Tree Fingers (5 page)

“What will you do if you find it?”

Alan took his bag from the hook by the door and slung it over his shoulder. “I’ll dismiss the spirit. I have what I need. Please don’t worry. It’s not dangerous at all. Just a matter of sprinkling some herbs.”

“I don’t know—”

“What else can we do, Graham? Call the police on Halloween night and tell them there’s an enchanted scarecrow terrorizing the town? You don’t think they’d laugh?”

“Please be careful,” Graham said, taking both of Alan’s hands.

“I promise,” Alan said as he went out into the night.

It felt colder. The square of light coming from the kitchen looked more inviting than ever as Alan crossed the yard. He hadn’t been completely honest with Graham. Some beings resented being treated like errand boys by magicians. Some retaliated. Others enjoyed the physical forms they’d taken and fought to keep them. Alan’s tattered spellbook contained no banishing incantation for Woldengeist. Ancient conjurers had called him to haunt patches of wood between their territories and those of enemies. They’d just let him stay.

Alan could picture the thing bouncing along, using its walnut pole like a bizarre pogo stick. He remembered the green glow behind its button eyes, its gnarled, branching digits. As he walked toward the outskirts of the small, suburban community, he grew more and more nervous. If he failed, he had no one to ask for help. If something actually did happen to him, Graham could be devastated beyond healing. What if it fought back? The text used the word “hungry.” Was that what happened to Mr. Cook, his life-energy sapped and consumed by the spirit?

Houses stood further apart here, and soon Alan had reached a lonely stretch of road with cornfields on either side. Leaves whispered and stalks bent as he passed. Deer certainly fed from the late crops, Alan knew. But he also sensed the presence of other entities as he drew nearer and nearer to the woods. Even the most novice student of the arcane arts knew that at certain times the barrier between the human realm and that of the spirits grew thin, allowing those with the knowledge and power to pass back and forth. It happened at the Equinox, the Solstice, on May Eve. On Halloween. Especially on Halloween. These beings among the canes didn’t feel like a threat, though. Probably some variety of fey. None of the higher orders, which could prove a problem, but likely a group of sprites that would delight in pranks and vandalism. Alan swore he heard their melodic, unearthly laughter, but they let him pass without incident.

The road Alan walked began its ascent into the wooded hills that sheltered the small town on every side. In a short time his thighs began to ache from the steep trek. It grew very, very dark.

Thick branches obscured the crescent moon and no light reached this far from the houses. Things moved in the underbrush: some animal, some not. Alan clutched his bag, holding it in front of his heart like a shield, and continued. Instinct told him he had to keep going this way, deeper into the forest.

Turning a corner, Alan felt a strong chill, like he’d just stepped waist-deep into frigid water. The fine hair on his arms and neck stood up, and his testicles huddled close to his body.

He scanned the area, but could discern little more than black shapes against a navy sky. Squinting, though, he saw it: the frayed triangle with the glowing eyes. It stood about five hundred yards away, along the roadside, moving only when the wind fluttered its cloak.

“Okay,” Alan said to himself. With a shaky hand, he reached into his bag and sifted through the contents. First, he needed to worry about protecting himself. Over the years he’d read innumerable recipes for summoning barriers, and through experimentation he’d devised an effective concoction of his own that consisted of ten different herbs, minerals and gemstones in a sea salt base. He kept it in any empty aspirin bottle, which he found buried underneath a heap of wrinkled papers. Thankfully it didn’t have a child-proof cap, as he’d need to pour a circle around himself as quickly as possible.

Then he’d have to fight. Woldengeist was a nature-based entity, so iron filings might hinder it. Alan had some in an old breath-mint tin. As he searched it out, he took a few more halting steps toward the scarecrow. Now he could see the greenish mist snaking around the pole at its base. Since the thing was made of wood and old cloth, fire should be effective. Alan could conjure a spark, a tiny flame not much larger than a cigarette lighter might produce, but he’d researched a bone-based powder that would support a magical flame instantly. This precious mixture, many of its ingredients macabre and hard to obtain, waited inside a fancy glass bottle with a cork. Though he hadn’t planned it, Alan was glad he kept his materials in such different containers.

It made them much easier to find. Still, they certainly weren’t arranged for battle, and it took him several minutes of digging before he located everything he needed.

Armed with his concoctions, Alan proceeded toward the scarecrow, feeling sick and jittery, much more scared than he’d anticipated being. He kept his eyes on its head, watching for the slightest movement. His hand wrapped around the medicine bottle, thumbnail ready to pop the cap. He’d pour all of it, even though the ingredients were dear. It didn’t matter; he’d make more.

Only three feet separated Alan from the scarecrow now. It didn’t seem to detect his presence. Yet. He could alight it from this distance. No need to risk going further. He opened the plastic bottle and prepared to draw his circle.

A man stepped out from behind the scarecrow’s shroud. Startled, Alan gasped and jumped, spilling a little of his powder. The stranger was tall and rake-thin, wearing a dark suit that looked expensive even at night. Alan ventured nearer, terrified but intrigued. This man, with short but thick silver hair that he looked way too young for, should at least be surprised by the presence of the scarecrow. Instead he stared at Alan, his shadowed eyes reflecting a hint of red.

“Who are you?” Alan asked.

The man strode confidently toward him. His face was long and thin, his chin pointed. When he spoke, it was with a slight Eastern European accent that Alan couldn’t quite place. Possibly it was Russian.

“Don’t you know?” he asked, crossing his arms. “After all of those books and articles you’ve written about me and my associates?”

“My gods,” Alan gasped. “I knew it. Everything pointed to it.”

“Yes,” the man said. He began to remove his leather driving glove, tugging one fingertip at a time. “We’ve been watching you closely for the last few years. When we saw the mess you’d made tonight, I volunteered to come take care of things before your ineptitude revealed even more of our secrets to the general public.”

“Really, I could have handled it,” Alan said, annoyance making him forget his fear.

“Probably, but I wanted to come none the less.”

“Why?”

“We’ve been debating for some time about what to do about you and those troublesome books. You hit much more than you miss, and you’re able to draw connections between things that have eluded the world for many centuries. It’s quite an annoyance for us. Many of us see an easy solution to our problem. Unfortunately, some of the more conservative members of our order feel that eliminating you might just add to your mystique. They don’t want you turned into a tragic, cult hero.”

“What are you saying?” Alan asked.

“You need to be silenced. You shouldn’t be allowed to live.

Those that believe otherwise are weak.” He folded his glove and carefully placed it in his jacket pocket. “And when the others are told of how you attacked me, no one will be able to question my actions.”

“Attacked you? I’d never—”

But before Alan could finish, a ball of white light erupted from the man’s fingers. It hit Alan in the forehead like a lightning bolt. Radiance exploded inside his skull, drowning his every perception. His last thought was that he’d screwed up, broken a promise.

Graham had just turned off the porch light and put the leftover candy in a drawer when a sickly terror overwhelmed him. He gripped the edges of the kitchen counter, sweating and reeling. His chest caved in and his stomach crumpled. Something was very wrong. Desperately he tried to convince himself that this wasn’t the exact way he’d felt when Luke—

“No,” he said, clenching his fists. But two hours had passed since Alan left. One could walk from one end of the small town to the other in that time. What could be keeping him? Opening another drawer that contained a phone book and some pens, Graham found a plastic flashlight and tried to turn it on. It remained dark even after he’d replaced the batteries. He hadn’t needed it since a heavy snow had knocked the power out two winters ago, hadn’t known it needed replacing. He’d go without it, he decided. He’d take the antique oil lamp that decorated the kitchen table. He lifted the glass cylinder and lit the wick with a wooden match. Then he held tight to the base and took a deep breath to prepare himself, flinging open the screen door and going down the back steps into the yard.

Groups of voices floated on the cooling night breeze, as older kids and adults roamed the streets or made their way to parties. Surely someone had noticed Alan, seen what direction he’d headed. Graham walked quickly toward a group of costumed teens congregating in a driveway at the end of the next block. He told himself that he’d likely as not find his lover analyzing the scarecrow somewhere, sitting on a rock or stump consulting his book, having become distracted and lost track of time as he so often did.

At least that’s what he prayed he’d find.

***

It occurred to Alan that he should hurt, but he didn’t. Not even commonplace aches or itches bothered him, and their absence felt profound. He wasn’t breathing. When he tried to inhale, he found he couldn’t, and not because of any ailment or injury. He just no longer had lungs. It was dark. Not just dark, but empty, void. Alan felt the fabric of his being tugged in different directions, his energy and molecules dispersing.

He had to remember what he looked like. It ended up being harder than it sounded. He could picture his body: thin limbs, long fingers and toes, straight, slender torso dotted with sparse hair. For his facial features, he had to draw upon Graham’s many depictions of him in charcoal, paint, or ink. He had to will the swirling, raw energy into the shapes Graham had rendered: slim nose with a bump on the bridge, deep-set, over-large eyes and defined lips. He had to hurry; the universe was about to recycle his matter into new forms. He remembered his favorite piece, a pen drawing of himself nude on the couch, elbow leaning on the arm. He could see the twisting muscles on his waist and the length of his neck. He felt them solidifying. The angle of his cheeks, jaw, and chin took shape. Dark hair grazed his shoulders.

Looking down at his hands, transparent, shifting and prismatic, like oil on wet cement, Alan realized what must have happened. That other wizard had knocked his astral body loose of his physical form, and, apparently, hurled it into some other realm. At least he wasn’t dead. But if he didn’t find his way back, his body would lie comatose until he starved or languished.

Even if he found the thin spot where he could cross, he might very well return a hundred or a thousand years too late. Time passed differently in different dimensions. He looked around. It took some effort, as he needed to get used to scanning with his consciousness instead of moving his head or eyes.

He stood in the middle of a forest. Trees as fat as skyscrapers, as whole city blocks, surrounded him. Their broad leaves produced a gloomy, perpetual dusk. He could hear the creak of their growth, hear their roots tunneling down. As he watched, hairy vines as thick as his hips twined around the trunks, burrowing into the bark, only to blossom, wither and putrefy moments later. Leaves dropped constantly, disintegrating instantly into a strong-smelling muck. From it, new plants sprung in an ongoing cycle of death and regeneration. Alan took a step and sunk to his calf in the muck. Everything reeked of decay. He felt it soaking into him rather than detecting it with his nose. Trudging a little further, he looked for anything that might be a door: an archway formed by branches, a circle of mushrooms, or a knothole in one of the great trees. But in the ever-changing wood, it was almost impossible. Alan struggled forward two feet only to look back and find the place where he’d stood completely transformed.

Up ahead he saw a corridor, the first thing that resembled any kind of a path. It was a tunnel formed by a tangled lattice of branches. Some sort of large pods seemed to be hanging down.

Motivated, Alan pushed on and finally reached the opening, though it felt like it had taken both arduous years and mere seconds. He realized instantly that the dangling clumps weren’t any type of seed but human bodies wrapped in vine. The tendrils burrowed into their flesh, into their eye sockets and mouths, under their skin. Chunks of putrefied skin and meat rained down, coating the ground in stinking gore. More bodies lined the walls of the chamber, bound by roots and impaled by branches, blood pooling below them. A few writhed and groaned as Alan hurried past. Regretfully, he had no way to help them. They weren’t astral beings like himself but flesh and bone. Alan had no idea how they’d come to this place or why.

Many, many times Alan considered stopping. It didn’t seem worth going on. He felt compelled to lie down, sink under the muck. Sleep. Give in to the crushing despair. But if he got home, even a century late, he could at least die and pass on. Otherwise, he’d spend eternity here. That possibility horrified him more than the most gruesome and painful demise. He told himself to take one more step as he felt his identity sapped. Frantically he tried to remember the details of his life. What kind of car did he drive? What did his apartment look like? What did food taste like? Did he have a family? Friends? A partner?

What did it matter?

Everything urged him to succumb: the mindless muttering of the tortured, the sickly squish of his steps, the rasp of the vines reaching out. He walked over bodies now. His steps broke their desiccated ribs, evoking clouds of dust. They paved the ground as far as he could see, but the plants pushed their way through the graying skin to bloom from their navels.