The Fickle Winds of Autumn

A dull throbbing pain seeped through Kira’s aching body and insisted on rousing her. Her heavy head pleaded with her not to move, but the sour, metallic taste of her own blood, dark at the back of her throat, forced her to react.

She coughed and thought about sitting up, but something was covering her face. She reached with weakened, trembling hands and several dry, brittle leaves rustled as she brushed them off.

Her eyes opened gingerly. Blearily, they adjusted to the creeping glow of daylight and shadows. Her scrambled mind was confused and unsure of where she was or how she had got there; she only knew that her tender body felt battered and bruised all over.

A blur of worrying and disturbing fragments of memory began to fade back into her consciousness and unravel their horrible truths.

She tried to sit up again, startled by the violence of her memories; but her movement was too sudden and left her faint from the effort, compelling her to collapse back down, flat on the cold ground.

Her fraught eyes began to make out the blotched patchwork of shapes above her and she smelt of the damp clean earth of the forest. Her head rang with nausea, but the troubling recollection of what had happened would not allow her to rest.

Perhaps it had all been some sort of dreadful nightmare? Surely her hazy, painful memories could not be true?

Still woozy and uncertain, she sat up again and removed more leaves and debris from her weary body. The dizziness shifted and passed into focus.

Dense shrubby undergrowth surrounded her, thick with delicately curling green fronds of fern and bracken, beneath a heavy canopy of trees, whose bronzed leaves filtered out the bright wash of morning light and shielded her eyes from the low yellow sun.

She was nestled in the lee of a short, steep bank which rose up sharply beside her. As her mind cleared, she reasoned that she must have rolled down the embankment which encircled the Grove and ended up in the forest.

Yes; the trees; she had been running; the memories flooded back and pierced through her with a nauseous shudder.

She wrapped her arms around herself and rubbed her blood back into circulation. She shivered - perhaps from the early chill or perhaps from her sickening shock.

She turned slowly over to kneel and listened acutely, straining her ears against the morning hush of the forest, but could hear no signs of life - or of the witches. But perhaps the ringing which constantly echoed through her hollowed head might be concealing this?

She inched her way tentatively up the slope, back to the Sacred Grove, holding tightly to her breath, not daring to betray her presence with a sound; terrified that even the loud thumping of her chest might betray her position.

She kept low, her nose almost in contact with the fresh earth, her fingers pressing into the soft moist soil, and hidden beneath the cover of a low shrub, she timidly peeked out across the mossy plateau, terrified of what she might see.

A faint warmth of morning sunlight bled in through the haze of yellow woodland mist, glinting across the droplets of dew which clung to the thick moss. But the smooth velvet carpet was now scarred black and rutted with wounding craters which gouged violently into its verdant emerald surface.

As her eyes adjusted, Kira could make out the terrible sight of crumpled piles of robes and clothing dotted across the circular green plain, with plumes of grey-blue smoke drifting lazily up from them, mingling effortlessly with the hazy shroud of morning mist.

She clasped her hand tight across her frightened mouth to stop the screaming noise of her fear from escaping and betraying her surreptitious vantage point.

One glance at this awful scene of destruction and carnage, and she could no longer dare to hope that it had all somehow been a terrible dream.

She tore her shocked eyes away and tried to calm herself with a few deep breaths; then stole herself to look out once more in order to be certain of what she had just witnessed.

The subdued calm hush, which wrapped itself across the Grove, pulled at her tense, frayed nerves.

Against the lonely silence, she could pick out the faint spitting and smouldering of the ceremonial fires; their dying embers crackled and sent up half-hearted wisps of grey pungent smoke. The contented birds calling to one another far away in the forest jarred awkwardly with the disturbing scene; but her eyes had not deceived her - they had told her the dreadful truth.

“Courage!” she thought to herself as she summoned the spirit to raise her head a little and scan around for signs of danger or movement. But she could see nothing - no sign of life, or of those foul creatures.

Perhaps the morning sun had ushered them away? Or perhaps their evil work had already been completed?

As her eyes darted around; she winced in horror as she recognised a small pile of mauve robes, a similar colour to her own, a short way off, almost directly in front of her.

It must be one of her fellow novicellae. Perhaps they were still alive and wounded? In pain and trouble and in urgent need of her help? Perhaps there was still something she could do to save them? Wouldn’t she want one of her classmates to assist her if she were lying there in dire need of help?

The robes were lying motionless just a short sprint away from her - but if she left the safety of her vantage point in the bushes, she would be vulnerable and exposed out on the open mossy plain of the Grove.

Her heart pounded within her tight chest, urging her to stay put in the safety of the undergrowth.

Did she really want to risk running across that awful place again? To relive that bewildering, terrifying experience?

But what if it had been her lying there wounded?

Her queasy stomach welled up with acid tension.

A surge of adrenaline coursed through her frightened body, and spurred her on against the advice of her heart.

“Courage!” she breathed softly to herself.

She crawled out, low to the soft velvet moss; her ears bristled for any sign of movement; her eyes constantly scanned in all directions for signs of danger.

She furtively approached the crumpled lilac robe, ready to sprint back at the faintest sound or motion; but as she drew near, she realised to her horror, that the robes were flat - too flat to conceal any living thing or body within its meagre folds. She crept closer, but her inspection revealed nothing except some fragments of a cloak, pale mauve like hers, stained by the root of the winter-frost plant, and a black scar of ashes; and standing upright amongst the disordered grizzly remains, one solitary shiny boot, with a plume of heartless smoke coiling casually up from it.

A callous terror spiked through her body - it was Hettie’s .

She clasped both hands to her mouth, determined to suppress the anguished cry that was welling up within her anguished body and trying to escape her panicked mind.

The corrupt smell of the burnt flesh mingled with the scattered remnants of the sweet incense; the low buzz of the flies, which had begun to gather in angry swarms around some of the other charred remains; the overbearing weight of fear, the loss of her classmates; her heart raced at the undiluted horror of it all.

It was useless! She could do nothing! They were dead! They were all dead!

She crouched down and dashed back for the safety of the undergrowth, hardly knowing where she was going, as long as she got away from that nightmare scene.

She scrambled down the embankment as swiftly as she could, still trying to avoid making any unnecessary noise; still petrified that there might be witches in the area, waiting to pick off any surviving stragglers like her.

She kept down low through the undergrowth, and on past the first few rows of the trees, until she felt the darkness of the forest canopy envelope her. The shocking fate of her companions overwhelmed her helpless thoughts and unleashed a torrent of fear through her body. She stood tall and sprinted in earnest, desperate to avoid such a horrible ending, and bolted deep into the shadows of the unknown forest.

Panic grasped its burning fingers into her terrified mind; she did not know where she ran or what to do; the roar of her panting breath or the dry branches snapping beneath her hasty feet no longer mattered.

She only knew she wanted to be as far away from the wretched site of that terrible massacre as possible and hoped that the dense forest would shield her from the brightness of the wide open skies.

She ran, breathless and chaotic, her senses bewildered by the terror that stalked her. She no longer knew or cared which direction she was running, as the surges of dread and adrenaline sped her onwards, deeper into the forest; dodging through the low-hanging branches which ripped and tore at her robe; her skin cut and scratched and bruised, but she could no longer feel the pain - the thick deep gulps of her breath sang only of her fear and of her desire for survival.

She sped on, hard and fast, until the Grove was lost far behind and her panic and strength began to fade. Her lungs and legs could not keep up this pace much longer; she would have to slow down and rest.

She looked back hurriedly to check if anything had followed her, to see if it was safe to decrease her speed. Her clumsy feet tripped on the protruding roots of an ancient tree, which hurled her into a heavy heap on the ground, squeezing all the precious air out from her with a sudden, jarring thump.

Her rattled ribcage strained to draw in a rasping breath. Winded and exhausted, she was forced to remain face down, close to the sweet damp forest floor, while her heart and lungs caught up with the rest of her drained body. She gasped the air back into her numbed system while trying to scan the trees and undergrowth for danger. She hauled herself over onto her back, her heaving frame still relentlessly sucking in the oxygen it so desperately craved, her mind still flooded with terror and dread.

Slowly her breath and composure returned; she began to take in her surroundings. For now, at least, she seemed safe enough - half hidden beneath the thatched mantle of the forest canopy; and no-one seemed to be following her.

The cooling balm of the vegetation engulfed her in its dappled gown; the greens and the early reds, the yellows and the mottled oranges, all softly murmuring their poems of Autumn, and offering only the consolation of the soft mosses and the shaggy lichens to refurbish the theft of Summer’s green.

The dizzying colours stretched away around her, in the dim gloom of the forest shadows, far beyond the imagination of the convent scrolls; but their calming beauty puzzled her - surely the Great Surrounder, who had made such wonders, could never have intended her innocent classmates to have perished so miserably?

The other girls had revelled in bloodthirsty stories; lying awake, deep into the night, scaring themselves with ghoulish tales of witches and the terrible events that might befall them should they ever be caught by one. But the shattering reality of the Grove was far less appealing - and it was no story at all. The traumatic, grizzly experience brought a violent nausea back to her stomach; the painful images she had just witnessed raced through her startled mind once more.

But the calmness of the forest persisted.

The faint rustle of the leaves above her, the soothing embrace of the birdsong; the wonder of the sky and the world beyond the convent walls.

But, lost amidst her meandering thoughts, the crushing reality of her own situation broke in upon her - she was cold and hungry; exhausted, cut and bruised; lost somewhere in the dark tangled web of a strange and threatening forest, without any way of finding her way home.

And, on top of all this, amongst the stilled unnatural silence of the trees, she faced the stark realisation that for the first time in her life, she was alone - profoundly and utterly alone.