Urge
-🍄-
The notice arrived on Wednesday. It’s strange not to know how to feel about his death.
I don’t remember a lot from before we left, before things started to go off track. I only have a faint memory of that one last fight, the night before my mother barged into our room and told me and my siblings to pack up, that we were leaving that very day. I remember the stories she told me after I grew older, about how she managed to get us on that train and out of the town despite not having bought tickets sooner, about how she managed to get away from the man.
He was never a present father. I suppose he wasn’t a present person at all if the only people he ever wrote to were his children, none of whom wished to contact him again. Of how close-knit the community in Downsburough is said to be, he managed to stay off of it for as long as he lived in the village. It’s no wonder nobody bothered to look for him after he disappeared two years ago. They won’t be finding a body any time soon. I cannot help but wish for his soul to be trapped in the woods like Mom’s stories say.
It might be a little cruel on my part, but that’s what he gets for such behavior. That’s what anyone would get, and he had it coming for as long as I can remember.
The train tracks must be bumpy around here with how much the wagon is shaking, my luggage keeps rattling under my seat. It got almost impossible to write after we passed the valley, and with the constant darkness of tunnels and this damned rumbling, I was forced to pack the documents I was reading a few stops ago. So much for not getting behind work during the months I’ll stay in that place. That’s if the weather allows my timely departure, too.
Of course, that old scum insisted on me being the one to get everything in order. The harvester’s wages, the whole administration of the farm, even the organizing of his damn house he left to me. Must have thought since I was the youngest I wouldn’t hold anything against him, act according to his wishes, or do whatever he wanted behind a veil of ignorance. He thought I wouldn’t remember. Either that or he never bothered to change his will after the first night he touched me.
Another rumble. The tracks down here mustn’t have been replaced in ages, or if they have, whoever was responsible did a terrible job at it. It feels so uneven… With every curve, it feels as if the cliff under us will swallow us whole.
The sun is shining brighter than when I got onto the train, but the weather seems much cooler than what it was in the capital a few days ago. My mentor insisted I left right after receiving the notice, and didn’t even give me time before sending me to pack. Insisted that it was a valid excuse, of course, that a parent’s death must have hurt me so much I did not even realize it. But missing work due to the lack of foresight that man had, and much more, the lack of thought when he chose me of all people to…
As my thoughts trailed off, I failed to notice my fingernails digging into the flesh of my palms almost rhythmically. Just the stinging pain of inflamed skin got me to look out the window after a quick gaze through the wagon, this time with both my hands well separated from each other before allowing myself to get lost in thought again.
I did not realize when it was that so few people remained on the train, most getting off at small towns, almost no one getting on at all. By the time we left the mountains and started the slow descent into the forest -as unstable as it’d been for many stops now-, there couldn’t be more than a dozen passengers on. The silence, which had started as we passed the first trees by, seemed to make the space colder.
A faint mist covered the mossy floor, from the window I spotted the wood of some of the evergreens, covered in mushrooms while some of the branches had strange grey plants hanging from them. The exuberance was nothing like the yellow fields we’d passed just hours ago, it seemed as if the lack of rain hadn’t affected this region at all.
The mountains and the valley where Downsburough was located were known for their fertility, the almost magical quality they had to stay in prime condition all year long. The conditions in the forest allowed foraging to be a sustainable form of income, which seemed steady despite how far the village was from everything else. The train came in once every few days, and before telegrams, it was almost completely closed through the world during winters, when the climate seemed to be repaid for the wonderful sunny mornings and rainy evenings that characterized almost every day. Perfect for farming, one might wonder why it hadn’t been already snatched by the big companies in the capital trying to make a quick buck. They had tried.
It was probably a coincidence how the representatives seemed to disappear just months into the project. The mere sight of the forest was enough to understand their urge to own the place,
My eyes feasted on the vibrant green and the orange, the spots of red and deep browns, even the white mushrooms that grew out without a speck of dirt on them, impeccable. For a second I forgot about my work, about the death, about the rumble of the train that hadn’t allowed me to lay down for so many stops, about how dusty that old house would be when I arrived. For a moment I wished to open that sealed window to get my head out of the train, to take a deep breath of the fresh, damp air. I longed to get off the train, to run into the trees just like my father had, just like so many others whose faces showed up in the newspaper had.
Like magic, was my last rational thought as I looked out.
As if a silver thread was pulling me in, in, in…
Every part of me, it was the most primal urge I had felt in all my life. Chasing a high, a prey. For one moment, I felt sure that if I went in…
A loud thud prompted me to turn my head to my travel companions. An old man seemed to have dropped his luggage, picking it up without much fuss. I blinked a few times, observing how most were avoiding the windows. A young child had his eyes covered by who I assumed was his mother, his fingers pried at her hand. Their silence seemed practiced, so did their acts. As if there was some kind of rule I hadn’t the time to read before packing my bags and running here.
The man was now looking at me, shaking his head almost imperceptibly. Not a word was spoken still.
I pulled my hand off of the window, not realizing when I had started to lean towards it, pulling, pushing. Their looks were reprehensive. For a moment I felt like a child again, ashamed not to have acted as my peers had, unsure of which part of what I’d done was wrong.
I decided to imitate them, peeling my eyes from the beautiful scenery outside, ignoring the guilt at misprizing such a view. For that moment, the mammal inside me was in a cage, my mind barely contained its urge to go, go. To leave. Few rational thoughts remained for the time I fell to the spell, only now starting to recover from the sight. What had I missed?
Even now, with the guilt of breaking that unspoken commandment, I yearned for just a peek. Something was there, the feeling of being observed pricked at the back of my neck. This… Thing.
The urge was so unfamiliar that I stayed still, thinking for the longest time. Like fire, like heat. My hand wrapped around the hem of my coat in an attempt to restrain myself, to drift my thoughts away from the marvel my soul told me was right outside. Thorn between the safety of ignorance to the bliss of knowing, of understanding what it was that awaited behind the metal of the train.
Only when I felt the slowing down of the train did I look up from the carpet, getting up to grab my things. The familiar pressure of the violin case on my shoulder helped my heartbeat slow down, only until I turned to get the suitcase. I accidentally caught a gaze at the woods once again.
I saw it for one second, then it was gone. A creature that towered over the wagon looked right back at me with the hollow eyes of a deer’s skull, bits of its fur still stuck on it. Covered in plants as if it had been running through the forest. There were branches stuck on its horns.
Looking at me. And.…
I know you.
Have we met before, old god?
Why would you leave now?
Why do I feel like I have known you for who knows how long?
The forest lost its spell as soon as it was gone.
I didn't know I could move so fast when I grabbed the suitcase and practically ran out into the train station, not looking back until the whistle blew and I heard the wheels pull out of the village.
-🍄-
Mossy stone had replaced the dirt roads I vaguely remembered, you could hear echoes through the streets with my every step. The fresh air made me shiver, now that I was lucid I found the entire ambiance much less appealing than it had seemed when I was under whatever spell the woods had cast on me. My bones hurt, the cold had seeped into my being much quicker than usual. I wished to blame it on the weather, but the faint reminder at the back of my mind that I had not eaten since I started this cursed trip was starting to make itself much more present with every step.
Back home, in the apprenticeship, my ability to ignore my body’s needs had earned me much praise, mostly due to how productive I was when the damn thing didn’t make me faint. I easily forgot that I needed to eat, and sometimes even forgot about my need to sleep. If it hadn’t been for my mentor forcing me to take breaks, or for my routine, I would’ve wasted away much sooner than expected.
That experience was useful now, but I could only keep up my delusion for so long before the pain and weakness forced me to slow down. A small breakfast was what had kept me going since the morning of my departure, the little sleep I had gotten didn’t help either. And while the original plan was to buy something to cook after arriving, the lack of a market (which I supposed was closed this day of the week) would probably force me to hold on for longer.
I was already dreading the wait, and so was my body. The grumble that came out of my stomach proved it.
Doing my best to cease thinking about food and get to more urgent things. First, finding the house; second, finding a room in it I could clean in a few hours; and third, worrying about food.
I kept looking around the strangely empty streets without much luck for the longest time, until at last I found my way out of the closed stores and into the few homes in town. I almost thanked the gods when I spotted two small figures sitting on the porch of one of them: An old woman and a young girl. She seemed to be waving a basket while the girl listened to her quiet voice, which stopped as soon as they saw me as well.
The girl entered the house quickly, again with the practiced behavior I’d seen on the train; while the old woman left the half-finished work on the floor and got up to meet me, signaling at me to turn around and leave. I did the opposite, now desperate enough to forget any subservience rules set for myself throughout the years.
“Hello!” my voice left me with a much higher volume than I’d hoped for, but it worked just the same. I did try to correct my manners slightly, “Please, I’m lost, I just need some directions.”
“Well stay lost then!” She answered, waving her hands again so I would leave. “We don’t want any of you pesky tourists this time of the year! There ain’t nothing to see here, get out!”
I shook my head. It’d been too long since I’d gotten off the train, and from the stories I’d heard, it wouldn’t be back until well entered the night.
“This must be a misunderstanding… Please, just wait!” I started to pat through my pockets, looking for the damn letter that had brought me on such a trip. “One second, I’m sure I have it…” I felt the paper graze my fingers and I pulled it out, triumphant. “Here! See, I-”
I looked around just to find the old lady nowhere to be seen and the door of the house just shut. With a sigh, I marched to it and knocked three times.
“Hello?” I asked, already tired of the chase. “Here, see? Not a tourist, I need help finding an old house”. From the steps behind the door, it seemed she was still listening. “I haven’t been here in years, the train won’t pass again in who knows how long.”
I would’ve kept begging her for information if she hadn’t opened the door slightly. I could see a single brown eye surrounded by wrinkles observing me, almost evaluating me. Once I saw her reading the letter, it wasn’t long before the door opened all the way, her face lit up and all.
“Oh, dear! Elizabeth? You’ve grown so much, dearie!” The mention of the name almost sent me into a panic, I was shaking my head vigorously before she even finished the sentence. I hated that name.
“Um, no. My name is Elijah, I’m Paul Barner’s son” I explained, my voice almost too quick to correct. She seemed slightly confused, but I was thankful after she kept on without asking too many questions.
“Why, I didn’t know that man had a son! Was your mother expecting when she left? Oh, sorry, lad. That little girl was the youngest back then” She talked calmly, I didn’t bother to correct her. “Oh, but it’s so good you’ve come back! It’s always a shame when a family leaves like that, so suddenly. Might be acceptable somewhere else, but your mother never even wrote, no.”
“I didn’t have a say in it. Now I remember next to nothing of this place.” I tried to explain, but a slight confusion did start to plague my thoughts at her words.
“Of course you don’t.” Her demeanor had changed so much that I would have thought she was another person if I hadn’t seen it with my own eyes. “If you had known anything, boy, you would’ve done the same as your sisters back then. They didn’t want anybody making them leave, no sir. Oh, but with that awful man living here…” She seemed to cut herself off, starting to walk off. I followed. “We expected you to return after he disappeared. Who’d’ve thought it’d take you so long!”
“Well, my mother couldn’t come back even if she wanted to… Nor could my sisters.” Both our steps echoed through the streets, the chatter making it seem less empty now. “Nobody told us when he disappeared either. I only found out on Monday.”
“A shame that is! You could have been back earlier, been safe for you lot for two years now!” Her walking was slow, I had to change my usual pace to match hers. We seemed to be leaving town, a few fences marked the place where trees started to grow. It looked like a frontier. “You’ll adapt quickly, though. You already know how to behave, I trust?”
“I… do?” My answer sounded doubtful enough for her to notice, but it didn’t seem to matter to her. The trees covered the sun now, the ground was almost completely dark. A murder cawed in the distance.
“You do! I’ll see you at mass then, child” she stopped, pointing at a hidden place deeper in the forest. She did not look at it. “It’s just in that direction. You just remember not to be too loud and you’ll be alright.”
She patted me on the back and started to make her way back to the village. Soon, it was as if no conversation took place at all, the silence taking hold of the woods again.
The trees here were the oldest I had seen, not that I had seen many back in the capital. Most of the ones there were thin things, not much taller than me. These I felt could hold my weight with ease, and to get atop one I’d need a few free hours to climb.
There were plenty of colors everywhere, from either mushrooms or flowers. If I were a child again I would’ve gotten lost ages ago playing in the woods, looking at the little things growing everywhere: white and purple flowers that looked like bells, that grey vine falling from the branches, even the red mushrooms with white dots on them would have seemed hypnotizing to me. It looked just like what I imagined enchanted forests were like, to the point you’d expect fairies or goblins to pop up behind the trees. However, the restraint I had gained as an adult —along with the sounds of the crows in the distance, which frightened me— held me to the signaled path.
Sure enough, a few minutes after walking in the direction she pointed me towards led me to that dark, old house. It somehow looked just as I remembered. It was beyond strange arriving at an almost unchanged place looking so different than I had two decades ago, when we left.
A few windows on the first floor were broken, and a lot of the wooden finishes had completely rotted off, but it was much better kept than what I had imagined on the train ride here. Even though the facade was covered in dark ivy leaves, which I quite liked the look of in spite the visual of abandonment it was; the roof seemed to have held up nicely despite not being taken care of for so long.
It took a while to find the key inside my briefcase, and much longer to pack everything neatly once again. Despite knowing I’d have to unpack once inside, I did not want any of the things inside to dirty my things.
The heavy front door unlocked after fighting with the keyhole for a few more moments, and the grey cloud that rose when the door opened got a sigh out of me. Indeed, the dust would be a nightmare for the next few days, while I got to cleaning the place up.
A quick inspection of the first floor showed not a lot of things were missing, much more strange that almost none of the valuables I found had been stolen in the two years it had been abandoned. The portraits and photos remained —Although most were covered up—, and the library was intact despite the humidity damage in the walls. No one had taken anything.
No one would take anything from this dump. And so, the living room was decent.
The kitchen wasn’t nearly in such a good place, though. From just a quick look at it, I knew I’d had to cook on a fire outside when I finally got some food. Even worse, the plates were all either filthy or broken, I could see at least three layers of different foods in each of them. Anything in the pantry had long rotten, so much mold, and worse, the smell was enough to calm my rumbling stomach. If I had anything left inside, I was sure I would’ve vomited at the sight. I only managed to take out a few cleaning supplies before shutting the door with a kick.
“Ew…”I muttered, throwing the few rags I’d taken away from the room. I wouldn’t be opening that door again in a while.
The second floor was a much different story, although the dust had me sneezing way too often. I managed to find my parents’ old room. The smell was once again foul, to the point I’d rather return to the pantry than stay inside it for long. It stinks of alcohol, of fluids I didn’t want to remember the existence of. It was so long ago, but I could still feel that taste in my mouth, in my…
Why did you do that to a child?
I was just a little kid.
Another shut door I wouldn’t open for a while. Not now, not ever. While I couldn’t wait to get my mother’s things she hadn’t the time to get that night and ship them right back to her, I’d need at least a little more time before going back in.
Preferably, finding a way to get her old clothes out without stepping foot inside at all.
The next room took me a little to recognize. Two bare beds, the faded wallpaper, and the dollhouse that had belonged to my sisters hidden in the corner. This one hadn’t nearly as many bad memories attached to it as the other two, but it still felt wrong to sleep in either of them. The place itself felt cursed.
The dolls’ button eyes seemed to follow me around while I opened the window and swept the floor, huge clouds of dust coming up with every movement. I could almost hear their questions, as if they were alive. Dust stuck to my hand while I finished dressing one of them up.
We didn’t have time to take them with us, either.
Perhaps my older sister will want them?
The winds helped, but the dirt that had also built up and the spilled liquids —none of which seemed to have come from that man, thankfully— did warn me of how long it’d take to get the place clean enough to be liveable.
By the time I’d sort of cleaned up that room, it was too late to enter the one that had been mine. I did not want to, either. Those pink walls had been a prison even after we had left, and I did not need another reminder of it today. Being called that old name once was more than enough. I wondered what had been of my dolls —they were my companions for a while, after all—, but I’d pass today. Too much risk. Not enough reward.
While the sun set, I managed to get one of the mattresses in the room I’d just cleaned down to the first floor, where I covered some of the broken windows with a few dirty sheets I’d found in the closet. With a few pillowcases I’d wet to prevent the air from getting in or out, I covered the own of the doors to the pantry and the outside, which helped the room’s temperature a little. It was still cold, but at least I wouldn’t die in my sleep.
As it started to pour rain outside, I took off my coat and lay down with it on top, trying to pretend I was back home. Everything hurt: My chest, my feet, but especially my stomach. My hands felt cooler than usual, but I was still hopeful. The exhaustion should be enough for me to ignore the hunger! It usually was.
My thoughts kept plaguing me with images of food, however. Images of delicious plates, steaming meats, and shiny sweets. Soup... My stomach rumbled again, it felt like it was burning up inside me. Bubbling, empty. The word kept repeating in my mind, empty. Empty. Empty.
Empty like the skull of that thing that was looking at me. I was sure it was still looking, right there and then.
I rolled over once, twice, trice. My eyes were still wide open, I couldn’t get behind the damp smell of the mattress. Foul.
Think you are back home, Elijah… Think.
Let me go back home, please.
I hate this place. It smells of him. It’s…
I hate him. I’ll kill him.
So get me out of here.
A prayer to anyone who would listen.
Shaking my head, I got up and blindly looked for the violin case that had traveled with me. It opened with a click, and the wood of the instrument calmed me greatly once it touched my hands. The bow fits in perfectly in my fingers, and when I stood up to tune it, eyes closed, I could almost trick myself into believing I was there once again.
Yes. I could believe it.
If I imagined it, I could hear my mentor’s snores in another room, and the breathing of the other apprentices in the building. I could faintly hear the motors of those new automobiles that were replacing coaches and the buzzing of lamps outside. The flight of moths, the pretty streets. The rain.
I could think it was the rain I knew, if I tried hard enough. Of the cool air of the city, of the shiny wet roads.
The first notes played before I noticed, and the next poured out to form a melody. High, then low. The empty halls felt less filthy with my song through them. The house seemed to calm now that it found somebody living in it once again.
The cracks in the wood and the movement of the bow complimented each other. Empty. We were both empty, I suppose.
I continued that prayer, my heart much calmer with every note. Something was listening, it would protect me from this place. From the memories. From my father.
The icky ghost that lived between these walls disappeared for just a moment, enough to let me finish the song and put everything back in its place.
I felt dazed, the pain in my body easing as I lay down once again.
Never before had I fallen asleep so quickly, neither had my dreams been as pleasant as they were that night.
I of course did not notice the creature that had heard me pray that night.
The first of many with a real answer.
-🍄-
Updates weekly!... or that's the plan.