breeze whispered through the tops of the trees as if the hidden spirits of the forest were nervously discussing that she had discovered the universe’s ruse. Time flew forward. Time flew back. Nothing was as it seemed. People were buried underground and people came back. She was in a world of many in-betweens.
Another set of flashes lit up the sky and danced silently among the clouds, then the thunder rolled on, echoing across the mountainsides.
She had always been able to see things other people could not, especially in the dark of night, but tonight there seemed to be a special magic in the forest. It felt as if she could actually see the evening flowers slowly opening their petals to the moon and the glint of starlight on the iridescent wings of the insects. She felt the caress of the air as it slipped through the branches of the trees, around her body, and against her skin. She sensed the stony firmness of the earth and rock on which she stood. The tiny droplets of dew on the clover leaves around her suddenly glistened, and a moment later, the white light of the distant lightning shone in her eyes. Water and earth and light and sky . . . It was as if she had become intermingled with the faintest elements of the world, as if she were in tune with the slip and sway of the nocturnal realm in a way that she had never been before.
She continued walking, but as she gazed through the trees she spotted what appeared to be a crease of blackness in the distance. She tilted her head in confusion. Was it a shadow? She couldn’t make it out. But as she narrowed her eyes to look at it, she realized that whatever it was, it was moving, not towards her or away, but hovering in the air, like a rippling black wave.
The skin on her arms rose up with goosebumps. She couldn’t help but wonder if what she was seeing was related to the black shape that had attacked her at Biltmore.
She knew she should leave it alone, but she was too curious to turn away. She slowly moved closer until she was maybe a dozen steps from it, then she stopped and studied the black shape. It appeared to be about five feet long, floating of its own accord a few feet off the ground, like a long banner held in the breeze. And it was utterly black, blacker than anything she had ever seen.
Suddenly, a wind swept through the trees. A gust kicked up from the forest floor, swirling small tornados of leaves around her. The branches hanging above her began to creak and bend, like the swaying limbs of old, twisted men, their long, twiggy hands dangling down onto her head and shoulders. When the cold mist of a coming rain touched her face, she realised that a storm was near. And then she spotted a dark figure making its way towards her through the trees.
Serafina sucked in a breath in surprise and dropped to the ground to hide. She scrambled beneath the base of a half-toppled tree where the spidering roots had pulled up from the earth and created a small cave. Pressing herself in as deep as she could go, she peered out through the small holes between the roots.
The man, or creature, or whatever it was, moved towards her through the forest with a slow and deliberate pace, like a predator hunting for prey. It stalked on two long, gangly legs, its back hunched over and its head hanging down, its shoulders swaying one way and then the other as it gazed from side to side. Even as hunched as it was, the creature was very tall, with long, crooked arms dangling in front of it like a praying mantis, and the elongated fingers of its spindling hands like white, scaly talons, tipped with sharp, curving, clawlike fingernails. It moved with steady purpose, scraping its feet through the leaves of the forest floor, the movement of its bones sounding like cracking branches.
What kind of godforsaken thing is that? she thought, cowering in her hole. Is it some kind of vile creech that crawled from the grave the same way I did?
The creature came closer and closer. As it stepped within a few feet of her, Serafina couldn’t keep her body from trembling. Her only hope was that the creature wouldn’t see her hiding beneath the roots at its feet.
She could hear its breathing now, the slow wheezing, ragged, hissing breath, like a wounded animal, and she could see it more closely than she had before. A white haze lingered about its body like the smoke around a dying campfire, and straggly grey strands hung around its head like the stringy hair of a rotting corpse. When the creature turned and she saw its face, she gasped. It had been slashed with a savage wound that oozed with the blackish, festering blood of an injury that never healed. She couldn’t tell whether the creature was a mortal man or a hellish fiend, or some combination of the two, but its sharp, pointy teeth chattered with anticipation as it scanned the forest, swaying its head back and forth as it crept forward with its dangling claws.
At first it seemed as if the creature was going to pass her by, but then the thing stopped, standing right over her.
Its talon-like hand grasped one of the roots of the toppled tree beneath which she was hiding. Serafina sucked in a startled breath and held it, too frightened to exhale. The creature looked one way into the forest and then the other. It seemed like it knew she was there, that it sensed her presence, maybe smelled her, but it had not yet detected exactly where she was. She held her breath like a trembling rabbit in her little den.
The creature opened its mouth and a low, vibrating, guttural sound emerged. Then Serafina began to actually see the white air rushing from its lungs. It wasn’t just an exhalation or a long scream, but a storm. The air around her began to twist and turn, the leaves swirling up, the branches on the trees bending and cracking. The air exploded with blowing rain. The terrible noise coming from the creature’s mouth was getting louder and louder as the storm rose up all around.
The storm-creech peered down into the mound of roots where she was hiding. Its silver-glowing eyes looked straight at her, shocking her with a blast of fear. The creature’s talons closed into a fist, crushing the roots that it had been holding. Then it began tearing the roots away with both hands, its teeth chattering as it ripped its way towards her.
As the creature attacked, Serafina reflexively tried to shift into panther form to defend herself, but it didn’t work. For some clumsy reason, she couldn’t change. She tried again, concentrating on envisioning herself as a panther, but she couldn’t do it. She remained in her human form.
Not knowing what else to do, she cowered down. She tried to stay out of the creature’s reach as it ripped the roots away. She thought about leaping up at the thing and fighting it with her bare hands, but it seemed far too powerful. At the last second, just as its claws touched her, she scrambled out of the roots on her belly and darted out the other side.
A storm raged through the forest. The pelting rain roared around her. The wind blew so hard that her hair and clothes pressed against her face and body. It felt like it wasn’t going to just blow her away, but tear her into little pieces.
But she couldn’t let the storm slow her down. The creature was right behind her. She had to get out of there. She ran headlong into the swirling rain and just kept running.
When she looked over her shoulder, she expected to see the creature charging up behind her, grabbing for her, but it wasn’t. It was in the distance, still ripping at the roots where she’d been hiding.
Confused, but relieved that she’d managed to escape the wretched thing, she quickly turned to keep moving, but she nearly ran straight into an eerie black shape similar to what she’d seen before. She stopped abruptly, recoiling from it like it was a venomous snake.
It floated right in front of her now, so sharply black that it seemed like an impossibility. The light of the moon and stars disappeared into it, and she could
