From Word To Word

This chapter is quite a bit shorter than most, not for any good reason except that it seemed like the place to stop.  As always, those who are new to the story can find the beginning at Chapter One, and those who would like to have the story thus far in a single file can find it in both .pdf and .rtf formats on the Longer Works page.

Chapter Fourteen:
In Which Lindy Finds the Cottage After All

Unseen things surged out of the forest, scurrying across Lindy’s feet and hands, climbing over her body, flying around her face, crawling into her clothing, and everywhere they touched, they bit and stung and scratched.  She tried to stand, but something much larger suddenly grabbed hold of her leg, and she stumbled back to the ground.  She kicked out with her free foot, felt it strike something heavy, and then she was free enough to find her feet, running blindly, brushing at the little creatures that were still swarming over her body.  The branches of trees tore at her face, and then she collided with something large and covered in fur, and she was clubbed to the ground again by a massive paw, and something heavy and hairy and smelling of animal landed on her chest.  She turned her face and arms away from the bestial thing, feeling savage teeth tear into her shoulder, and at almost the same instant something raked large claws across her forehead and something grabbed a hold of her leg again, and she knew very clearly that she was about to die.

She would remember that instant forever after.  It would come to mind at the strangest times, while she was brushing her teeth before bed, or while she was waiting for the school bell to ring, or while she was riding on the bus.  And each time she remembered it, no matter how many times she remembered it, she always felt the same panic that she had felt that night, a panic that came over her all at once and made time seem to stop moving altogether.  It felt as if she might lie there with jaws and teeth and claws and stings piercing her flesh forever, as if there would be no end to the darkness and the pain and the terror.

And then there came a light.  It was not really a very bright light, but in the deep darkness it came like a flash of lightening.  Lindy’s eyes were turned away, so she was not looking directly into it when it appeared, but she was still blinded at first, and then she saw a large wolf-like animal standing over her, though no longer biting her shoulder and already cringing back from the brightness.  She could also see cruel looking insects and rodents scurrying off into the shadows, and what looked like a huge and disfigured bear standing at her feet and pawing at its eyes.  Soon even the wolf and the bear had fled, growling in pain and frustration, and then Lindy was left alone in a pool of light in the midst of darkness.

She lay there a long time, hardly believing that she was still alive.  She could feel stings and bites all over her, and there was blood running down her forehead from the scratches on her head, and her shoulder was beginning to hurt very much indeed.  In fact, she told me later that she almost did not get up at all.  Every bit of her seemed to hurt, especially her jaw where she had been hit and her shoulder where she had been bitten, and it seemed so much easier just to lay there.

It was the light, she said, that finally made her get to her feet, though this is another of those things that I do not myself quite understand.  According to Lindy, the light never actually moved or spoke or did anything at all, but it somehow coaxed her first to sit and then, though it hurt her arm terribly, to stand.  How a light could do this, I have no idea, but neither you nor I were there, so we will just have to take Lindy’s word for it.

However it happened, she eventually found herself standing beneath the light, and she saw that it was actually a creature of some sort, a large insect, something like a beetle, only it was glowing brightly, not with the phosphorescent light of a firefly but with the clear brightness of a full moon.  It was hovering several feet over her head, beating its wings very quickly, but it made only the softest sound, like the humming birds that came to the feeder by her back window at home.  It had been quite still until Lindy looked at it, but then it started to dip and weave around her, and finally it began slowly drifting away.

Lindy was afraid at first that it was leaving her, and the thought of being left alone in the darkness again with the horrible biting and stinging creatures filled her with panic all over again.  She began hobbling after the light as fast as her hurting body would let her, and she tried to call out to it as well, but her cheek and her mouth were too swollen.  She was following so desperately that she tripped over something in the forest litter and fell onto both knees.  Her whole body groaned with pain at the shock, and her mind groaned too, for she was sure that the light would now be too far ahead for her to catch it.

When she looked up, however, the light had not gone but was waiting patiently for her, dipping and flitting above her head.  Lindy knew then that it must be leading her somewhere, and it occurred to her that it might be leading her into further danger, but she could not imagine anything more frightening than being left with the creatures the light had chased away, so she pulled herself to her feet and struggled after it, wherever it might be leading her.

The next few hours were passed in much the same way.  The beetle slowly lit the way, and Lindy followed, staggering and even falling now and again, getting back to her feet, and all the while feeling weaker and weaker until she wondered how it was that she kept going at all. The soft, clear light of the beetle did not reach very far into the dark forest, spreading just a little way around her, like a moving streetlight, and Lindy was sure that she could see things in the shadows now and again.  Some were tall and hulking and ran on two legs, and others were smaller and leaner and loped along on all fours, and still others flew from branch to branch or circled overhead.  She could hear them too, howls and chitters, growls and whines, pants and shrieks, all coming from the forest around her, first here and now there, never in the same place twice, and Lindy knew that they were circling her and waiting only for the light to falter.

At last, when she was sure that she could not go even a minute longer, there was a tremendous noise from all around her, as if each of the creatures that followed her was crying out at the same time, and then she took a few steps more, and she stumbled out from the trees into a small clearing, and there, not more than fifty steps away, was the cottage of her vision, and in the doorway there stood a beautiful girl, nor much older than Lindy herself.  Lindy tried to make for the cottage and the door and the girl, but her body now decided that it had reached safety and needed to go no further, and she fell to the ground and lost consciousness.

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