held her hand, and she squeezed it as best she could, and fell asleep.
Chapter Twenty-two: The Price Has Been Paid
Walking the path, paying the price