Out of The Woods (9 page)

Halley didn’t move. Her saturated clothes dried slowly, releasing her skin from their tight, wet grip. The warm afternoon sun gave way to twilight. The insects in the woods resumed their dull humming. The sound was like dozens of musicians that were busy, productive, and happy. A few hours later, the noise built to a deafening, chaotic crescen-do, as if the insects were now playing in an orchestra and the conductor had gone slightly mad. Just at the peak of the noise – as if the conductor had angrily called a halt to their music with a sharp downward slice of his baton – the sound came to an abrupt halt. The insects were immediately and entirely silent.

In time, a three-quarter moon rose high above the trees, shining through a gap in the leaf cover. Its elliptical face lit her prone, unmoving form. The moon burnished her to a milky color. It was as if she had picked up a goblet full of deeply nutritious white liquid, and, as she drained it again and again and again, she was colored white from the inside out. Despite the healing light, she still couldn’t find the strength to move.

In its own time, the moon crossed the sky, leaving Halley alone once more on her flat river rock. The blackness in its wake seemed darker for the light that the moon had so callously borne away.

Then…then the forest was peopled with the most frightening of wood sprites, who longed to reach out and drag her away, to pull her along by her straggled brown hair to some terrible place. But worse, far worse than the wood sprites, were the other piercing eyes that watched her. Their evil was palpable. Perhaps it was Trance, cursing her under his breath, his white-snake hair and ice-blue eyes shining like death. It was too dark to be certain. Halley only had the sense that she was being watched by some hostile being. Her body felt very small, very vulnerable to all sorts of harm. She kept herself as still as she could.

Indeed, she lay so still, that, to those who watched her from the woods, she seemed dead. Her breathing, if indeed she was still breathing at all, was inaudible. A hand placed gently upon her back would not have been felt to move up and down with the workings of her lungs. A bold man it would have taken to kiss her forehead; her cold skin would be like a foretelling of the grave.

Anxious looks were exchanged, and a little girl’s voice whispered urgently that Halley should be checked on, and helped.

“No. She needs to do this alone. Leave her be. And you…” Here, the speaker lifted her chin to nod in the direction of the threatening figure, “…you back off!” If words were visible, the speaker’s would have been colored a brilliant orange, framed by a strong border of red.

The threatening figure took a reluctant step back from Halley, but the air remained taught with danger.

With the first touch of the morning sun, Halley rose as if reborn. Pushing up on all fours, and then sinking back on her heels while stretching her torso and arms long in front of her, she lowered her chest to the rock. She was saying grace, thanking the powers that be that had kept her alive, that had protected her alone on the flat rock all night.

Slowly, she lifted her chest and sat up tall. Taking a long, full breath, feeling her breast bone rise, she shoved herself to her feet and gazed around with wonder at her world. The air seemed light and extraordinarily breathable; the trees welcoming; the rock surface firm.

I’m alive! I’m still breathing!

Before, she had not valued the simple, regular joy of breathing. She’d never noticed how pleasurable it felt to have air move in and out of her lungs.
Feeling my breath, I can hardly believe I once tried to kill myself, to stop this breath.
It seems unimaginable, to choose to stop breathing. She let her belly expand on her inhale, and felt her torso and then her chest lift; she mentally followed the reverse of the breath, the compression of her body on the exhale.
I fought so hard to stay alive, to keep this breath. It must mean something.
The new sense of self-preservation was comforting.

Halley stretched herself tall, swinging her arms overhead, and joining her hands together to reach up even taller, filling her lungs more deeply. As she stretched, her right arm throbbed painfully, reminding her of the boat that had smashed into her in the river; the arm hadn’t hurt in prayer position on the rock. She slowly lowered it to examine the damage. The right arm was swollen, but the bleeding had stopped. She moved it carefully, bending it at the elbow and rolling her wrist in a circle. It hurt, but no bones were broken.
I’ll have to find something to keep that cut from getting infected. Aloe maybe? If only I had my First Aid kit…

Halley relaxed her arms to her side, and concentrated on the pulse of her body. The battering on the river had left her sore, but the soreness seemed irrelevant. She was more interested in her choice; how, in traveling the thin knife edge between life and death, she had chosen to grasp life with both hands, and hold on tight.

I’m alive – now I’ve got to keep me that way.

With a sinking sensation, she realized her canteen was gone, torn from her during her near-drowning. Halley looked down at the river. She couldn’t chance a slide back down the rock into the water, not even for a drink.

Suddenly, from behind her she heard a familiar sound: Ch ch ch ch ch. The
lion-monkeys!
Her smile came easily. The corners of her lips lifted slightly and the edges around her eyes softened. It didn’t take any effort at all! This simple fact made her eyes fill with sudden tears. With the fingers of her right hand, she touched the small apple in her cheek and moved it upwards to feel the tiny wrinkles around her eyes. This smile was genuine, and, although the muscles in her face were working in an unfamiliar way, this was the way they were supposed to work.

The sound of the lion-monkeys grew louder.
I wonder where they are?

“Ch-Ch-Ch-Ch…” one called.

“Ch-Ch-Ch-Ch!” came the reply.

The short exchange was followed closely by the sound of something falling to the forest floor.

Turning, she left the flat rock at the river’s edge, and walked a short distance into the woods. There they were. It was like running unexpectedly into two long-lost friends, who couldn’t wait to embrace her in a tight circle of camaraderie. Surely they wouldn’t be the same monkeys, but still…

“Hello, lion-monkeys! It’s nice to see you again. What are you up to this beautiful morning?”

They were in a loose-fronded tree. On the ground near the tree, was the yellowish-green of a banana skin.
Bananas! They’re eating bananas!
Halley laughed aloud. Here was food, at last. The monkeys looked down at her, cackling and observing, just as she observed them.

“What are you saying, monkeys? Are you wondering why I didn’t see the bananas before? I guess I had my eyes closed!”

Not wanting to disturb them, she chose the next tree over, and reached up to pick a banana. She held it with wonder, savoring the moment. When bent back, the banana stem broke with a light snap, and the scent of it made her mouth water. The sudden in-rush of saliva was almost painful. The peel split into three even pieces, and she remembered her school-teacher, Mr. D, once showing her that if you pressed the center of a banana, it would always split into three segments.
The father, the son, and the holy ghost,
she thought, breaking the banana in half, and then splitting one half of the banana lengthwise up the middle, eating one long segment at a time, then licking the banana off her fingers
. Id, ego, superego. Mind, body, spirit.
All sets of three, as in nature.

The banana segments crushed easily between her tongue and the roof of her mouth. She savored the flavor. Renewed strength flowed through her body, and she quickly ate a second, third and fourth banana. She chose some that were greenish to carry away with her.

Her hunger somewhat satisfied, her thirst seemed suddenly worse. She stood still, thinking. A small bird landed nearby, and picked its way carefully through the leaves on the forest floor. It settled down, and began to shake and wriggle, to flap its wings up and down. Drops of water flew from its feathers, and it ducked its head under the leaf cover, scrabbling and splashing. When it finished, it stepped out of the leaves, moved away a short distance and smoothed its feathers with a wet beak.

Halley’s mouth hung open.

The monkeys went “Ch-Ch-Ch-Ch” overhead, as if laughing.

When the small bird flew off, she reached a tentative hand down to the loose leaves, shifting them to one side. Underneath was the remains of a banana tree, blackened around the edge as if lightning-struck. A good inch of stump remained, but it was now completely dry. Where had the water for the bird’s bath come from? Had it been rain water? Thirst pounded in Halley’s head.

Fighting the urge to move, to search elsewhere, she stared hard at the tree stump, as if she could will its hollow to fill with clear water.
Oh my God
… The bird bath was slowly re-filling.
The roots…the roots of the tree are still there! It’s sending water up to a non-existent tree…

Eagerly, Halley dropped to her knees and leaned her face into the hollow, sucking up the water. It tasted of dirt but she didn’t care.

Standing, she brushed herself off and felt the renewed strength in her body. She ate one more banana as she puzzled over how to carry the rest away with her.
It would be much easier with a backpack. Maybe I can make something.

Nearby was a tall straight grove of greenery. She knew it to be bamboo. She removed her pocketknife, choosing one of the thinner stalks of bamboo and sawing away at it.
This is going to take forever.
Reaching up high on the stalk, she threw all her weight onto it in one quick thrust. It took a few tries, but the force eventually was enough to push the stalk over, and its roots came loose from the soil around its base. She worked downwards from the top of the stalk, slicing and stripping off thin segments. She paused at the top-most shoots, and lingered a moment to strip off the thicker outer red bark, tasting the bitter but nourishing inner leaf of the bamboo shoot.

When she’d cut enough strips she sat cross-legged and quickly weaved them into a bag. It took most of the morning but there was something healing in the effort of creation, in the making something with her hands.

Halley walked back to the banana trees and saw with delight that the hollow had refilled. Again, she drank it dry. The lion-monkeys were curled up together on one of the branches, sleeping soundly, like an old married couple taking an early afternoon nap.

As she loaded her new pack with the green bananas she’d picked earlier, she swallowed hard. The backpack, even with its rough edges and unevenness, was embellished with beauty.

It was mid-day, and it was getting hot. Reaching down, Halley unzipped the long legs of her combat trousers mid-thigh. The zippers went the full way around each leg, and the final bit of each zip came free with a slight tug. The loose legs of the combat trousers fit nicely in her new bamboo backpack, and gave the bananas some protection. Still hot, she stripped off the windbreaker and long-sleeved t-shirt, and rolled them into small balls. They too squeezed into the top of the bamboo backpack.

A slight breeze dried her sweat, and cooled her body. On impulse, she touched the sequined crown on the front of her red t-shirt. The edge of the sequins fit nicely under her fingernails, and the sensation of moving them there felt strangely good, a sensation a child would seek in a moment of insecurity or change. Dropping her hands to her side, Halley bid farewell to the banana-and-water site, and made her way back to the river.

She had to decide where to go next. The flat rock where she’d spent the night had a home-like feel to her, and she stood on it wide-stanced to get her bearings. From there, a small, steep gully fed into the river. The main course of the river continued around a bend. Funny,
I didn’t notice that gully before – I could have found water there more easily. But maybe not food… And I did so like seeing the lion-monkeys again.

The gully was the right way to go. But it was steep. White water streamed down the rocks, rushing back towards the river, glinting dangerously in the sunlight. The volume of water flowed with force; if she slipped in those sections, she would be carried back down the slope of the gully towards the river.

Even the drier rocks appeared to have been recently wet, perhaps due to the rain. These were black with moss, slippery. Partway up, there was one spot fronted by rocks as tall as her – and she could see no way over or around. She hoisted her bamboo backpack a little higher onto her back, and looked away from the gully, back towards the face of the wider river.

This looking back was a mistake.

The scene – the turbulent river with its strange grey water; the dark jagged rocks, and their cutting edges; the sharp tree branches being flung around by violent whirlpools – all brought back Trance, and his cutting words. The boat trip was only yesterday.

He had re-opened her wounds, and they hadn’t even begun to scab over.
When I was busy finding food and water his words didn’t seem to matter so much. I was focused, I had something vital to do, something particular. Now that I’ve got to go on alone, to find my way in this vast empty place…

She could hear him everywhere, his words echoing in her mind: “…
ugly and unloved, incapable of doing anything right
…”

She clenched her fists. It wasn’t him. It was she who doubted herself; she had always doubted herself. She could see his words in the air in front of her, and the word “incapable” stood out in bold and was underlined twice. What if he was right? She would choose a poor route, be unable to navigate the steep gully. She would die out here alone.

She wanted to hide her face in her hands, to hide here forever. Never have to see another human being ever again. Be a hermit in this forest, grow old here, unobserved and far from judging eyes. Never speak to another person again. Sink into the earth.

“Or maybe you should just jump into the river. Kill yourself,” Trance’s voice whispered. “Do it, Halley. Do it…”

The hiss of the words terrified her. Wildly, she looked around her but no one was there. Yet the words had been spoken aloud. She went cold all over: she was the only one there. Could she have spoken the words herself? But it wasn’t my voice…or was it? Her eyes opened wider. She wasn’t sure.
I’m going nuts! I’ve got to move, got to just do something.

“Come on, Halley,” she said aloud. “You know you can do this. You’ve done steeper sections before.”

“But never alone. You’ve never done this alone.”

She didn’t move.

Trance was still with her. Or was that Fernando she was thinking of? It didn’t matter. They were beginning to seem one and the same: unkind men who encouraged her to doubt her abilities.

She closed her eyes and remembered the joy of breathing on first waking that morning.
Hell with that, kill myself!!
She opened her eyes. The voices would not have their way.

I want to live. I want to keep breathing…

Quickly, she pushed between the twisted vines and entered the start of the steep gully. Immediately she was cocooned in greenery. There was a new density to the air, the humidity trapped in this enclosed spot forcing a sudden sweat onto her back and thighs. The atmosphere sapped her strength, and though she tried to move, it was not easy. Beyond the vines, several plants clustered close together. They looked like overgrown spider plants, but their leaves were thicker and less flexible, colored a dark, flat, forbidding green. They blocked the way entirely.

She started to push through. The first of the plants quickly snagged her shirt. When she tried to pull free, the plant pushed sharp spiky teeth into her, making tiny painful pinholes in her flesh, freckling her with blood. The plants didn’t just look threatening: their leaves were armed with tiny protective spikes.

Halley bit her lower lip and tried to work her way carefully, but there was simply no avoiding the plants. Finally, just when she’d thought she’d made it and was about to step out onto the rocks in the sunlight, a long leaf snapped off, lodging itself in the thin muscle at the front of her calf. She dragged it behind her for a stride or two hoping it would fall out. It didn’t. She tore at it, pricking her hands several times before she managed to throw it to the ground. Cursing loudly, she stomped on it. “Goddammed stupid horrible rotten plants! I hate these stupid plants!”

She was finally on the slick rocks of the gully. It took only a moment for her to slip on the slimy black moss, coming down hard, scraping her hands and knees. Blood stained the rocks.

Staring at it, Halley felt an uncomfortable foreboding. The red was startlingly bright. She rubbed at it with the toe of her hiking boot, and when this wasn’t good enough she splashed it with water until it finally disappeared.

But as she climbed higher up the gully that afternoon, the cuts on her palms and knees continued to bleed, leaving behind small drops of blood, creating an irregular but fairly obvious trail. She was too busy trying to stay upright to notice. The afternoon wore on, and the blood dried to a deep rust, droplets of her left behind.

The color of the rocks gave an indication of their dryness. After a few slips on black rocks, she realized that the lighter-colored rocks weren’t really lighter-colored at all – they were just dry. She stayed on these and the going was a little easier, except for the times she risked ducking closer in for a drink of the fresh-flowing water. The treads on her hiking boots gripped the dry rock well, steadying her climb. On the edge of the gully were loose vines and small tree trunks – these were useful as hand grips to pull herself up the steeper sections. After stumbling through a few pools of deep water at the base of waterfalls, she learned it was quicker to stay on the rocky edges of the pools, to skirt around the deep water.

At one tricky spot, she was forced to lean her body backwards out over a sheer drop, facing the cliff, supporting her weight on her feet and holding on tight to the roots of trees which stuck out from the cliff-face. She was careful not to put too much weight on the roots – if they came loose she would fall to the rocks ten feet below. It was intense work, and sweat dripped into her eyes but she couldn’t let go of the roots to brush it off. Blinking to clear her vision, she tried not to think about how far she could fall, and what would happen if she did.

Later, the muddy places on the edges of the gully nearly pulled her boots from her feet. Using both hands to hold the boots on, she pulled them out, the ground making a wet sucking sound of rebellion, as if reluctant to let her go.

Towards the top of the gully, one of the deeper waterfall pools had no footing along the edge, and there was no other way around. Halley stepped gradually into the pool, and the bottom slipped away from below her feet. She swam fully clothed across the pool, gasping. The water bit at her with cold teeth, the footing underneath becoming uneven and hidden by the dark greenish water. Her hiking boots skidded on the unseen rocks, hitting her shins hard into their edges.

At the final, steepest section, the one she had seen from far below, she paused. The rocks blocking the gully were indeed taller than her. She took a deep breath, and grasped rough rock with her fingertips, pulling herself upward, keeping her body in a forward lean in case of a slip. Sweat dripped down her face, and her mind and eyes and body focused only on the climb.

Perhaps this was why she didn’t see the young girl sitting at the top of the gully, watching her every move.