The Redwood Encounter - Short Story

By Glen V C Kirby

The message had been delivered.

That was the thing Eric kept telling himself as the Redwood Forest closed around him like a fist. The message had been delivered. You have done your work. All that remains is to go home and claim your fee.

The sun had been stolen by nightfall. The path behind him disappeared, as if the paths were alive and ever changing. There was no going back, only forward. The tree trunks that valleyed either side of him had streaks of red bark that looked like moving faces in the shadows. Their roots buckled the path beneath his boots. And the path ahead had seen better days. Eric had walked this road a dozen times and used to know every stone and bend, but only ever in the day. He had fallen behind schedule due to a sprained ankle after fleeing a pack of wolves a few miles back. His limp had prevented him from returning safely before nightfall, and now he was hopelessly lost.

He had heard the stories of the Redwood at night. Everyone had heard the stories. He used to think they were nothing but urban legends.

Don't travel the Redwood after dark, the trees are full of beasts and darker things of nature, his mother would say. Even his wife, Mary, had her concerns, and she was not the superstitious type. Urban legends told of the Fae who stole souls of lost travellers and of cryptids that stalked the paths, always on the hunt. It was known that the dark in the forest was not the same as the dark in the streets of his home at Greathaven, which had its own problems with thieves and ruffians.

He had always smiled at the tales and said that no road worth taking was of easy footing. He was smiling less now. These urban legends had become his reality.

The faces in the trees had started perhaps a mile back. Just suggestions at first, a knot of wood that caught the last grey light and looked towards his direction, for just a moment, like a pair of eyes. But now these trees with faces were everywhere, faces that pressed into the bark, watching him with expressions that would haunt the bravest of wanderers.

He stopped walking to check his ankle and turned a full circle to ensure the wolves were still not on his tail.

All he saw were trees, and the dark between them was absolute.

And then a gush of wind from the north. Then silence. Pure silence. Which is then broken by the sound of clanging pots and pans. He turned and, to his surprise, was presented with an unexpected sight, a cosy cabin that seemed to have sprung from thin air.

Smoke billowed from its chimney, and a warm, welcoming glow illuminated the windows. His overriding desire to approach was cause for concern. Then a howl, no more than a mile behind him. The wolves from before had picked up his trail once again. So he approached the cabin.

A distinct smell drifted through the air. Fresh steak and ale pie, Eric's favourite meal. The aroma carried the overwhelming pull of food to a man starved for days, powerful enough to bring any weary traveller to their knees.

Through compulsion, his hand raised to the door to knock, but a woman opened it before his knuckles had finished falling.

She was beautiful, but in an uncanny way. Too symmetrical, too arranged. A wide smile already waiting on her face, stepping aside to let him in before introductions had even been made. Although the temptation was to simply enter, something did not sit right with Eric, and his willpower resisted. He decided to introduce himself first.

"God's good eve, mistress. My name is Eric, if it pleases you. I were commissioned to carry council from the mayor of Greathaven to Lakeshore. Matters of some weight, I might add, and the road's seen fit to repay me poorly. Me ankle's gone bad. I'd not trouble ye long, only a night's shelter, if ye'll have me, and I'll be away at first light."

Without hesitation, the woman ushered him in.

The cabin was everything the forest was not. Warm, golden, the scent of supper stronger than ever. Across in the kitchen, a man was preparing a feast, whilst a child sat near the fire playing with a carved wooden dragon. An object that had the same likeness of a toy he made for his own son.

"My husband Corin," the woman said. "And our boy, Pip. I am Leda. Sit, please. You've come far."

"My thanks," Eric replied, as he took a seat by the fire and tended to his ankle. The feeling of cushion beneath him was a welcoming sensation. His burdens quickly faded.

The woman just stood there, smiling at him. Strange. No blinking.

"Don't just stare at the poor man, get him a drink. He must be parched," said Corin.

"Of course, forgive me, tea?" she replied, and moved to prepare a drink.

Eric noticed Corin passed her a cup as if she did not know her own kitchen.

"Would you mind putting a log on that fire? We must beat the cold off you," said Corin.

Eric placed a log on the fire and noticed the heat on his ankle was strange and healing. Not the gentle warmth of burning wood, but something that moved through the joint like a hand pressing the pain out of it. Within seconds, the swelling he had nursed for hours was simply gone. He flexed his foot. Nothing. Not even a twinge. Extraordinary.

He settled back into the chair, and the exhaustion that had ridden him all day began to lift, like a coat removed from his shoulders by unseen hands.

Outside, the wind picked up. He could hear it working at the eaves, a low moan that deepened whenever his thoughts turned toward the road. He found himself thinking he ought to leave soon, and the sound rose in response, a long, wolfish howl of weather that made the idea of stepping outside feel very foolish indeed.

He let the thought go. It was easier than he expected.

To his right, the child was smiling.

"What you got there?" Eric asked, trying to engage the young one. “I had made one similar for my boy. He’s about your age too…”

He was unresponsive, drooling, eyes fixed on a small pool of red substance on the floor. The pool was disturbed by a steady drip from above. Eric looked up and saw a dark red patch spreading through the ceiling boards, as though something had died in the attic and was making itself known.

Leda interrupted the distraction and placed a drink in his hand. He gratefully accepted it without thinking. The fire crackled. The supper smelled delightful. He tried to picture Mary at the stove back home and found, with a small lurch of unease, that her face would not come to mind. It was as if he was forgetting his wife's face, her face sat just beyond reach, like a word he knew but could not say. He rubbed his eyes and told himself he was tired.

His eyes moved to the mirror on the far wall.

What looked back at him stopped his breath.

The family were not what they seemed. Beneath the smiles, beneath every performance of homeliness, they were something ancient and ruined, skinless and monstrous, all jaw and hollow with wrong geometry, wearing the shapes of human skin twice their size. He could not hold the image long before his eyes pulled away of their own accord.

He turned slowly. Stood there were the three members of the family, human and smiling. He could feel the cabin working on him still, the warmth pressing at the edges of his thoughts, softening them, and he knew that if he sat there much longer, he would not want to leave at all, and that would be the end of him. He had stepped into a trap.

He reached into his satchel.

Not for the hand axe. For a small knife. He pressed the blade against his left palm and drew it across in one clean motion.

The pain was immediate and absolutely clarifying.

Looking back at the family, he no longer needed a mirror. He could see them clear as day. The fire dimmed as he backed himself towards the door.

"You have been very kind," he said. "But I know what you are.” he said alert.

“What are we?” asked Corin.

“You are what they call fae, demonic creatures of the wood, here to feast on my soul… but this soul ere is not for taking, so I'll just be on my way."

The smiles did not fall. That was perhaps the worst of it. All three of them simply looked at him, Leda with her too-wide jaw, Corin with his burrowed face, little Pip with his puss-filled skin and yellow animal eyes. They smiled as if he had said something mildly disappointing at a dinner party.

"What a shame," said Leda. "He's gone and spoiled his meat." Her voice had shed its warmth entirely now, what remained resonated somewhere behind the ears rather than in them.

"Fear will do that," said Corin.

Slowly, steadily, Eric reached the door, the way you back away from a predator in the forest. His hand found the latch. He kept his eyes on them. They did not move.

The door swung open. Cold air drafted through. Eric fled into the darkness.

Behind him, he would see nothing but the silhouette of the three in the doorway of the cabin, disappearing into darkness with distance. The pain in his ankle returned, but that did not matter, nor did the trees with faces, nor the wolves on his trail. He kept moving without looking back.

He did not stop night or day until he found his way back to Greathaven, and through his own door.

Mary greeted Eric on his return and saw the fear in his eyes. He embraced her and her face.

"You're cold as ice, sit by the fire, let me bring you a hot drink," said Mary.

He sat down, took a deep breath, then his son entered and sat by the fire with his carved toy, which had a matching resemblance of the one he saw in the cabin in the redwood forest. His heart sank. He then saw himself in the mirror, his trauma returned, and as Mary approached with a hot drink, he waited in anticipation to see her reflection. Fortunately for him, she was herself, as was his son, and he embraced his wife as if he was never to let go again. She was confused by his behaviour and stroked his hair, comforting him.

"It's been days, where have you been?" she asked.

He did not reply. He just rested in her embrace.

The fire crackled. It sounded exactly as a fire should.

The End.